ExiledInIllinois Posted November 13, 2008 Share Posted November 13, 2008 Obvioulsy a companies trump card is that they can always close their doors and shut down. I have a hard believeing that when the auto industry and the union first embarked on things like "30 and out"... Such pensions were NOT solvent... Why aren't they solvent now? Didn't they invest them conservatively? Now like the steel industry a few years ago... They truly got screwed... All along the company should have been doing the right thing. It would be like me raiding my child's education fund if I hit hard times... Afterall, it is my money that I put into it... These industries hit hard times and they raided... Pay the pensioners first, take care of the people that kicked into their system and close the doors. Who is really getting bailed out here and who really has been making the mistakes?... Obviously with most here, the blame always starts at the bottom... The blame that falls at the feet of the bottom is that they trusted, they expected some sort of "honor." Good luck with that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
molson_golden2002 Posted November 13, 2008 Share Posted November 13, 2008 More bad news: Last week, we learned that the unemployment rate in the U.S. had jumped to 6.5 percent in October, a 14-year-high. Today's numbers portend far worse for November. New claims for jobless benefits hit 516,000, the highest since Sept. 29, 2001. The four-week average for new claims is at its highest level since 1991. The number of continuing claims -- workers drawing benefits for longer than one week -- is at a 25-year high. Where is the pain worst? No surprise there: Michigan and Ohio, due to automobile industry layoffs, according to the Wall Street Journal. Salon.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC Tom Posted November 13, 2008 Share Posted November 13, 2008 More bad news: Salon.com And it'll get worse, too. A bailout of the auto industry is nothing more than a federal jobs program. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
/dev/null Posted November 13, 2008 Author Share Posted November 13, 2008 A bailout of the auto industry is nothing more than a federal jobs program. I'm waiting for the inevitable "Maybe the government should take over the auto industry" trial balloon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erynthered Posted November 13, 2008 Share Posted November 13, 2008 I'm waiting for the inevitable "Maybe the government should take over the auto industry" trial balloon Not a bad idea. The 40,000 postal workers will have a new job to go to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC Tom Posted November 13, 2008 Share Posted November 13, 2008 I'm waiting for the inevitable "Maybe the government should take over the auto industry" trial balloon Yellow... and I discussed it earlier. In this thread, I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
/dev/null Posted November 13, 2008 Author Share Posted November 13, 2008 Yellow... and I discussed it earlier. In this thread, I think. I'm not talking about internet message board banter as a trial balloon I'm waiting for someone in Congress, Senate, Administration, Office of the President-Elect (still looking for that one in the Constitution), Treasury Department, etc to float the trial balloon as a way to measure how big a chunk the populace will let them grab Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
East Brady Posted November 13, 2008 Share Posted November 13, 2008 Obvioulsy a companies trump card is that they can always close their doors and shut down. I have a hard believeing that when the auto industry and the union first embarked on things like "30 and out"... Such pensions were NOT solvent... Why aren't they solvent now? Didn't they invest them conservatively? Now like the steel industry a few years ago... They truly got screwed... All along the company should have been doing the right thing. It would be like me raiding my child's education fund if I hit hard times... Afterall, it is my money that I put into it... These industries hit hard times and they raided... Pay the pensioners first, take care of the people that kicked into their system and close the doors. Who is really getting bailed out here and who really has been making the mistakes?... Obviously with most here, the blame always starts at the bottom... The blame that falls at the feet of the bottom is that they trusted, they expected some sort of "honor." Good luck with that. As for GM, they have not been fully funding their pension fund for years. The pigs in washington nor the unions leaders never forced them to do it. As I remember, it was always treated as a source of cheap loans, kinda like the s. s. trust fund, full of IOU's. I believe the 700 bill. bailout has a provision to buy up the union pension plans. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YellowLinesandArmadillos Posted November 13, 2008 Share Posted November 13, 2008 How's this for a proposal that will never fly: We all agree that the automakers are doomed - they shown no ability to turn things around long-term over the past two decades. The problem is that they are too large to fail - the reverberations throughout the economy will be too big. So instead wasting our intellectual energy on conditions like limits on executive pay, make a condition of their receiving the loans that they reduce their workforce at least 7% a year over the next 10 years. What the heck - call it a grant, or better yet a tax credit. Give them the money not under the illusion that they are going to turn things around, but so that they can have a soft landing. That way, when they come back for more money next time, maybe they will be small enough and the rest of the economy de-linkeded enough that we can finally let go. Actually, I think that may be the only practical solution and somewhat politically sellable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YellowLinesandArmadillos Posted November 13, 2008 Share Posted November 13, 2008 Friend recently converted his F-250 to run off of vegetable oil (The Veg-O-Matic 250). Bought a conversion kit (I think he said it was 4K) and has deals worked out with local retaraunts to take their used oil off their hands. He has to put it through a centrifuge first to clean it out and of course has a