Detroit Bail-out

[Steverino]

Good morning folks,

Was curious as to what everyones thoughts were in the recessionary economy that we currently find ourselves in on the proposed bailout program for GM, Ford, & Chrysler.

Now before you answer, keep in mind a couple of points:

The US automtive industry, including all of the OEM's and tiered sub-suppliers in the various supply chains employ some 2.5 million people.

The 70 billion dollars proposed for the bailout plan would pale in comparison to the estimated first year losses alone of 200 billion dollars should these be allowed to implode without any further actions.

I'll chime in later with my own thoughts but considered that this would make for some lively discussion here on HC this morning as you choke down your morning coffee while contemplating yet more depressing economic news. :rolleyes:

[wrenchman]

i voted unsure becouse i am not for the unions getting a pay out for bad managment of the pension.
But if any of them fail it will cost a hole lot of money more the state of mich has the most job loss in the country now.

[DogYeller]

I voted no.
http://theamericansentinel.com/2008/11/11/obama-democrats-pull-out-all-stops-to-bail-out-auto-industry-carcass-for-union-leaches/

[buckhunter]

No because reguarless the auto exec's will still contuine to receive their golden parachute's. Also when you put a substandard product on the market you deserve to fail. Plus the union crap is in itself enough to collaspe the auto industry,

Has Toyota, Nisson, or any of the other Japan auto mfg asked for help? Let me answer that, hell no.

[BILLY D.]

I'm supposed to pay for the mistakes of others because they were stupid and greedy?

They ca go to he double hockey sticks and stay there as far as I'm Concerned.

Sympathy is in the dictionary right between S#!T and syphilis.

Bill

[GoodOlBoy]

I paid $28K for my last truck, had to dump it with gas being $4 a gallon and am now paying off a $21K note on a $14K car because of the overhead on the truck. I am supposed to weep for big auto because after decades of overcharging me for a vehicle with $900 at their cost in parts? Don't think so. They want to survive they need to suck it up, and figure it out like the rest of us are having to do.

Make better cars, charge less money, and eliminate the BS.

GoodOlBoy

[fabsroman]

Yeah, I'm the first to vote YES. I don't know the particulars of any bill that has been proposed, but if you think the economy is hurting right now, think how bad it will be after the Big 3 go belly up. It isn't just the executives, management, and the plant workers that will be losing their jobs, but how about all the dealers that will no longer be selling Fords? Most of these dealers are located next to other dealers, so it isn't like they can just start selling Toyota, Nissan, Honda, Hyundai, or whatever else. Essentially, Ford, GM, and Chrysler dealerships across the nation will be out of business. This means salespeople, mechanics, body men, etc. will be unemployed. If you think foreclosures are high now, and the stock market is in the tank right now, wait until after the Big 3 declare bankruptcy or go belly up.

Now, the flip side of the argument is that by giving them a bailout, the UAW is less likely to negotiate and it should. I honestly believe that some unions have long outlived their usefulness, and the UAW is one of them. I have no idea why the Big 3 hasn't moved away from union labor. None of the Japanese car makers that make cars in the US use union labor. The pension and health care is killing the Big 3. So, giving them a bailout and letting the UAW continue to bleed them dry is unwise. There would have to be some serious concessions made by management and the UAW before any bailout money is given to them.

Another thing to think about is that allowing the Big 3 to implode might mean a lot of retired workers from those 3 companies will lose retirement and health care benefits.

Simply put, those of us that have saved for years and years and been frugal with our spending, will be called upon to bail out the grasshoppers. Essentially, we are the ants in the story. The next thing I am waiting for is the homeowner mortgage bailout. Thought I saw it yesterday, but the Yahoo article was quickly changed to delete "loan principal balances will be reduced" to "principal payments will be deferred interest free for a length of time". I'm just waiting for the government to start paying off principal balances for homeowners that are upside down on their mortgages.

Sometimes, being frugal just doesn't pay, and I feel like I am getting kicked from every side in this economy.

[Tater]

This poll may be moot. I'm listening to the news and they're saying that the bailout money approved won't be used for it's origin purpose. Apparently, it's still "bailout" money but not for the auto companies, at least not as much. I'm no economist and money managing isn't my strong point so I'll have to do some more research before changing my vote from unsure.

[justwannano]

I voted no.
For years now the big 3 have been manufacturing vehicles for the affluent.
Yeah they have to make money but who really needs 2 video players in their SUV?
Instead they should have thought of the millions of folks that don't give a damn about that stuff and just want an economical vehicle to do their everyday buisness.
They have forgotten about regular folks.
The same thing wall street has done.

Let them suffer a while.

Then force them to bid on building military vehicles. That way they can work for their money just like I have to.

Have a good one
just

[fabsroman]

Tater,

What you are hearing about is the initial $700 billion that was supposed to be used to bailout the banks. Essentially, that money was supposed to be used to buy bad mortgages from the banks so that their balance sheets would look better and they could go out and raise additional capital from outside sources. Now, what Paulson is saying is that they (i.e., the gov't) are not going to buy these bad mortgages from the banks and hope that not all of them go bad and that the gov't can recover on some of them. Instead, what they are thinking about doing is buying an interest in the financial institutions so that if the financial institution does well down the road, then the government will get its money back, and maybe even a decent return on the investment.

What the democrats are trying to do now is set aside $70 billion of the bailout money for the Big 3.

Everybody else,

From what I have been reading, the demise of the Big 3 would lead to about 2.5 million more unemployed in the US. Just think about what that will do to the economy? Two thirds (2/3's) of the US economy is made up of consumer spending. About a month ago, the forecast was that consumer spending would not start to turn around until the 4th quarter of 2009, and maybe even later. Throw 2.5 million unemployed people into the fray, and you might be looking at 2 years or more before consumer spending picks up, and I am not talking about getting back to a level that it was in 2005, just a level above what it is now. If you think your 401(k)'s and other retirement accounts look bad now, wait until 4th quarter reporting comes out from the retailers after the Christmas season. Me, I have already lost close to 35% in my retirement accounts, and the only silver lining is that I have about 30 years to make that back and that I will be buying cheap right now. I feel for people that are in their 50's with their retirement assets heavily invested in the stock market.

By the way, I am heavily against baling out anybody, because I know I will never get a bailout myself. However, for the government to just sit back and let all of this sort itself out might be a complete disaster.

[44mag]

mechanics won't be out of work. with no new
vehicles being built, there will be plenty of work
for mechanics.

just a thought.

[justwannano]

Originally posted by 44mag
mechanics won't be out of work. with no new
vehicles being built, there will be plenty of work
for mechanics.

just a thought.

If there are parts.
There is maybe the key.
Instead of importing parts make the big 3 mfg them for 15 years.
Of course they won't want to because their focus is on selling new cars. But, since the answer to fixing this financial thing is jobs ,there may be more jobs in repairing older cars than mfging new ones.
have a good one
just

[fabsroman]

There won't be plenty of work for mechanics because people will not need to drive since they do not have jobs. Americans have already cut back on their consumption of gas. Why do you think oil futures are below $60 a barrel right now? It is because the demand for oil has decreased significantly compared to last year. I think the number of miles driven by Americans has been cut back by the billions. I think it is something like 6 billion or more.

Another example I have is a homeowner in a HOA I represent. The homeowner owns his own auto mechanic shop and he has been over a month late on his dues for the past couple of months.

If people don't have money, do you think they are going to change the oil as often? How about changing tires before they are down to the radials? Will they bring the car in for a noise they hear, or wait until it really breaks and they really do not have the money to pay for the repair. Better yet, what happens when they bring the car in for the repair and after the work is done they cannot pay for it? Do you think people will be getting their regular maintenance done if they don't have money? 30,000 mile check ups will turn into 60,000 mile check ups, if that.

I know my wife and I have cut back on our driving, and we really aren't even close to struggling for money yet. However, I have noticed that some of my clients are taking longer and longer to pay me each month, which isn't a good sign, and it has me a little worried. For those of you receiving a steady pay check, it isn't a problem until it really is a problem (i.e., pink slip, layoff). Business owners start to feel the pinch way before employees do.

[wrenchman]

I work on trucks for a liveing and i have never seen a slow down like right now.
There is still a shortage in my area for truck mechanics but its getting hard to get the better job with the larger companys they just are not hireing becouse freight is not moveing.
My nephew just got laid off i didnt think it would happen i hope things turn around real soon.

