McCain Says Congress Should Stop Giving Aid to GM, Allow It to Go Bankrupt

No disagreeing there with you, gnome.

David Rosenberg, Merrill Lynch:

"What can possibly be more stimulative for auto sales than a slump in gas prices from over $4 a gallon to $1.60? And yet, it looks as though in January, auto sales barely came in at a 10 million unit annual rate, which would make it four months in a row in which they came in short of the 12 million level of replacement demand. In other words, for the first time ever, the number of autos and light trucks on highways and driveways is being reduced. Again, this is a seminal event, and reflects the fact that at a time when there are still 20% more vehicles on the road than there are licensed drivers, there is simply no pent-up demand for automobiles. "

 

Many year ago, an office mate of mine said that he had the solution to all our problems.

He said that instead of starting wars we should build the planes and tanks and missiles and bombs and then just dump them into the ocean.

I still think that it was a hell of a good idea and now maybe we should add american cars into the mix.

 

<i>Didn't McCain vote for the 750 billion dollar bank bailouts ?</i>

You hit it right on the nail.

Either we bailout everybody or we don't bailout anybody at all.

The precedent has been set. Since the banks were bailed out, then so should everybody else.

This is why you don't bailout anybody at all to start with.

 

What a pandering little fraud that guy turned out to be.

 

Because god dammit, there isn't a single mother fucker working that auto line making 75 bucks an hour, or anything close to it. Line workers make about 28 dollars an hour. Now you'll get no argument from me that's pretty good money considering the skill level. You'll also get no argument from me that their benefit package is absurd, especially in this day and age. No argument that their unions have lost touch with reality. But when I read the complete and total bullshit about some guy making 75 bucks an hour...I lose it. Enough with the mis-information and lies.
Further I have written here before... let the banks fall and I have no problem with GM going down too. Bailout out the banks, who were the worthless cocksuckers that orchestrated this mess in the first place,(along with those no good pricks in congress) and GM must be bailed out as well. If the blue bloods get saved, then so does blue collar.

 

Whether the banks are bailed out and whether or not that's a mistake... fact is we don't have enough money to bail everybody out.

"They" tell us the banks (and AIG) have to be bailed out because if we don't the entire financial system would collapse.

I don't know if that's true... but the money being spent (wasted?) on bank bailouts could have gone unemcumbered to NEW banks and/or other banks which were not CRIMINALLY GREEDY... and whose business is doing OK even in these turbulent times.

Could be, IT'S ALL A LIE!!!

And as for GM... if they can't carry their own weight, they're going tits up regardless... we'll just have to adjust... no choice. Throwing good money after bad only makes the situation worse.

 

Let GM file Chapter 11, re-structure, break the contracts and regroup. Learn about Chapter 11 people before you spout out stupid mindless shit...oh yea, I forgot, the Mindless Idiots are the same ones who voted for OBAMA.

Oh, by the way, US GOV. has started its assult on so called "Terrorist" in America, those who disagree with his "Police State ideas.".

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090307/D96P1UJ80.html

So, how much of this story is real and how much of this dis-information is planted to start the State by State round up of "ARMS".?

Read between the lines, all you smart people.

 

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2135.cfm



Auto Bailout Ignores Excessive Labor Costs


by James Sherk

Without government intervention, one or more of the Big Three automobile manufacturers--General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler--faces restructuring in bankruptcy. Bankruptcy would not be the end of the Big Three but a new beginning. Coming out of bankruptcy, the automakers would start fresh, free of the contractual obligations that have kept them uncompetitive. The United Auto Workers (UAW) and Detroit automakers want to avoid bankruptcy and are seeking a taxpayer bailout. Such a bailout, however, is not an acceptable alternative to bankruptcy because it would delay the restructuring the Big Three need to become competitive again.

UAW workers earn $75 an hour in wages and benefits--almost triple the earnings of the average private sector worker. Detroit autoworkers have substantially more health, retirement, and paid time off benefits than most Americans. These benefits, and a JOBS bank that pays UAW workers nearly full wages to not work, have been a major force driving the Detroit automakers' current fiscal woes. Consequently, Congress should not force all Americans to pay for high wages and benefits for UAW workers.

