UAW - Game Over!

[Pete Incaviglia]

Imagine if we had a Scretary of Labor who cared about, well, Labor.
Oops, I'm sorry. What was I thinking?

Without jobs, there isn't a need for labor. Something socialists seem to forget.

Unions did their part to sink the auto industry in the U.S., and it's finally time to pay the piper.

I've said this before, two friends of mine have fathers who worked in the auto industry. We were all sitting around not too long ago shooting the ****. And back about eight years ago when my friends were wondering what to do during and after college the auto industry was a huge attraction. Well none of us ended up working there. Anyway, just a while back, when all this job loss started happening and buyouts were coming around, the one father says to the other father "We really ****ed it up for the next generation, didn't we?" meaning the union bled the industry dry, and forced auto makers to look to Mexico for cheaper labor.

 

[Boom_70]

Imagine if we had a Scretary of Labor who cared about, well, Labor.
Oops, I'm sorry. What was I thinking?

Without jobs, there isn't a need for labor. Something socialists seem to forget.

Unions did their part to sink the auto industry in the U.S., and it's finally time to pay the piper.

I've said this before, two friends of mine have fathers who worked in the auto industry. We were all sitting around not too long ago shooting the ****. And back about eight years ago when my friends were wondering what to do during and after college the auto industry was a huge attraction. Well none of us ended up working there. Anyway, just a while back, when all this job loss started happening and buyouts were coming around, the one father says to the other father "We really ****ed it up for the next generation, didn't we?" meaning the union bled the industry dry, and forced auto makers to look to Mexico for cheaper labor.

Thats interesting . Seems like just the opposit for the NFL retirees. They left something for the young bucks and now the vets are sucking eggs

 

[poindexter]

Please explain the historic role of the untrammelled, unregulated corporation in creating a viable and functioning middle class, without the benefit of organized labor. Please cite examples.

Small businesses in a large part built this country, IMO. More than GM or Ford. A good many of them were incorporated, and most if not all non-union.

 

[Boom_70]

Please explain the historic role of the untrammelled, unregulated corporation in creating a viable and functioning middle class, without the benefit of organized labor. Please cite examples.

Small businesses in a large part built this country, IMO. More than GM or Ford. A good many of them were incorporated, and most if not all non-union.

But in some direct or indirect manner many of those companies were supported by GM and Ford. Go to a town with an auto plant and count the businesses that exist as direct result of the plant.

 

[poindexter]

Please explain the historic role of the untrammelled, unregulated corporation in creating a viable and functioning middle class, without the benefit of organized labor. Please cite examples.

Small businesses in a large part built this country, IMO. More than GM or Ford. A good many of them were incorporated, and most if not all non-union.

But in some direct or indirect manner many of those companies were supported by GM and Ford. Go to a town with an auto plant and count the businesses that exist as direct result of the plant.

It's a big country, Boom. America, from Seattle to Florida, was built on a lot more than crappy cars and their suppliers.

 

[SigR]

Please explain the historic role of the untrammelled, unregulated corporation in creating a viable and functioning middle class, without the benefit of organized labor. Please cite examples.

Wealth is unlimited. It's a popular misperception that it isn't. The only thing that limits wealth is non-market intervention, e.g. government.

Those who participated as the "oppressed" working class during the industrial revolution were, in terms of absolute wealth, much wealthier than their counterparts 100 years before. yes, there wasn't much of a middle-class, but then, what is a "middle-class". Two cars in the garage and a low-interest mortgage? It's all about standard of living, and the only real standard one ought to be allowed to compare anything to is living in a cave and hunting/gathering food. Anything better than that is "more wealth". And the world keeps creating "more wealth", and just by sheer market mechanics, it becomes increasingly distributed among everyone willing to work for it. The only impediment is government sticking their noses in where it doesn't belong.

The other note that should be made, as a corrollary to wealth being unlimited: Two entities can trade and *both* become wealthier for the trade. That's the beauty of free trade...that by specializing in what we do best and then trading with others, we can create more wealth as a "whole". It's basic economics, and it is sad that many don't understand it.

 

[OTD]

Please explain the historic role of the untrammelled, unregulated corporation in creating a viable and functioning middle class, without the benefit of organized labor. Please cite examples.

Wealth is unlimited. It's a popular misperception that it isn't. The only thing that limits wealth is non-market intervention, e.g. government.

