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Kodiak

Since 01 Aug 2005
1114 Posts
Slidey
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stringer

Since 31 Jul 2007
694 Posts
Chucktown
Flying Tomato
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melokitegirl
Since 28 Oct 2008
396 Posts
Where the wind blows
Obsessed
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Wed Jan 14, 09 6:18 pm |
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What a a great informative discussion. There are is so much waste in big companies. No matter who they are. It comes down to slackers with their hands out, greedy management, and unions that are obsolite. I worked for Boeing and actually cared & did my job while the rest of cubicle row just skated through the day doing the minimum. It really pissed me off.
But yeah, no bail out. I don't see uncle sam sponsoring my business. Accountabbility is lacking in this country all the way around. _________________ Be kind to Kooks |
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Hein
Since 08 Mar 2005
1314 Posts
Possessed
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bajakiter

Since 16 May 2007
58 Posts
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Mon Jun 01, 09 3:23 pm |
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does this mean that since we own 60% do we all get company cars?? Government Motors taxed to death suckers edition? |
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Hein
Since 08 Mar 2005
1314 Posts
Possessed
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bulae99
Since 12 Jul 2006
1691 Posts
I give out bad advice.
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Wed Jun 03, 09 12:41 pm It's going to be a trip to see what the result is |
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How will the auto industry look in 10 years?
If Obama Had Carter's Courage . . .
Lessons from setting the freight railroads free.
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By HOLMAN W. JENKINS, JR.
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Barack Obama is no Jimmy Carter. The latter really did face the unraveling of an indispensable industry. Mr. Obama faces not a collapse of the domestic auto industry, but collapse of two companies miserable enough to have been extant in the 1930s when the Wagner Act was foisted upon the industry.
We have a second auto industry, founded after the political and legal system had thought better of mandatory unionization, born of foreign parents, mostly in the South. It's surviving the recession without extraordinary help.
In Mr. Carter's day, bankruptcies were scything through the railroad sector, hurtling toward a rendezvous with nationalization. Conrail, an amalgam of failed Northeastern lines, had already been taken over and analysts foresaw a $300 billion bill (in today's dollars) in the likely prospect that Washington would soon have to operate the rest of the nation's freight railroads.
A disaster must be truly sizable before Congress will correct its own errors -- and the railroads were such a case.
[BUSINESS WORLD] Barbara Kelley
Rail executives and economists had been arguing since the 1920s, when competition from trucks and planes began to emerge, that comprehensive federal regulation had only distorted the industry's pricing, driven away investment, and made competitive adaptation impossible. But the argument had a new ring now that Washington would have to bear the political risk of operating and subsidizing the nation's rail services.
It still took some doing on Mr. Carter's part. When the bill stalled, a hundred phone calls went from the White House to congressmen, including 10 by Mr. Carter in a single evening. The bill essentially no longer required railroads to provide services at a loss to please certain constituencies. It meant going up against farmers, labor, utilities, mining interests, and even some railroads -- whereas Mr. Obama's auto bailout tries to appease key lobbies like labor and greens, which is why it can't work.
In his message to Congress, Mr. Carter warned of a "catastrophic series of bankruptcies" and "massive federal expenditure" unless deregulation was allowed to "overhaul our nation's rail system, leading to higher labor productivity and more efficient use of plant and equipment."
Involving Congress meant the plan had to be explained and rationally coherent -- features missing from Mr. Obama's contradictory auto policies.
In 1980, Congress passed the Staggers Act, ending a century of federal regulation and leading to the railroad industry's renaissance. Leo Mullin, then a young Conrail veep, would later look back and praise all involved for having the fortitude to recognize that salvaging the taxpayer's investment in Conrail meant more than fixing a single broken company -- it meant fixing a defective regulatory environment.
That fortitude is exactly what's missing today, as it was missing from Mr. Obama's statement on Monday, which attributed GM's failure to sins by everyone but Washington.
We're still waiting for the brave, original thinking that we were told Mr. Obama represented. Like Washington circa 1978, he has landed for once in a situation where something more than symbolism is required of him. He has finally glided into the land of the real, where the key measurable outcome is no longer whether an audience is glowing with self-approval when he leaves the room.
To wit, will GM become self-sustaining and profitable, as he promises, or a bottomless drain for taxpayer subsidies? (The same question applies to Chrysler and, likely, Ford, which may have only prolonged the Ford family's run at the top by mortgaging the company to the hilt just before the lending markets closed down.)
