Wayne.B wrote:
On Mon, 30 Aug 2010 14:26:42 -0500, Jim wrote:

But it's probably wrong. The IBM number looks global.
You could have as well mentioned Ford, Boeing, GE, UPS, GM, etc.
They all provide more jobs for Americans.
Wouldn't fit in with the union-bashing though.

I might agree with your list if you had left off GM. There is no
possible way that GM can be regarded as successful.


Ok, GM *was* very successful. And they could come back.
Any company can fail at any time.
Are you familiar with Citigroup?
GM and Citigroup were booted from the DJIA the same day.
Two years prior everybody was calling them "successful" companies.
Instead they became Gov Motors and GovGroup.
Same can happen to IBM.

Is Citigroup a union shop?
Probably not. The Fed doesn't continually print interest free money for
GM as they've done for Citigroup.
GM has to turn a profit on tangible goods to pay off the gov.
Citibank can just produce some balance sheets, smear them with pig
lipstick, and hand them over to Obama's Fed Reserve Wall Street guys at
lunch in the Fed Reserve dining room.
Their pals.

"Tim, looks like we could use another interest free $10 billion.
Print the cash up ASAP. As usual, we'll use it to buy your Treasuries
and you pay us +3%. For the good of the economy, you know.
And please give my compliments to your chef."
These guys make union "mobsters" look like pikers.
Even Al Capone didn't get a taxpayer-paid chef.

You're familiar with "As goes GM, so goes the nation."
Might be true, might not be.
Tell you one thing for sure, this country wouldn't even miss Citigroup.

I'm not necessarily a union basher either since there are some that
are responsible. I actually belonged to the CWA at one brief time in
my life. Non-union manufacuring however is definitely one of the many
keys to IBM's success.


Maybe, maybe not. Since IBM's never been union, you don't know.
It's your right to guess about it. That's all you got.
IBM's primary revenue generator has been services for many years.
Most of their manufacturing has been in cheap overseas labor markets for
many years.
Besides, somehow chip production, nano-technology and research engineer
unions never really got off the ground.
BTW, ballerinas never got their union going either.

What we do know is toxic Citigroup is non-union and a massive failure.
So is non-union toxic Goldman and non-union toxic AIG.
All still loaded with toxic assets and being propped up by the Fed.
And we also know that many, many non-union manufacturers have gone bust.
Anytime I see knee-jerk union bashing I question it.
Way too easy to blame "others' for everything you think is wrong.

Here's the top 10 U.S. bankruptcies.
You pick the ones killed by unions.
I'll pick the ones killed by management.
They're all mine. Every single one.


Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. 2008-09-15 $639,063,000,800
Washington Mutual 2008-09-26 $327,913,000,000
Worldcom Inc. 2002-07-21 $103,914,000,000
General Motors Corporation 2009-06-01 $82,300,000,000
CIT Group 2009-11-01 $71,019,200,000
Enron Corp.* 2001-02-12 $63,392,000,000
Conseco, Inc. 2002-12-18 $61,392,000,000
Chrysler LLC 2009-04-30 $39,300,000,000
Texaco, Inc. 1987-04-12 $35,892,000,000
Financial Corp. of America 1988-09-09 $33,864,000,000

Jim - Facts are easy to come by. But it's even easier to wing it.