UAW Workers Highly Paid

The Big Three automakers are asking taxpayers to bail out some of the most highly paid workers in America. Chart 1 shows the average hourly compensation (wages and benefits) earned by all private sector workers and for UAW represented workers at the Big Three. It also shows the hourly compensation at Japanese plants in the United States.



The average private sector worker earned $25.36 an hour in 2006--$17.91 an hour in cash wages and $7.45 an hour in benefits such as pensions, paid time off, and health insurance.[1] Autoworkers at Japanese plants located in the United States earn substantially more than this: between $42 and $48 an hour in wages and benefits, which amounts to over $80,000 a year in total compensation--hardly cheap labor.[2]

The typical UAW worker at the Big Three earned between $71 and $76 an hour in 2006. This amount is triple the earnings of the typical worker in the private sector and $25 to $30 an hour more than American workers at Japanese auto plants. The average unionized worker at the Big Three earns over $130,000 a year in wages and benefits.[3]

Generous Benefits

Most of the Big Three's UAW workers' compensation comes as benefits, not cash. Table 1 breaks down the average hourly labor costs for a UAW worker at Chrysler in 2006. Ford and General Motors have similar compensation profiles.



Only 38 percent of the $75.81 an hour that Chrysler's UAW workers earned came as base wages. The rest came as benefits (though some of those benefits, such as overtime premiums and paid vacation days, are paid in cash). Health care costs are the most expensive benefit, accounting for over a quarter of total compensation.

Gold-Plated Health Care

Health care costs the Big Three so much because the UAW negotiated gold-plated health benefits that include medical, hospital, surgical, and prescription drug coverage. These benefits also cover durable medical equipment (e.g., hearing aids), dental benefits, and even Lasik eye surgery.[4] For all this, GM workers and retirees must pay monthly premiums of $10 for an individual and $21 for families.[5] As a result, UAW workers and retirees have some of the most comprehensive and least expensive health care in America.

Competitive Disadvantage

These gold-plated health care benefits put the Big Three, and especially GM, at a competitive disadvantage. For example, GM has three times as many retirees as active workers, and health care costs for both groups cost the company $4.6 billion in 2007. The UAW's lavish health benefits added $1,200 to the cost of each vehicle produced in the United States.

The Japanese automakers, by contrast, provide standard health benefits to their American employees. Consequently, health care for active workers cost Toyota $215 per vehicle in 2006.[6]

Every American buying an auto made in Detroit pays an extra $700 to $1,000 to support health benefits far more generous than most Americans receive.

UAW employees also receive the following extraordinary provisions:

30-and-Out contracts. UAW employees work under a 30-and-Out contract that allows them to retire with generous pension benefits after 30 years on the job, irrespective of age.
Seven weeks' vacation. A Chrysler worker with 15 years' tenure was entitled to 34.5 paid holidays and vacation days in 2006--seven weeks in paid time off.[7] This is three weeks more paid vacation than the average private sector worker with similar tenure.
Paid not to work. Under UAW contracts, workers whom the automakers let go when plants close are not laid off. Instead, after exhausting regular unemployment payments from the automakers and the government, they are transferred to a JOBS bank where they are paid nearly full wages to not work.
A Step in the Right Direction

These affluent wages and benefits prevent the Detroit automakers from successfully competing. The Detroit automakers and the UAW have known about this competitive disadvantage for decades, but the UAW resisted making any concessions until 2007--when bankruptcy became an impending reality.

Under the 2007 contract, the Big Three and the UAW agreed to the following:

To transfer, starting in 2010, retiree health care obligations to a Voluntary Employee Benefits Association (VEBA) run by the UAW. The automakers agreed to collectively pay $60 billion into the VEBA, after which time the UAW would have full responsibility for providing retiree health benefits. This agreement takes the cost of providing health benefits off the Big Three's balance sheets.
To limit time in the JOBS bank to two years.
To require workers in the JOBS bank to accept new employment offers.
To create a two-tiered wage structure. Detroit automakers may now hire entry-level workers for "non-core" positions (those not directly involved in manufacturing automobiles) for roughly $26 an hour in wages and benefits. Although these entry-level workers may transfer to the higher paid vehicle assembly jobs as vacancies occur, they will never receive retiree health benefits.
Too Little, Too Late

GM estimates the new contract will eventually cut 70 percent of their labor cost gap with the Japanese manufacturers.[8] Average compensation will fall to $54 an hour once the contract takes full effect.It will, however, take years for the Big Three to realize these cost savings. The cost reductions affect only a minority of workers and occur gradually as current workers retire.