Nothing really will be solved, even by GM's bankruptcy, until Washington recognizes its own policy incoherence -- namely the impossibility of reconciling stiff fuel mileage mandates with gasoline prices set by the market, with a domestic labor monopoly, with a high degree of openness to international trade. (You can have three, but not four.)
It took 103 years after the Interstate Commerce Act for Congress to junk the regulatory apparatus that destroyed the railroads. To get rid of CAFE after only 34 years would be some kind of record -- if Mr. Obama had Mr. Carter's courage.
Let's face it: CAFE has done nothing to reduce gasoline usage or oil imports (car owners just end up driving more miles). In 34 years, not a whisper of testimony has come from any quarter that the policy actually works. It only causes U.S. manufacturers to make small cars and dump them at a loss on the public, subsidized with the profits of pickups and SUVs.
Detroit doesn't have to match the transplants in wages and benefits, but CAFE distorted what would have been the Big Three's natural path of adaptation to the natural fact of growing diversity in the marketplace with the arrival of foreign manufacturers. Detroit would have focused on market segments where it could compete profitably even with its higher labor cost -- on bigger, pricier vehicles where labor cost is a lower share of value added.
Unfortunately, Mr. Obama, that freethinker, took to the CAFE fraud like a bat to a belfry. He signaled his arrival on the presidential stage by sternly demanding higher mileage standards early in his campaign. The "change" candidate who might have broken with a generation of political cant about CAFE instead appropriated the fraud for his own careerist purposes.
That tangled web now catches him in a fatal contradiction as he pours tens of billions of taxpayer dollars into the failed business model that CAFE foisted on Detroit.
Source is WJ
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124398447730679113.html _________________ Hey, I'm being hahahahahrassed! |
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bulae99
Since 12 Jul 2006
1691 Posts
I give out bad advice.
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Wed Jun 03, 09 1:31 pm How GM lost it's way. |
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How GM Lost Its Way
Timid management and coddled workers couldn't compete with Toyota.
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By PAUL INGRASSIA
Decades of dumb decisions helped send General Motors to a bankruptcy court yesterday, but one stands out.
The year was 1998, and the United Auto Workers was striking at two factories in Flint, Mich., that made components critical to every GM assembly plant in the country. The union was defending production quotas that workers could fill in five or six hours, after which they would get overtime pay or just, you know, go home.
Most strikes are forbidden during the life of a labor contract, so to provide legal cover the union started filing grievances. GM lawyers contended the walkouts violated the contract anyway and drafted a lawsuit -- the first by the company against the UAW in more than 60 years. But GM's labor-relations department freaked out because the lawsuit would antagonize the union.
[How GM Lost Its Way] Chad Crowe
Just think about that. The union had shut down virtually all of GM, costing the company and its shareholders billions of dollars, and yet the company's labor negotiators were afraid of giving offense. After heated internal arguments, the suit was filed and GM seemed on the verge of winning. But the company settled just before the judge ruled.
UAW members marched victoriously through downtown Flint. GM executives who advocated a tougher stand got pushed out of the company.
The picture of a heedless union and a feckless management says a lot about what went wrong at GM. There were many more mistakes, of course -- look-alike cars, lapses in quality, misguided acquisitions, and betting on big SUVs just before gas prices soared. They were all born of a uniquely insular corporate culture.
The GM bailout probably will cost close to $100 billion, counting money from the governments of the U.S., Canada and Germany. On paper, the new company should emerge from Chapter 11 fully able to compete in the brutally competitive auto industry. Whether it will actually prosper is far less certain, but some things are beyond dispute. Bankruptcy didn't have to happen and the fact that it did happen is incredibly sad given GM's many contributions to American society and culture.
General Motors invented the modern corporation by developing the concept of giving operating executives power and responsibility to run far-flung operations subject to central financial control. While Henry Ford invented mass manufacturing, GM's long-time president and chairman of the board, Alfred P. Sloan Jr., developed mass marketing: a "car for every purse and purpose," as he put it in the company's 1924 annual report. This meant a hierarchy of brands ranging from practical Chevrolets to prestigious Cadillacs. GM's industrial might helped win a world war and made America rich in its aftermath.
