Assembly Line

I still don't see how moving the health care retirement liabilities to a trust makes the automakers more competitive, if their competition lack such. If such liabilities really total $42/hr, and you must fund the trust, removing the liabilities from the balance sheet is just an accounting maneuver.
A DIP reorganization would fix this. The government can provide a guarantee of DIP financing in return for equity. The unions can give up on keeping all those retirees happy, and cut those costs. The effectively shifts the retirement costs to the taxpayer, but lowers them as well. Social security and medicare were designed for just this situation. The same goes for the white collar retirees, and the golden parachutes, and the excessive executive salaries, and the coroprate jets. Toss them all out, and you have a competitive business, and if you then focus on building fuel-efficient, plug-in hybrids, rather than gas guzzlers, you have created a viable business. Consumers won't trust buying a GM car now because they fear bankruptcy...after a chapter reorg, they will buy with confidence.

True, Toyota, BMW, etc. don't have many US-based retirees. But these companies have been around a long time, and they have many retirees in their home countries. Yet I wager their total costs are not as high. Why? Those companies didn't accept unrealistic pension obligations and didn't work against UHC there (in fact, they support it -- even in Canada!).

Also, I have to say, the two-tiered structure seems to me the worst of all possible worlds. Does the union really expect loyalty from these new employees who bust their asses for $14/hr so some retiree in Arizona doesn't have to make co-payments when he goes to the doctor? Moreover, does the retiree (who, let's be honest, may figure he doesn't have that many years left) have any great incentive to cut back his benefits to prevent layoffs of current employees? It would be one thing if that new employee thought that he could eventually rise to the well-compensated group of employees (indeed, this is how most seniority systems remain stable), but the whole premise of the two-tiered structure is that won't happen. There seems a profoundly inequitable generational divide here. I am a great supporter of collective bargaining, but because retirees are so much more numerous than current employees -- and especially the new low-tier employees -- the inclusion of UAW retirees in decision-making is distorting a rational restructuring of costs and benefits.

So what to do? Sadly, they have to go into bankruptcy and dump the legacy costs onto the government (i.e., the pension guaranty board). They need to tear up the old collective bargaining agreements and enter into new ones with existing employees. The agreements will feature lower (for the rest of us, standard) health benefits and defined contribution retirement benefits. Current employees with significant seniority and vested benefits will have to accept a transition to these new structures. Retirees will see significant cutbacks in their benefits; before they complain, they should talk to the laid off worker with three young kids.

Of course, the UAW should only accept this along with: shareholders getting wiped out, bondholders taking a haircut, management taking a big haircut in salaries (UAW should demand a maximum compensation ratio for executives in any new CBA, something like 40:1 to the lowest paid worker), and, ideally, the UAW DC pensions getting a stake in the new entity as compensation for what they are giving up.

"The unions can give up on keeping all those retirees happy, and cut those costs."

Sensible Centrist, you seem to be suggesting that the UAW agree the the Big 3 would no longer have to fund retiree health care or provide them a pension. Is this what you're suggesting? That UAW and the Big 3 say to retired autoworkers, "Sorry, but we're going to have to eliminate your health care and income, good luck"? SS and Medicare are minimum safety nets, there were not designed so that companies could abdicate their responsibilities to their workers. Retired autoworkers earned much more than that. This is that very last thing we should be encouraging struggling corporations to do.

You realize that retired autoworkers are actual people, right? They are not just numbers on a balance sheet. To casually suggest destroying their lives is breathtaking. To equate that idea with denying executives some perks is something else.

It's not just an accounting change - if you move the funds to a separate entity and then do not contribute further to that fund, that not only takes current liability off your books, it takes future liability as well.

That said, I agree with you about a DIP reorg.

Interesting. I read this exact same article on another site about 3 days ago, but failed to bookmark it, and found this one while looking for it.

My father worked at GM, and had a base-rate of $45/hour. He worked nights, so got a 50% premium on that. Working Saturdays was another 50%, and working Sundays was 100% premium (time and a half, and double time). Working holidays was worth triple time. One time, my dad worked on a holiday that fell on a Sunday, and received double-triple-time. Over $200 per hour.

