General Motors recovery plan

GM has a big recovery plan. Per their TV & radio commercials they are going to put their baseball caps on backwards and have a rally.

I shall no longer be purchasing GM vehicles. Once the government starts taking over companies and telling them what to do, it is time to purchase elsewhere. I will now be buying Ford vehicles. They knew they didn't want the government to tell them what to produce and how to do it. Therefore, I shall give them my business.

And we already bailed out Chrysler once. It is time for them to go. They didn't learn from their previous mistakes so they shall also no longer receive my business.

yep, it is sad that GM cant run their business without Bailout money. Basically the company would be bankrupt without the bailout money.

My personal feeling is it's harsh to blame our car companies for the situation. They're building good products and many people would love to buy them, but wages and jobs are being cut. Foreign countries can come here and not have to support retirees. Foreign companies are here to loot our country, they get to take their profits to their home countries.

Yes, that's called competition. GM sells cars on a worldwide basis. If they choose to let the unions destroy their competitive edge in the USA then they will go out of business. It is called capitalism. They flunked. Good riddance to them and their overpaid, underworked thugs from the UAW.

Now a more competitive company can get a larger share of the market.

Very true......However I would love to pound the executives of GM in the face with a set of brass knuckles.

It does make you sick to see what has happened with all 3 of them.

Your right the UAW has wrecked the US based car industry.

You guys forget that Ford is going thru this for the second time. It looks like they must have learned something from the first time. Besides the Ford family can't afford to lose their fortune. I wonder how much money they have borrowed (private loans not gov.) in the last couple years to save their millions. They aren't out of it yet, if their suppliers have to apply for some of this money and Ford owns a share in that company then Ford has to abide by the gov's rules also.

I am in the UAW local 578 in Oshkosh Wi. I have never worked for a union before and never will again if i ever leave my coushy job. I agree everyone i work with is over payed and under worked. We have janitors are making $18 some and hour and dont have to clean toilets. The union fights more for the lazy and incompetent people that get fired alot more than the hard working ones. You cant go over and beyond what your job is or you'll have the union breathing down your neck.

ya but they Paid it all back the first time

you sound like a truck worker?

Then who cleans the toilets?

With interest and paid it off early. Also gave their employees the benefits they gave up back.

Not sure how it will go this time but.....

An outside Janatorial service

Ford's in an especially tough situation right now. They have to compete with heavily subsidized competitors that the Administration has already said are "too big to fail". I read that as the government will cover all of Chrysler and GM's losses, no matter how much they have to discount their vehicles. How can Ford ever expect to compete with that kind of unfair trade practices?

You got it.

i worked uaw years ago. seemed stupid for me to go in on overtime because someone else did. all people did ot if one did. even if i had no parts to assemble. 12hr ot while laying on a pallet napping.

The only bad thing about that is, you end up with a Ford!

You work at truck?

