Looks like Bailouts are the "in" thing

[The Other Guy]

(see post for picture)

Have you nothing better to post? I'm trying to argue with a person, not a series of propaganda photographs.

mod edit: In the future do not make any posts regarding off topic posts or other minor infractions the the rules. Report the post and let the mods deal with the issue accordingly.

 

[Duty Honor Country]

The thing is, the FDR government who spent its way out of the Depression actually worked. And FDR did it by spending on infrustructure projects such has HOOVER Dam, the widening of the Mississippi, highway project etc.

The reason why it worked is because these projects created thousands of new jobs for the construction project. The Construction Industry is a key economic lynch-pin, if it does well then so does the rest of the economy.

Obama's plan is a exact duplication of FDR, create new jobs in construction, (he his planning on 2.8 new jobs) AND it will fix America's crumbling infrustucture which NEEDS to be done anyway (less we want anymore bridge collapses) to boot.

I think its a brilliant idea, kills two birds with a single stone.

I am just not convinced that more government spending when I believe the government is already spending way too much will help in the end. It will offer a short term easing of pain while adding to the massive government debt. The republicans made the debt big and the democrats are full steam ahead with spending. The death of fiscal responsibility is complete.

The Other Guy, I agree we just cannot let our auto industry implode, but it is how we are doing it. The UAW, which is your avatar, has gotten way too much and needs to rid it self of a lot of entitlements it currently has. The fact that a laid off worker gets paid 96% of pay for 2 years is completely unsound in business practice. Other industries have modernized while the auto industry has lagged. I agree that the big three put all its cards in trucks and SUVs in the last decade and now they are paying the price. Ford actually made efforts with the focus and other models and it is no surprise that Ford is the best off out of the three. The auto industry was a badly run business that is getting crushed by the recession.

I would support a bailout under the following conditions.

1. The big 3 must go into bankruptcy so radical and drastic change can take place. The prearranged bankruptcy idea sounds ok but I need more info as to the details.

2. The CEOs and board members are gone. They drove their companies into this mess and they can now drive themselves home...with NO severance packages.

3. Sorry UAW, making a business profitable means cutting costs. Nissan and Toyota pay their employees less with less benefits. It is time to wake up and smell the coffee. I have always wondered why labor unions donate so much to political organizations and pay thier leaders a good anual sum. It is wasteful and needs to be cut. The alternative is to lose your job. Take it or leave it.

4. I think government bentchmarks are bad. I am very much against government and business. Government is great at spending money. When did the government ever make money on large scale. Taxes is not making money.

There is no one thing that can be changed without changing everything. Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Giving businesses money, like the current bailout, just supports those who got us here in the first place.

If you need to know, I own a 98 nissan altima with 186,000 miles and just bought a Toyota Corolla. My reasons for both cars was quality and fuel economy. I know for a fact that Toyota and Nissan make better cars. Get the Consumer reports used car guide and see who has made the best and worst cars in the last 5 years. Make a quality product and I will buy it.

 

[The Other Guy]

3. Sorry UAW, making a business profitable means cutting costs. Nissan and Toyota pay their employees less with less benefits. It is time to wake up and smell the coffee. I have always wondered why labor unions donate so much to political organizations and pay thier leaders a good anual sum. It is wasteful and needs to be cut. The alternative is to lose your job. Take it or leave it.

The Japanese companies, unlike The Big 3, however, do not have to pay healthcare costs to retired employees; this task is done by the Japanese Government. This is a HUGE advantage for the Japanese companies as they can then put that much more money back into their cars. It's also one of the main reasons I push for a nationalized healthcare system.

 

[DTop]

Except that the fact is that Toyota for example pays 25% less in bennies to its active and retired employees than UAW gets for theirs. That coupled with the fact that there are more retired employees than active on the UAW payroll are big contributing factors to the big 3's bucket of crap.
$70 an hour is not inaccurate when you consider all costs. If the foreign auto makers and the Big 3 domestics were on an even playing field, there wouldn't be the implosion problem that they have now. Why wouldn't you include the costs of benefits to retirees in the calculation? Who pays for that? The UAW has dug themselves a big hole and now they need the American citizens to bail them out.