My father's job at GM was to keep track of a clipboard that had a list of all the hand tools, and who had checked them out.

Anyone who doesn't say that GM pays every single person they employ WAY too much, all the way from the bottom straight to the CEO (and ESPECIALLY the people on the board, because obviously they have no idea how to run a business), is retarded.

I thank GM for the very rich lifestyle that I grew up with, but the UAW and it's workers are pretty much blind retards.

Something tells me "Sensible Centrist" wouldn't be quite so sensible or centrist if he had worked 30 years under a contract that promised him certain things in return for his services, and only after retirement was he told that now that all the services have been rendered, the agreement is no longer operative.

another area that drives the costs up are factory maintenance workers. I ran a project at a GM factory repairing roofs and to bring in outside contractors (roofing specialist's) the plant maintenance staff had to be at 150% capacity regardless of if they had anything to do.
So:
for us to bring in outside contractors the maintenance staff came in for an extra 20 hours a week @ time and a half and watched TV (I saw it). They were pulling in over a $100k in the middle of Indiana/Ohio.
Because this is the contract that UAW negotiated with GM.
I've heard this is common through GM, et al. multiply by every plant drives the costs up.

No, the point was a one-time payment to the trust that removed the legacy benefits issue. Its a huge difference because existing workers pay for prior workers shortages in pension funds (which have been a real problem because of rapidly rising medical expenses and longer lifetimes). Each new worker will also have some, much smaller, payment to the trust. But pension liability is removed from the books, and the program moves from defined benefits to defined contribution, like most of us have.

I'm glad you summarized this Jonathan, I still have serious reservations about a bailout (as I did for the banks), and I had heard much of this anecdotally, but good to have it all in one place.

"The first foreign-owned plants didn't start up here until the 1980s." Then you continue: "Compare that to a company like General Motors, which has been around for more than a century and which supports literally hundreds of thousands of former workers and spouses."

Assuming that the average life span for an automotive production worker is 80 and that the average age of retirement is 60 we can conclude that legacy costs cover former employees for twenty years; that places us in 1988. What does it matter if GM has been building cars for well over a century? Most of the former workers are dead.

Also, if the transplants make $25/hr and the big-3 make $28/hr the conservative $3/hr difference adds up:
$3/hr * 8hr/day * 250business-days/year * 74,000 GM employees (which is more than twice as large as Toyota) = $4.4Million (and that's a very conservative figure) before adding in legacy costs.
No wonder it costs $1500 more to build a Chevy car.

Jon, thanks for starting this discussion. You are correct that the $ 70/hour figure is misleading, but you are missing a few things.

First, there is a reason that the Auto Companies pay so much, hourly pay sucks. While an Autoworker makes $ 70 an hour when he works, they almost never make a full year at that wage. Typcially they get a month or two off a year. While their direct wage is closer to $ 25/hour, it is income protection that pays them when the factory is shut down. Kind of like a teacher who defers some pay to the summer to get a regular pay check year round.

The next point is the insane costs of Health & Pension Benefits. Everyone beleives that you set aside a little money for retirment and 40 years later the company has your retirement checks. Truth is that employer defined benefits are expensive to manage, especially in a down market. Who makes up the shortfalls? The Company. Take the accounting rules for health care with 8-10% increases every year and the required funds grow exponentially. Government requirements on minimum funding makes it even more difficult.

Lastly there are work rules and general welfare. Auto work is a drudgery. It is really hard to get to work every day, and hard not to get injured in repetitve motions and heavy lifting. As a consequence absences and other unscheuduled time-off requires back-up workers who need to be paid.

What's interesting is that the journalists are so removed from Hourly Pay that they can't identify with normal workers. You don't forget a short paycheck and a trip to the unemployment office. You don't forget a day off for absences and a light paycheck. But today's college boys & girls have never been through this.

If Toyota provided an honest accounting of their hourly rates to their texas truck plant employees, those workers were paid for not working for 3 months. This would take their hourly rate up by 33% for standard accounting procedures. But Toyota won't own up to this, they will claim their people were working while the factory was shut down and this was normal business. Normal until GM is gone.