Those who participated as the "oppressed" working class during the industrial revolution were, in terms of absolute wealth, much wealthier than their counterparts 100 years before. yes, there wasn't much of a middle-class, but then, what is a "middle-class". Two cars in the garage and a low-interest mortgage? It's all about standard of living, and the only real standard one ought to be allowed to compare anything to is living in a cave and hunting/gathering food. Anything better than that is "more wealth". And the world keeps creating "more wealth", and just by sheer market mechanics, it becomes increasingly distributed among everyone willing to work for it. The only impediment is government sticking their noses in where it doesn't belong.

The other note that should be made, as a corrollary to wealth being unlimited: Two entities can trade and *both* become wealthier for the trade. That's the beauty of free trade...that by specializing in what we do best and then trading with others, we can create more wealth as a "whole". It's basic economics, and it is sad that many don't understand it.

You're saying that because some woman with two kids who works at Wal-Mart for eight bucks an hour lives in a crappy apartment in a ****ty part of town instead of a cave in Africa somewhere, she ought to be happy about it? Ladies and gentlemen, give Ayn Rand a big (invisible) hand, won't you?

 

[Beaker]

I think Ragu has found a soulmate.

 

[SigR]

Please explain the historic role of the untrammelled, unregulated corporation in creating a viable and functioning middle class, without the benefit of organized labor. Please cite examples.

Wealth is unlimited. It's a popular misperception that it isn't. The only thing that limits wealth is non-market intervention, e.g. government.

Those who participated as the "oppressed" working class during the industrial revolution were, in terms of absolute wealth, much wealthier than their counterparts 100 years before. yes, there wasn't much of a middle-class, but then, what is a "middle-class". Two cars in the garage and a low-interest mortgage? It's all about standard of living, and the only real standard one ought to be allowed to compare anything to is living in a cave and hunting/gathering food. Anything better than that is "more wealth". And the world keeps creating "more wealth", and just by sheer market mechanics, it becomes increasingly distributed among everyone willing to work for it. The only impediment is government sticking their noses in where it doesn't belong.

The other note that should be made, as a corrollary to wealth being unlimited: Two entities can trade and *both* become wealthier for the trade. That's the beauty of free trade...that by specializing in what we do best and then trading with others, we can create more wealth as a "whole". It's basic economics, and it is sad that many don't understand it.

You're saying that because some woman with two kids who works at Wal-Mart for eight bucks an hour lives in a crappy apartment in a ****ty part of town instead of a cave in Africa somewhere, she ought to be happy about it? Ladies and gentlemen, give Ayn Rand a big (invisible) hand, won't you?

Nah, she shouldn't be happy about it. But she could always be living in a cave if there wasn't walmart to give her the job and meager standard of living. Perhaps if she hadn't had kids and invested in herself instead, she could be earning more. Or, maybe she *is* happy working a low-wage job and not having any responsibility (assuming she hadn't had kids).

And yes, Adam Smith and I will give Rand an invisible round of applause.

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

Somebody push this guy down the laffer slide.

 

[DanOregon]

Maybe GM can give its employees discounts on tickets to NASCAR events, one of the many Buick golf tourneys it sponsors or a pirated copy of Roger and Me.

Found it interesting to hear on a talk show that differential in health care costs make up most of the difference between a GM car and a similar import.
No, our health care system is just fine the way it is.

I'm a Ford guy. Best car I've ever owned and they keep offering me stuff to trade it in and get a new one.

 

[Ben_Hecht]

A few years ago, I spent time in a NASCAR bar or two, announcing that GM was going the way of Herbert Hoover.

I did not get a kind reception.

Wonder how the good ol' boys are rationalizing their willful blindness, now?

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Please explain the historic role of the untrammelled, unregulated corporation in creating a viable and functioning middle class, without the benefit of organized labor. Please cite examples.

Wealth is unlimited. It's a popular misperception that it isn't. The only thing that limits wealth is non-market intervention, e.g. government.

Those who participated as the "oppressed" working class during the industrial revolution were, in terms of absolute wealth, much wealthier than their counterparts 100 years before. yes, there wasn't much of a middle-class, but then, what is a "middle-class". Two cars in the garage and a low-interest mortgage? It's all about standard of living, and the only real standard one ought to be allowed to compare anything to is living in a cave and hunting/gathering food. Anything better than that is "more wealth". And the world keeps creating "more wealth", and just by sheer market mechanics, it becomes increasingly distributed among everyone willing to work for it. The only impediment is government sticking their noses in where it doesn't belong.

The other note that should be made, as a corrollary to wealth being unlimited: Two entities can trade and *both* become wealthier for the trade. That's the beauty of free trade...that by specializing in what we do best and then trading with others, we can create more wealth as a "whole". It's basic economics, and it is sad that many don't understand it.