The $70 an hour claim has actually been debunked as inccurate.

SOURCE
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/11/24/opinion/main4630103.shtml

Summery:

But then what's the source of that $70 hourly figure? It didn't come out of thin air. Analysts came up with it by including the cost of all employer-provided benefits--namely, health insurance and pensions--and then dividing by the number of workers. The result, they found, was that benefits for Big Three cost about $42 per hour, per employee. Add that to the wages--again, $28 per hour--and you get the $70 figure. Voila.

Except ... notice something weird about this calculation? It's not as if each active worker is getting health benefits and pensions worth $42 per hour. That would come to nearly twice his or her wages. (Talk about gold-plated coverage!) Instead, each active worker is getting benefits equal only to a fraction of that--probably around $10 per hour, according to estimates from the International Motor Vehicle Program. The number only gets to $70 an hour if you include the cost of benefits for retirees--in other words, the cost of benefits for other people. One of the few people to grasp this was Portfolio.com's Felix Salmon. As he noted friday, the claim that workers are getting $70 an hour in compensation is just "not true."
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In essence one only arrives at the $70 an hour by adding all salaries, bonuses, benefits, pensions, etc of all the past living employees (retirees) and dividing it by the number of ACTIVE employees.

The actual wage of a autoworker is $28 an hour which is the same as the Japanese car manufacturers.

 

[HokieMSG]

The Japanese companies, unlike The Big 3, however, do not have to pay healthcare costs to retired employees; this task is done by the Japanese Government. This is a HUGE advantage for the Japanese companies as they can then put that much more money back into their cars. It's also one of the main reasons I push for a nationalized healthcare system.

We already have a emergency care availalbe for everyone. No hospital can refuse to treat someone who does not have the ability to pay for emergency care.

I work and have to pay for healthcare for my family. My family is in good health and the only reason that I even have it is in case (hence the name insurance) something really major happens.

Yes healthcare is expensive, a majority of the costs are due to frivilous litigation. I know of many Dr's in my area who moved here from WV because they could not afford the malpractice insurance in WV. If a Dr is negligent then fine him, revoke his license, throw him in jail and let the affected people sue him. Don;t allow people to sue doctors frivilously in the hopes that they will settle and you will get free money.

 

[The Other Guy]

We already have a emergency care availalbe for everyone. No hospital can refuse to treat someone who does not have the ability to pay for emergency care.

I work and have to pay for healthcare for my family. My family is in good health and the only reason that I even have it is in case (hence the name insurance) something really major happens.

Yes healthcare is expensive, a majority of the costs are due to frivilous litigation. I know of many Dr's in my area who moved here from WV because they could not afford the malpractice insurance in WV. If a Dr is negligent then fine him, revoke his license, throw him in jail and let the affected people sue him. Don;t allow people to sue doctors frivilously in the hopes that they will settle and you will get free money.

You may be treated for emergency care, but if you need, say, bypass surgery, you're on your own. My father had a stent put in a while back. The Insurance company didn't pay for it; they considered it a pre-existing condition under their coverage. The cost to keep my father from having a heart attack? $10,000.

That is why this healthcare system does not work.

 

[Damien435]

I just LOVE the idea of my tax dollars paying for the heath care costs of fatties, smokers and alcoholics because Lord knows I had a hand in making those people let themselves go. If we remove the costs associated with smoking, with obesity, with alcoholism (and other self-induced health costs) we take away the only means that society has to truly get people to stop these self-destructive tendencies. The best way to get a person (in America) to stop doing something is to hit them in the wallet. I don't think it's fair that those of us who have been taking care of ourselves all our lives should have to take on the costs of taking care of people who couldn't take care of themselves. But I just can't relate here because I actually paid attention in school, I am putting myself through college, I went out and found a job that has some pretty damn good health perks. I took responsibility for my own actions, I didn't sit around waiting for the government to take care of me, that's just part of my rural Midwest upbringing apparently because the idea of personal responsibility obviously isn't a part of human nature. If people can't afford health insurance they likely won't be able to pay the necessary tax increases to pay for a universal health care system.