There is a reason they pay $ 70 /hour, it so the workers come back after a month or two off.

When it comes to a bail-out however there is something a little problematic in expecting those who have lost a significant amount of their retirement and who pay out the nose for or do not have health insurance contribute to the retirement funds and health insurance of others.
There has to be some way to mitigate that, making the workers suffer some as others who are suffering as much and more save their jobs.

The other problem is the crappy over priced cars.

It doesn't matter who is getting the money -- a new employee or an old employee -- the bottom line is that the Big Three ARE burning cash on labor at a rate of $70 per hour. These types of calculations are routinely done in Managerial Accounting and are not a political trick against unions as you make them out to be.

Future benefits may have been moved to an outside trust, but this will only have an affect once the current crop of retirees dies. Until then, it's still $70 per hour.

Bailing out failed institutions sets a bad precedent. You work hard and do right, good. You do wrong and fail, no problem - here's money to keep you going.

This is a disturbing trend in our society. People can't fail anymore. Students are no longer allowed to get Fs in courses and every player gets a trophy. Everyone must be winner nowadays, it seems.

But the world doesn't work this way. We've forgotten that it's when we fail that we learn our finest lessons, and that failure is a prerequisite for success.

The Big Three must go bankrupt. They'll be rebuilt bigger and better than anyone can now dream of.

I write as someone who was a young lawyer representing a half billion of foreign debt during the Chrysler bailout. Ringside seat. I also wrote the plan for what turned out to be a successful Chap 11 reorganization in the trucking industry. The disconnect here is the idea that the US can bailout Detroit. It cannot. There is no plausible amount of money that the US can give the auto companies that will enable them to avoid Chap 11. They will simply have lost a bunch of taxpayer money before they go under. The only chance for Detroit is to file Chap 11 sooner rather than later, shuck off existing liabilities, and downsize/mothball aggressively. To that end, the US should be willing to provide DiP financing. As well, we constantly lose track of the difference between bailing out the business and bailing out the existing claimholders, creditors and shareholders. We have good reason to rescue the former and no reason to rescue the latter. But the beggar want us to be confused so that their investment will be made good. Not our problem. What the US should do is announce that the automobile industry will definitively not be liquidated BUT that no public money is going to end up being used either to pay existing claimants or legacy claims and then let Detroit decide whether to file.

bravo.....................well put

Whether or not you believe unions are valuable or detrimental to business, the fact is workers are always on the losing end of the bargaining table.

I do not understand why it is so wrong for workers, teachers, policeman, etc. to be paid fairly for their services. Pay them well and we may end up with a smarter, more dedicated work force. Instead, articles such as this make it sound as though auto workers don't deserve to be paid well.

You are right that 60k a year is a decent salary for skilled labor, but why is there no mention of the "decent" salary of the CEO? Why is not an issue that two of the three CEO's of the big 3 are paid $17 million and $21 million per year? Anyone ever consider that maybe, just maybe this unbelievable sum has something to do with the failure of their companies? And, don't give me that tired old yarn about, "well, it's only paper money". Because it still has to be paid, doesn't it?

I also don't understand why the media can't see past it's own incompetence long enough to be objective about such things as a big three auto manufacturer "giving up" two of it's five private corporate jets. This hollow and completely irrelevant "gesture" says nothing ... But, when two of the three big 3 CEO's have the self-important audacity to tell congress (when asked whether they would give up their salaries for $1 compensation as a down payment on a bailout) are "happy where they are at" ... Everyone should be screaming for their heads.

This is insane. Of course you must add up the total cost of labor and average that by the number of employees that work for the company in order to price out the cost of the widget, in this case a car. Follow along if you can; First there is the cash compensation: straight-time pay, cost of living allowance (COLA), night-shift premiums, overtime premiums, holiday and vacation pay. Then you add the benefit and government required programs: group-life insurance, disability benefits, and supplemental unemployment benefits (SUB), job security (JOBS), pensions, unemployment compensation, social security taxes, and hospital, surgical, prescription drug, dental, and vision Care Benefits. See?