For half a century, between the 1920s and the 1970s, GM seemed to have an instinctive feel for what Americans wanted before consumers themselves even knew it. Chrome, tail fins, muscle cars and even the first catalytic converters that let cars run on lead-free gasoline were developed at GM.
But the company signed generous labor deals during the 1970s, including the right to retire after 30 years with full pension and benefits, partly because it believed the contracts would cripple its smaller competitors, Ford and Chrysler. Then along came Honda, Nissan and Toyota, which didn't have to deal with labor contracts at all. That was the beginning of the agonizing decline.
This fate could have been avoided with better foresight and less hubris, but by 18 months ago bankruptcy was inevitable. GM's U.S. market share had declined to 22% from 52% in the early 1960s. There were too many brands, too much debt, a cumbersome union contract as big as a phone book, and an enormous dealer network built for the glory years of yesterday instead of the market share of today.
The question for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama was whether to stand by and watch, or instead to use the public purse to shape the bankruptcies of both Chrysler and GM to mitigate the damage to a shaky U.S. economy. They intervened, which was the unpleasant but correct decision.
By and large, Mr. Obama's automotive task force has done its job pretty well, forcing the companies and the UAW to make difficult decisions that they should have made themselves long ago. GM will shed four of its eight U.S. brands -- Saab, Saturn, Pontiac and Hummer -- thousands of dealers, 11 factories, and much of its debt. It is no small irony that a Democratic administration brought in a bunch of private-equity types to impose rational management on big business.
That said, a couple of aspects of the GM and Chrysler bailouts could come back to haunt U.S. taxpayers and the Obama administration.
The company that controls Chrysler, Italy's Fiat, is getting a special government incentive -- a potential increase in its Chrysler ownership stake -- to build a small car in America that will get 40 miles per gallon. General Motors made a similar decision to build a high-mileage small car in the U.S. of its own accord, but certainly with an eye toward current political "realities."
Both moves fit the green agenda of Mr. Obama and congressional Democrats. They're also egregious examples of mission creep. GM and Chrysler should get just one marching order from the government: Earn enough money so taxpayers will recover as much as their investment as possible. If the new small cars flop because gas prices drop, the result will be more losses and, potentially, Bailout II.
The other questionable call is the government's big ownership stake in both companies -- 60% of General Motors and a much smaller share of Chrysler. The rationale is reasonable. The government is providing the $50 billion of financing needed to restructure GM so taxpayers might as well get something for their money. But this relegates unsecured lenders to the back of the line behind the government and the union. More worrisome, it invokes the question famously asked before the U.S. invasion of Iraq: You can go in, but can you get out?
The answer will depend on the success of GM, which in turn will hinge on whether the new company can cast off the culture of the old one. One encouraging sign is that, thanks to the labor contract amendments imposed by the Treasury's task force, UAW members will be required to work 40 hours a week before getting overtime pay. Less encouraging is that workers still will be allowed six unexcused absences before being fired. It doesn't take that many at a Honda plant.
As for management, not long ago a group of executives was reviewing a prototype new Buick model, about the size of a BMW 3 Series, at GM's design studios. The sporty styling had been developed in China for sale both there and in the U.S. But the company's cautious product planners suggested conducting customer clinics to gauge reaction to the design and possibly changing both the front and back end. It would have delayed the project and cost tens of millions of dollars.
CEO Fritz Henderson wisely said no. But the very next day the product planners were charging ahead with their clinic plans anyway, just in case the boss wanted to see the results of their research. Maybe the new Buick should be named the CYA. Neither billions in losses nor the brink of bankruptcy, it seems, have been enough to change many traditional ways of doing things at GM.
Heaven only knows what will be enough. But a company with a cautious, slow-moving management and a union committed to defending ridiculous work rules won't have a chance of succeeding. Perhaps everyone remaining at the new GM will realize that. The rest of us can only hope for the best.
Mr. Ingrassia won a Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for covering the last crisis at GM. His book on Detroit's current crisis, "Crash Course," will be published by Random House in January.
Please add your comments to the Opinion Journal forum _________________ Hey, I'm being hahahahahrassed! |
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Hein
Since 08 Mar 2005
1314 Posts
Possessed
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Fri Jun 19, 09 6:31 am |
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cash for clunkers
I'm going to trade my 76 Monte Carlo (that I have stored in the Barn) for a 09 Toyota Yaris.