[LoneWolf]

If you think the economy is bad now, just let the big3 fail and see what happens. 1 out of 10 americans job is directly related to the auto industry. As for the question about bailouts for the foreign makes, they don't need them because they have and lawyas will be subsidized by their respective governments.
Believe me, I don't want the government in anything more than they need to be. But I put the government to blame for a lot of the problems the Big 3 are in right now. If they had imposed half the standards and regulations on wallstreet and banking as they have on the big3, we wouldn't be in the mess we are in.


added: as far as the cars and truck they built. If it didn't suit your needs fine. But all those suvs and guzzlers everyone bitches about wouldn't have been built if they weren't selling. Sure, when the gas prices finally went through the roof every body wanted out of theirs. Each automaker has cheaper and more effiecent vehicles too. And btw, now that prices have dropped guess what? Trucks and SUVs are selling again.

[justwannano]

Fabrosman

You're forgetting the people that will make those parts.
Then there are the people that will maintain the machinery that makes those parts.
Then there are the people that make the parts that go into the machinery that makes those parts.
We can follow the path all the way down to raw materials and packaging but I think I've made my point.
Oh yeah
Don't forget that the after market parts that we are currently importing from far away places like china.We will probably save some fuel ...but that is another discussion.
have a good one
just

[GoodOlBoy]

Here's my problem. I will still vote no because the Big 3 have done this to themselves. I feel for the people who work for them. If anything the government should bail THEM out NOT their employers. The Big 3 have seen the writing on the wall about auto and gas prices for two decades and have sat back on their haunches and done nothing but laugh and spend millions on office furniture. Just like before Imperial Schrade went under. The company big wigs, KNOWING their company was hurting, spent $700K redecorating offices. Then hung the company out to dry making a WAY overpriced gold inlaid knife as their plan to save the company. WHY! Don't redecorate, don't make a gold inlaid knife or pickup! Make a good reliable product and make it as inexpensive as you can to pass savings onto your customers! Tigheten your belt like I am having to do and like your employees are trying to do. Dump the corporate jet! Dump the hundreds of VPs and Associate VPs and Assistants to the associate CPs onto the line to work like everybody else and pay them the SAME. You work for a company that makes cars! Go get one off the line, and drive your OWN lazy behind where you need to go!

Remember the 80s? Remember when all these new robotics caused mass layoffs but were going to save everybody money? Remember redlead? Remember how EVERY time you upgraded something you LOST money and passed that loss on to your customers? Well now YOU are the one in the hole and you want to bargain its time to suck it up and pay for your mistakes.

Want a plan? How about you build a fuel milage retrofit kit in the US and market it to everybody out there? I am 33 damned years old and I remember the early 80s when the BIG 3 and BIG OIL supressed a louisiana inventor who built a carberator that would make ALL vehicles it was equiped on get close to 100miles to a gallon! That's RIGHT Big Auto I remember when you sided with the gas companies over your customers. Well guess what? Get the gas companies to haul your big butts out of the hole!

You are worried about the mechanics and engineers and everybody else? Then call your reps that YOU voted for and have them offer to bail out the employees. Or have them make the bailout conditional upon things that matter like keeping employees and fixing the junk plastic cars! The employees are NOT going to see a rusty dime of that bailout money if it is given, AND there will STILL be layoffs! Mark my words.

I VOTE NO and I will ALWAYS VOTE NO so long as bigwigs in these companies are taking $100K vacations with talks about bailouts going on! PERIOD!

GoodOlBoy

[LoneWolf]

Sorry, but these arguments to me seem like more of the class warfare crap the democrats have tried to push, and many of us here railed against. But now we are going right along with them?

GOB, I hear you on how much gas yours (and mine) truck uses. But nobody held a gun to either of our heads and made us buy them.

Show me proof on 100mpg carbs, cars running on water, etc, etc
Does anyone not actually believe that if there was an economical way to produce these "inventions" that a large company wouldn't jump all over it and corner the market?
Again, I don't like government spending my on things, and they need to tighten their belt too. But this country can't afford to lose the big3. If you want to blame someone in those companies... start looking at the unions. They have done more to bankrupt the companies than any big wig. And I say that while my father and grand father were all part of that union. I also worked within that system for a short period of time. Let me know if you want specific examples of how great the union is :rolleyes:

[GoodOlBoy]

Actually Lonewolf where I live when I had to buy a new vehicle (because my old car died) I had a choice. I could buy the truck, I could buy a fully loaded car for $7K more (only thing they had on the lot at the time was fully loaded vehicles except for pickups) or I could walk 47 miles home. No gun to my head, but might as well have been. I got a truck with the best milage I could get, I got a crew cab because it was the same price as a fully loaded single cab (they only had fully loaded single cabs) and it was a base model no bells and whistles. Three weeks later the "employee pricing" started and the truck was $9k less, and I was stuck with what I had.

Dunno a thing about cars running on water (unless you mean steam driven early vehicles in the old west) but the 100mpg carb made the papers in the early 80s in Houston Texas. They talked about it for about a month then poof nothing. Marvin Zindler (eyewitness news) did a story about the inventor leaving no fowarding address. You want proof do the research, I was living in Houston at the time and it was all my grandparents and every other adult could talk about. Good luck finding much in the way of information most of it these days has gone the way of the inventor himself. IE No forwarding address.

Yes I believe a large company wouldn't jump all over it and corner the market. There would be no faster way to get yourself killed by Big Oil (from inside OR outside the country) than to market something that gave you that big a break in fuel millage. Youa re talking about potentially costing a corporation BILLIONS a year. You would have to be pretty naïve not to see that it would get you killed.

I am not talking about class warfare. I am talking about execs who spend hundreds of thousands of dollars of their companies money on BS while they whine about the companies going under.

GoodOlBoy

[fabsroman]

GOB,

Both Big 3 management and the Big 3 EMPLOYEES are to blame for the Big 3's position. I thought I already covered this, but the UAW, United Auto Workers Union, has demanded plenty in the way of health insurance and retirement from the Big 3. Ford's health care costs for its employees was $6 BILLION in 2004. Recently, Ford had a short fall in its defined benefit pension plan to the tune of over $1 BILLION, and that shortfall was because investments hadn't done as well as forecasted. Without doing some additional research, I don't know exactly what Ford's yearly funding requirements are for the pension plan, but I am willing to bet that they are in the BILLIONS. So, EMPLOYEE BENEFITS cost Ford OVER $6 BILLION a year. You have to sell a lot of cars/trucks, etc. to make a $6 BILLION+ profit just to cover health care and pension costs and break even, thereby not giving the stockholders a thing.

I also agree with Lonewolf. The issue with GM and Ford isn't the quality of their vehicles or the price of their vehicles. Three years ago, my dad bought a Ford Focus 4 door in manual with power windows, power locks, A/C, and a couple other bells and whistles for under $15,000. I think it was just over $14,000, but I cannot remember even though I negotiated the sale. He gets 31 mpg with it, and his Crown Victoria stays in the driveway most of the time. The new Ford Focus gets 35 mpg. I bought my Taurus in 1998 with barely any accessories in it and it cost me $18,000 and it gets 27 mpg highway. Granted, with 191,000 on it right now, i'm only getting 25 mpg, but I'll live with that. Not having power locks on it bugs me a little nowadays, but I can live with that in lieu of buying a new car. The fully loaded Taurus would have cost me $24,000 back then, and I was broke because I was in my last week of law school when I lost my old car. So, I picked that one.

I will agree that American automakers are behind on Hybrid technology, but that technology isn't supposed be main stream for very long once the plug in cars become available, and GM has the volt slated for 2010. Ford and GM have both been doing R&D on fuel cell vehicles, and I believe there are a couple of government fleets out there using fuel cell technology.

Regarding the 100 mpg carburator, I agree with Longwolf on that. Can people even argue that the oil companies are in cohoots with the Big 3 anymore. The Big 3 were selling SUV's like hot cakes and then Big Oil decides to go and raise the price on gas. Yeah, they are really cooperating. Plus, it isn't really Big Oil that decides the price of oil, but the futures traders. Don't you think that if one of the Big 3 had a patent on a carburetor that could produce 100 mpg, they would use it instead of begging for a bailout and praying that they do not have to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Same goes for all these additives that can increase gas mileage. If they were any good, don't you think one of the Big Oil companies would buy the patent, add it to their gas, and drive everybody to their gas stations to crush the competition? All of the conspiracy theories really kill me. Wouldn't there be a person or two that might have spilled the beans over all these decades?