Japan has the highest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world and unlike the US (which has the second highest on paper) the loopholes do not exist in Japan to allow companies to get out of paying taxes. Japanese companies are still paying for healthcare and when it's all said and done they're likely paying more than American companies, the benefits might not be as much, but the health care costs are likely the same.

The problem with Detroit right now isn't solely to be blamed on the Big 3, both business and labor were working together to get Congress to pass protectionist tariffs and policies for American automakers. Detroit is putting out a vastly inferior product right now, they cost more than the Japanese and European equivalents, they don't last as long, their fuel efficiency is horrendous and as a result nobody is buying what they have to offer. Toyota is now the world's largest automobile company, finally surpassing GM, and they're still growing. The Big 3's sales plummeted during the month of November. Not even Americans are buying American cars anymore, and Toyota can make a damn strong case that their cars are more American than the Big 3's anymore because of the shift of production to Mexico since the induction of NAFTA. While American automakers grew stagnant and kept putting out trucks and SUV's with larger engines, more horsepower, and lower fuel mileage, Nissan, Toyota and the European manufacturers were putting in smaller engines with equivalent levels of power but far better efficiency standards. Let the Big 3 re-organize under bankcruptcy and drastically reduce the power of unions over companies, what's the average wage of a UAW member? $27 an hour (or so) and yet they still gripe for more. My mom works two jobs and makes less than half of that and can still afford health insurance. Hell non-union workers in Toyota and Nissan plants in the US are making more than their UAW counterparts to the tune of about $6,000 a year on average. Unions have outlived their usefulness, the UAW is as much to blame here as the Big 3 and both groups should be suffering from the combined efforts it took from both labor and business to create this cluster ****.

 

[HokieMSG]

I just LOVE the idea of my tax dollars paying for the heath care costs of fatties, smokers and alcoholics because Lord knows I had a hand in making those people let themselves go. If we remove the costs associated with smoking, with obesity, with alcoholism (and other self-induced health costs) we take away the only means that society has to truly get people to stop these self-destructive tendencies. The best way to get a person (in America) to stop doing something is to hit them in the wallet. I don't think it's fair that those of us who have been taking care of ourselves all our lives should have to take on the costs of taking care of people who couldn't take care of themselves. But I just can't relate here because I actually paid attention in school, I am putting myself through college, I went out and found a job that has some pretty damn good health perks. I took responsibility for my own actions, I didn't sit around waiting for the government to take care of me, that's just part of my rural Midwest upbringing apparently because the idea of personal responsibility obviously isn't a part of human nature. If people can't afford health insurance they likely won't be able to pay the necessary tax increases to pay for a universal health care system.

Japan has the highest corporate tax rates in the industrialized world and unlike the US (which has the second highest on paper) the loopholes do not exist in Japan to allow companies to get out of paying taxes. Japanese companies are still paying for healthcare and when it's all said and done they're likely paying more than American companies, the benefits might not be as much, but the health care costs are likely the same.

The problem with Detroit right now isn't solely to be blamed on the Big 3, both business and labor were working together to get Congress to pass protectionist tariffs and policies for American automakers. Detroit is putting out a vastly inferior product right now, they cost more than the Japanese and European equivalents, they don't last as long, their fuel efficiency is horrendous and as a result nobody is buying what they have to offer. Toyota is now the world's largest automobile company, finally surpassing GM, and they're still growing. The Big 3's sales plummeted during the month of November. Not even Americans are buying American cars anymore, and Toyota can make a damn strong case that their cars are more American than the Big 3's anymore because of the shift of production to Mexico since the induction of NAFTA. While American automakers grew stagnant and kept putting out trucks and SUV's with larger engines, more horsepower, and lower fuel mileage, Nissan, Toyota and the European manufacturers were putting in smaller engines with equivalent levels of power but far better efficiency standards. Let the Big 3 re-organize under bankcruptcy and drastically reduce the power of unions over companies, what's the average wage of a UAW member? $27 an hour (or so) and yet they still gripe for more. My mom works two jobs and makes less than half of that and can still afford health insurance. Hell non-union workers in Toyota and Nissan plants in the US are making more than their UAW counterparts to the tune of about $6,000 a year on average. Unions have outlived their usefulness, the UAW is as much to blame here as the Big 3 and both groups should be suffering from the combined efforts it took from both labor and business to create this cluster ****.

