wrote:
On Nov 12, 4:38 pm, "Eisboch" wrote:
"Boater" wrote in message

...





Eisboch wrote:
"Boater" wrote in message
...
Eisboch wrote:
"JR North" wrote in message
...
Gas your pigs up while you can. Not gonna tow Cruis'n Rulz! to the
pump. Gonna just get 5 gal at a time and fill her up at home. Don't
expect the prices will hold till next spring. If you wait, you might
just find it back to $4
JR
Nobody likes a spoilsport.
You're gonna give "O" some ideas of things to raise taxes on in order
to force you to
buy an oversized golf cart which is what he's gonna force Ford, GM and
Chrysler to build if they want a bailout.
Eisboch
Heaven forbid U.S. car makers produce mostly high quality, smaller, fuel
efficient cars that people want to buy and dump most of the oversized,
overpowered, mediocre quality V8's behemoths that get 13 mpg. Or less.
Again, you get it wrong. If the vast majority of people wanted to buy
smaller, fuel efficient cars,
Detroit would have been be turning them out by the millions for years.
That may change (and it should), but the point is .... Detroit builds
what people buy.
Eisboch
Apparently Detroit builds what people don't what to buy.
sigh

Correct. This year. Or, more accurately the past 6 months.

Eisboch

Ford and GM took a look at trying to compete with Honda, Toyota and
Nissan in the small, efficient cars ten years ago. They were
completely unable to compete because of the labor cost in their
vehicles compared to their competion, thanks to the UAW.

Their only way to make enough money to continue to meet the finacial
obligation forced on them by union labor was to continue to build high
profit SUVs and trucks. Now that that's over, the UAW slobs with
barely a high school education living on easy street may have to
tighten their belts to allow the auto makers to survive. Heh.. will
that happen? Of course not... the unions say screw everyone else, we
got ours!
UAW slobs??
How white of you. In your world only Investment Bankers should make a
decent living.
The average wage was around 58,000.00 a year. So you want them to make
20,000.00 or 10,000.00?
The UAW is not the problem. The problem is the bean counters building
cars that are not desirable as we want at too high a markup and interest
rates that may be, in total as much again as the price of the vehicle.
Global Wall Street demands for too high a return on investment, and then
their gambling with worthless, imaginary values causing a collapse is
the problem.

On Nov 12, 10:40*pm, tin cup wrote:
wrote:
On Nov 12, 4:38 pm, "Eisboch" wrote:
"Boater" wrote in message

...

Eisboch wrote:
"Boater" wrote in message
...
Eisboch wrote:
"JR North" wrote in message
...
Gas your pigs up while you can. Not gonna tow Cruis'n Rulz! to the
pump. Gonna just get 5 gal at a time and fill her up at home. Don't
expect the prices will hold till next spring. If you wait, you might
just find it back to $4
JR
Nobody likes a spoilsport.
You're gonna give "O" some ideas of things to raise taxes on in order
to force you to
buy an oversized golf cart which is what he's gonna force Ford, GM and
Chrysler to build if they want a bailout.
Eisboch
Heaven forbid U.S. car makers produce mostly high quality, smaller, fuel
efficient cars that people want to buy and dump most of the oversized,
overpowered, mediocre quality V8's behemoths that get 13 mpg. Or less.
Again, you get it wrong. *If the vast majority of people wanted to buy
smaller, fuel efficient cars,
Detroit would *have been be turning them out by the millions for years.
That may change (and it should), but the point is .... Detroit builds
what people buy.
Eisboch
Apparently Detroit builds what people don't what to buy.
sigh

Correct. *This year. *Or, more accurately the past 6 months.

Eisboch

Ford and GM took a look at trying to compete with Honda, Toyota and
Nissan in the small, efficient cars ten years ago. *They were
completely unable to compete because of the labor cost in their
vehicles compared to their competion, thanks to the UAW.