Most Americans blame the Big 3 for the Big Truck/SUV that they are stuck with. Americans always have to blame somebody for their short sightedness instead of taking responsibility for it themselves. People bought houses 50 miles away from where they worked and bought SUV's that got 12 mpg. The price of gas went up, and now they want to blame everybody for it but themselves because they didn't take that variable into account when they bought.

As far as the gun to your head, I have no idea why you were stuck with what a single dealership had to offer. If you waited until the 11th or 12th hour to replace your vehicle, that isn't the dealership's fault. If you had planned the replacement, you could have gone online, done plenty of research, found a dealership with the exact car you wanted (i.e., Ford allows you to search dealer inventory for vehicles that come close to your online build.) I know this because I used this feature when I bought my 2003 F-350. I found dealers within 100 miles of my residence with trucks close to what I wanted. Then, I sent e-mails to the 5 that had what I wanted so I could negotiate the price before I even got there. It didn't work out exactly as I had planned once I got to the dealership because I saw an F-350 that they had just gotten in inventory that I wanted in lieu of the one I had been negotiating on, so the process started all over again and I ended up getting PO'ed. However, you get my point. With proper planning, people should be just fine. Kind of like Katrina. If you didn't plan for that, don't blame others. Same goes for vehicle purchases.

Lonewolf is also correct about the demand for SUV's going right back up now. The GM plant in Texas that builds SUV's and trucks has been running on overtime the past several weeks and they believe it will go on for a couple more months at the minimum. The Americans that are buying these vehicles right now that gas is cheap, will be complaining this upcoming summer when gas is $4 a gallon, and they will be saying that they got duped over the winter by the Big 3. Almost like all the people saying they got duped by their mortgage broker and their real estate agent when they signed on the dotted line. Hardly anybody didn't know what they were getting into. However, they were reading the fine print with their rose colored glasses on that were telling them that house prices would always be increasing, gas would always be cheap, and the stock market would always be booming. I have all of a handful of clients that were very conservative during the good times. Everybody else spent money like it was water.

It all boils down to responsibility. If anybody had been responsible at any level (e.g., bank execs, Big 3 execs, or the American public), we would not be in the pickle we are in. However, to allow the banks and the Big 3 to implode would result in grief beyond any level imaginable. Wth our careless spending and careless use of credit, we have pretty much assured a tough road ahead for not only us, but our children, AND our grandchildren. Honestly, it makes me sick.

In lieu of the bailout for the auto industry, maybe we can put management and the UAW officials in a room and put a sensible American in there with a baseball bat to make them arrive at a fair agreement for everybody. I don't think allowing the Big 3 to go under would be a good idea, but that is just my opinion of course.

[Jack]

FWIW, the idea of bailing out an auto maker has been done before.
Chrysler was bailed out in 1979.
Surprisingly enough, the government ended up getting all the bailout money back.
You can blame the auto industry execs or unions for building big gas guzzlers if you want, but, if you do- look in your driveway. How many of you see pick ups and SUV's?
The auto companies build the cars and trucks that sell, and make a profit. They built gas guzzlers because we bought them, not because of some conspiracy.

[Allen]

Just a thought. If GM goes belly up, someone will come in buy the assets, keep a lot of the workers and vendor working and maybe run the company in a way that can make money. The union will be weakened or gone and people may take a cut in pay, but most will still be working.

What do you think?

Allen

[fabsroman]

Allen,

I thought about that, but who would have the money to come in and do that? I seriously doubt any other car company would want to buy GM, but I could be wrong about that. If somebody was really interested in either GM or Ford, why not try a hostile takeover since the stocks are at $2.80 and $1.80 a share respectively. GM hasn't been this low since before the 50's. Further, why wouldn't these speculators already be talking to the Big 3 to try and buy them? I haven't heard a peep about anybody remotely interested in them. When the financial institutions were in distress, other financial institutions swooped in like vultures to try and buy them or merge with them. There is absolutely nothing like that going on here.

Then again, on one of the financial institution proposed mergers, I believe it was Lehman Brothers, the interested buyer wanted the government to kick in some money to sweeten the deal. When the government said NO, the interested buyer backed out and Lehman went belly up.

This entire bailout thing is a very slippery slope. That is my big negative about it. Once they started bailing out the financial institutions, everybody figured they could get a bailout from the government, including individuals struggling to pay their mortgages and facing foreclosure. By bailing out industries and individuals, the government is sending the wrong message about risk taking (i.e., take all the risk you want because we'll bail you out). It is kind of like children. Parents bail out their kids over and over, so the kids continue to take risk and get in trouble. The problem occurs when the parent cannot bailout the kid, or when the parents is SOL after bailing out the kid.

Jack,

You are right about Chrysler. They were bailed out back in the 70;s, and the government got every penny of that back. Now they are asking for a second bailout. See above on why that bugs me.

We are in a pickle indeed.

[LoneWolf]

Originally posted by Allen
Just a thought. If GM goes belly up, someone will come in buy the assets, keep a lot of the workers and vendor working and maybe run the company in a way that can make money. The union will be weakened or gone and people may take a cut in pay, but most will still be working.

What do you think?

Allen


Sounds good on paper Allen. And I'll bet that is exactly what Cerburus was saying when they got Chrysler by only assuming the debt.
BTW, they also bought 51% of GMAC (financial arm of GM). That has worked out well for them too!


GOb,
Bud, I don't wanna argue or seem to beat you up. But we have to quit blaming every company out there for our woes. Yes, there are some that truly scammed the hell out of us (ie: banks & mortgage), but we should have been a little smarter there too.
But our domestic auto industry has been playing behind the 8 ball for a while now, and it isn't all THEIR making. They also have been trying to cut and trim for well over 2 years now. I can name at least 10 programs that have been cut out in the last 10 months to GM dealers. And these were for the most part funded by the dealers. But GM didn't want to be spending any $$$ that they didn't need. In the 2'nd quarter alone, GM slashed $14 Billion. The sad fact was, the union members didn't take that hit, it was the white collar guys that lost jobs and benefits. And the dealership employee that had an incentivised program if he attained highest training,sales, customer satisfaction, etc. You know, all those rich SOB's making $45 - $65K a year.
But the Union brotherhood was safe and protected. Wonder how that will work out for them when the company goes belly up?
For too long now, the Unions have sat at the management table (why???) and tried to decide what is best for the workers and not the big picture or the company. They had their day and their use, but it is LONG GONE.

[justwannano]

Seems to be a lot of union bashing going on.
I'm not a union sympathizer -never belonged to one- but they have done a lot of good things.
As far as blaming workers for their union getting them health care-you are putting the shoe on the wrong foot.
Health care is a necessary thing. And it should hurt the company too.
Thats the only way you can keep a safe working environment.

I wish I knew what the execs at any of the big 3 were making. I'll bet it ain't anywhere near what the employes are making. Why not?
Why is it worth so much more to be an exec.
Why should there be a bail out for those that steered the company in such a way that they let this happen?
Why should there be a huge retirement fund for execs when you complain about mostly modest retirement for workers?

Have you looked around at the auto dealerships recently? Actually its been going on for quite a while.
Noticed the number of vehicles they haven't sold?
Somebody isn't paying attention to the what the people want.

Someone mentioned that a SUV building Texas plant is beginning to ramp up again. I took that to mean they are building SUVs again.
Now thats the kind of decision that ought to cost some high paid exec his job. Shows that Detroits head is firmly placed up their collective asses.

Bail them out
Hell No

Have a good one
just

[GoodOlBoy]

Lonewolf I am not blaming the auto industry for my woes. I am blaming them for THEIRS. They have done this to themselves. Don't TELL me that $15K is a good price for that car Fabs. Read a few reports. They build that $15K for around $2K in parts.

And no. The auto companies wouldn't market a 100mpg carb if they had it. You think because they were the head of an auto company it would keep the crosshairs off of them if they did?

And WHY do you find it so hard to believe that there are designs for a 100mpg carb out there? The prius gets 60+mpg and I have SEEN car tweakers who have reprogrammed the chips and changed a few parts out on them to nearly double the horsepower and STILL get 60+mpg.

You think big auto is so great? Why is it every rice rocket street racer out there who knows the first thing about his engine can multiply the horsepower of his car out the roof and keep the nearly the same fuel millage? You think the opposite is not true that you couldn't spend a little time reprogramming, rechipping, and swap a few parts and get the same horsepower but a multiplier on fuel milage?

