To Makesense:

Reasons to Bail Out GM

On Nov 12 03:12 PM tridog wrote:

> I think NOT bailing out GM will help KEEP people employed there.
> Right now, they are laying off engineers, while keeping people in
> the 'jobs bank'. If they go Chapter 11 - people keep on working,
> they keep on getting paid. But, the courts will impose new contracts
> on the union. This will cut costs, make GM more competitive, and
> SAVE jobs in the long run. Bailing them out does not fix the underlying
> trouble - it simply prolongs the agony. This happened to the airlines
> - it should happen to the automakers too.
I think the big 3 SHOULD be bailed out. Alot of this trouble stems back to the foreign competiton from which Nafta came. It is an unequal system. They tax our cars way more going into their country than our country taxes their imports into our country. The Uaw has agreed to MANY cuts in wages(new hires at 14.00), outside contractors now do cleaning making 14.00 an hour, they have helped eliminate many jobs on line. $14.00 an hour isn't enough to support a family let alone purchase a car, home, provide college education for their children. The Uaw has made sacrifices. They only want the people to make a decent living without struggling like every American should.
They need to tax license plates for import cars about $800 a year which would help create jobs. It would fix our roads, thereby creating construction jobs for reparis of the roads. The taxes made from the foreign car license tax could also help the schools which are constantly struggling also and it would HOPEFULLY help change the minds of Americans to drive domestic autos which would create many jobs. Jobs paying a decent wage, not overpaid jobs, just jobs making a decent wage with the thought of having a pension after working for so many years.
The CEO's should take a huge cut in pay at least until they start making a profit. The Uaw has made sacrifices, they should too.
The big 3 also spends big $ for processing engineers to eliminate the people that are building their products. They need to "lay them off" across the board. At least temporarily until they start making a profit and this alone would save the big 3 billions of dollars.
Finally, the big 3 then needs to regain consumer confidence which I feel was starting to happen until the market crisis took place. Now, people are in fear of losing their jobs and are not purchasing anything, let alone an automobile. Ford has proven that they have now gained level ground with Toyota in quality, if not slightly more.