It has happened repeatedly in the last several weeks — well-paid, well-known journalists questioning the wisdom of “bailing out Detroit,” of helping an industry whose union-represented workers have substantially better wages and benefits than other manual or skilled laborers, or, more precisely, who are better compensated than their nonunion counterparts working at foreign-owned rival companies building cars and trucks in the United States.
The questions are tinged with outrage and ridicule: Why should Americans who earn less, have inferior pension and health-care plans, help the United Auto Workers union? Why can’t the UAW be satisfied with the same pay packages given at Honda, or with an even less-expensive compensation agreement for workers at the Hyundai assembly plant in Montgomery, Ala.?
The queries often come from people who earn substantially more than the estimated $71,000 annually in wages and benefits paid to UAW members. They come from people who, having reached upper-middle-class status by virtue of their college educations and communication skills, certainly wouldn’t settle for earning less.
So, why are the questions being asked?
Might I suggest class bias?
Sure, you may, you supercilious jackass–considering that many oppose bailouts for the financial industry, too. The idea that most well-paid journalists ally themselves with Wall Street more than GM, Chrysler and Ford is absurd. Or don’t they pay you well enough?
I’m opposed to all the bailouts, but there is at least an argument to be made that the lack of liquidity in the financial system was threatening to bring the entire economy down.
Among CRA, which forced lending to the non-credit-worthy; value to market, which put downward pressure on the unknowable value of the mortgage bundles; and less than scrupulous enforcement of lending regulations; an argument can be made that the government is in large part responsible for this mess. One can also argue that liquidity, which can only come from the government, is the only way to fix it.
What of the Big Three? There isn’t even a plan to save the industry that I’ve seen. Fifteen or thirty-five billion later, what will change? Other than the taxpayers being out a lot of money, darned if I know. Want to save Detroit? The government should be working on making and keeping gas cheap.
Might I suggest racism?
The dirty socialists, they likes to shame you. But what teh Washington Post dicklick doesn’t get is that way more than being unable to conceive of greasy illiterate United Auto Worker thug people being privileged and noble above for real actual workers who produce things, the people that oppose bailing out “Detroit” aren’t buying the bizarrely ugly volga-like crappy cars they make and haven’t for some time now.
United Auto Worker beggary is wholly without dignity I think. These people are parasites.
Jim Geherty raised an excellent point yesterday. “If a bailout is needed to help the automakers get back on their feet, who is going to be buying all those new cars over the next few years…….”
Instead it appears Pres-elect Baracky wants to have us all go to work getting to know how to build roads and bridges that we can then eschew driving our non-American-corporation made cars on because the price of gas will be too high and Gaia wouldn’t like the CO2 anyhow. Ironies abound.
Pretty soon we’ll be treated to another round of “It’s the batteries, Stupid!” from the likes of Baracky’s updated Stephanopoulos and Carville campaign impressarios, Axelrod and Gibbs.
I, for one, will not be buying my new car from anyone car manufacturer that requests a bailout.
The only way a bailout can work is through tariffing the shit out of the cars people actually want. Baracky says you will sacrifice. Well I say the greasy inbred United Auto Workers can go first.
The question of the wisdom of an auto-industry bailout aside, the constant citing of aggregate wages and benefits is a red herring. Especially when those numbers (the frequently-mentioned $75/hr) include overhead.
Or, maybe not. But the problem is, people tend to look at that $71k as earnings, and sort of mentally gasp at how much these union people are making, compared to them. For comparison purposes, I make something like $150 an hour, when overhead is factored in. How much of that I actually see is more like $60.
Which, sure, is a lot. But there’s not all that many people who can do what I do. This brings us back to union wages and pseudo-scarcity. If a guy who sweeps the floor, back in 1983, an make as much as an entry-level engineer, something is badly wrong. Floor-sweeping is a zero-skill position, and absolutely anyone grabbed off the street can do it. I have no objection to skilled positions being more highly paid, but the unskilled positions should be paid commensurate with how easily they can be replaced.
A good chunk of that figure, as I understand it Slart, is compensation to retired workers, apparently they don’t really have a pension fund. Debbie Stabenow explained last week that was why it was important to avoid bankruptcy, to avoid dumping the $150 billion pension liability on the taxpayers, who couldn’t afford it just now.
That is correct, a sitting US Senator thinks that the Big Three should be able to handle a debt that the US economy couldn’t. And said it out loud.
but the unskilled positions should be paid commensurate with how easily they can be replaced.
Clearly, you are a patriarchal racist jingoistic xenophobic homophobe.
Given their total market cap at around 6$Billion, shouldn’t we be called them the Little Three?