Why the sudden breakthrough in fuel milage on vehicles now that congress has passed a bill demanding X milage by X date? You think they magically pulled that out of their butts?

Vehicles in this country (and worldwide) are supressed technology JUST like computers are. In 1994 when I was watching the FIRST 75Mhz and 133Mhz PCs come onto college campuses Intel had already perfected the 600Mhz CPU. They released the 600Mhz CPU five years later in 1999, and computer tweakers that I PERSONALLY knew had systems running at 1.8Ghz that same year! Why? Because for five years Intel and AMD made BILLIONS selling you 166, 200, 233, 266, 300, 333, 350, 400, 450, 466, 500, 550 MHZ machines FIRST. THATS WHY! DO you know how much money they would have lost in upgrades ALONE if they had just sold you the 600Mhz chip in '94? RIGHT NOW you would do good to purchase a 4GHz gaming CPU for a system. They are backordered and not easy to obtain. In 2005 (Three years ago for those that can't count) AMD created the 10Ghz CPU. BUT if they release it they cannot sell you all the interum chips and upgrades. That 4Ghz CPU is going to cost you almost a grand for the proc itself. It costs them around $90 to make.

Ask yourself why people purchase console gaming systems like the Xbox 360 and the PS3 that run top of the line games off of almost no memory and OLD 700Mhz - 950Mhz processors with LOW end video cards, but the SAME games on a PC require 512mb video cards, 4 gigs of ram, and 3GHz procs and typically DON'T look as good as they do on the consoles EVEN THOUGH the consoles run at a MUCH lower resolution rate?

How about Hard drive storage space? Ten years ago you would have told me "I would like to see proof that there are designs for Terabite hard drives!" But the terabite drive was designed and first built in 1978! Thats 1000 gigbites! 10 years ago I couldn't even fathom a 10 GB hard drive! I felt lucky to have my 2GB I had just purchased and though WOW I will NEVER fill this up. Now I can buy a 1 TB hard drive for around $700-$800! Why wouldn't they have been released in 1978? I will grant you that they were MUCH larger (physcially) then, BUT the "micro drive" sized hard drive was invented in the same year and not released until 1982. Why? How many TRILLIONS of dollars have been made over the last 20+ years selling hard drive upgrades? The first computer repair shop I ever worked for we made MOST of our money each year selling and installing progressively larger drives to the SAME people over and over. Seagate technologies built the first micro sized (3.5" standard now is still considered a micro drive) Xobite (1000 Terabites) drive last year. You won't see it anytime soon either.

As a comparison it is the same thing. I believe firmly that we will see that 100mpg carb sold on vehicles. But not before we see the 70, the 80, the 90, etc etc etc. Go to your local autoparts and tell me how many items there are for sale to save you 10% gas here, or 8% there. It's an eye opener.

Give me a break guys. I feel for the employees I really do. But you cannot possible be that out of it.

Whew anyway I am off my rant. Fabs have fun with it, Lonewolf good luck on your hunt this week.

Viva La Supressed Technology!

GoodOlBoy

[fabsroman]

First point, even if Ford can make the Focus for $1, it is still a pretty cheap car at $14,999 when compared to others. I'm growing aquarium plants in my fish tanks in an attempt to keep the nitrates down. I used to throw the overgrowth away, until I figured out I could sell it on ebay. The cost to me to sell these things is the initial listing fee and the final value fee. It costs me nothing extra to grow them because I would be doing it anyway.

Now, lets assume that Ford has $0 costs to build the Focus and it is completely $15,000 in profit. They would have to sell 400,000 of them to cover their Health Care costs of $6 Billion. In the real world, we know that the Focus costs something to build, and even if it is only $2,000 in raw materials and labor, R&D, marketing, and management overhead have to be added to that cost. So, it isn't quite $2,000.

I haven't read enough evidence to show that there really is suppressed technology out there. If you can point me to some credible sources, I might start to believe it.

I just find it hard to believe that the Big wigs at Ford haven't taken out the secret key to unlock the secret vault to pull out the secret carburetor from 1960 that provides 100 mpg when Toyota is kicking them in the nuts with the hybrid technology, and actually required Ford to buy the technology from it. Why not pull out the golden carburetor, patent it, and kick the snot out of Toyota. If the Prius is getting 60 mpg, at least pull out the 60 mpg carburetor to even the score, or down tweak the 100 mpg carburetor so that it only gets 60 mpg and the 70 mpg, 80 mpg, and 90 mpg carburetors can be held back till later.

I find it really hard to believe that Ford is spending tons of money on alternative fuel research when the golden carburetor is locked up in the secret vault that can only be opened with the secret key. Why spend the time and money on fuel cell vehicles, etc., that would pretty much make the golden carburetor obsolete once fuel cell vehicles are released to the public. Zero emissions and a replenishable source of energy sounds a lot better than the golden carburetor. So, why are they waiting so long to unleash the golden carburetor? Its usefulness is quickly vanishing if the hybrid reach 100 mpg and fuel cell vehicles become available.

Why wouldn't intel release its technology to put AMD in its place?

My take on suspended technology is that while it is available technology, it is not cheap or proven technology when it comes out? There might be small little issues with it, that none of us know about, and that is why they aren't releasing it. Ford has a couple of government fleets that are using fuel cell vehicles, so why aren't they being released to the public yet. Maybe because they want a small sample to see how the vehicles work. Nothing like releasing 500,000 of them only to find out that they blow up faster than Pintos in certain circumstances. You know attorneys like me would be lining up quicker than you can say Firestone blowouts on Explorers, to take a piece of Ford as we drove it into bankruptcy with 1,000's of multi million dollar claims.

Bicycle companies do this all the time. The newest and greatest bike technology isn't released for years down the road. We cyclists get to catch glimpses of it on the pros' bikes in the Tour de France, but it doesn't get released until the manufacturers get all the bugs out. Most, but not all, of the frames that the pros raced on this year in the Tour de France will be made available to the market next year. Campagnolo had a set of electronic derailleurs on a couple of its sponsored rider's bikes in 2006 and 2007, but they haven't been released to the public yet because there are still some issues with them. It would be great never to have to worry about a cable breaking, and reducing the weight of the bike by 300 grams since cables will no longer be needed, but Campagnolo hasn't released them yet and they are in a bitter rivalry with Shimano in the parts market.

Honestly, do the CEO's of all these companies have closed door meetings amongst each other to decide what technology will be released when? How about SRAM that just entered the road cycling market a couple of years ago? Are they having a pow wow with Campy and Shimano execs. Also, the Campy and Shimano execs must have gotten pretty pissed at the Suntour and Mavic execs during the 1980's meetings because both of those companies were driven out of the parts market.

If the Big 3 didn't send assassins after Big Oil big wigs when the price of oil went through the roof and put a screeching halt to the Big 3's sale of very profitable trucks and SUV's, I seriously doubt Big Oil would be sending assassins after the Big 3 execs if a golden carburetor is pulled out of the secret vault.

Why even face the risk of seeking bankruptcy protection, or being forced into bankruptcy by creditors, when they have the golden carburetor. If they could beat the Japanese manufacturers by 5 mpg on every vehicle, why aren't they, and why haven't they for decades.

I'm sure the GM and Ford execs, who are heavily invested in those companies through options and stock, are really happy to see GM's stock price sink to a level it hasn't hit since before 1950. I'm sure Ford execs are really happy about Ford stock being at $1.80 when it was at $15 a share 5 years ago, and even higher before that.

How did I do GOB?

[fabsroman]

Justwanno,

Why do execs get paid more than the other employees? Are you seriously asking that question? Why do brain surgeons get paid more than janitors in a hospital. It is called supply and demand. You cannot take any person off of an assembly line and within a very short time train them to run Ford, GM, or Chrysler. Do you really think that a person trained to install a car seat could within a month or two be trained to run Ford, GM, or Chrysler? How about taking an exec and spending a month or two training him/her to install a car seat? The odds are much better that the exec will be able to install that car seat versus the assembly line worker being able to run the company.

As far as health care is concerned, why do employees deserve it, especially when IT will cause a company to go under? Yep, better to be unemployed without any money coming in AND without health care, versus being employed without health care. I have several small business clients that cannot afford to offer health insurance to their employees.

I don't know what the union demands have been in the way of health care, but hopefully they are thinking about HRA's and HSA's in lieu of full blown health care. The times where an employee doesn't have to pay anything for health insurance are long gone, unless demanded by a union.

