Auto Industry

[Uncle Mxy]

Anyone know what the pay scale looks like for an auto worker these days?

I tend to agree with the peeps who say it's just a temporary bailout. The Auto industry has been declining for decades and this won't fix anything.

It hasn't been declining overseas, not until the global economy meltdown.
It's difficult to say with Chrysler owing to the Damiler thing, but Ford and GM international sales has been going along fairly well for quite awhile -- ups and downs, but nothing like the domestic market. The #1 vehicle in China is GM truck. Ford's been tops in Britain and Latin America. Their long-term issues with domestic sales have been uniquely domestic.

[Glenn]

Lindsey Graham also has a brand new Chrysler plant in Ladson, SC.

The fact that a brand new auto plant of any kind exists in the USA is really odd.

Seems like they could have gotten a really good deal on an existing one, don'tchathink?

[Wilfredo Ledezma]

Is Dingell losing his chairman spot to Waxman, good or bad?

I can't stand enviornmentalists (especially the defigured Henry Waxman). At least Dingell had our state's best interest.

[Hermy]

Is Dingell losing his chairman spot to Waxman, good or bad?

I can't stand enviornmentalists (especially the defigured Henry Waxman). At least Dingell had our state's best interest.

Bad for Michigan, bad for conservitives, good for enviroment.

[BubblesTheLion]

The Big Three have been demonized for a generation, over big oil issues. Now they're getting demonized over something new and topical -- the Wall Street bailouts that don't seem to have had much of an impact. (Of course, it may be the case that they saved us from a lot worse -- this ISN'T 15 or 20% unemployment after all, but it's too early to say.)

If you think the bailouts will save us from a lot worse, you have no idea what the fundamental causes were of the current problem. (Hint, the same artificiality of wealth creation that were purposed as the solution ) PS. I know people like to bring up 15-20% unemployment during the great depression as the standard, but that completely ignores that we had a much more agarian society that didn't employ as many people as we do now. 10% unemployment in our modern society is a crisis level. There is also the issue of disigneous statistics, a lot of people are employed but in povety..And unlike the previous depression, we have a negative savings rate. Money isn't just being destroyed in equities , it's being destroyed in things with real value, PROPERTY.
I don't even want to think about the possibilities of a collapse in the global import-export supplies sitting on docks going no where, ships in port unable to move cargo. Thats when stores go empty and people freak right the hell out, we have mobs of Arkansas in the streets.

Some of this is just stupidity on the part of the automakers. Some of it involves the automakers being forced to be relatively nice to their employees due to unions (the Democratic stronghold that Democrats like to piss on, and they wonder how those infamous Reagan Democrats emerged...).

I'm not talking about that, and I don't disagree. I am speaking more of on the social aspect. People can't identify the wallstreet bailouts as any thing but an abstract topic. They understand the auto's though. If they understood wallstreet, this would seem meaningless in comparison. We have the greatest wholesale theft in world history going on and everyone wants to talk about the AutoCompanies that have been falling apart for decades.
Priorities?

Fundamentally, though, Big Oil is just bigger than Big Auto, and has its own league of nations in a way that most businesses would drool over. They won the hearts and minds of folks with Carter's defeat (Anderson's too ), and we never held anyone's feet or our feet to the fire to shake our dependence on them -- except the automakers. We just did a ton of things to try and keep prices cheap to fuel bad habits, until Bush fucked that up by pissing in their turf and pissing the dollar away. Now it's a shitty situation.

It's as I predicted, deflation will bring down fuel costs, but no one will have a job or a home.
The only concept I can't grasp is whether or not we see hyperinflation from the massive amounts of money in the multitrillion bailouts. If the Fed moves rates to negative I'm digging a damn pillbox.

[Wilfredo Ledezma]

Bad for Michigan, bad for conservitives, good for enviroment.

So does Waxman taking over signal the end of SUV's?

[Tahoe]

So is the truck we sell to China the same truck we buy? I have to get my vehicles smog checked every other year here in CA.

[Uncle Mxy]

If you think the bailouts will save us from a lot worse, you have no idea what the fundamental causes were of the current problem.

I said it was too early to say. Don't read much into that. I just bought a lottery ticket. I could be a millionaire, but it's too early to say. I'm not holding my breath...

I'm not talking about that, and I don't disagree. I am speaking more of on the social aspect. People can't identify the wallstreet bailouts as any thing but an abstract topic. They understand the auto's though. If they understood wallstreet, this would seem meaningless in comparison. We have the greatest wholesale theft in world history going on and everyone wants to talk about the AutoCompanies that have been falling apart for decades.
Priorities?

Largely agreed. But, judging from what I hear from a lot of folks, they don't REALLY understand the auto companies nearly as well as they think they do. They just feel more of a relationship since they own and drive a car.

[Tahoe]

I feel the big 3 are burdened with their decisions to sign labor agreements that really hurt their ability to make a profit and a good car at the same time.

[Wilfredo Ledezma]

I wasn't too familiar with what type of pensions retirees were making, since I don't have any family members who worked in the auto industry, but when I heard that workers get 60% of their pay and all their health benefits when they retire, I nearly shit myself...

They shouldn't be getting even 20%, let alone 60%, and if you have to rely on your pension to meet your lifestyle, than DON'T RETIRE, and you'll get 100% of your pay!!!

Maybe it's not really 60% (I got that figure from hear/say), but still...

Regardless, they agreed to the contract with the UAW, so they have nobody to blame but themselves.