Actually, The people who smoke and make as you say bad choices do end up paying higher premiums for their health insurance. I think our tax dollars are paying for the healthcare of the unemployed and those on welfare.

I find it interesting the Gaettlefinger rejected a call by congress to reduce the wages of their workers. Gettlefinger replied that they would consider renegotiating salaries when the currernt contract expires in 2013?.

Damien, I agree with you about the reorg. Have to have a plan for solvency. If not the government will be throwing our good money away. Additionally they will likely be back again with their hand out when this money runs out.

 

[HokieMSG]

You may be treated for emergency care, but if you need, say, bypass surgery, you're on your own. My father had a stent put in a while back. The Insurance company didn't pay for it; they considered it a pre-existing condition under their coverage. The cost to keep my father from having a heart attack? $10,000.

That is why this healthcare system does not work.

Agree that the healthcare system needs fixing. I don;t think I have an answer how to do it either. The problem is that insurance companies are involved. They want to genetically screen everyone of the policy holders for "defects" then they can either deny insurance or charge huge premiums to people who have a family history of heart disease or cancer or something else. I have nothing nice to say about insurance companies period so I will keep my mouth shut.

Tort reform is probably the right place to start.

 

[The Other Guy]

Agree that the healthcare system needs fixing. I don;t think I have an answer how to do it either. The problem is that insurance companies are involved. They want to genetically screen everyone of the policy holders for "defects" then they can either deny insurance or charge huge premiums to people who have a family history of heart disease or cancer or something else. I have nothing nice to say about insurance companies period so I will keep my mouth shut.

Tort reform is probably the right place to start.

I'd suggest doing what Taiwan did and send people to the countries with the most efficient health systems to study them and create a combination taking traits from each one.

 

[5.56X45mm]

The government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

 

[Duty Honor Country]

according to the wires, the senate bill failed because the Republicans wanted the UAW to cough up a wage cut and the UAW walked.

Here are some numbers to think about. Both Toyota and UAW workers make $30 an hour in cash. A UAW worker makes $69 an hour total in benefits while a Toyota worker makes a total of $48 an hour with benefits. These numbers are pulled off the AP. A yearly wage (hourly wage x 40 hours x 52 weeks) including benefits for a Toyota employee is $99,840 and a UAW workers makes $143,520. The difference in those 2 wages is $43,680.

The UAW declares an active work force of 640,000 workers and that is right off their website. So with my model (which is probably off some but it works off ratios so I like it), the UAW in total costs US Automakers $27.9 billion more a year than if the big 3 paid their wokers the wages of Toyota.

Even if my figures were way off and it was $20 billion. I find it interesting the automakers asked for a little over $30 billion.

I am sorry UAW, you need to make concessions.

Another thing to note. GM has $15 billion in cash, $45 billion in debt and has a profit margin of -13%. Looking at analysts and what they have said over the years, they have had little good to say about GM since 2002.

With that business model, they deserve to go into bankruptcy. They do not deserve a dime from anyone.
__________________________________________________

With the information I just heard on the news, I am beyond livid. The reason why the UAW left is because of concessions. The UAW offered concessions starting in 2011 and the republicans wanted them sooner. You have to be kidding right. GM will not last until spring and the UAW will give up benefits and pay starting in 2011.

Talk about a day late and a dollar short. This bailout mess breeds bad business and inefficiency. The governor of Michigan called the rejection of the senate bill un-American. I say bailouts are completely un-American.