The vast majority of UAW workers in Detroit today still earn $75 an hour, and the Detroit automakers must still find $60 billion to finance the VEBA. Detroit's labor costs will not fall as much or as rapidly enough as the Big Three need to restore their competitive position and remain solvent.

Had the UAW made similar concessions in the early 1990s, it might have prevented the Big Three from falling into such dire economic straits. It did not, however, and the new contract is too little, too late to keep the Detroit automakers solvent.

Taxpayers Should Not Bail Out the UAW

By seeking a bailout, the UAW, along with the Detroit automakers, are asking taxpayers to help keep UAW earnings at $75 an hour when the typical American takes home a third that much. The Big Three also want Congress to use taxpayers' money to pay billions of dollars into the new health care VEBA, thereby funding health care benefits for UAW retirees that are far more generous than those provided by an already under-funded Medicare system.

UAW workers understandably want to preserve the standard of living to which they have become accustomed, but that standard is not sustainable in a competitive economy. Congress should not tax all Americans in order to maintain UAW workers' affluent lifestyles.

James Sherk is Bradley Fellow in Labor Policy in the Center for Data Analysis at The Heritage Foundation.

 

Captain Dumb ass please note that I said 75.00 an hour with salary,health and pensions

 

"G.M. currently employs about 8,000 people who actually don’t come to work. Those who do go to work are paid about $10 to $20 an hour more than people who do the same job building cars in the United States for foreign makers like Toyota. At G.M., as of 2007, the average worker was paid about $70 an hour, including health care and pension costs. "







http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/b...html?_r=4&sq=andrew ross sorkin auto workers



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November 18, 2008
Dealbook Column
A Bridge Loan? U.S. Should Guide G.M. in a Chapter 11
By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN
Tony Cervone, a spokesman for General Motors, has a warm and friendly way to summarize his ailing company’s ongoing dance with disaster.

“The fact is we’re looking at a short-term liquidity crisis that needs a bridge loan,” Mr. Cervone said this weekend to The Detroit Free Press.

To him, G.M. is merely in a temporary bind. If the government — that is, taxpayers — were just willing to spot G.M. some cash to get it over this little rough patch, everything would be just fine.

Mr. Cervone’s comment reflects what’s wrong with the mind-set in Detroit.

G.M is using money so quickly that a $10 billion infusion made today would disappear by February. That is why taxpayers shouldn’t fork over a cent, at least until shareholders are wiped out, management is tossed out and the industry is completely reorganized.

But there is a fix. Call it a government-sponsored bankruptcy, a G.S.B., if you will. It might sound a bit like an oxymoron, but it is an idea that has been quietly making the rounds in Washington. It makes a lot of sense.

Here’s how it could work:

First, let’s recognize that G.M. doesn’t need life support. What it needs is Chapter 11. The bankruptcy process is not a bad thing — indeed, it should be embraced. Bankruptcy allows companies to do tough things they could never do in the normal course of business. It has helped many companies turn themselves around and come out even stronger.

Bankruptcy would give G.M. enormous leverage with its debt holders — and, perhaps more important, with the U.A.W., whose gold-plated benefits are one reason G.M. is no longer competitive. A bankruptcy filing would also give G.M. the cover to close plants, rid itself of unprofitable brands and shed dealerships. In fact, unless G.M. files for bankruptcy, state laws would make it prohibitively expensive to shut dealerships.

So, first, the government would force G.M into a prepackaged bankruptcy now — even before policy makers may think it needs to be. As an inducement, the government would allow the merger with Chrysler to go forward. (There’s a lot of resistance to saving Chrysler too, but we need to look at the industry as a whole. And don’t worry: Cerberus, the private equity firm that owns Chrysler, would have its equity wiped out too.)