Don't get me wrong. Unions were great when they started, but in today's world unless everybody is covered by a union it isn't quite fair. How about requiring other auto makers in the US to be subject to the UAW? They might not find it quite as profitable to make cars in the US anymore.

Honestly, I have no idea why the Big 3 didn't take their corporate headquarters overseas and build cars overseas in lieu of staying in the US. They should have done exactly as Levi did.

[GoodOlBoy]

About like I expected Fabs.

You may not believe in corporate headhunters (not the kind looking for new employees) but I do. And if the research to prove what was out there was the easily available it would be too easy for a common machinist to build and like some high end conversion parts for rice rocket racers you would have black market machinists making them.

You want to know why intel doesn't put AMD in its place? Because they can't afford to. Check out who owns the copyright to the mathcoprocessor buried in the intel procs. They tick AMD off bad enough and AMD can sue them until tomorrow afternoon. Why doesn't AMD do it anyway and shut them down? Two reasons. One since AMD forced Cyrix out of the American market in 1997 with a BS lawsuit over Cyrix's use of the AMD CPU pipeline technology (which was reinvented by Intel two years later) if they shut down Intel they would be facing some of the same monopoly lawsuits that Microsoft has gone through, and two intel owns the copyright to the socket technology that AMD uses for its procs. It's a catch-22 for both companies so they play nice nice and keep the competition as friendly as they can in the process. It might be of interest the Cyrix stil owns the copyright to the MMX proc feature and AMD pays them a fee yearly for its use. It might also be of interest that Cyrix still has a LARGE following in the asian markets.

In early 2001 AMD released information that they had developed a cutting edge technology that allowed them to go green (a side effect to be sure) They had found a way to manipulate a biological algae in order to speed up processing in a CPU. The result was a CPU that used an almost human like logic and had a throughput rate almost as fast as the human brain. AMD closed down the project (offically that is) after protests by Christian groups that they were creating the artifical intelligence for the Beast described in Revelations, and by groups who claimed they were violating God or Mother Nature by trying to replace humans. Both of course were BS claims (I am Christian I didn't have a problem with it) but caused AMD to wipe out the public showing for both that project and the FMD disk project that they had cofounded with a cmall company called C3D (Constellation 3D ). Why? because the FMD (Fluorescent Multi-Layer Disc) Held 140GB of data on a single disk using a flourescent dye that was basicly a vat grown offshoot of the same algae used in the processor technology.

to quote one source on the FMDs It appeared that this technology will never become available since C3D's links and whereabouts were untracable from the 2nd halve of august 2002

They weren't kidding. After the fights over the possiblity of AI controlling the chips, etc etc etc. C3D literally dissapeared off of the map. Naysayers later claimed After Constellation 3D shut down due to a scandal (the scandal essentially involved the prototype "demonstrated" at COMDEX 2000 being a hoax — the content was actually playing on a hard drive — the device was faked) and the company consequently running out of money, a new company called D Data Inc. (4) was formed which acquired the entire patent portfolio of Constellation 3D in 2003. The company is determined to bring multilayer optical disc technology to the market, and so has introduced the technology again under the new name of Digital Multilayer Disk (DMD) (5).

promising to have the technology available at the end of 2006



of course said technology never arrived, and no instance of the claim that the technology was faked was ever produced to ANY credible media outlet. By the way D Data Inc is just as much a Ghost as C3D was afterwards. The most information you can find easily about D Data Inc is from the US patent office which lists it as D Data Inc. -
City: New York
State/Country: NY US No other information is available to my knowledge. And NY has no listing for D Data in any form or fashion last time I checked.

It is also of note that AMD spent two years worth of advertising budget whiping out information reguarding a biologically link processor from their sight, and any other websight available. The fact that the dye for the FMD also came from the same AMD labs was supressed information after the dissapearance of C3D. Up until that time it was listed on the C3D website as a joint venture useing AMD Biogen technology. Wisely AMD has since backpeddled as hard as they could run away from anything to do with biologically grown CPUs or parts. On of the many reasons they rejected the green fiber circuitboard project preposed to them by . . . . . . dang I forget the companies name offhand it will come to me. . . . anyway it is why they rejected the green fiber circuitboard project, that and the fact that in high humidity enviroments with tempurature increases often seen in overworked systems the board would fall apart. Not something to be seen as a workable solution to them since the only refrigerated case at that time was being made by a small company outside of atlanta who could only supply around 50 a day at max run of the cases.

AMD was also the first company to embrace liquid cooling technology so that overcloced processors would not be fried in a few heartbeats. However due to concerns over people using standard water instead of denatured non-conductive liquid in the cooling systems AMD quickly left the idea behind. However they sold the design for the liquid cooled heatsink to a german company (whose name I also forget because I only used their product once in a test platform to prove that it was unsuited for our needs at the time) and left the plastic housing on their processors the same so that they could be easily removed even though there was no "offical" support for the liquid cooling system.

Now back to storage. The officall reason seagate technologies gave for failure to release the micro drive in a 1TB size in the early '80s was cooling failures as the drives initially spun at 25K rpm and would heat up enough to fry an egg on. As the drives were designed for use in "cold rooms" in server chasis with metric tons of fans it was a BS excuse to keep the drives out of the hands of computer users. This would have been a nice excuse except for the fact that they DID release the original 9GB Ultrawide type 1 SCSI drives (the original barracuda line) at that time that had the SAME spin rate and heating problems. It should be of note that until the SCSI II drives were released some years later the spin rate and heat rate stayed the same as the "not released" 1 TB drives. When Fuijitsu rleased the first 12 GB IDE hard drives that spun at 7500rpm they burst the seagate bubble. In order to avoid being a target for seagate hostility they released the technology as open source to Maxtor and Western Digital (although not their superior memory caching technology on the daughter boards) and thus the HD boom was born. Western Digital beat everybody to the punch by releasing a 40GB HD less than six months later (although you had to format it using their special software as 90% of motherboard chipset would not see a drive larger than 18.2GB at that time. And no I don't have a clue why the software work around worked to this day. It should not have.) Via released the first chipset to allow up to an 80 GB hd to be used and AMD quickly copyrighted the slip socket (early K4 style) integration to try to get the jump on microsoft. Maxtor followed WDs lead, but fujitsu bent them both over a barrel by working with Viagra technologies (yes just like the little blue pill) and working out a "rocket chipset" for use with the intel procs that would allow up to a 100GB IDE drive to be used. Via countered by inventing the ATA2 standard and farming out the add on board though a crappy little company called promise technology. However the boards would allow a 160GB HD. Intel told them all where to stick it and created the ATA100 standard chip that would take at that time a 250GB HD (although a minor tweak in the next revision removed all limitations for all intents and purposes). This all happened in a three year period. And caused several companies to bite its nails as they cut a 7 year sales plan to ribbons and HAD to release their products or lose the markets.

IE we need a car company to start the same kind of tech war. I though Saturn was going to be the one to do it way back when but after the first few years they let me down by taking the Big3s lead.

If you wish I can right a more detail account of the tech wars Circa 70s ish to 2008 even though I didn't come into play in them until 1995. I actually handed off several improvement patents like a dumb arse when I was younger just to help the industry I had faith in at the time. They would have given me a nice cash flow for about 6 months of the tech war in the early 2000s if I had sold them instead of waving rights to them. After 6 months my improvements were made obsolete as they were replaced by the parent companies. All the while the guy next to me in the office was trying to get Amiga off of its behind to keep up since they had a far superior technology base but even when he provided them with two major improvement patents they turned up their noses and you see where they are after the smoke cleared.

GoodOlBoy

[justwannano]

Quote Fabs
As far as health care is concerned, why do employees deserve it, especially when IT will cause a company to go under? Yep, better to be unemployed without any money coming in AND without health care, versus being employed without health care. I have several small business clients that cannot afford to offer health insurance to their employees. /q

Because management cannot be trusted to keep things in the work place safe.
Hell they can't be trusted at all.

Quote fab
Why do execs get paid more than the other employees? Are you seriously asking that question? Why do brain surgeons get paid more than janitors in a hospital. It is called supply and demand. You cannot take any person off of an assembly line and within a very short time train them to run Ford, GM, or Chrysler. Do you really think that a person trained to install a car seat could within a month or two be trained to run Ford, GM, or Chrysler? How about taking an exec and spending a month or two training him/her to install a car seat? The odds are much better that the exec will be able to install that car seat versus the assembly line worker being able to run the company.
/q

So is there a AEA?
The AMA is a watchdog association for physicians and the medical community does a pretty good job of policeing itself.
Not so for execs.