BMoe – To me, the most brain-jarringly stupid part of this fiasco is that there is nothing being proposed to change the factors that are leading to this bailout (retirement compensation, healthcare costs, etc …). They are just asking for a short term fix to a longterm problem. Come to think of it, that is exactly how government works.
Or how about the “Scoliosis Ridden Bent Over and Decrepit on Death’s Door” Three?
Yup, JD. No restructuring to fix the problems, and promising to build cars nobody wants. What a deal.
Ask a sociologist, and problem solved!
Dan, now you’re talking. at least the quote you offered. Where you’re wrong is this arsine statement: “The idea that most well-paid journalists ally themselves with Wall Street more than GM, Chrysler and Ford is absurd. Or don’t they pay you well enough?”
Journalists? No: Talking Head anchors like Sarah Palin…opps, she used her journalism degree to go into natural gas futures (govt.) anyone listening to Andrea Mitchell or Fox News…and the rest of them Know they are allied with Wall Street. Just what Media are you seeing? Zeusjezzumblognet?
Watch your rear, those class warriors from Wall Street and the ReichtWingMedia will call for your ass next. And JD will start calling you names.
Class? There isn’t such a thing in America. Pay no attention to that little man behind the curtain.
Never thought I’d hear that you and Michael Moore agree on anything that there just might be ‘class bias’ in the media (and I’ll admit I didn’t expect my 10 dollar donation to Obama to change much of anything. But at least Obama did say he’s still considering tax hikes on the upper 5 percent this morning on Meet the Press. Who else has the money to bail out Wall Street banks and Detroit’s Big Three? Former Treasury Snow’s saying No Tax increases on his Class…but he want’s a Big Stimulus to save our (HIS) asses. Hmmm, who is going to pay for this stimulus…when the only people who have money are the upper one percent that raked it in during the last 5 or so years?
ha, Slart. you NOT buying the WALL STREET Line (CNBC) about those overpaid worker bees? When did you become a ‘socialist’?
happy, you’re just pissy because you can’t buy a Volvo. What’s the matter with you? Go get that C-30 NOW…and they’re less than 30K NEW! You must be poor or something? blaming ‘socialist’ workers isn’t an excuse for such a uber-capitalist NOT Going out and buying a new Foreign made honey of a car. Get to it. Financing hasn’t been better. (sucker! if you have to finance a car…don’t buy one.)
jeesh, I got admit this new Linux is damned faster than eff’n MS.
The C-30 gets amazingly piss-poor gas mileage. They have a huge tie-in with Twilight so I’m thinking it’s a chick car now anyways.
oh. Yes I am poor for real in 2009 at least until I max out my 401K for the year. It’s gonna affect the new car timetable for sure but I won’t know how much until I see what bonuses look like.
But I decided on a used scion xa anyway cause the xds they replaced them with are charmless. I wish now I’d gotten one new when they made them still but I was very buy-American then and I was waiting patiently for one of our American carmaker people’s cooperatives to come out with something I wanted. I can be really naive sometimes.
Looks like dave got his crimma cree a little early this year.
Might want to wait until you find out if Baracky is planning to steal your 401K before putting extra money into it, ‘feets.
I know but I’m gambling Baracky and his woman will just steal shit on a going forward basis so better take advantage of it while I can. I can be really naive sometimes.
Was someone actually proposing to strip the Auto execs of their wealth post hypothetical bailout? And just what is a Warren Brown, anyhow?
Stripping former directors of Fannie and Freddie of their giant, Enrony bonuses might be a place to begin.
Getting Baracky, Dodd, Frank, et al to pay back the bribes…er…”contributions” they got from Freddie and Fannie would be welcome, too.
Let’s get ’em all says DataDave, eat them alive! (Little does he know that there’s no meat to speak of on those bones.)
Bailing out the auto makers?
Mmmmmmmaybe.
Bailing out the UAW?
Not so much.
Stripping former directors of Fannie…
Now dat’s wot I’m tawkin’ ’bout!
DataDouche paying his taxes and providing UAW-level benefits to his illegal alien construction crew would be a good idea too, I think.
Comment by datadave on 12/7 @ 10:42 am #
Can anyone make any sense out of that?
dipshitdave is retarded! That’s what I got out of it’s inane drivel.
dipshitdave is retarded! That’s what I got out of
it’sits inane drivel.Arrgggh, nevermind!
so data, whats your position on re-negotiating the union contracts in terms more favorable to the automakers so EVERYBODY doesn’t lose their job when the “Beg 3” go under ?
Can anyone make any sense out of that?
