Bibble

The New Detroit Isn't in Detroit

Funny. Nearly every city in the country has a store that "makes their own" computers with other "existing" parts. Yet the HPs, Dells & Macs still dominate. Guess not every idea that fits the WWGD mantra or Jarvis' criteria for Knowledge Economy/Futurist chic is a viable one.

UAW: It Should Be Giving Up More

Arrogant classist superiority complex. You should have that checked out. UAW members account for less than 10% of the cost of a vehicle. The waste you find so appalling is occurring in the educated but worthless echelons of GM – and society. Talk about entitlement. I want to get six figures for sitting at a keyboard and tinkering with numbers and letters, maybe send some emails, attend some meetings, then blog about it all for our social media endeavor. We value worthlessness and degrade actual work. That's the root of our current crisis, folks. A bunch of free-loading do-nothings convinced of their own genius and oozing self-made machismo all over the rest of us. And did you ever consider that maybe these ego-bruised physicians need a union? Or aren't they that bright?

Defending the UAW, Felix Salmon Abandons Logic

So finance lobbyists can 'organize' and 'collectively bargain' with Washington politicians for NAFTA, all manner of deregulation, legalized usury, bailouts for the banking and bossing class etc. But when workers do it, it's labeled corrupt by this same hypocritical crowd? Please.

Even Sect. 201 of your labor-market-regulating Taft Hartley Act clearly states the position of the U.S. with regards to collective bargaining:

"It is the policy of the United States that sound and stable industrial peace and the advancement of the general welfare, health, and safety of the Nation and of the best interest of employers and employees can most satisfactorily be secured by the settlement of issues between employers and employees through the processes of conference and collective bargaining between employers and the representatives of their employees"

Why don't you captains of industry try to grow your precious profits in ways other than simply extracting wealth from those who actually create it?

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How Unions Destroy Shareholder Wealth

We need more Americans earning more money, not less. Collective bargaining is the only way to achieve this.

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"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." - Abraham Lincoln

Politically Powerful Unions: A New Class of Senior Debt?

Turn about is fair play. While GM was paying huge dividends and making huge overseas investments with money that should've beeen set aside for retirees, plants were closing, COLA was delayed, health care was rising and union leadership went right along with the company. Now when the ramifications of not properly funding their obligations comes home to roast, the same folks who benefited from that slight-of-hand are whining again because they can't simply throw the workers who made decades of windfalls possible in the trash can? The union's hairCUTS began well before the latest and most severe ones of 05, 06, 07, 08 and 09.

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if Labor had not first existed. Labor is superior to capital, and deserves much the higher consideration." - Abe Lincoln

Ben Stein Watch: November 8, 2008

It makes more sense to tie auto and manufacturing to fighting climate change and energy independence than it does tanks, war, and the military industrial complex. That's what these digital/knowledge economy hipsters fail to recognize. They seem to think that if they blog enough, somehow cars will get greener, wind turbines will be manufactured, electric trains will sprout out of the ground, and solar panels will build and install themselves. If let the Big Three die, this manufacturing equipment will be auctioned off, the factories will close, be demolished, and brownfields will spread throughout the country. GM will never sell the property because environmental liability laws hold the polluter responsible even if the property were sold. So GM, Ford, & Chrysler simply don't sell brownfield property. Why don't we recycle these factories? Why don't we make contingent on any money to the Big Three that they must sell brownfield property to anyone (private or public) willing use it as wind or solar farms? If GE can make everything from lightbulbs to warheads, why can't GM make trains & turbines in addition to caddys? These are the kinds of demands and conditions that should come with any gov. assistance. Talk about that and stop bitching about what these companies AGREED to pay their workers. Prior to the 2007 UAW contract, labor costs per vehicle (including pension & health care benefits) amounted to 10% of total production costs. Where did that other 90% go? Now, new hirers earn LESS THAN NON-UNION PLANTS in the South and receive no pension, no health care. And how is it that GM can afford to cut 30+% of their whitecollar jobs and still function? Hint: that's where the 90% of production costs were being squandered. Blame management all you want. But stop arrogantly demeaning the work of those on the factory floor. I doubt many here have spent 8 hours a day for 30 years bending and twisting and breaking their bodies, keeping up with a line, only to have the health care their job will make them need taken away by accountants and managers whose very existence within the company has proven itself utterly expendable – unlike the bolt on your steering column.

Looking into GM's History

How was "what's good for GM good for America?"

You have got to be kidding me. It's no wonder our economy is so screwed when self-described experts look to the cosmos for answers about top soil. Ever hear of fast food? What made that possible? What do you suppose crude oil is used for? How many Americans over the last 100 years have earned a living doing road construction and maintenance? Ever tried taking a covered wagon from LA to Vegas? Could their be a Vegas without a Detroit? Half of the Fortune 500's Top Ten Revenue Earners for 2007 were either Oil or Automotive companies (22Tango) – with GM at #3, Ford #7. You can make criticisms of their management decisions until the Dow comes home, but to suggest that GM as a company or Auto as an industry has not been good for America reeks of the kind ignorance and arrogance that seems to be a modern MBA requirement. Hello. The stock market is not an indicator of actual value. Ask anyone who's ever needed an ambulance or a squad car. Sheesh. Stop fantasizing about the magical Knowledge Economy that craps droplets of gold and wisdom from the ether, and start making the actual, reality-based, value-creating economy work.

General Motors: The Next Delisting from the Dow?

A recent report by the Congressional Research Service ("Globalization, Worker Insecurity, and Policy Approaches," updated July 31, 2008) noted the results of the decades-long drive to increase the exploitation of American workers.

Sorry. GM is still a great indicator of how the overall U.S. economy is doing:

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"While productivity growth or output per worker rose by 71% from 1980 to 2005, the real compensation of non-supervisory workers comprising 80% of the work force grew by 4%. The gap in the manufacturing sector was even greater: productivity rose 131%, while compensation of non-supervisors grew only 7%."

How Is GM Still Alive?

I'm sorry, but it's GM management's (as well as their stockholders & hangers-on) near neurotic fixation with labor costs that has taken GM's eye off the ball for decades. Ask yourself, have you heard more talk about 'legacy costs' from GM brass in recent years than about the need to produce more fuel efficient vehicles? You begin to see where and why the time, energy, talent, and money gets flushed. Total labor cuts per vehicle (including retiree health care & pensions) account for roughly 10% of production costs. That means 90% of costs per vehicle are bloated management blunders. Besides, the UAW gave the Big Three all they need during the 2007 contract negotiations - new hire wages are BELOW what Toyota pays at plants in the South. Also, do not underestimate the fact that the jobs that once allowed blue collar and other middle class workers to afford the latest and greatest models have moved overseas - to save these same companies more on labor! The result? Now there is no viable market here, nor in Asia, to purchase the very products their cheap labor creates. Building a bigger garage for the top 1% of wealth holders is about all we can hope for. And they don't buy new domestic models. Mostly classics - usually foreign. God bless Wall Street, the free market, the blame game, and short-term everything.