Please justify 1000 times the compensation.
Hell please justify 10 times the compensation.
And then there are the purps.
Just for going to school longer?
Just for different training?
Cmon

have a good one
just

[Nulle]

Short and Sweet = NO

[RagingBullPa]

i voted yes , something has to be done with the economy , the obama led democrats have talked the talk now walk the walk and do something the democrats have had control of congress and the senate since 2006 get them off their butts and lets bring back america

[fabsroman]

GOB,

Your reference to the Green Algae in the processor does not support your claim that technology is being held back so that they can bleed money out of us. You specifically state that they didn't pursue that technology because too many Christians complained about it. Sometimes, businesses actually have to listen to their customers. Kind of like the entire Zumbo matter when he said something bad about black rifles.

Justwannano,

You are cofusing workman's comp insurance with health insurance. Workman's comp insurance covers any injury that happens on the job, and THE LAW requires all employers to have workman's comp insurance. So, workers are entirely covered for work place accidents.

Health insurance covers employees for all health problems, regardless of whether or not they were work place accidents. For instance, cancer isn't a work place accident and it isn't covered by workman's comp. Instead, it falls under the health insurance.

Now, there are plans out there like HRA's that have a high deductible health insurance plan. The deductible is usually $5,000 or more. With the money that the employer saves on the insurance coverage, the employer usually puts an amount of it back into the employees HRA account to help pay for a portion of the deductible. The employee also has the option of making pre-tax contributions to the HRA account to cover the deductible amounts. The amount in an HRA account can rollover from one year to the next, and if they employee has money left in his HRA account after retirement, the account essentially turns into and IRA.

I think the HRA is great. It requires insureds (i.e., employees) to think twice about running to the doctor for a runny nose, or for demanding uneeded prescriptions. This is a way for both the employer and the employee to pay for a portion of health care.

Let's be clear about one thing, the $6 billion cost to Ford for health care does not include workman's comp.

Regarding exec compensation, most of them get a couple of million, with bonuses based upon the company's performance. It is the select few that you hear about in the news that everybody is up in arms about, but the majority of CEO's and execs don't make anywhere near what everybody thinks they make.

Then, there is my drywall contractor that made over $1 million one year during the housing boom, and tons of money other years.

Here is an article about the Ford salaries. Don't know if I agree with it, but it does explain it a little. I could understand a big bonus if he got the company in the black, with only a couple million a year in the mean time, but what he made in 2007 is a little ridiculous.

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/04/04/mullaly-and-other-ford-execs-made-many-millions-in-2007/

[justwannano]

Quote fab
You are cofusing workman's comp insurance with health insurance. Workman's comp insurance covers any injury that happens on the job, and THE LAW requires all employers to have workman's comp insurance. So, workers are entirely covered for work place accidents.
/Q

No I know about workmans comp.
I'm referring to health issues that are attributable to the work place but you cannot directly prove it.
ie the lung issue caused by asbestos. Black lung disease and something simple as pnumonia.- sometimes caused by ammonia used as coolant in cold storage.
Also the reduction of carsinagens

Think any of that stuff wouldn't still be happening in a grand scale without health insurance?
Think the upper management would miraculosly sprout wings and give a damn if there wern't pressure on them?

Quote fab
Now, there are plans out there like HRA's that have a high deductible health insurance plan. The deductible is usually $5,000 or more. With the money that the employer saves on the insurance coverage, the employer usually puts an amount of it back into the employees HRA account to help pay for a portion of the deductible. The employee also has the option of making pre-tax contributions to the HRA account to cover the deductible amounts. The amount in an HRA account can rollover from one year to the next, and if they employee has money left in his HRA account after retirement, the account essentially turns into and IRA.
/q

Got any idea what an unexpected bill of $5000 would do to a hard working family whose major bread winner makes 7.25 an hour? How about $10.00 an hour?
I heard some where that the average American family exists on $45000 a year.
Case in point
I've had both hips replaced. Both within 4 years. Probably attributable to work but unprovable.
We would be homeless without insurance.



Quote fab
Here is an article about the Ford salaries. Don't know if I agree with it, but it does explain it a little. I could understand a big bonus if he got the company in the black, with only a couple million a year in the mean time, but what he made in 2007 is a little ridiculous.
?q

See there is the difference. Somehow you can see a couple of million a year...
I see that as an abomination.
Many hard working folks don't make a million in a lifetime.

have a good one
just

[GoodOlBoy]

No the algae procs was an example of how big buisness can make things disapear with little to no trace.

GoodOlBoy

[fabsroman]

Just,

When my dad retired 4 years ago, he was making $45,000 a year working for the government. My mom quit working 37 years ago when I was born. My parents raised 5 kids, sent 4 to college (i.e., one of us didn't have the scores to get into college), and have owned outright their 4 bedroom, 4 bathroom house on 2/3 acres for over 15 years now. They were as frugal as could be, and I think they did a great job. The average household income around where I live is $100K, but the average house price at its height was $500K. $45K in a lot of places in America is a pretty decent income, especially when the average house price is $200K or less. A friend of mine just went from Baltimore to Louisville, Kentucky. He sold his house in Baltimore for $450K and bought a bigger house with a lot more property in Kentucky for $270K.

The relevance of income amounts depends on location.

As far as why companies don't use asbestos or manufacture lead paint or choose not to use flame retardant material in childrens pajamas has nothing to do with health insurance, but something called class action lawsuits. They get the pants sued off of them for doing stuff like that, especially once it becomes known that those actions are harmful. Peter Angelos and Saul Kerpelman are famous for asbestos lawsuits and lead paint poisoning law suits in the Baltimore area, and Peter Angelos made enough from class action asbestos lawsuits that he was able to buy the Orioles baseball team. About 8 years ago, Angelos made $200 million+ on a class action lawsuit against the tobacco companies on behalf of the State of Maryland. The judgment amount was $25 billion and Angelos' contingency fee agreement provided that he should get $4 billion. The State thought that was a little much, so they took him to Court and the Courts agreed and reduced the attorney fee from $4 billion to $200 million. Try comparing that to CEO salaries.

How about the owners of sports franchises? How about the players? Alex Rodriquez makes $25 million a year to hit a little white ball. Manny Ramirez might be getting close to that pretty soon. How about LeBron James or Michael Jordan?

Honestly, I believe in a free market place and under normal circumstances would say let the financial institutions and the Big 3 go down. However, we are not facing normal circumstances here. The question is whether letting all of them go down in flames will result in the country going down in flames?

[justwannano]

Quote fab
As far as why companies don't use asbestos or manufacture lead paint or choose not to use flame retardant material in childrens pajamas has nothing to do with health insurance, but something called class action lawsuits. They get the pants sued off of them for doing stuff like that, especially once it becomes known that those actions are harmful. Peter Angelos and Saul Kerpelman are famous for asbestos lawsuits and lead paint poisoning law suits in the Baltimore area, and Peter Angelos made enough from class action asbestos lawsuits that he was able to buy the Orioles baseball team. About 8 years ago, Angelos made $200 million+ on a class action lawsuit against the tobacco companies on behalf of the State of Maryland. The judgment amount was $25 billion and Angelos' contingency fee agreement provided that he should get $4 billion. The State thought that was a little much, so they took him to Court and the Courts agreed and reduced the attorney fee from $4 billion to $200 million. Try comparing that to CEO salaries.
/q

You are not looking far enough back.
Someone had to sound the alert.
I suppose it could have been the local undertaker but I'll bet it was insurance companies.

IMHO class action law suits are just a balancing act. Too many law suits and the court system is overloaded.
As far as ball players making all that money. Disgraceful is not near a strong enough word.
But as long as there are those that have enough money to pay to fix ball games that will probably continue.


I'm guessing some of those execs couldn't walk around the bases.
Then again we aren't talking about ball players.

Speaking of that I'd also guess that the CEO that you were trying to compare to the guy that installs seats probably couldn't physically last the day.

Have a good one
just

Oh one last thing.
Did your father have insurance paid for by his employer>

[fabsroman]

Yes, my father had insurance paid for by the government, but if you ever look closely at those policies, they aren't completely paid for. They are almost like the high deductible policies I mentioned.

Essentially, my dad at one point had an 80/20 policy with BCBS, but that 20% can be a hum dinger too when a major surgery is required. For instance, on a $100K heart surgery, the insured/employee could be on the hook for $20K. Luckily, there is usually a maximum out of pocket on those policies, and nowadays they are around $3,000 to $5,000. I know because I had to review one of these policies about 4 years ago when a client of mine had a 2 month premature baby and the hospital bill was in the 6 figures and then some.