Do you think Ford and GM price their cars based on the actual labor costs of the specific workers who built each car in question? That would work well, on one car lot a new Ford Explorer would cost $30,000 and the same car, same features, across town would cost someone $50,000.

Mr Cohn starts out to debunk the myth of $70/hr autoworker. And then after reading to the last paragraph, I'm left with the conclusion that, indeed, personnel costs per autoworker hour is $70.

The initial setup of autoworkers making $70/hr is the usual dodge of a strawman argument.

If GM currently incurs additional costs for retired workers, those costs must be presented as current personnel costs. Another way to view this would be that prior years' personnel costs, while now-retired workers were then active workers, were understated. In order to determine the true historical personnel costs, the current year's additional costs for retired workers must be reflected as current year personnel costs.

It's really not complicated, unless you want to confuse the issue.

Here's my problem with that number: I'm college educated, and I don't make anything close to that, nor do most of my friends. I can't imagine any industry would be competitive if they were paying those kind of costs on top of salary and benefits. It's clear that the American auto industry is being taken to the cleaners by the UAW, who is going to have to give something up, either for newer workers or for older ones. Something has to give somewhere.

In theory you're absolutely correct.

In practice the fund managing UAW retiree benefits (the VEBA) is under-funded. It will almost certainly run out of money before most UAW members see a dime in benefits.

So people demanding the UAW throw it's retirees under the bus are a little behind the times. The union already has. It had no choice -- the NLRB ruled unions can only strike over issues relating to current employees, and strikes are the coercive weapon a union has.

They still make a lot more than teachers! They are either way over paid for a non-professional position or teachers are WAY underpaid!!!!

Yeah I know that I'm young, but I still see that a bailout from the government to an industry that is failing miserably is like putting a quarter in a candy machine that is all nice and pretty and doesn't offer up the candy when you turn the knob. I WANT to see the auto industry succeed, with newer more efficient cars, that is. I dont want to hear stupid complaints about a company that can't afford to pay their people and wah wah , "we need help" when they are still making cars that are hurting the environment! If they had any sensible freaking inventors, analysts, etc.. earlier in the ball game maybe they could have realized, hmm, you know gas is a non renewable resource the way that we're making it, and hmm, ya know maybe, just maybe we should think about changing our cars to some other alternative for the future. But just now are they thinking about putting that stuff out there? Makes me sick, and I know I don't have all the numbers and the facts of the 'big three' but I see what I see as a consumer and they ain't moving forward fast enough, no wonder they are losing to foreign cars!! ya think?!

I am a 30 year Ford Motor Co retiree.I believe after giving the auto maker thirty years of my life entitles me to a secure financial future.When Ford closed the Atlanta plant and the five other plants that closed, they also cut benefits and salaries about half.They turned over the health benefits to the Union.I think the working men and women have give up enough. Now it is time for the big executives to cut their pay, health benefits,and corprate jets.I for one say you cann't beat a good true AMERICAN Ford car or truck.I think we need to keep the AMERICAN car companies alive.When they are gone the UNITED STATES will be like a foreign country.WE are slowly selling out to these foreign countries.It is time to put AMERICAN jobs back in AMERICA,and put AMERICANS back to work.

If workers don't really make such an excessive amount, then they shouldn't be worried about a Chapter 11 restructuring. We all know that the auto workers are grossly overpaid including their ridiculous benefit packages. These companies were horribly managed and sucked dry by greedy union workers, they deserve whatever they get.

A good article and a good comment. Lest people forget, if we completely eliminate these fairly well paying manufacturing jobs, we will also eliminate alot of consumer buying power. Good paying jobs are in everyone's best interest. Folks employed in menial jobs paying less than $15.00 an hour don't make good consumers. Unfortunately this seems to be the largest job growth category in our country. So, when we claim to be creating jobs in this country we need to ask what kind of jobs?