The union has plenty of problems.Henry Ford was a farmer to start with.Paid his people well and resisted unions for a long time.Too bad other businesses werent run like Henry Ford ran his.There were lots more companies that didnt pay very good.Unions were started to even things up between rich factory owners and workers.Its both sides fault,you cant just blame unions.Now if it werent for unions nobody would make decent pay.Some of you all get on here week after week and spew a bunch of one sided stuff as if you knew anything.General Motors has been on top of the Fortune 500 list for years,and now they have their hand out to the taxpayers to keep from going bankrupt?Yeah they have piles of money they stole out of the company somewhere probably.Thats who are the crooks.People who go to work every day and make cars need to be able to live.Sure they are overpaid.However there is way more stealing going on down the line than just working people in a union.To complain about those people while you watch the other side steal trillions is just silly.That right there is what is wrong with the country.A bunch of blowhards take it over,get rid of regulators and regulations,steal more money than we can as a country make by 2050,put our kids,grandkids and great grand kids in debt,and you people cry about the union.There is way more money stolen by government contractors than GM,Ford,Chrysler and any other company ever will be able to get,every month we are in that Iraq war.
Years ago Nixon tried to freeze wages,Wall street threw a fit and caused double digit inflation for years.Once they got the ball rolling gouging the workforce then big oil claimed there was a shortage and gouged more.Nothing ever got fixed,and for the most part nnalert have ran the government most of the time since then.If a nnalert said anything that might help the situation it was made certain that project would not get done.Both political sides are looking more and more alike,and its like both sides dont represent the people,just big money.Big money only cares about profit.Big Fortune 500 company like GM sees foreign companies making more money and they just want to destroy their own company,ask for bailouts,just to cut peoples pensions and benefits.That is a bunch of crooks.Thats what you get for being one sided.Things need a balance.You cant balance the scales by putting everything on one side.By being narrow minded and one sided the people running things almost insure that what will finally happen again is the workers will get fed up with it.You all talk big,but you arent the majority.The majority is madder and more fed up all the time.So its 1% of the population that have more wealth than the bottom 50% in our own country?50% of the population is 150 million people.Compared to 3 million.Not even close.A fight between classes wouldnt last very long.Probably wont even have to happen because if 150 million people want that 3 millions wealth,they will get it.Do you really want a French Revolution style equalization of things?Big companies knew that they couldnt actually fight the work force.They resisted sure,but they were such jerks about it that they got the deal they got with the corrupt unions because they thought they could disrupt or destroy the whole thing,and they did.Now what you have is the aftermath.The fight has been going on since the 60s.Wonder how many Billions GM has made since the 60s?Now besides stealing from the work force they want to steal from the rest of us.This has gone on so long that lots of people dont even know it.Why does a package of steak cost 20 dollars for 3 lbs of meat?Its that 1% and they are greedy.Payback will come.These people arent Henry Ford,a farmer,and a common man who tried to treat his workers fairly.These people were always crooks,at least the ones in charge of General Motors,and in with the bankers,big oil,and Wall Street.They are crooks getting their cut of the take and you are paying it.If they were so stupid that the only deal they could get from the union was 30 dollar an hour wages and 20 dollars an hour benefits,hey thats what scientists working for the government get,50 dollars an hour.Cars have costed way too much for way too long and most people cant afford one any more.Thats what keeping wages depressed across the board does.Who keeps wages depressed across the board?nnalert do.The price of everything has gone up to where people can barely afford to buy Wal Mart China junk.Thats not because of unions,thats because of one sided government and tightwad companies.Everybody that gets up and goes to work every day needs to be able to afford a place to live for him and his family,food,clothes,electricity,heat,cooling,or a living wage.Its horrible to live like that year after year,but its far more horrible to go to work and not be able to afford that living.There is lots of room for improvement across the board.Its the nnalert turn,and if they make us mad,there will not be a good outcome to it.We should have never been dragged into these conditions.See if you arent fair,it comes back and bites you.GM was crooked,the unions were as well,since they were crooked they got a crooked deal.Union was doing what it does,negotiate a good wage for its workers.Not every union was able to negotiate a living wage for its workers.Surely a better wage than the workers would have got from the crooks without a union,but not a very good wage compared to 30 bucks an hour.Then there are people that think minimum wage is too high.Try to feed your family and have a house with electricity and clothes and food on minimum wage if you think its too high.When you consider all those billions GM made,and all the money they made for stockholders and everything,they should be ashamed of asking for a handout.If business was so good they could pay 50 dollars an hour,good.If now they cant,the price of everything in this country needs to go down across the board to where people making minimum wage can live,or we should have a revolt until it happens.Actually I have been waiting for the revolt since 1974 when a lot of this crap started.Its got way worse since then.I think a new pickup could be bought in 1974 for about 2500 dollars and that was too high.Whats that say for the inflated price of things now?Even auto workers wages have not kept up to the rate of inflation because if they did they would be making 150 per hour now with benefits and pension.Who is the crook now?Its the traitors moving factories to China and selling the stuff here for 10 times more than its worth.

Something like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Sounds like you have a plan; a simplified version would go like this:
"In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly—only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!"

It can be done I've been competing against Gov't funded farmers for years and making it.Gov't $$$ tends to make those getting it even worse business people than before they got it.

Put their caps anywhere they want but its not going to make people buy their underperforming overpriced cars and trucks and no amount of Gov't $$$ can save them if no ones buys their products.I would never buy a Union owed Chrysler product now for any reason

I think you make a lot of good points. I heard new replacement employees in our car companies get $14 an hour, which equates to around $30,000 a year. A pundit said "that's not enough to send a kid to college or buy a new car, and it's a counterdiction. Car companies want people to buy cars, but wages of their own employees won't afford them one. And, auto workers traditionally set the benchmark for other manufacturing industries." In the 1990's Nike paid Micheal Jordan $27 million a year to endorse their shoes. That was more than they paid the entire Chinese workforce to make them. Looks like we're going that direction. How low should our workers go?

