Quote:
Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna
Peachie,
Because GM as it's currently structured, and with the pay and benefits they pay their workers is a bow-wow! It's an accident thats getting ready to happen in only a few weeks.
For GM to come to the government and ask for a "bridge loan" so that the hourly employees can continue to make an average of $82 per hour (hourly wages plus benefits) is as ridiculaous a proposal as I've ever heard. Think about it. Forty million people who don't have any healthcare insurance at all would collectively borrow billions of dollars so the GM workers can keep making $82 an hour and have gold-plated, no cost health insurance?
Like I said...RIDICULOUS!
I'd say that GM can either borrow the money with some very stiff conditions that impact on the hourly workers and the mamagment, or take a pass on our loan and go belly up. Then let's see how many of the 2-3 million people who are put out of work feel about maybe having given up on some of their pay and health insurance. When that happens, I think they'll be saying, "Geez, less pay and less insurance would have been a lot better than nothing.
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Village Kahuna, perhaps you also were listening to the U.S. Automakers CEO's testifying before the Senate Banking Committee today. Robert Casey, (D)PA, while interviewing the CEO's, addressed Ron Gettelfinger, AUW President, and sought to clarify the $73. hourly wage myth out there concerning the autoworkers that is completely false. Casey stated that since 2003, 150,000 autoworkers have been downsized out of the auto industry. Since 2005, the beginning autoworker hourly wage is $14. and retiree benefits were reduced by 50%. The approximate proportion of Labors' cost per automobile is 10%. Gettelfinger, in earlier testimony, advised the SBC that a big part of the problem not being addressed in the success of the auto industry was as an example; Korea's ability to ship vast numbers of cars to the USA and in turn, Korea allows only a small number of cars to be imported to that country. He also advised that the burgeoning cost of health care in this nation is disabling the companies providing this benefit.
I'm sure if we continue to lower the hourly wages and benefits for the automaker industry, we will have many more positions available for the illegal aliens crossing our borders and reaping the benefits of citizenship for their "American born children" and our health care system.
I don't know the solution for the automakers' dire straits but I do know that a staggering amount of money was applied to the banking/investment fiasco and a much smaller amount would be required to stabilize an industry suffering from the same problems as the rest of the economy, a severe recession.
(BTW, VK, I shortened your original response to highlight my point.)