Their only way to make enough money to continue to meet the finacial
obligation forced on them by union labor was to continue to build high
profit SUVs and trucks. *Now that that's over, the UAW slobs with
barely a high school education living on easy street may have to
tighten their belts to allow the auto makers to survive. *Heh.. will
that happen? *Of course not... the unions say screw everyone else, we
got ours!

UAW slobs??
How white of you. In your world only Investment Bankers should make a
decent living.

Huh? White? Race has nothing to do with it, but interesting that you
would interject it into this discussion. Also, since I'm a college
graduate, and I work for a living, why would investment bankers have
anything to do with this? Smoke another
dooby, dude.

The average wage was around 58,000.00 a year. So you want them to make
20,000.00 or 10,000.00?
Of course not. But why should the average high school UAW emplyed
graduate make as much as an average college graduate? And have
complete retirement, medical, etc bestowed on them when the vast
majority of the county is expected to plan for their own retirement
with savings, etc?

The UAW is not the problem. The problem is the bean counters building
cars that are not desirable as we want at too high a markup and interest
rates that may be, in total as much again as the price of the vehicle.
Take another toke. Unless you're totally worthless, you can get a
vehicle for 0% financing. And the markup? It's to cover the UAW
union forced benefits and retirement that *has* to be covered with
every vehicle sold. That's why they can't compete... duh.

Global Wall Street demands for too high a return on investment, and then
their gambling with worthless, imaginary values causing a collapse is
the problem.

Thank the Dems for that... sub-prime loans they protected, remember?

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can
only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves
largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority
always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the
public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over
loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average
age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual
truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to
abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to
complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence,
from dependence back again to bondage."

Selfishness defines today's unions. The Dems are promising the most
benefits, and the sheeple are voting. The USA is on the downward
spiral.

On Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:40:09 -0500, tin cup wrote:

The average wage was around 58,000.00 a year.

That's misleading, benefits add at least another 20,000. That is
pretty good pay for unskiled labor, about 2 or 3 times what most
factory workers get.

"Wayne.B" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 12 Nov 2008 22:40:09 -0500, tin cup wrote:

The average wage was around 58,000.00 a year.

That's misleading, benefits add at least another 20,000. That is
pretty good pay for unskiled labor, about 2 or 3 times what most
factory workers get.


I saw a news clip recently of a GM "worker" standing beside a console on
the assembly line, supervising a bunch of robotic arms assembling a car. His
primary job was to hit the red "Emergency Off" button, if something went
screwy or was called to do so.

His "package" (including benefits) was in excess of $85k/year and upon
retirement could look forward to full, GM financed health coverage along
with his pension.

I don't deny anybody the right to hold a good job with decent pay and
benefits, but it really should be in concert with the person's initiative to
prepare him/her self for that career. I am sorry, but standing around
watching an automated assembly line put cars together for that kind of pay
and benefits just doesn't do it for me, especially when I see others who
have worked hard to educate and qualify themselves for a trade making far
less.

Eisboch

On Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:51:05 -0500, "Eisboch"
wrote:

His "package" (including benefits) was in excess of $85k/year and upon
retirement could look forward to full, GM financed health coverage along
with his pension.

And, this is really a ****er, now GM wants the US Taxpayer to dig them
out of the health care hole by paying for the ridiculous health care
packages for their retireees.

So now we have GM begging some working stiff who works, pays taxes and
either doesn't have a health package or only Major Medical at an
exhorbitant rate to sponsor some moron who put four screws in a
dashboard for most of his life and was paid $34/hr plus benefits for
doing so and now has a $4 co-pay for everything health care related.

Here's what I think GM should do - pre-pack a Chapter 11 bankruptcy,
get rid of the ridiculous union contracts and start over again with
government backing (not loans) with reasonable labor costs and
competitive products.

That will do more for the American economy than any TARP.

Tom Francis - SWSports wrote:
On Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:51:05 -0500, "Eisboch"
wrote:

His "package" (including benefits) was in excess of $85k/year and upon
retirement could look forward to full, GM financed health coverage along
with his pension.