I think a health policy that makes employees responsible for the first amount of outlays, is a very good idea. Then, it gives them a little more incentive to be healthy (e.g., smoking, drinking, and eating). It also makes them think twice about risky behavior. Yes, a lot of families could not afford to be hit with a $5,000 insurance deductible, but as I mentioned earlier the employer usually kicks in an amount every year. Say it is $1,000 every year. If them employee and the employee's family don't use it for 5 years, then they have it covered for one catastrophic incident. If they don't use it for 30 years, or the employee decides to contribute a little extra to it, then they will have even more money in it and be able to weather a couple of catastrophes. Remember, if they don't use the money by the time they qualify for Medicare, it becomes retirement money.

[GoodOlBoy]

This whole thing kinda reminds me of the Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream company in reverse. No employee of Ben and Jerry's can ever be paid more than 7 times as much as the lowest paid employee. That means the presidents only make 7 times what the guy sweeping the floor makes. This is a company that in '91 as a startup was certain to fail and instead went nation wide in a matter of months. Also of note, no memeber of the board can make a motion at their annual company meeting unless they get up on stage and sing the motion.

Love TV specials about companies like that.

GoodOlBoy

[Steverino]

After considering the impacts to the economy in lost jobs throughout the country and immediate cost, I would still not bail out the failed US auto industry.

In my opinion, we simply cannot. The budget models utilzed by these organizations have failed miserably for years- even with the pre SUV, and truck sales by the Big 3 over the last few years. The UAW has raped the industry also for years. My father worked for years in the Local 701, I know. I believe that the unions in their inception were wonderful and did some very good things for workers and the nation but like most good things, became corrupted and no longer served to it's intent.

This is a capitalistic nation built upon the ideas of a free, entreaprenarial spirit. If these businesses fail, (I personally do not believe that Ford will fail -they have cash to weather the storm and are leveraged better than GM & Chrysler ) what emerges over time will be another American car maker to fill the void. If there is a need, someone will rise to fill it. Other automobile manufacturers have failed in the US.

There are other geo=political concerns. I personally do not like the government running our banks and other financial institutions and now the proposed auto industry-certainly not under the Obama White House and Democratic legislation. What's next and who is next for a bail-out? (take-over) The US retailers are reported to remain a shell of their former selves from what I am reading, following the expected dismal sales from this holiday shopping season. Does the government take them over as well? Where does it stop?

Watching the senate and house subcommittee hearings over the past couple of days I was struck with bewilderment at Ford's CEO Alan Mulally and GM's CEO Rick Wagonner's refusal to consider giving up their combined 35 million dollar compensation packages when pressed by Illinois Republican represenative Peter Roskam. They flew to the hearings in personal corporate jets and were chided by the House for not "down grading" to First class flights. The apparent disconnect of these men that are/would be in charge of any bailout plan is nothing but disconcerting.

Rick Wagonner could also not provide any form of a straight answer to exasperated Rep members as to how much in total GM would require in funds to remain solvent in the long haul (after making comments that both the earlier 25 billion in aid to further advance fuel efficient technology combined with the current 25 billion proposal may not be enough) :rolleyes: Your indistry has been in the toilet for years but you cannot provide a budget model for your own company financial rescue?

From what I am reading, Obama can (probably will) award the bailouts without going through Congress. (If GM can remain that long) Bush has maintained a firm veto for any bailout plan to the auto industry which crosses his desk.

[Steverino]

Should the bailout plan fail...
IMO
Ford, GM, and Chrysler should all file for restructuring. This is truly what the US industry needs at this time, not another lump sum of money that goes towards the bottomless pit. Chrysler's own consulting groups say that an additional 30 billion would be consumed in the first financial quarter of 09.

All three of these organizations need a complete overhaul and a filing for restructuring would go a long way in facilitating this end.

[fabsroman]

Yeah, I wouldn't agree on a bailout if those execs weren't willing to give up some of their millions in compensation. The more I listen to those morons, the more torn I become. I think the failure of the American auto industry will definitely hurt the nation and make this recession last longer, but I think we can recover from it.

As far as new American auto manufacturers coming about, I would seriously doubt that. When was the last time that we saw a new American auto manufacturer? I don't think there was one during my lifetime, except for maybe Delorean and some other small niche manufacturers.

[GoodOlBoy]

Actually a new one was born a few years ago. They make electric automobobbles called zapcars. Yeah yeah I know if it ain't a billion square acre plant makin gas burners, BUT it is still autos.

http://www.zapworld.com/

[GoodOlBoy]

and this one, and several other models.

[Dan Morris]

Originally posted by Steverino
Should the bailout plan fail...
IMO
Ford, GM, and Chrysler should all file for restructuring. This is truly what the US industry needs at this time, not another lump sum of money that goes towards the bottomless pit. Chrysler's own consulting groups say that an additional 30 billion would be consumed in the first financial quarter of 09.

All three of these organizations need a complete overhaul and a filing for restructuring would go a long way in facilitating this end.


I'm gonna go along with this. They will emerge a lot leaner but will still be there. If the legal beagles haven't already drafted this, they are still asleep at the wheel! We continue to fly on airlines that are under Ch 11, and no real problems. Face it...big rock candy mountain is out of sugar!
Dan

[GoodOlBoy]

This is the kinda crap I am talking about fabs.

GM Giving Up Two Luxury Jets After Begging Congress for $25 Billion Bailout

Message delivered.

On Wednesday, the top brass at Detroit's Big Three automakers got run over in Congress and the press for flying to Washington aboard luxurious private jets to beg for a $25 billion industry bailout.

Two days later, on Friday, General Motors Corp. announced that it is terminating the leases on two of its five private jets in an effort "to cut costs."

Only three jets to go. If this keeps up, can it be long before they'll be traveling in coach?

GM spokesman Mike Meyerand told FOXNews that, until recently, the company leased seven corporate jets. The automaker "got out of" two of those leases in September, and two more on Friday.

Meyerand said the three remaining corporate jets would remain at the disposal of "only the very top senior leadership."

Asked if it was not the use of such aircraft by the "very top senior leadership" that occasioned this week's outcry, Meyerand said that was for the media to conclude.

GM's CEO Rick Wagoner, whose round-trip flight to Washington reportedly cost $20,000 — about 70 times what a commercial airline ticket would cost — told Congress he expected GM would get between $10 billion and $12 billion from the requested bailout.

Joined by Robert Nardelli of Chrysler and Alan Mulally of Ford, Wagoner told the Senate that a collapse in Detroit could cost 3 million jobs in one year and damage the economy in communities across the country.

Ford and Chrysler did not comment on their future corporate jet policies, but Chrysler confirmed that it does lease private jets, Reuters reported on Friday.

"This is a slap in the face of taxpayers," Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste, told ABC News. "To come to Washington on a corporate jet, and asking for a handout is outrageous."



http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,456145,00.html

YA WANT A LINK! THERES A LINK!

$20k a round trip. Wow I feel sorry for him, hope he at least got peanuts on the flight. Only time I was in first class was when I walked though it to get off of a plane, but then again my poor wallet and me weren't going to beg for millions (or billions) of taxpayer dollars.

By the way I believe they SHOULD file for restructuring. Period. And if tax payers bail them out there should be a firing freeze on anybody in the company making less than Obama's $250K cap.

Otherwise I believe (nope just me believing no link for this one) they will take the money and do another hefty round of layoffs (which only seem to affect the workers)


GoodOlBoy

[fabsroman]

GOB,

The more I read about this, and the more the CEO's of these companies show what idiots they are, the more I am changing my mind.

It just feels so wrong to let 2 corporations that have been in the US for close to, if not over, 100 years, go down.

However, between reading about the Unions and reading about the CEO's, I'm almost sick.Both sides have run those companies into the ground, with absolutely no forethought about the their future or the company's future.

[RagingBullPa]

of the excess in upper management, in other words trim the fat, our company did that last year got rid of 25 execs in the front office, lots of flotsam and jetsam , lots of overpaid unknowledgable execs in the fields out there yea they got the sheepskin that says they are educated inho they can wipe themselves with itfor what its worth , the workers make the cars take care of them

[GoodOlBoy]

fabs, that is a sentiment I can understand. I hate seeing ANY US company that has been with us so long go under. I hate the idea of the job loss. And I hate it for the employees. But I feel like the execs will just take the bailout money, keep going like they have been, and lay off the workers we both want to save in the first place anyway.