Obama and the Dems are giving me $4500 for the old Monte
And it's costing all you tax payers 1 BILLION But hey, Thanks!
Here's the new car you are buying for me:
Sweet little ride
Sucks for the deficit but oh well. Our kids are good for it. |
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blowhard
Since 26 Dec 2005
2027 Posts
Windward
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Fri Jun 19, 09 6:50 am |
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but but
what about Roger Penske
didn't he buy Saturn?
Roger don't kill no whales  |
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Hein
Since 08 Mar 2005
1314 Posts
Possessed
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jackZ
Since 13 Apr 2008
355 Posts
Devon Alberta ca.
Obsessed
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Mon Sep 17, 12 1:34 pm |
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Hourly , unions , are these to blame !?
We just want to buy a house feed and cloth our kids and play on weekends and have a yearly holiday . Too much to ask for ? I don't think so . It is too much for some though eh?!
It was reported in Canada that in the first half hour of the earning year a CEO in Canada makes what an average hourly worker takes the whole year to earn . So you think 4 years of business school is that more valuable to the country than what a mans/womans hands can build or their brains used to complete tasks .
Who put North America on the soup line , NOT hourly workers certainly ! Yes some union perks are blatant , stealing an hours pay sleeping is a bad thing , a paid day off on your Bday , terrible things agreed .
Now what's the deal with the perks of Mr.Big , free air travel , nice meals at fine hotels . A car , for which the insurance and fuel are paid . Stock options . These are tax FREE ! The hourly workers pay the shortfall of what people with money can hide by having benefits and companies that lose money .........
I really don't care if I take a paid sick day not like when I was younger , I would have felt guilty . Nowadays watching the CEO's fill their pockets and walk away after ruining ........... Him and his Banker buddies at the Villa on the beach laughing at the rest of us .
My kids go hungry so I can kite because YES , I'm hourly .
JackZ _________________ IKO water Instructor
kiteboard junkie |
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Sella

Since 21 Apr 2007
1794 Posts
Doin' The Dalles
FLY'IN HIGH PIE GUY
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Mon Sep 17, 12 2:41 pm |
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It must be Monday. Politics on a kite forum always make me laugh and the Canadian is all fired up about CEO's stickin' it to the man with their free benefits.
If you cannot buy a house or feed and cloth your children in North America you need to embrace a classic Theodore Roosevelt quote into your current vernacular; “If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn't sit for a month.” |
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tautologies
Since 24 Aug 2006
602 Posts
Oahu
Addicted
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Tue Sep 18, 12 12:06 pm |
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Hein wrote: |
...angry anti-Obama something....
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I think your outrage is misdirected, and that you might be lacking basic knowledge of how economies work?
I could not read the WSJ article.
The automotive indiustries paid back and and with interests:
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/12/auto-industry.asp
Ford never got a bailout.
So what are these three pages of outrage for? It would seem to me that we'd be in a lot worse bind if the bailout had not happened.
It does suck that people that got us in this place did not get penalized, but it certainly does not help elect back people that would put us right back in the hole by deregulating the market that put us in the hole.
This is the guy you are campaigning for: http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/secret-video-romney-private-fundraiser
He hates you because you are not rich like him. You are not rich because you are lazy and feel entitled. That is the attitude. He does this with a god on his shoulder, which makes it even more scary to me. |
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SalmonSlayer
Since 27 Nov 2005
648 Posts
Addicted
CGKA Member
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Tue Sep 18, 12 12:15 pm |
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tautologies wrote: |
He hates you because you are not rich like him. You are not rich because you are lazy and feel entitled. That is the attitude. He does this with a god on his shoulder, which makes it even more scary to me. |
really?...are you that intellectually lazy? |
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tautologies
Since 24 Aug 2006
602 Posts
Oahu
Addicted
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Tue Sep 18, 12 12:37 pm |
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SalmonSlayer wrote: | tautologies wrote: |
He hates you because you are not rich like him. You are not rich because you are lazy and feel entitled. That is the attitude. He does this with a god on his shoulder, which makes it even more scary to me. |
really?...are you that intellectually lazy? |
hey come on I'm trying a fox news type of rhetoric here no need to call me out immediately |
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wylieflyote

Since 30 Jun 2006
1648 Posts
Puget Sound & Wa. Coast
XTreme Poster
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