And, this is really a ****er, now GM wants the US Taxpayer to dig them
out of the health care hole by paying for the ridiculous health care
packages for their retireees.

So now we have GM begging some working stiff who works, pays taxes and
either doesn't have a health package or only Major Medical at an
exhorbitant rate to sponsor some moron who put four screws in a
dashboard for most of his life and was paid $34/hr plus benefits for
doing so and now has a $4 co-pay for everything health care related.

Here's what I think GM should do - pre-pack a Chapter 11 bankruptcy,
get rid of the ridiculous union contracts and start over again with
government backing (not loans) with reasonable labor costs and
competitive products.

That will do more for the American economy than any TARP.


And perhaps like Japan, put the burden of paying for health care on
society as a whole, and not on the manufacturers, eh? Would you go for
that, too?

On Thu, 13 Nov 2008 06:41:51 -0500, Boater
wrote:

Tom Francis - SWSports wrote:
On Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:51:05 -0500, "Eisboch"
wrote:

His "package" (including benefits) was in excess of $85k/year and upon
retirement could look forward to full, GM financed health coverage along
with his pension.

And, this is really a ****er, now GM wants the US Taxpayer to dig them
out of the health care hole by paying for the ridiculous health care
packages for their retireees.

So now we have GM begging some working stiff who works, pays taxes and
either doesn't have a health package or only Major Medical at an
exhorbitant rate to sponsor some moron who put four screws in a
dashboard for most of his life and was paid $34/hr plus benefits for
doing so and now has a $4 co-pay for everything health care related.

Here's what I think GM should do - pre-pack a Chapter 11 bankruptcy,
get rid of the ridiculous union contracts and start over again with
government backing (not loans) with reasonable labor costs and
competitive products.

That will do more for the American economy than any TARP.

And perhaps like Japan, put the burden of paying for health care on
society as a whole, and not on the manufacturers, eh? Would you go for
that, too?

Not at all, but let's face it - the health care provisions of the
retirement package are onerous to the health of the corporation.

I'll give you an example. My back operation cost $14,356 in total
which was cheap considering that the main surgeon and assistant were
freebies. That includes room, operating room, drugs, anesthesia,
yada, yada, yada.

My copay for that was $2,300. A UAW retiree, the guy who put four
screws in the afore mentioned dashboard for his career, for that same
operation, which would have included surgeon and assistant fees
totaling about $21,000, would have been $4.

A pre-packaged Chapter1 bankruptcy would allow for restructuring the
health care provisions to something a little more reasonable.

Tom Francis - SWSports wrote:
On Thu, 13 Nov 2008 06:41:51 -0500, Boater
wrote:

Tom Francis - SWSports wrote:
On Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:51:05 -0500, "Eisboch"
wrote:

His "package" (including benefits) was in excess of $85k/year and upon
retirement could look forward to full, GM financed health coverage along
with his pension.
And, this is really a ****er, now GM wants the US Taxpayer to dig them
out of the health care hole by paying for the ridiculous health care
packages for their retireees.

So now we have GM begging some working stiff who works, pays taxes and
either doesn't have a health package or only Major Medical at an
exhorbitant rate to sponsor some moron who put four screws in a
dashboard for most of his life and was paid $34/hr plus benefits for
doing so and now has a $4 co-pay for everything health care related.

Here's what I think GM should do - pre-pack a Chapter 11 bankruptcy,
get rid of the ridiculous union contracts and start over again with
government backing (not loans) with reasonable labor costs and
competitive products.

That will do more for the American economy than any TARP.
And perhaps like Japan, put the burden of paying for health care on
society as a whole, and not on the manufacturers, eh? Would you go for
that, too?

Not at all, but let's face it - the health care provisions of the
retirement package are onerous to the health of the corporation.

I'll give you an example. My back operation cost $14,356 in total
which was cheap considering that the main surgeon and assistant were
freebies. That includes room, operating room, drugs, anesthesia,
yada, yada, yada.