I am sure it made perfect sense to whoever is packing the bong.
happy, they seems to be planning to have a hybrid c-30 coming out soon…so wait. Chick-car? you bet! good sound system and styling and speed but not much else. Hell, rich people don’t need things to carry around….just a place to sit and groove and a little room for the snowboard or little night bags. It’s not like they need extra clothes for working outside or tools of the trade. I’ll stick with ol, brick tanks myself for awhile (mate, she want’s a li’l Element…but it is like a miniHummer in looks and pretty bad interior styling…damn Volvo seats can’t be beat. Lexus?…some good deals on used one’s out there, Happy. Some are less than 10K only a few year’s old and people will think you’re rich in one. Get Happy! new car or a new used one! enjoy! Don’t put shit in your 401K! Unless you get 50 percent plus from your employer. It’s almost the biggest scam ever put upon the american people ever since Reagan and the Reagan dems raised our social security taxes to high heaven with fear mongering bs back in the 80s. The hidden fees are enormous. And your employer’s either in on it (they get kick backs from the brokers often.)…or he’s going to stop putting any of his funds into yours after finding how much he’s losing too. Vanguard Index funds I hear aren’t too bad, and I guess that could be under a 401K type of thing. selfemployment ira’s will allow much more money to be invested …but i like to be more focused than that. And I see buying opportunities in about a year…after severe deflation and depression-like conditions. Then inflation will keep in big time. goldbugs rejoice! Cnbc goes out of business. (I hope the goldbugs never rejoice but then they might..)
sdfer? eh, Hank Paulson’s the chief benefactor of the Nature Conservancy…he’s worth about 900 million. I think he can spare a li’l change for the bailouts. John Snow is worth a lot too…. and he want’s a Big Whopping Stimulus (as on WSJ’s show today) but doen’t want his class to pay for it. “If not You, then Who?”
So, Linux doesn’t support paragraphs?
Who knew?
Eat the rich! For the children! Yay!
Huh? The majority goes into a no-fee index fund and the balance goes into foreign stocks. Equities are as good a hedge against inflation as you’re gonna find I think. You’re just regurgitating NPR propaganda. You are a very impressionable person I think.
…but i like to be more focused than that.
Just blew coffee halfway across my living room.
in reply to Matt, escargo,
less than 10 percent of the cost of a car goes to union workers…so what’s the problem? New workers are only getting about 14 an hour now within union rules anyway. UPS does great with union workers, and Fedex sucks with contractors going under. So the union is hardly a problem…it’s overpaid management that refuses to adapt and have decent designs. Good pay for workers’s allows workers to buy new cars…Henry Ford got it right once in awhile. Right now, workers don’t want to buy anything as they know their lives are being eclipsed by the mismanagement of America. Conservatives are happy as they know the lawn guy and the housecleaners can be forced down on their hourly rates next year. And everybody will be begging to do home health care jobs for less.
Thor, out there…it certainly looks like we’re getting the revenge for our Harvard boys mismanaging Russia back in the Yeltsin era.
basically, conservatives hate All workers and want them to work at starvation levels of pay. Like in the 1920s. That’s the problem.
anyway, mossberg, cat’s got your tongue right….(“retarded” is such a loaded word….do you deny Trig Palin’s right to arms? loaded and cocked? licenses for incest and guns next? “arrggh” this is kind of fun loading on the shipples.)
Love always!
If we’re going to confiscate filthy lucre, let’s start with folks like Jamie Gorelick and the other Democrat insiders who made big bucks at the GSEs. Then let’s move to anyone working in the non-military public sector who earns more than $100,000. We end up by disbanding AFSCME and other public-sector unions. Ya wants to work for the government? Fine — but it’s not going to be a more comfortable job than the private sector.
(I exempt the military for two reasons: 1) they put their lives on the line, 2) they’re actually performing a Constitutionally mandated role of government.)
It does. It’s the OS running in the wetware that has the problem.
So, you are, in fact, providing benefits for your crew now, dicklessdipshit?
Oh, I forgot: it’s fine for “progressives” to stiff their workers. Like ACORN trying to get out of paying minimum wage, or UCFW paying pickets $6/hour to protest the “substandard” wages at Walmart, where the employees make an average of $10/hour.
equities?…eh, they are like in the 1970s now. No more dividends etc. (I did hear the vanguard thing from my 15 y.o. son it’s true…not going there myself..but that’s what you’re doing now it seems vanguard is virtually no fee…but the brokerage that handles the 401 probably has hidden fees) hey, i am not rich but reading about it for the next ‘egg’ to put out there…..the diversified b.s. is for people not able to focus on it according to Buffett and Soros. And don’t Risk anything!
have fun, thx for Dan keeping this website going.
‘wetware’…well at least it’s not soft!! and ‘GSE’s’ account for a miniscue part of the bad mortgage backed securities sold by the likes of citibank et al who are getting the most out of Paulson’s folly bailout.