Oh yes, another thing, the IRS allows no income tax deductions for auto workers. So even the $30,000 is taxed down by a significant amount. Gross income numbers are mentioned, but those aren't reality after taxes.

no. i was assembly at case tractor plant. dont know how that became uaw but it was. and no choice. either in the union or no job.

Wow, I might be yawning, had I read that meandering epistle! My eyes glazed over after reading the first run on sentence.

You must have read the entire epistle, save your reply, to save time, each time t-40 posts, just paste it right below as the synopsis! Right on, brother!

Auto workers are entitled to the same deductions as any other tax payer in the same bracket. We all have our gross pay and then have the required taxes taken out resulting in net pay. If you are disappointed in your net now, wait until the hidden taxes (Cap and trade) in the form of higher energy prices hit next year. They aren't going to raise direct taxes on pay for 95% of Americans, but we will all pay extra in hidden taxes and user fees.

You were lucky. My eyes started to bleed by the 4th sentence.

I think he said that if the auto companies paid their employees more, they could afford to buy a new car. What he failed to mention was that the fact that if the auto manufacturers paid their employees more, they would have to raise the price of new cars. He never mention reducing taxes and shrinking government so that the employees would have extra money to buy new cars and the manufacturers would be able to reduce the price of cars.

Oh boy, another book on how to turn the country into the Socialist Workers Paradise by T40. I"ll avoid reading it and just go take some Pepto.....

Ford saw the light about 2 years ago and lined up credit to redesign and remake their company, in other words, they had a plan. They put themselves in a position to weather this and have a decent line up of vehicles to sell.

Nothing wrong with a company wanting to make money and then keep what they invested and worked for.

Ford's in an especially tough situation right now. They have to compete with heavily subsidized competitors that the Administration has already said are "too big to fail".

====================================================


Very good point. GM and Chrysler are both offering nnalert loans and extended warranties (life time warranty by Chrysler) subsidized by the taxpayers. Meanwhile Ford is still paying its own bills.

(quoted from post at 08:56:28 05/04/09) You were lucky. My eyes started to bleed by the 4th sentence.

I think he said that if the auto companies paid their employees more, they could afford to buy a new car. What he failed to mention was that the fact that if the auto manufacturers paid their employees more, they would have to raise the price of new cars. He never mention reducing taxes and shrinking government so that the employees would have extra money to buy new cars and the manufacturers would be able to reduce the price of cars.

Click to expand...

Good post. I didn't even get to the 4th sentence. I've seen his diatribes before and never found anything logical or rational in his posts.

I think that the current Bankruptcy case with Chrysler is the blueprint for the GM plan next month. That means that the company will be turned over to the UAW and make profits solely for the VEBA which provides benefits to the UAW membership and retirees to an extent not available to the rest of us in America. I agree that the US government needed to step in and back-stop Chrysler but it is unbelievable that the government is going to shaft the other stakeholders (suppliers, debt-holders, dealers, etc) to give 55% to the UAW of the GOOD assets and throw the BAD assets in a pile and let everyone fight over the scraps. Plus, the "sacrifices" that external_link praised the UAW for making amount to nothing (loss of a vacation day?, loss of COLA for a few years?) compared to a farmer or other retiree who bought Chrysler or GM bonds to fund his retirement who will lose everything.

Yup, the UAW gave up nothing, got the company in return. Then when auto sales rebound and the NEW Chrysler is making money hand over fist, the VEBA will have so much cash, they will be writing bonus checks to the UAW members and retirees while all others (salaried workers, salaried retireees, bondholders, etc) have lost everything with no upside potential.

Talk about a sweetheart deal for the UAW. They got payback from external_link big time on this.

Suffice it to say, I've bought my last Chrysler product. If GM goes the same way, I will have bought my last GM product. Guess it will be Ford, Toyota or Honda in my garage from now on.

"... if 150 million people want that 3 millions wealth,they will get it..."


Sounds like a perfect summary of the union's attitude! No wonder the mob controls so much of the union(s)... That's their attitude, too - just take what you want...