big spare tank in the bed of his truck, but the thing runs as good as it did on gasoline. You also get the added benefit that it smells like General Tso's chicken. That sounds the "Grease Car System," The Lovecraft system doesn't require a spare tank. A heating solenoid is put in the tank as well as an additional filter/heating element up near the manifold with a final gas filter. I put it through a filtration system of three filters, one to get out the junk, the second down to 10 microns and the final down to 1 micron. It comes out clear and then I put it straight in the tank. During the winter I use between 20-30% diesel and during the summer between 0 adn 10% diesel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finknottle Posted November 13, 2008 Share Posted November 13, 2008 More bad news: If unemployment gets much worse, we'll start to look like the european economies that we want to emulate (historically over 10%, it dropped to about 9% as of last summer - not sure what it is now). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RLflutie7 Posted November 14, 2008 Share Posted November 14, 2008 OK. BA in communications means nothing. Nor does marketing, Poly-Sci, business, etc. You might as well have started working out of high school and gotten the degree at night (because you need the degree to open certain doors, even though it's useless). Those degrees give you sh-- in the real world. I wouldn't hire a BA Communications person out of school at more than $8 an hour either unless they had a whole boatload of other work experience. BA Communications=wipe my ass degree=you learned nothing for 4 years. Deny it if you want but you know it's true. My advice: go into auto mechanics in blue collar field (going to be a growth industry because people are not going to buy a new car every 3 years for a while) or go back to school and get a useful degree like engineering. I'm serious about auto mechanics too--that is a good job. I would be considering it if I wasn't doing what I'm doing. Engineering has more upside. Another option: law enforcement (if you have the mettle for it). Good police are hard to find. I knew you would say that and that's why I took the bait. I always hear people say this degree or that degree is not worth anything. And that's what is wrong with this country. If you don't have faith in the educational system then why have higher education? Although, I see your point. I watch Dave Ramsey on the Fox business channel. And I think he has the same sort of attitude. Ramsey doesn't seem to think an education is worth much of anything and I would tend to agree. I think most companies feel that way too. I think hiring young people fresh out of college for higher paying jobs is a joke. They don't really know anything. While I worked at my most recent job, Michigan State people came up to me and told me my degree didn't matter and there was plenty of opportunity. However, I never applied for jobs within the company because I didn't want the jobs they had. It wasn't the jobs, it was the company. I wouldn't want anything in the company I worked for. I didn't see a future there. Those same people (MSU people), while great people, are going to be looking for a job soon. Unless, they get transferred to a new location. And I don't really think that's an option. The company let go half of their employees and I don't think they're going to make it. I think you're wrong about engineering being a "useful degree". Engineering people always say a business degree or marketing degree is worthless and should be paid $8 an hour. Just the opposite is true at least from my view point. If I was an engineer, I'd keep my mouth shut because I see that as the next field that companies are trying to cut wages. Intel would love to hire all the $9 hour engineers they can get. As far as the real world is concerned, if I was in the engineering field, I'd be pretty concerned about what's going on. Auto repair: I wouldn't mind doing something in this field, but I'm a mechanical moron. I couldn't fix a car if I tried. I did look into it when I was around 30 years old. I think it's a great field. However, the people I talked to at dealerships said don't waste your time going to school for it. A guy told me 95 percent of the ASE guys he's hired are self-taught. It's not something you can learn in a school. Police: I wouldn't be a cop for anything in the world. I'd rather be a pizza delivery man. I've met cops when I was in the ticket scalping field and I wouldn't want that job. And they approached me and asked me if I'd consider a job in law enforcement. It's not worth the money. They have good benefits and all, but it's not worth it. I've met and talked to police that are no longer living. It's not worth it. The guys I knew responded to a call were a guy was waving a gun around at an apartment and people called police. He went to his apartment. They told him to come out. He didn't. They kicked the door in and he shot them. What I really would like to do is start a house framing business, but right now that's not going to happen. I know it's hard work and a lot of people would say don't do it because it's a seasonal business and I would tend agree with that. My dad knows several guys that are home builders, but they're not working now. One guy got a job, another is just hanging around doing nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Adams Posted November 14, 2008 Share Posted November 14, 2008 Note RL--I wasn't trying to hook you to insult you. I am more than capable of doing that to people but that wasn't my goal. My point is one I made once before on PPP: most college degrees aren't worth a lot in the real world. Their import is usually that they are a prerequisite for hiring/promotions. I worked a lot of huge construction including nuclear power before my current jobs. There were machine operators and feild superintendents who were WAY more valuable than me--but didn't get paid what I got paid because I could sling a computer and had a degree. VERY unjust. And yet it's the system so I recommend someone get a degree in anything rather than nothing. Business experience is important. A business degree doesn't contribute much to that. Being able to communicate in any job is vital; a communications degree doesn't help you communicate particularly well. There are some exceptions: it's hard (not impossible) to get a job in engineering without the formal training. (It's possible a person could self-study engineering but no one would trust them!) Obviously same if you're going to be an MD. Or a nurse. Or some other professions. As to concerns about engineering's health, there are going to be layoffs everywhere. But based purely on numbers, there are fewer engineers and they add more value--thus they will be in higher demand than a mid-level marketing manager with a communications degree. In the long run, I'd put my money on the engineer every day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