Personally, I agree that re-organization with government assistance is the solution. That way government funds can be overseen and spent only under specific conditions.
Some of these conditions need to be set forth as such:
1. disband the union, since there is currently a surplus of product, fire all the workers right now. Those who sincerely want a job can have one with a wage that is based on the workers skill set, not on the union's riduculously overpaid contracts. Even if it took them 3 months to re-hire and recruit new talent to replace the disgruntled union workers who were too proud to work for 15-20 dollars/hour. It would save billions in the future.
2. Use goverment funds to fully automate production. The money invested would dramatically cut labor cost.
3. Offer goverment assistance only under the stipulation that all executives would face a salary cap of 1 million/year and no bonuses could be paid unless the company made profit. At that point bonuses could be paid but it would be limited to 2% of the total profits, 1.5% to be paid in bonuses to the lower emplyees and .5 ercent to be sharder amongst the execs.
4. Require that all production facilities must reside in the U.S. until such time as all government supplied funds have been paid in full with interest. If the american taxpayer is going to save this industry, then only the american taxpayer should have a right to work within it. If so much as a single job is outsourced beyond U.S. borders then the company becomes property of the government and is to be auctioned to the highest bidder.The executives responsible for authorizing the outsourcing are to be charged with treason and prosecuted appropriately.

The American automobile industry is part of our heritage and our culture and is worth saving however, they like most corporations are only concerned with lining their own pockets. I myself am tired of being screwed over by the companies and would insist that any loan of my tax dollars will come at a stiff price and iron fist management.

This is just one facet of the cost is for the Big 3. For example, GM has a much larger number of platforms to support than Toyota or Honda. Thus higher R&D cost to maintain and improve platforms. GM has far too many dealers which entails huge inventory costs including parts. It also means lower sales channel efficiency as each dealer sells far fewer units. I would also suspect that GM's executive costs are much higher than both Japanese and German auto companies. These are big structural issues that unless addressed will all contribute to their ultimate demise.

The problem i see is that many people who would buy cars make between ten and twenty dollars an hour and should have some sort of union also. workers over the last thirty years and especially the last eight years have seen a drop in their purchashing power while the top elite have gone from muti-millionaires to billionaires-the top 400 in wealth have as much money as half of our entire work force-think about that and you see why workers want colective bargaining and should not take their wages for granted but bargin for wages the way executives bargin for their wages!

Shifting retirees to the tax payers good?? I don't think so. These people spent30+ years making money for the big 3 ( GM had billions of $$ as of last year) and things looked good for the future with the restructured contract. The the banking industry dropped the ball and ther tax payer had to bail them out. So give 700 bil to the richest of the rich but let the last major american manufacturing industry of any kind in the US dissaper. 3+ million jobs lost when it disappears = depression. And will you buy a car from a company in bankrupcy. The taxpayers need to buy voting shres in the big 3 for uor bailout $$. And then some good decisions may get made.

true i only make 10 a hours and im tyring to keep warm if my heat gose out ill be in the cold ..ide love a rase but i bet you can guess i work for one of the tight wad we use to get a christmas bonus but no more ..i was counting on the bonus to replace my gass pack with a new one ...bobby28091at yahoo

How would you feel if you worked at a company that promised healthcare and pension at retirement and then did'nt deliver? I spent the better part of my working life at General Motors. I stayed there because of these benifits. Now most of you out there want to kick me to the curb with nothing.

Not so fast.

Let's take your figure of $10. per hour for benefits. If we add that to the $60k per year salary, that brings the compensation package above $80k per year. It's still not princely, but it stacks up pretty well against the rest of us.

And what about the remainder of that $42. per hour the auto companies spend for retiree benefits? It means that an auto worker can look forward to retirement benefits that most workers don't get. My wife and I both work - I am self employed. Our only retirement plan is what we can save during our working years. Our health insurance is tied to my wife's job. When she retires, it is gone. Stated differently, when we retire we get nothing. It would be very nice to know that all the time we have been working, someone were putting away $32. per hour for us.

Unsaid in the article are the ways in which the highly unionized workforce hampers flexibility. The classic example of this being that a regular worker can't change a lightbulb but has to call an electrician to do it. That is why non-union companies are willing to pay wages and benefits that are comparable or even higher than those paid in union shops. The onerous union work rules are more destructive to profitability than higher wages or benefits.

