An easy way to reduce the selling price is to eliminate the state and federal tax credits.

And they still lost money on every one of them...

These days, productivity in a factory environment depends more on how effectively robotics and A. I. are utilized. Productivity depends less on how many hours the workers are there.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

There is an interesting historical footnote about that last sentence where the CEO salaries are TOO HIGH. Around the mid-70s when Japan and Toyota were just entering the US market, I read where Japanese CEOs thought it would be obnoxiously GREEDY if THEY made more than 10 times the salary of their average factory worker. Compare that to during that same time period GE CEO Jack Welsh made about 300 MILLION per year.
.......That Japanese CEO's humble thinking (back then) goes a long way to explaining why Toyota and the other Japanese automobile brands have done so well in the US. I don't know and would be curious to know about TODAY does the Toyota CEO make only 10 times their factory workers?

I could TRY and explain that (at least, my version). The upper 15% in the US have received FAVORABLE tax treatment overall starting in about 1990. Then you have the "birds of a feather" concept where they stick together and associate ONLY with like-minded millionaires. They are mostly males and feel threatened around a smart woman who makes a large salary. people say, "A woman must be 5 times as competent as a male to succeed in management".
........The IRS laws and tax tables in place since about 1990 give benefit to the upper income class. This has the effect of moving the WEALTH from the middle class upward to the upper classes - Warren Buffet famously said. " It is not fair that I pay less taxes than my own secretary". In real income (taking inflation into account), the UAW workers have NOT gotten a pay increase since about 1975. The same for MOST blue-collar workers in the US. They have gotten some increase after COVID due to fewer available skilled blue-collar workers. White-collar workers in most large corporations HAVE gotten pay increases since 1975.
..........That is MY opinion as to WHY someone would think of blue-collar workers as "mindless dolts". The rich (partly due to tax advantages) (and passing wealth down untaxed from generation to generation) feel superior to and look DOWN upon blue-collar workers. They tend to forget that after WW2 the US accumulated great WEALTH on the backs of factory workers (from about 1950 to 1975).

Are you telling me that the compensation the CEOs are justified?
One of the biggest arguments the union members are putting forward was when the companies were in trouble the union step in, and their members took a hit and were never made whole. At the same time the CEOs incomes went off the charts. If you reduce the CEOs packages it would remove one of the unions grips.

Let's quickly look at the difference of a laborer and a CEO. A laborer screws up they are kicked out of a job. A CEO screws up and they are escorted off the floor with a muti-million-dollar parachute.

Let's not forget in 2007 it was people like CEOs that almost toppled this country betting on the housing market.
Many union's pension funds and private 401K were destroyed.
If I remember correctly after the American taxpayers bailed these clowns out only one person went to jail and most of them were rewarded with raises.
Do we not see something wrong with this picture?

When did I write that? Only a small % of CEO's are worth their compensation. Real visionaries like Elon Musk, Jensen Huang of Nvidia and Howard Schultz of Starbucks during the growth years.

I wonder what we would see if we compared US automobile CEOs with those from Germany, France, England, South Korea, and Italy.

My posting had to do with removing one of the sticking points that the UAW is complaining about, and you posted a response ignoring my main point and went onto investments.

To make my position clear is when a company does well everyone should be compensated equally to the pay grade and when a company is in decline everyone should share in the burden.

What I believe if you want to get rid of unions then companies should enter into an equitable profit-sharing agreement. And this coming from someone who represented a union local and negotiated a number of contracts.

As I remember it.....Alan Greenspan stripped away key safeguards and championed risky loans. The Glass-Steagall Act was repealed and banks were said, "to be too big to fail".

My favorite would be Warren Buffet.

For all practical purposes, unions today in the US are virtually non-existent. I believe that companies that have profit-sharing and look after their employees are very successful on average.

LOL, the union would never agree to a pay cut if profits were down. Neither would a receptionist in a small business for that matter. Ask me how I know....

What I said was if you wanted to get rid of union companies should enter into a profit-sharing agreement. There are companies that were floundering and went into this type of agreement, and they turned the decline around. Now that was my main point, but the UAW did take a reduction in their benefits. With new hires were not being covered with the original pension. So even if you do not believe unions would accept a reduction, they have.

Tell that to the over 70% of teachers who are unionized...

"What percent of teachers are in a union?

Largest Teachers' Unions Research Summary

The largest teachers' union in the U.S. is the National Education Association, with 3 million members. There are 3.2 million full-time teachers and 130,930 K-12 schools across the U.S. At least 70% of U.S. teachers belong to a teachers' union.Apr 23, 2023"

And union membership is actually growing...

"The number of wage and salary workers belonging to unions, at 14.3 million in 2022, increased by 273,000, or 1.9 percent, from 2021."

But why let facts get in the way?

Oh, so states are enacting laws to protect their own environment and air quality, etc? Hardly what most people would call a 'government ban'. I thought that states' rights was a pretty big deal around here. Maybe not when it comes down to actually governing?

Oh, I bothered, thank you. This implied government ban simply doesn't exist. Regulations in a half dozen or so states designed to phase out ICE vehicles over the course of a decade or more just isn't a government ban. Think up a new scary term.

Phase out = eventual ban. Why would I ever trust the side that is pushing or defending it?

Exactly. California is the most populous state in the country for some unimaginable reason (NM, nice weather) so them "phasing out" ICE cars is just the start of it.

And it forces costs to rise. Just like they did when the over regulated eggs and pork products.

State governments are not "Governments"? On what planet?

A state government ban is most certainly a "government ban"...

See my previous post... Sorry, but you're wrong...

Oh, and the phase in starts in 2026, with a 35% requirement...

And once CA does it, many states follow, in lock step...

Not really equal. At least as far as I've seen, California is only phasing out sales of NEW ICE cars by 2035 and several other states may follow their lead. This could change or even effectively become a ban over time, but the 'government ban' implied in the post I was responding to just isn't a thing.
I don't exactly understand your question about trust, so I really can't answer that. :shrug:

Could be and very possibly should be.

Do you really think of CA when someone talks about a "government" ban with no mention of which government? I'm not going to argue semantics; the post I replied to sure seemed to imply something bigger than the California regulations.

A "ban" on new car sales isn't a ban? Interesting take you have there... (Changing the wording to "phasing out" doesn't change what they are doing)

Oh, and it's also a BAN on the sale or transfer of USED ICE vehicles...

But, I guess you're right... The ban really isn't a ban... :1rotfl:

All you're doing is "arguing semantics"...

Wrong about what??? :shrug: Now I am confused: is it a phase in or a phase out? :confused: Either way, it still falls short of a literal "ban".

Other states could follow CA's lead, but "lock step"??? Could just be that other state leaders (OK, governments :icon_wink:) see the reasons behind the regulations and decide for themselves that it makes sense.