Originally Posted by captain1202

rs...
Agree, agree. Like many folks, my fortunes have been up and down, back up and then down again. Result, the word retirement is still in the future for me.

Regardless of that, I have predicted for 15 years to anyone that would listen (which weren't many) that the export of the U.S. manufacturing base overseas would spell doom for the America we know it. Of course, my views were "poo-pooed" but I do believe the chickens are coming home to roost now. Someone much more savvy than I postulated that in order to have a thriving, growth oriented economy a country has to "make stuff". That's HARD GOODS, not phony financial products made of smoke and mirrors or hamburgers. Not everyone can be a maid or clean offices. It's production of real "Stuff" that makes money.

When a local firm's employees spend their hard earned dollars at LOCALLY OWNED businesses and services, that dollar turns 8-10 times in the community. In other words, $1 in payroll equals $8-$10 in additional sales, payroll, etc. for the local community.

When you buy foreign, WalMart for example, most of the money goes to Bentonville and then on to China, Indonesia or wherever. The payroll multiple is lost. The illusion of prosperity by buying goods cheaper is soon lost in a falling job base, etc. as local companies fold in favor of the multi-nationals buying overseas.

So getting back to the Union thing, those that are now collecting their Union negotiated benefits (for the moment) are surely the last generation to do so. In fact, if the current financial trends continue they may only be getting those benefits for a short while. I hope for them this is not the case, but one only need to look at Polaroid to see the devastating effect a company failure can have on retirees. When they went bankrupt a few years ago, many of their retirees were left with 0 benefits and they found themselves looking for work to make ends meet. It wasn't pretty. NOTE: The CEO's whose crappy decisions were at fault were retained at outrageous salaries to help with the workout. ???????

I do believe time will show we are in the midst of a seismic shift in our economy, politics AND our futures. A recent tally showed that in recent weeks the govt. has incurred about $7.2 TRILLION DOLLARS in bailout obligations of one sort or another. Where is this money going to come from?????? Can you say printing press? Can you say hyper-inflation?

No matter what happens with the auto's it's not going to be business as usual in the future. In fact, it's not going to be business as usual for anyone.
Hope I'm wrong, but I don't see how the outcome can be much different.