All of that being said, I think brain-dead management has a lot more to do with killing the auto industry. But labor played a big part, too.

mr.sensible centrist must certainly be a recipient of what they once called old money or more commonly known as family money, to be talking out of his ass this way

Auto companies are saving everything 70 dollars is crazy i worked for almost 20 years i never seen 70 workers now are paying more for their insurence and working less hours new hire come in at 10 dollars and parts made over seas plants being built over seas and non-uion plants exsist here in the USA thats is crazy uion and company are the same ford and uaw bullshit the uion should be a lone force fighting for wages and rights!!!!!!

mr. sensible centrist. and thanksgiving turkey, have one thing in common: there both stuffed full of shit! my guess is you have never been in a factory in your life, and i'll bet your a college grad that was taught by brainwashed foreign professor's at a high class college, with the tuition paid by good old dad. i'll even bet you joined an ivy league fraternity as well. i'll even bet you could run this country yourself, maybe even on $42 an hour.

The transplants DO NOT have the liability PERIOD! To the unsensible! centrist. The workers in ALL the negotiations over ALL these years voted for and expected what was promised. To give me ...well that was then and this is now is abhorrent. "The unions can give up on keeping those retirees happy"?? You're logic..oh sorry the LACK thereof is astounding. Your parachute award should go to the great folks at AIG whom we BAILED!!

My dad only makes $30/hr & he has worked there 35 years.

It's funny how they can bail out the white collar morons but not the blue collar ones. Funny & sad.

Mr Cohn, I njust wanted to thank you for an even handed and enlightening article. I'm on the far right on this issue, being a white collar worker outside the industry who has never had the type of benefits these people get. Two other pressing issues not addressed here are "work rules" that stifle innovation, and the "jobs bank" that keeps 15,000 idled GM autoworkers on full pay for up to two years, costing the company $6 million a week.
I believe the work rules issue is actually a bigger headache for manufacturers than wages. In fact I think work rules and the inability to fire poor workers are the primary reason most of the American public hate unions in all industries. You can only get hired if you have friends there, and once in, you'd have to kill someone to get fired, unless of course you're a member of the dockworkers union, last year they objected to the barring of felony murderers from US ports and won against Homeland Security.

How come it was OK to bail out a bunch of New York bankers and insurance bozos, but manufacturing workers in the midwest are told to go to hell? How big would GM or Ford have to be to be "too big to fail?"

ok thats nice to hear. thank goodnes you all still have jobs. there are people who do not have one at all. last was posted 1.5 million, so i blame it on bush and everyone else who alowed compnes to send jobs elsewhere and then give them tax brakes. Any company that moved out of the u.s.a. should be barred. from selling or dealing with united states.

I find it most interesting to see such wage "claims" to be reported as the "Normal"... Maybe they are in certain places. I have worked all my life to achieve "ASE Master Level" and BMW level 4 status that brings not much(!) in Oregon. If you include all the normal costs associated with the employement of your employes I'm sure the cost factor goes up. Not that they will actually show/tell us those actual figures! I barely make a living at a job that requires several thousand dollars worth of "personal" hand tools just to get an entry level job... never mind the years of schooling/experience. If the powers that be were truly concerned with the health/welfare of the masses... they would reqiure automotive technicians to be at least "certified" to work on your BRAKES, ENGINES, etc. for you and your fellow commuters to have reasonably safe vehicles to drive!!! But they do not seem to want to pay for safety or have to tell anyone else that they have to pay for it either! In the meantiime, just be satisfied that the minuim wage guy at the fast oil change is going to be able to know enough about the HIGH TECH vehicle that you are driving to save your life by telling you what IS GOING TO GO WRONG BEFORE TI HAPPENS!!!!!!!