molson_golden2002 Posted November 14, 2008 Share Posted November 14, 2008 great david brooks op-ed on this http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/opinion/...amp;oref=slogin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
molson_golden2002 Posted November 14, 2008 Share Posted November 14, 2008 If unemployment gets much worse, we'll start to look like the european economies that we want to emulate (historically over 10%, it dropped to about 9% as of last summer - not sure what it is now). And just think, we got there using Voo Doo Economics! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RLflutie7 Posted November 14, 2008 Share Posted November 14, 2008 Note RL--I wasn't trying to hook you to insult you. I am more than capable of doing that to people but that wasn't my goal. My point is one I made once before on PPP: most college degrees aren't worth a lot in the real world. Their import is usually that they are a prerequisite for hiring/promotions. I worked a lot of huge construction including nuclear power before my current jobs. There were machine operators and feild superintendents who were WAY more valuable than me--but didn't get paid what I got paid because I could sling a computer and had a degree. VERY unjust. And yet it's the system so I recommend someone get a degree in anything rather than nothing. Business experience is important. A business degree doesn't contribute much to that. Being able to communicate in any job is vital; a communications degree doesn't help you communicate particularly well. There are some exceptions: it's hard (not impossible) to get a job in engineering without the formal training. (It's possible a person could self-study engineering but no one would trust them!) Obviously same if you're going to be an MD. Or a nurse. Or some other professions. As to concerns about engineering's health, there are going to be layoffs everywhere. But based purely on numbers, there are fewer engineers and they add more value--thus they will be in higher demand than a mid-level marketing manager with a communications degree. In the long run, I'd put my money on the engineer every day. I know you were not trying to insult me, I got a little defensive and I'm sorry about that. I would agree with you that a college degree is overrated. But, I still don't like what's going on. Most companies, all they want to do is cut costs and they'll keep chopping at all jobs to decrease wages. I'm sure you've heard when Carly Fiorina (HP) and Craig Barrett (Intel) defended outsourcing and HB1 Visa programs. They want to bring in these low cost engineers from India and China. Microsoft wants the same thing. I'm just sick of this kind of stuff. I tried of these CEOs saying that American workers are slow, lazy, fat, stupid etc, etc. They just want to pay someone $8-9 an hour. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IDBillzFan Posted November 14, 2008 Share Posted November 14, 2008 I can't help but wonder; why doesn't UAW fork over the cash? They have enough to donate to campaigns. Surely they can help the very people who fund them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Adams Posted November 14, 2008 Share Posted November 14, 2008 I'm sure you've heard when Carly Fiorina (HP) and Craig Barrett (Intel) defended outsourcing and HB1 Visa programs. They want to bring in these low cost engineers from India and China. Microsoft wants the same thing. I'm just sick of this kind of stuff. I tried of these CEOs saying that American workers are slow, lazy, fat, stupid etc, etc. They just want to pay someone $8-9 an hour. Outsourcing makes sense on more than an economic scale. US schools are graduating more college students than ever--and yet fewer science and engineers than in the past. That trend is killing tech companies. In the meantime, Russia, China, and India are graduating more scientists and engineers than ever before. Outsourcing in the sciences isn't all about $$; it's about resources. The intellectual fuel for tomorrow's technologic advances is overseas. Companies like Intel and HP recognize this. I don't fault them one bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DC Tom Posted November 14, 2008 Share Posted November 14, 2008 I can't help but wonder; why doesn't UAW fork over the cash? They have enough to donate to campaigns. Surely they can help the very people who fund them. I can't help but wonder why the UAW hasn't called for a strike. They have a responsibility to look out for the auto workers, and clearly the uncertainty surrounding and mismanagement of the industry is detrimental to their welfare. In these troubled economic times, it's more important than ever that the unions pressure the industry to guarantee the economic rights and future of the auto workers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IDBillzFan Posted November 14, 2008 Share Posted November 14, 2008 I can't help but wonder why the UAW hasn't called for a strike. They have a responsibility to look out for the auto workers, and clearly the uncertainty surrounding and mismanagement of the industry is detrimental to their welfare. In these troubled economic times, it's more important than ever that the unions pressure the industry to guarantee the economic rights and future of the auto workers! I'm sure UAW is sitting there thinking: Y'know, we dumped a ton of cash, time and effort into the Obama campaign. It's his turn to return the favor. I'd be particularly interested to see how much they give to Nancy Pelosi given the incessant begging and pleading she's doing on behalf of the Big 3. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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