GoodOlBoy

[LoneWolf]

been gone for over a week, and I against my better judgement I'll make one last comment and then I'm done with this.

1. Quit calling this a bailout for the big three. It is a bridge loan. Worked before, and one of the few times the feds ever made a profit.

2. Why is everone so upset about a "loan" to the big 3, and no one is bitching about the 700 plus billion we are "giving" to financials. Just today we shelled out 20 billion to Citibank.
Hmmm, don't remeber them coming up and having to testify.

3. How ironic is it for our elected "lifetime" politicos want a bussiness plan to look at form the big 3? My money says most of em wouldn't no a good one if it bit them in the %ss. And if they do, here is a novel idea, use it themselves.

[fabsroman]

Lonewolf,

#1 - I agree

#2 - I'm not happy with the $700 billion bailout either. What is utterly pathetic is that Citigroup recently bought up one of the ailing financial institutions and now they need a bailout themselves. With that said, about a month ago my wife and I put an offer on a house and it was almost impossible for us to get a mortgage approval and my crediting rating is 807 and my wife's is 784 and we weren't talking about any type of loan that we couldn't have easily afforded.

#3 - I think the entire "business plan" request is a stalling tactic, but I am still pretty pissed that GM had 7 private jets leased a year or two ago, and that they just reduced it from 5 to 3. I'm sitting here wondering why they haven't been reduced to 0 yet.

Here is my #4. I have seen some graphs of employee compensation of the Big 3 compared to Toyota and Honda employees in the states, and the difference is pretty staggering.

I'm on a seesaw here, swinging back and forth on the subject.

[Steverino]

Lonewolf,

I do respect your opinions on this matter. Here are some of mine. To your above post:

1. This so called "bridge loan" of 50 billion dollars would be consumed in the very first financial quarter of 2009 admitted by the very mouths of the CEO's themselves. What then???? This is why #3 (Affectionately referred thereafter as "The Big Plan" important- particularly to US taxpayers) is of such importance. BTW, the plan (we're being kind here) that GM, Ford, & Chysler revealed to Congress was an open-ended joke. This did work before for Chrysler, when Lee Iacocca was CEO and refused his salary and executive lunches during the crisis. You can betch your *ss Lee would have driven to Washington in a 'K' car for the hearings. Even Chysler had to jump through hoops (as they should) during the Reagan administrations bail-out plan.

2. The fundamental difference here is that the original intent of the 700 billion dollar bailout was for federally backed financial institutions to begin utilizing the money for American consumers to free up the credit crunch in housing, business, and auto lending practices; not for free enterprise businesses . Obviously, this has now been diverted. Don't recall seeing Citibank having the financial balance sheets repeatedly over time that the US automakers have had. We have seen a domino effect in the failure of financial lending markets. We do not seem to see this rampant in the automobile industry with other non-US auto manufacturers. This is also the reason that Congress wants a detailed plan. Toyota, Honda, and Nissan have all suffered as well in this economic recession but they are no where in the same financial straits as GM, Ford, & Chrysler.

3. Couldn't agree more with you on this one! :D

[GoodOlBoy]

LW we are not bitching about the other bailouts and loanouts because that was not the topic at hand. Post a topic on bailing out credit card companies and watch me lose my mind. Talk about been rooking people for decades. The big 3 are alter boys compared to citibank and other credit card companies.

GoodOlBoy

[Lilred]

I dont blame any one particular thing fer the B3's problems...but a bad combination.
Fer one, the union's (UAW) been round since the 30's...it worked great back then...till everybody started gettin greedy.
Their cars was sellin good, till "somebody" introduced the wide world of imports to the US..and us goober Americans bought the crap out of em....cause we were greedy...
They quit makin em as good as they used to cause....the AUW and the execs were.....greeeeeeedy.

Should we let em fall on their own sword?
Maybe...but yet again....it's at the expense of the regular joe tryin to make a livin...and not just the UAW either.
Hubby works at a Chrysler dealership. They're layin off people left and right. He is lucky cause he is the alignment fella fer the whole "superstore" which is Chrysler, Honda, & Subaru.
Honda & Subaru is the only thing keepin his paycheck comin.
That there, freinds and neighbors, sucks.
I hate relyin on some other dat-blamed country to keep us afloat. Where is there American patriotism? We can do it our dam selves!
Where is American pride?
Remember when everybody was pushin "made in America"?
Well it failed..miserably.
So, we all done it to ourselves by bein greedy and yet again the regular joe is the one to suffer fer it....

I'm gonna put me on some green tights, get me a longbow and start stealin for the poor and all that...lol

[GoodOlBoy]

Dunno bout the rest but I reckon I could stand to see ya in green tights. . . . . :D

GoodOlBoy

[Steverino]

Good to hear from you Lilred!

How's your little darling doing?

As I seem to recall in the 70's, the first Japan imports were generally referred to, (at least in my neck of the woods) as "Jap Crap." The Datsuns, Toyotas, & Hondas were small little rust buckets and not the most reliable.

Then came the gas crunch in 72-73 and folks began seriously looking at foreign automobiles (including the VW bug, Rabbit, etc) and trading in their large "boats" with big block V8's.

In the 80's and especially the 90's, The Big 3 basically churned out the same cars, on the same chassis platforms (save an emblem badge, plastic grill cover or some other purely cosmetic effect) to distinguish amongst the model offerings. The foreign competition, spent the money of retooling and listened to the consumer, churning on completely redesigned automobiles every few years. Big 3 didn't do this. The average American said, now why in the world why I buy a new model when it looks exactly like my three year old model sitting in my driveway? :rolleyes:

Another thing happened: The foreign competition started to get pretty good products out too. Folks soon started to talk with their friends and neighbors about how many miles their particular flavor of Yin & Yang was getting to the gallon. Oh, did I happen to mention that it also has 170K miles on the original engine and tranny? Yep, all I do is change the oil nowadays. Not the most comfortable car to ride around in, I mean, compared to my Buick Electra 225 but the thing just runs, and runs, and runs. I'm saving $65 a month in gas and don't have the huge periodic maintenance expenses either.

Meanwhile, whilst all the above is unfolding, the UAW union is squeezing management for higher benefits, most noticably, pension benefits. Sacrifices are made in other salary pay areas for workers for the promise of longer term retirement benefits. Management figures out that his profit/earnings ration is higher having some foreinger in another land assemble a door panel for 1/3 the cost as here in the US and voila! This effectively puts and end to the US automobile. The Big 3 went from foreign components to full sub-assemblies in their plants. This further eliminated jobs.

As the years rolled by, Big 3 has almost caught up in some areas to the quality of their competition, but the word has spread like wildfire for the past decade about the virtues of the foreign automobiles and the foreign competition has grabbed more than half of the available market share. Consumers will pay extra for what is perceived as a superior crafted quality product.

There are many, many other parts of this story as you are all aware but this was by and large how things played out around the Midwest US.

[RagingBullPa]

"Rice Burners", now they are higher priced than the american cars,and made just as crappy can't say american made most of them have factories here now, what ever happened to "Remember Pearl Harbor ", the all mighty dollar everyone including the unions all wanted more this is what they got, all wanted a piece of the pie they got it allright right in the snoot, we have no one to blame except ourselves for letting it happen, whats the old saying screw me once shame on me , except we keep getting it

[Lilred]

Hey there Steverino!
Lil Lilred is doin great ty..she is startin school next year do ya believe it??? Dam I'm old...lol
And ya summed it up way better than I could..that's what it seems to me too.

Ragin bull, will I regret askin ya what exactly is the Castle Doctrine?? lol

[RagingBullPa]

part of the homeland security package, a person's home is their castle and yu have the right to defend it using force if necessary, in other words shoot first ask questions later policy, its explained in wilkepedia just about the same way the only ones who are protected from you are the law enforcement officers you can't shoot them if they are performing their duty in coming into your domain

[Steverino]

'the only ones who are protected from you are the law enforcement officers you can't shoot them if they are performing their duty in coming into your domain.'

Even if they are Janet Reno and you're not hiding an illegal in your broom closet???:D

[RagingBullPa]

you cannot interfere with a law enforcement officer legally performing their duty , if the sob don't have a search warrant , tell him to leave if they don't leave throw them out i say but don't shoot them, thats unnecessary force janet didn't use a broom she was into whips chains and leather:D