I still have yet to see anything about all the money given to special interest groups that many of us don't support. Like Planned Parenthood and the alternative lifestyle agenda. Many people boycotted these businesses because of thier outrageous donations to these organizations. And they're losing money because of that. So why should I have to bail them out when I made the decision to boycott myself. This unnerves me when they should be learning from their mistakes. If they had the money the donated they wouldn't be as bad off and many people who boycotted them would have been buying from them. I agree with Sensible... REORGANIZE... get your obligations in order. Quit the rediculous spending that all Americans have had to cut back on. Rethink your donations to organizations not respected by the majority of your consumers. Focus on fuel-efficient and hybrid cars. The buyers will reappear once they get their act together.

let the big 3 go under an lets start from scratch hey the big 3 didnt mind putting tucker under back in the days now let tucker have his turn an let them pay the price cause as i see it we pay enough in taxes now let say its time to cut are loses an let them sink besides their not the only car maker around it dont matter what car are truck i drive

Finally someone who is getting the truth out. The way the media has been depicting assembly line workers has made be very upset. My father worked for GM for 39 years and retired two years ago. He made $22 an hour when he left. Far from the $70 an hour that the media is telling everyone. I wish my father made $70 an hour then he could have paid for my sister and I to go to college. Instead we paid our own way. I also would like to see some of those reporters/analysts stand for 8 hours a day with two 15 minute breaks and a half hour for lunch. They would not survive.

FYI Ford and GM retiree salary workers over the age of 65 will lose their health benefits as of January 2009. They will have to use Medicare.

This is a great article in respects to showing how overinflated either the press, or the big three themselves, have stated that their employees wages are. I am confused as to why the big three have gotten themselves in this financial bind all of a sudden. I saw on tv that these excutives flew on private planes to capitol hill to ask for handouts. Perhaps the big three automakers should cut back on their executive pay and bonuses before asking for handouts.
Well, the big three could do away with all the costly pensions. There are several local industries here that have either cut all pension plans, or drastically cut back on what they pay for the health and pension benefits for local retirees. I'm not saying that it's right to do this, just that it is done. What they did here was sell the company, and or change the names of them, and that was a way for the companies to get out from under abiding by the old binding contracts they had with retirees.

if industry suddenly stopped paying insurance co's for each employee,,and,, instead,pay doctors,clinics and hospitals,for an individuals medical needs,,when they need it,,seems to me a wise move,,why pay insurance for those in no need for medical treatment,,oh I see,,some day the might,,AND IF YOU HADN'T PAID THE INSURANCE CO..YOU COULD PAY THE DR. BILL

If the big 3 produced the automobile that their men are able to produce, ie: ballanced and blueprinted engines that last 300 k miles they would not be in the situation that the production of second class merchandise has put them. When the unions prohibit the loading of box cars that usually take three hours, from being done in 8 hours because they are 10 minutes late, they have generated their own problems and need to live with them.

I dont see why the Taxpayers should bail out any business, you say government but its Taxes and inflation that pay for it.What is the incentive for a business to make a profit when if they fail Uncle Sam will pay his bills ? What about the millions of small business owners whos companies fail ? Bail them out also ? .Hell bail me out Ive lost nearly 80% of my IRA in less than a year. Its a known fact that Big Business pay proportionately less Tax than the average Joe. Look at PGE in Oregon before Enron bought them they paid 10 dollars income tax in the 90s on millions of dollars of revenue. So far 9 banks got bailed out , who was bank #10 that got the Finger and why ? What about the first bailout of AIG when they threw a half a million dollar soiree and gave all of us the finger ,then they got more ???Its all catty wampus right now. Did the banks actually lose money ? I thought home loans were insured by Fany and Freddy in case of default ? I and many others like me lost our IRAs if we had REITS which had the best track record of any investment available at least in my Vanguard account. This whole ball game was planned long ago to happen like it is happening and who is suffering from this so called crisis ?This is a war on the average American. Thank God I am not 65 I would have nothing to live on now. Hopefully it will come back in the next 10 years so maybe I can at least afford a Big Mac when I retire. Dont expect help for Average Joe with the people B. Hussein Obama has picked to run the Finances they are the ones who engineered this mess. Lets get to the real questions and that is why did Building 7 at WTC fall down ?Why are we in Iraq protecting Halliburton interests when most all of the alleged Hijackers were Saudis ? Why is Cheney believed when he says he stepped down from Halliburton ? Why did they move to Dubai ?Was it to avoid taxes ? Why was Halliburton allowed to collect tax money for serving military lunches they didnt serve to anyone and for that matter why are they serving lunches to the Army anyway ?What happened to all the Mess Seargents ? Why can I buy a pair of Designer bifocal prescription glasses in China for 80 bucks when the Bargain frame ones in the States cost me 500 ? Half of which is paid by my insurance ??And the one that actually iritates me most is why are our American Colleges filled with Illiterate Athletes who go to school for free while the intelligent students pay there own way for the most part. And last but not last how did America sit back and let Department of Homeland Security get involved in so many programs that have nothing to do with stopping terrorists ? Remember the grandfather from Oregon in May 2007 that got a fine of 55,300 bucks without due process from DOHS for bringing back some cheap replica watches that cost him 14 bucks overseas ? Who are the real terrorists in America today ? Obviously its not Bin Laden and his cronies . Was Sadaam an Al Queda ? Why has America forgotten that Bin was a CIA operative who delivered guns and money from the USA to defeat Russia in the Afghan- Russian war that was fought over where an oil pipeline was to be layed to benefit Saudis and the Big Oil companies ? America has gone to Hell in a handbasket and this is only the beginning.