The merger should reduce costs by as much as $7 billion. But that’s not the tough stuff. The harder decisions are these: Both companies would have to jettison brands — lots of them. In the case of G.M., frankly, the only ones worth saving are Cadillac, Chevy and Buick. (Buick? Yes. Despite its lackluster sales and fuddy-duddy image in the United States, it’s a huge seller in China.)

That means Saturn, Pontiac, GMC and Saab would all disappear. Deutsche Bank estimates that reducing G.M.’s brands from eight to three would bring down the company’s cost base by $5 billion annually. If you’re able to shut the dealerships too, lop off another $4 billion. Chrysler is an even sadder situation: the only brand with any value is Jeep. Its Dodge Ram truck lineup could be merged with Chevy, which would also pick up pieces of the GMC business. And Chrysler’s minivan business could be combined into the Chevy brand as well.

In all, the 35 plants of G.M. and Chrysler would probably be cut by half.

Then the auto workers, whose benefits are off the charts.

G.M. currently employs about 8,000 people who actually don’t come to work. Those who do go to work are paid about $10 to $20 an hour more than people who do the same job building cars in the United States for foreign makers like Toyota. At G.M., as of 2007, the average worker was paid about $70 an hour, including health care and pension costs.

Those costs are already coming down slightly because of a renegotiated deal with U.A.W. last year, but not nearly enough.

Part of the problem is summed up by comments like this one in The Detroit Free Press, made by Kandy O’Neill, 39, an assembler at G.M.’s plant in Lake Orion, Mich., where she builds the Chevy Malibu and Pontiac G6. “I think we’ve given enough,” she said about the cuts to her salary and pension plan.

“Everybody wants to come down hard on the workers,” she said. “Nobody knows what we do inside there but the people who work there. It’s hard. It is not an easy job.”

When you read a line like that you might sympathize with her, but then you realize that nothing can be accomplished without bankruptcy. Ms. O’Neill: your company is asking the taxpayers — many of whom don’t have health care coverage — to pay your salary and health insurance.

And then we need these companies to agree to serious, strict enforcement of gas mileage standards. They should be producing the cleanest cars on the street. We may lose hundreds of thousands of jobs in this industry in the near term, but with the right kind of innovation, we should have millions of new jobs in the next 10 years.

Finally, we need to kick out management. That Rick Wagoner, chief executive of G.M., can say with a straight face that he still deserves to run this company is laughable. It would be impossible for him to put in place the serious changes that need to be made because he carries too much baggage. He’d have to undo years of his own neglect.

After all that is agreed, and only then, the government should come in with what’s known as debtor-in-possession financing to help the company through the bankruptcy process. Ideally, the government would be a “seed investor” and others would join it.

The goal should not be to keep these companies from filing Chapter 11, but from filing for Chapter 7 — which would mean liquidation.

With the debt market virtually closed, this is the time the government can come in and try to help. But to jump in front of the train now, without the requisite changes made to the industry first — which we all know can’t be done without Chapter 11 — would be foolish.

The automobile industry has argued that bankruptcy will be a disaster for the industry; that people won’t buy vehicles while they’re in bankruptcy for fear that the warranty won’t mean anything. There’s a fix for that too. The government should establish a warranty insurance fund that would insure the warranties of all G.M. and Chrysler vehicles bought while the combined company is still operating under bankruptcy protection. The cost to taxpayers should be next to nothing, assuming the company survives and can takeover the warranty obligations.

The government also should consider using some of the money for the financial industry rescue not to save the companies, but to retrain employees in the Detroit area and help promote development of new industry. A lot of people complain about the role of government in business and free markets. But it is hard to complain about efforts to make the nation’s workforce more employable.

Barack Obama, on “60 Minutes” Sunday night, said that government assistance must be “conditioned on labor, management, suppliers, lenders, all the stakeholders coming together with a plan.” He said, “So that we are creating a bridge loan to somewhere as opposed to a bridge loan to nowhere.”

Take note, Mr. Cervone: that bridge is called Chapter 11.