I am so mad about this I am done for the night. Please tell me someone else here is burning up over this. I am going to play Call of Duty Modern War. Goodnight!

 

[The Other Guy]

Wasn't the last 8 years essentially an attempted mirror of the Reagan Administration? Didn't the economy do pretty much the same thing?

 

[Damien435]

Bush claimed to be a Conservative but his economic policies have shown him to be anything but. He ran on a small government platform and when he arrived in Washington he started spending money like a drunken Kennedy.

 

[mmarsh]

according to the wires, the senate bill failed because the Republicans wanted the UAW to cough up a wage cut and the UAW walked.

Here are some numbers to think about. Both Toyota and UAW workers make $30 an hour in cash. A UAW worker makes $69 an hour total in benefits while a Toyota worker makes a total of $48 an hour with benefits. These numbers are pulled off the AP. A yearly wage (hourly wage x 40 hours x 52 weeks) including benefits for a Toyota employee is $99,840 and a UAW workers makes $143,520. The difference in those 2 wages is $43,680.

The UAW declares an active work force of 640,000 workers and that is right off their website. So with my model (which is probably off some but it works off ratios so I like it), the UAW in total costs US Automakers $27.9 billion more a year than if the big 3 paid their wokers the wages of Toyota.

Even if my figures were way off and it was $20 billion. I find it interesting the automakers asked for a little over $30 billion.

I am sorry UAW, you need to make concessions.

Another thing to note. GM has $15 billion in cash, $45 billion in debt and has a profit margin of -13%. Looking at analysts and what they have said over the years, they have had little good to say about GM since 2002.

With that business model, they deserve to go into bankruptcy. They do not deserve a dime from anyone.
__________________________________________________

With the information I just heard on the news, I am beyond livid. The reason why the UAW left is because of concessions. The UAW offered concessions starting in 2011 and the republicans wanted them sooner. You have to be kidding right. GM will not last until spring and the UAW will give up benefits and pay starting in 2011.

Talk about a day late and a dollar short. This bailout mess breeds bad business and inefficiency. The governor of Michigan called the rejection of the senate bill un-American. I say bailouts are completely un-American.

I am so mad about this I am done for the night. Please tell me someone else here is burning up over this. I am going to play Call of Duty Modern War. Goodnight!

Duty

See post #24. The $70 is not exactly accurate. I have a quote from factchecker.org

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/do_auto_workers_really_make_more_than.html

The $70 an hour figure comes from the Heritage Foundation and remember these were the guys saying we'd find WMD in Iraq not so very long ago. Any claim that comes out of them requires intense scrutiny for "BS".

How did they come up with $70 an hour? The actual pay is about $28 an hour but they added on the value of all benefits and pensions of ALL employees (including those dead or retired) and that's how they come up with that magical figure and then make it sound like that is what your average UAW worker takes home in salary which is designed to make other people angry. Remember organizations like the Heritage Foundation are pro-management, they almost never have ordinary peoples intranets at heart.

For example: Say I say a 2LT in the US Army makes $100,000 a year. He probably does IF I factor in your salary, bonuses, pension, insurances, and any other cost, not only of you but of every person who served in the US Army as a 2LT for the past 30 years. Of course I don't bother to mention how I got to that number, I just say $100,000 as salary. Its what Bush described as FUZZY-MATH because no employer calculates benefits+pensions into base salary and they especially don't add in non-active employees.

This is why I really hate these types of organizations like Heritage because behind their facade of patriotism they sprout lies based on personal interests and warped ideology which are harmful to the American citizens. These groups hate the middle-class, and its little tricks they use to undermine American Families.

Damien

Show me a Conservative that did run a small Government, it wasn't Reagan, Bush, or W. That animal doesn't exist. Before W it was Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr that had the largest deficits in US history. Of course W brough big government to new levels. And yet its the DEMOCRATS that get accused of being spenders, Ironic isn't it?