No one mentions what the union dues cost each worker. They don't pay a fixed amount but pay a percentage so that continues to rise. It appears the union has control of retirement funds so that insures the union is playing fast and loose with that money. I am a retired union worker(Teamsters) and I wouldn't trust those people as far as I could throw them.

I dont see why the Taxpayers should bail out any business, you say government but its Taxes and inflation that pay for it.What is the incentive for a business to make a profit when if they fail Uncle Sam will pay his bills ? What about the millions of small business owners whos companies fail ? Bail them out also ? .Hell bail me out Ive lost nearly 80% of my IRA in less than a year. Its a known fact that Big Business pay proportionately less Tax than the average Joe. Look at PGE in Oregon before Enron bought them they paid 10 dollars income tax in the 90s on millions of dollars of revenue. So far 9 banks got bailed out , who was bank #10 that got the Finger and why ? What about the first bailout of AIG when they threw a half a million dollar soiree and gave all of us the finger ,then they got more ???Its all catty wampus right now. Did the banks actually lose money ? I thought home loans were insured by Fany and Freddy in case of default ? I and many others like me lost our IRAs if we had REITS which had the best track record of any investment available at least in my Vanguard account. This whole ball game was planned long ago to happen like it is happening and who is suffering from this so called crisis ?This is a war on the average American. Thank God I am not 65 I would have nothing to live on now. Hopefully it will come back in the next 10 years so maybe I can at least afford a Big Mac when I retire. Dont expect help for Average Joe with the people B. Hussein Obama has picked to run the Finances they are the ones who engineered this mess. Lets get to the real questions and that is why did Building 7 at WTC fall down ?Why are we in Iraq protecting Halliburton interests when most all of the alleged Hijackers were Saudis ? Why is Cheney believed when he says he stepped down from Halliburton ? Why did they move to Dubai ?Was it to avoid taxes ? Why was Halliburton allowed to collect tax money for serving military lunches they didnt serve to anyone and for that matter why are they serving lunches to the Army anyway ?What happened to all the Mess Seargents ? Why can I buy a pair of Designer bifocal prescription glasses in China for 80 bucks when the Bargain frame ones in the States cost me 500 ? Half of which is paid by my insurance ??And the one that actually iritates me most is why are our American Colleges filled with Illiterate Athletes who go to school for free while the intelligent students pay there own way for the most part. And last but not last how did America sit back and let Department of Homeland Security get involved in so many programs that have nothing to do with stopping terrorists ? Remember the grandfather from Oregon in May 2007 that got a fine of 55,300 bucks without due process from DOHS for bringing back some cheap replica watches that cost him 14 bucks overseas ? Who are the real terrorists in America today ? Obviously its not Bin Laden and his cronies . Was Sadaam an Al Queda ? Why has America forgotten that Bin was a CIA operative who delivered guns and money from the USA to defeat Russia in the Afghan- Russian war that was fought over where an oil pipeline was to be layed to benefit Saudis and the Big Oil companies ? America has gone to Hell in a handbasket and this is only the beginning.