My copay for that was $2,300. A UAW retiree, the guy who put four
screws in the afore mentioned dashboard for his career, for that same
operation, which would have included surgeon and assistant fees
totaling about $21,000, would have been $4.

A pre-packaged Chapter1 bankruptcy would allow for restructuring the
health care provisions to something a little more reasonable.


"Restructurings" usually are much harder on the working stiffs than the
management pukes. And why should a retiree on a fixed income have to
fork over $2300 for necessary surgery?

I agree that the burden of paying for necessary health care should be
lifted from US corporations, and handled the way it is in other modern
countries.

I'm also a bit wearing of hearing about Joe the Auto Assembly Line
Worker, whose career consisted of putting four screws in a dashboard.
If that is all Joe does, and it is unlikely, then that is the job
management wants done. It isn't his fault. I haven't been in an auto
plant in many years, but when I was last in one, I didn't see any jobs
like that, and all the jobs I saw were certainly more valuable than
being, oh, a stock broker or plumbing supply dealer or software pussy.

Tom Francis - SWSports wrote:
On Thu, 13 Nov 2008 06:41:51 -0500, Boater
wrote:

Tom Francis - SWSports wrote:
On Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:51:05 -0500, "Eisboch"
wrote:

His "package" (including benefits) was in excess of $85k/year and upon
retirement could look forward to full, GM financed health coverage along
with his pension.
And, this is really a ****er, now GM wants the US Taxpayer to dig them
out of the health care hole by paying for the ridiculous health care
packages for their retireees.

So now we have GM begging some working stiff who works, pays taxes and
either doesn't have a health package or only Major Medical at an
exhorbitant rate to sponsor some moron who put four screws in a
dashboard for most of his life and was paid $34/hr plus benefits for
doing so and now has a $4 co-pay for everything health care related.

Here's what I think GM should do - pre-pack a Chapter 11 bankruptcy,
get rid of the ridiculous union contracts and start over again with
government backing (not loans) with reasonable labor costs and
competitive products.

That will do more for the American economy than any TARP.
And perhaps like Japan, put the burden of paying for health care on
society as a whole, and not on the manufacturers, eh? Would you go for
that, too?

Not at all, but let's face it - the health care provisions of the
retirement package are onerous to the health of the corporation.

I'll give you an example. My back operation cost $14,356 in total
which was cheap considering that the main surgeon and assistant were
freebies. That includes room, operating room, drugs, anesthesia,
yada, yada, yada.

My copay for that was $2,300. A UAW retiree, the guy who put four
screws in the afore mentioned dashboard for his career, for that same
operation, which would have included surgeon and assistant fees
totaling about $21,000, would have been $4.

A pre-packaged Chapter1 bankruptcy would allow for restructuring the
health care provisions to something a little more reasonable.
Why do you get to make the rules as to what is reasonable for everyone else?

"Boater" wrote in message
...
Tom Francis - SWSports wrote:
On Thu, 13 Nov 2008 02:51:05 -0500, "Eisboch"
wrote:

His "package" (including benefits) was in excess of $85k/year and upon
retirement could look forward to full, GM financed health coverage along
with his pension.

And, this is really a ****er, now GM wants the US Taxpayer to dig them
out of the health care hole by paying for the ridiculous health care
packages for their retireees.

So now we have GM begging some working stiff who works, pays taxes and
either doesn't have a health package or only Major Medical at an
exhorbitant rate to sponsor some moron who put four screws in a
dashboard for most of his life and was paid $34/hr plus benefits for
doing so and now has a $4 co-pay for everything health care related.

Here's what I think GM should do - pre-pack a Chapter 11 bankruptcy,
get rid of the ridiculous union contracts and start over again with
government backing (not loans) with reasonable labor costs and
competitive products.

That will do more for the American economy than any TARP.


And perhaps like Japan, put the burden of paying for health care on
society as a whole, and not on the manufacturers, eh? Would you go for
that, too?

Where does the manufacturer's money come from? It comes from *society as a
whole*. Society pays for everything, be it through higher prices for goods,
services or taxes.