O/T-Auto Bailout

I see the auto companies are asking for 34 billion now. Maybe the should be contacting the Big Oil Companies....

James said the same thing.

i been listing to all the garbage about the big 3 flying in on privite planes this last weak all of are good congresmen getting there 5 minites of fame. and not one has any idea how to fix the problem all they new how to do was slap the ceo around over flying on privite planes. now if i were the big3 after the first slaping around i would have rented the bigest plane i could have, went to the local hooters strip club loaded bunch fine looking young ladies on it, fresh shrimp, bests steaks, best food i could find best booz.then fly back to dc. make sure the press had front row seat. then as soon as the commettie charman finished his spill. i got up told them we have a new plan. monday morning were going to federal court file bankrupticey. and walk out the door. my bet that before they were hafe way down the steps them ol congressman be on ther knees bagging them to take the money. the stock market probley fall all the way to china but might been one hell of a show though.

I wonder if I go broke, can I ask them for a bail out, you know they would laugh in my face, sorry that what I would do to all of them.

I bet they would of said " hey wait up I'm coming along on that plane ride" !!! Slick Willie in the lead.

Or maybe they should take a lesson from BIG TRACTOR. Who bailed out Oliver,Moline,Allis,White,International Harvestor,Massey,Ford tractor division,the list goes on for days? Were they important employers,vital to the "war effort" if that production capacity was needed? D@mned right they were. They just didn't have enough crooked politicians in their back pocket. I'm sure we would have all liked to have seen our favorite brands stay in production. Crooked son a b!tches in the DC swamp anyway! Rob us blind,punch us in the face and we thank them for only hitting us once!

Just think if the auto companies file bankrupcy and it goes through the only people with enough money to buy the deal is CHINA, so if you want to buy a car ya better learn chinese LOL. According to an article I read thia week China has been buying our big government bonds, And at last count they have about SEVEN TRILLIONS dollars worth of them. Guess whose money Bush has been spending--all borrowed.

I hope Chrys & GM are allowed to go into bankruptcy. Might be the only way to finally get rid of the UAW, which I believe is the main problem anyway.

Amen!

(quoted from post at 08:31:06 12/04/08)
I hope Chrys & GM are allowed to go into bankruptcy. Might be the only way to finally get rid of the UAW, which I believe is the main problem anyway.

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hy don,t you move to china?Maybe all of you union bashers can live there in a box making 50 cents an hour and have no health care.work place saftey,vaction time,paid hoildays,pension,that you have reaped from union contracts. :lol:

A Modern Parable.

A Japanese company ( Toyota ) and an American company (Ford Motors) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 7 people steering and 2 people rowing.

Feeling a deeper study was in order; American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.

They advised, of course, that too many people we re steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.

Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 2 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 2 people rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rowers. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses. The pension program was trimmed to 'equal the competition' and some of the resultant savings were channeled into morale boosting programs and teamwork posters.

The next year the Ja panese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid-o ff one rower, halted development of a new canoe, sold all the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses.

The next year, try as he might, the lone designated rower was unable to even finish the race (having no paddles,) so he was laid off for unacceptable performance, all canoe equipment was sold and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India.

Sadly, the End.

Here's something else to think about: Ford has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US , claiming they can't make money paying American wages.

TOYOTA has spent the last thirty years building a dozen plants inside the US.



The last quarter's results:

TOYOTA makes 4 billion in profits while Ford racked up 9 billion in losses. They both build automobiles .

Ford folks are still scratching their heads, and collecting bonuses...and now Ford Executives want us, the United States Taxpayer, to loan them 25 Billion Dollars,. to help them create that same series of mistakes all over again.... Or, a 25 Billion reward for exercising total stupidity and morbid indifference to the product requirements and desires of the American automobile customer.


Let them take a chapter 11 like every other business who screws up their products and marketplace.

IF THIS WEREN'T SO TRUE IT MIGHT BE FUNNY

ben brown,
I work for a supplier, I too feel that the Big 3 need a good dose of reality, especially the UAW. BUT.... a couple of points:
The current crisis was caused by things outside the control of the Big 3. mainly the huge spike in gas prices, housing crash, credit crunch. All of the above resulted in a dramatic drop in sales (50% in some cases) that were unprecedented and unpredictable. Gas prices were caused by speculators (i.e. Wall St.), housing crash was caused by speculators in overheated markets due in part to CRA and sub-prime mess (Wall St. AND Congress), credit crunch caused by greed and mismanagement and govt mandated CRA (i.e. Wall St. AND Congress)

The above are facts and notice the common causes: Wall St AND Congress. You don't hear any of that coming out in the press or hearings. Congress throws billions at the Wall St guys with little fanfare and rakes the CEOs of the Big 3 over the coals for problems that Congress helped create. Chris Dodd said yesterday that CEO of GM must go. I would say the same conditions should apply to him and the rest of Congress for creating this mess, starting years ago with the CRA.

It is also a fact that if one of the Big 3 declare bankruptcy, the dominoes will begin to fall within hours/days and there will not be enough bankruptcy lawyers and judges in the country to handle the thousand of cases that will be filed because suppliers payments will be cancelled/delayed and their payments to their suppliers will be cancelled/delayed, etc., etc on down the line.

It is not just the Big 3. Toyota, Honda, etc are also slowing production, laying off people as their sales plummet. However, the transplants are subsidized by the governments in their home countries to an extent that the Big 3 are not.

The Big 3 are asking for a BRIDGE LOAN, to be paid back with interest. The $ 700 billion Wall St. bailout included the govt buying non-performing assets which basically bailed out the banks/brokerages that were overloaded with sub-prime mortgages that they made huge fees on and subsequently paid their execs hundreds of millions in bonuses.

Yeah, I see a lot of problemes at the Big 3 and there is a world of difference between the transplant labor and UAW workforce, and management at both as well. And, if it wasn't for the competition from the transplants, there would be no incentive for the UAW to get real and scale back pay/benefits to market rates for unskilled labor. Big part of the problem is that the business model that says if you want to cut costs, you have to give "buyouts" and huge incentives ($$$$) to employees to lay them off. In a lot of cases these people are walking away with well over six figures in cash with retirement checks while they may be as young as 50 yrs old. "buyouts" are a relatively new phenomenon that lets management make the tough choice to lay people off and reduce the guilt feelings doing it. Heck, its not management's money thats being paid out, it's the stockholders. Which is part of the problem: no accoutability to the owners of the company. Boards of directors are just rubber-stamp, gutless, good-ole-boy clubs.

Anyway, your parable about the race has a lot of truth in it.

True story:
One of the Big 3 that recently offered buyouts to salaried people said if you take the buyout, no need to give notice, just don't show up on Monday. Well, Monday came and there were not enough salaried supervisors to run the line. The plant had to shut down for 2 weeks. They pulled salaried people from all over the plant, IT guys, personnel people, etc. and said "you're now a line supervisor". Talk about poor management and lack of planning.