How many workers do you think Toyota & Honda have laying around on pallets napping while drawing overtime (per the post below)???

Oh yeah, they aren't unionized, so their workers probably expect to have to work for a paycheck...


HH

Well stated. As I've said before, this was nothing more than one of, if not, the greatest redistributions of wealth and it was carried out in broad daylight. This is a real dangerous precedent. Every company in the US is now fair game to be taken over by the government and handed to the employees. The constitution might as well be put on Ebay , because the current administration has shown they have no use for it.

I really wish Wagner from GM would have told the president that external_link had no authority to fire him and that he (Wagner) would be at work until his board relieved him of his duties. This would have force external_link to either go along and kindly ask that Wagner resign or external_link would have had to cut GM off completely and put GM into bankruptcy which is what is going to happen at the end of the month.

The first thing the UAW is going to do is sell their shares in Chrysler. They don't want a vested interest in the company they work for.


http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=AP&date=20090502&id=9861942

Alright,yeah my answer was long and rambling.The problem is that it took a long time to get here.We started out with a free country and somewhere it went communist controlled by the mob and degenerated into slave labor,and the car manufacturing companies played a big part in all of the problems.You would have to work as an auto worker to buy steak at the grocery store or shingle your house with shingles costing 70 dollars a square and steak at 9 dollars a pound.When you can work all week and get poorer things will not work and there will be bloodshed sooner or later.The politicians are all idiots now and seems like are not even trying to make things better for the working people,just the crook side that has all the money.Well I guess you have to expect that,poor people dont have any money to pay them off.Auto workers making 30 bucks an hour arent getting rich either.So now things are all messed up,and the crooks are using the government to steal for them to get tax dollars.Next the car companies will claim they cant pay this back and nobody,even people working for them can buy their over priced cars.The old cut tax,give the rich people money already failed,now its the steal from the poor give to the crooks plan,that already is not going to work either.Just a slight modification of the steal from the poor give to the rich plan we had before.If the union was able to get fair pay out of the auto makers its kind of like Robin Hood stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.Having worked for a union a few times,the company starts out where they could make a reasonable decision,then they balk,and things go crazy.Thats how workers get what they do,the company gives it to them.If GM wanted things to be different they didnt have to agree to the contract.The same crooks that ruined the company now probably work for the UAW,since it looks like thats who is winning.Crooks have always been here and always will,we dont have to let them destroy the whole country,but by being one sided,and the wrong side at that,things are falling apart and run by crooks now.All the crooks are doing is changing hats.Still corrupt,nothings getting fixed,people getting screwed,and the same crooks are getting paid off,just acting like they are different.Its always been the same group of people stealing at least since the 1980s,they just move around,lie,spread the same false rumors,play both ends against the middle.It would be a lot more simple if it was the mob,you could kind of keep up with that,its a smarter crook,embedded in everything sacred to our country.A super crook/traitor that has the country in a strangle hold and no matter what we do,they get worse.

Yeah I had to take some Pepto after writing it.

Well thats right.I bet nobody is loafing in that foreign plant.However all of that money the foreign plant is making is going where?This is going to make some people insane but its right,even the ones sleeping on a pallet are better than any foreign worker because the money is going to an American company,not to a Foreign company.Any dumba$$ company that will pay workers to sleep on a pallet is going to have problems.It looks like there has been crooks in the union and the company,ruining them.There are lots of problems that it would take pages to even start to cover.Big shots hate to see workers making 30 bucks an hour for one thing,they would rather have slaves.Workers are way better if they get paid decent,but if they are overpaid they get worthless.No balance sums it up kind of.No balance everywhere in the auto industry.Cars are overpriced,workers overpaid,unions are overpowering,big wheels are stealing all they can,its just a system that evolved out of corruption,the mob,and now government,right in front of us,to where it doesnt even make sense.

I dissagree on that. Ford was giving just as good or better discounts as GM. Example: brother bought a new Ford fourdoor pickup, he got 9000 for his old one, he got just under 10000 from Ford on discounts and paid alittle over 10000 to boot. Now that is just about as good as you can get. I still would like to know who is financing the Ford family under the table. They are paying the same expenses as everybody else I think ,but they did do a huge change a couple years ago and maybe its working-hope so.