 

[Damien435]

W. increased spending while decreasing taxes, Bush Sr. increased taxes to help cover the increased spending brought on by Reagan (And seeing as the Soviet Union collapsed under the weight of trying to match our defense spending I'd say it was worth every penny especially when we actually made use of the equipment in Desert Shield and Desert Storm with such effectiveness.) and while Reagan lowered taxes on paper, he also closed loopholes that were preventing the super wealthy from paying their share of taxes anyways.

Once a government program is in place it is extremely difficult to remove, the idea that we can just slash spending 10% across the board is ludicrous and not, in my opinion, the small government platform that most conservatives want, or at least it is not in my view. Look at defense spending, yes it's ballooned under Bush but that money is being spent in America (Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan receive funding independent from defense spending.) and a quarter of that money is being spent on wages for our troops, that roughly $150 billion that the government is paying to our troops every year and that's money going to families that truly need it, not tax breaks to big business. On top of that, and thanks to Congressional meddling in the affairs of the Pentagon, the money for procurement of arms is staying in the US even if it means buying an inferior product (IE Congress forcing the Air Force to buy from Boeing even though Airbus put forth a better proposal). I can only answer for myself here and the few conservatives I have spoken to (South Dakota may be overwhelmingly conservative but the population is still pretty low) about the idea of small government, but I believe and they agreed that the solution isn't to roll back government spending and certainly isn't to just slash budgets and tell departments to find a way to make their money stretch. Conservatives today believe that when a new government program is started the funds have to come from another program/department rather than increasing taxes or in the case of the Bush administration spending money that is not there.

Oh yeah, and we want to close loopholes that allow people like Warren Buffett (world's richest man) to pay the same amount in federal taxes as his house keeper who makes $28,000 a year. I don't know if that's so much a conservative thing or a common sense thing though, my money's on the latter.

 

[The Other Guy]

Oh yeah, and we want to close loopholes that allow people like Warren Buffett (world's richest man) to pay the same amount in federal taxes as his house keeper who makes $28,000 a year. I don't know if that's so much a conservative thing or a common sense thing though, my money's on the latter.

Warren Buffett himself says that he isn't taxed enough. (and he's 3rd in the world; some mexican telecommunications man and Bill Gates are ahead.)

That comes dangerously close to the Leona Helmsley line, "Only little people pay taxes." The rich should pay WAY more in taxes, both in percentage and in total cost.

 

[Damien435]

According to Force's list of the 100 wealthiest people 2008, Warren Buffet has $62 billion in net worth to Carlos Slim Helu's $60 billion and Bill Gates' $58 billion so for the year 2008 Warren Buffett is the world's richest man. However, I'm pretty sure Berkshire Hathaways' stock has slipped back down below $100,000 a share (feels odd saying that) so my guess is Buffet could be out in 2009.

 

[HokieMSG]

Warren Buffett himself says that he isn't taxed enough. (and he's 3rd in the world; some mexican telecommunications man and Bill Gates are ahead.)

That comes dangerously close to the Leona Helmsley line, "Only little people pay taxes." The rich should pay WAY more in taxes, both in percentage and in total cost.

TOG, Do you want people to carry around their 1040's and charge them for everything based on what they made last year? OK so Buffet will have to pay $65 for a loaf of bread and $300 for a gallon of milk. Taxes need to be consistent. The Fair Tax is the only way to go. Make it consumption based for new goods and services. We can argue endlessly about the rich and how they are able to pay more. I agree that they have the ability to pay more, but i DO NOT think that because they are more able to afford it they should have to pay a higher percentage. To make it consistent make everyone pay the same percentage.

And if Warren Buffet wants to pay more in taxes all he has to do is write a check to the IRS or the Treasury Dept. Why hasn;t he already? Because he is only paying lip service. And won;t do it unless he absolutely has to. Either Pay Up or Shut up Warren. I'm done.

 

[Damien435]

Warren Buffett is trying to make a point that the system is broken, to cure the disease you go after the source, not the symptoms. The Fair Tax is hardly that, the least fair tax out there today is the sales tax because it hits everybody just as hard without regard to their income.

I can't believe we're talking bailouts for Detroit 20 years after economists had declared manufacturing jobs in America to be a dying breed.