I knew it would be great.
I didn't know it would be THIS great.
Hunter-gathering as a standard for economic progress?
"Oppressed" in quotations for the working class in the Industrial Revolution?
To hell with the Great Society and the Fair Deal and the New Deal, let's roll back TR's Square Deal! Let's kick Leo XIII's ass on trade unions. Hell, let's bust up those Dutch guilds. In fact, **** Nineveh.
Priceless. Truly.

 

[jgmacg]

 

[Fenian_Bastard]

Ayn no mountain high enough.

 

[jgmacg]

Ayn too proud to beg.

 

[The Big Ragu]

.

GM is losing money hand over fist... If you really care about the American labor force, maybe it's time to create something profitable and offer millions of the high-paying jobs you believe everyone is entitled to.

I'd applaud the effort.

It cuts both ways. Give businesses unfair advantages in the labor market and we don't have a level playing field. Give unskilled workers an unfair advantages--government-sanctioned monopolies that drive out other workers and artificially boost wages for the members of the club--and it creates an unfair playing field skewed the other way.

Too bad you can't stop others from acting competitively and handing GM its lunch--without adopting the 1970s Eastern European model of economic management.

This is a relic story, though. Unions outside the public sector--which doesn't have to worry about competition and can be inefficient without scrutiny--have been dead for more than 20 years. People caught onto the fact that they cost them jobs a long time ago.

The sad thing is that some people will never understand that well-intentioned as their ideas are, they create bigger problems for everyone with some of the things they advocate. I'll never understand why they refuse to learn from experience, instead of denying and rewriting history.

 

[jgmacg]

Any market economy works best when the interests of capital and labor intersect; or are at least held in equilibrium by the tension between the two.

To blame the failure of any American industry solely on organized labor is as wrong as blaming it solely on management. Corporations and unions are both human institutions, so both suffer the same tendency to greed and vanity and inertia and bloat.

The "market" isn't some theoretical vacuum. It's not sterile. It's not a laboratory. The "market" is the place where people and their interests - need and want and appetite and ambition - collide.

Thus, if it's sensible for capital to seek to maximize the return on its investment, how is it not equally sensible for the work force to seek to maximize the return on its labor?

 

[Pastor]

Imagine if we had a Scretary of Labor who cared about, well, Labor.
Oops, I'm sorry. What was I thinking?

Without jobs, there isn't a need for labor. Something socialists seem to forget.

Unions did their part to sink the auto industry in the U.S., and it's finally time to pay the piper.

Complete ahistorical nonsense

Your sensible arguments will have no place here. Warning you.
And I must say as a longtime industry watcher (and mechanic), good ol' Murican engineers and management share in the U.S. auto industry's misery. They aren't hourly. But the hourly workers probably deserve about half the blame.

The auto industry destroyed itself. The management is what really killed it. What people don’t often realize is that when the industry was booming, management did what good management does: pays higher money. The problem was that they wasted a lot of money as well.

Their engineering departments were filled with unqualified individuals being paid oodles of money. These engineers cared more about reaching top speeds than about producing long running goods. It was the same theory as toaster ovens… build it cheap so that it will be replaced soon. When Japanese cars came into the country and were able to last longer, these engineers needed the federal government to bail them out.

In the 80’s and 90’s the engineers, went to work developing SUVs and trucks. Gas prices spiked and people again turned to the Japanese manufacturers which produced more efficient vehicles.

You can’t solely blame those on the assembly line for putting together a product that is poorly designed. By all measure the American auto engineers had ample time, opportunity and equipment (some of the absolute best at the time) to design and create superior technology. Instead they produced the Ford Focus and the Geo Metro. With everything the auto industry had, to blame it on the little guy is about as absurd an idea as it gets.

 

[Captain_Kirk]

Any market economy works best when the interests of capital and labor intersect; or is at least held in equilibrium by the tension between the two.

To blame the failure of any American industry solely on organized labor is as wrong as blaming it solely on management. Corporations and unions are both human institutions, so both suffer the same tendency to greed and vanity and inertia and bloat.

The "market" isn't some theoretical vacuum. It's not sterile. It's not a laboratory. The "market" is the place where people and their interests - need and want and appetite and ambition - collide.

Thus, if it's sensible for capital to seek to maximize the return on its investment, how is it not equally sensible for the work force to seek to maximize the return on its labor?

The problem is the UAW always sought to get a better than maximum return for labor. They demanded a better deal than a solid, economical equation would have projected. They got great gains for the short term, but those wins cost them and their members viability long term.

And in terms of where to lay the blame for the American auto industry? All the participants deserve their share: management, unions, workers. Everyone contributed to delivering inferior products compared to their foreign competition.