Hate workers? I think people what gave us the idea of a “job bank” are the ones that look down on workers to where they want people to accept that the idea that actually producing something would just be a bonus when you’re a greasy fatass United Auto Worker parasite. This a lot defines worker down I think. There will be plentiful green jobs for everyone very soon anyway. Squiggly bulbs don’t change themselves you know.
deadbraindave, I was too quick to label you retarded. Even a retard would understand if s/he had been “banned”, that they were unwelcome. Something you fail to comprehend.
BTW, I would certainly encourage Gov. Palin to educate Trig on the use of firearms. Hopefully, someday he’ll be able to shoot game from a helicopter.
Quick question, do you often take advice from people, regarding investing and/or large purchases, on the internet? If so, I’ve seriously offended retards, and I apologize.
bizarre, spies, I had said i was underemployed, not an employer. That was awhiles back…my native-born off the books crowd except for the tall Swedish traveler who could reach the ceiling to paint for me. just to set the record straight. Being an employer isn’t that much fun so it does deserve maybe a corporate tax holiday and substantial federal benefits. But one gets rich off the work of others to a point that one gets greedy and lazy and wants workers to sacrifice more while working harder and those types usually leave the hard work to their supervisors and bookkeepers. They are removed from individual concerns and are just pleasing stockholders (creditors) at that point.
I’ll agree to keeping the capital gains at where it is now (a bit too low imo. and eliminating all corporate taxes …..but with a tax hike on the ultra rich who are investing in Swiss accounts more than anything else…but with major tax deferments if they actually hire people at good wages and for at least a year’s employment. So there you go. Change you can believe in.
Most employment gains in this country are from middle class employers only making a bit more than their employers…not from rich people who only speculate and play with their money. (and occasionally send me the contractor a cheque from Switzerland. And that is a rarity….and that’s where the bail out money is really going from BushCo and Rubinland.) That’s another reason Joe the Plumber was such an idiot. His clients and himself all were making less than 250K a year and yet he thinks he is worthy of having a hedgefund and the swiss bank account. hubris and idiocy. Maybe for one year from all the Republicans sending him money. No wonder that boys from harvard were laughing out load about Palin and Joe. They know where the money is.
“Squiggly bulbs don’t change themselves you know.” eh, but they last longer and don’t need changing so much. That’s a problem? Some of our finest buildings were made by WPA, CCC workers back in the Depression..and I’ll put them up to Trump’s crappola anyday. Just what value have we’ve built in the last 40 years anyway. The “Liberals” brought us out of the Depression, Defeated Fascism, Defeated communism (it was over before Reagan btw). Built the Highway system…(oh, well, Eisenhower was a Liberal compared today’s Republicans). Sent man to the moon.
What’s happened since? The Best I’ll say is Better consumer choices in running shoes, camping gear, cars, :Individual pleasures. But nothing of substance in the universal sector: infrastructure is near Third World conditions, health care overpriced and outcomes no better than Cuba’s!, And income inequality is making less and less demand for even those nifty things designed by Cool people who have Chinese workers doing neat things for our pleasure. We’re not buying every latest flat screen out there. ($399 for a nice 32 inch at CC was a little hard to resist though). MacMansion’s don’t enoble a people. And their shitty vinyl siding will decay and look haggard sooner than “final” beleave me.
who woulda thought john snow and I agree about the Demand side problems?
I’ve read enough of this mental diarrheadave. Time to watch football!
Sadly, I’m at work, trying to complete a massive data extract for tomorrow. But thanks to TrollHammer and a bag full of miniatures I brought to work on, I don’t need to read dicklessdave!
oh. Baracky has a McMansion in Hyde Park where his terrorist friends live. Didn’t ennoble Baracky a damn bit what I can tell so score one for datadave I guess.
See, I think they ought to raise everyone‘s wages by 25%. What could be wrong with that?
Comment by datadave on 12/7 @ 12:42 pm #
Again.
HELP!
Can anyone extract one ounce of sense out of this loggarhea?
Dan is doing a good job and also Darleen but I miss Jeff now. It just sort of hit me. Also someone made a comment about shooting out of a helicopter and that made me think of buttons and his helly-copter and I miss him too. I will listen to my happy song what nishi gave me now.
“Comment by Slartibartfast on 12/7 @ 12:59 pm #
See, I think they ought to raise everyone’s wages by 25%. What could be wrong with that?”
Yeah, that way EVERYONE’S wages will be above average!
Mheh….
See, I think they ought to raise everyone’s wages by 25%.
You’re thinking small, my friend.
I think they should raise the minimum wage to $1 billion per hour.
Then we can all work for one hour, retire, and spend the rest of our lives living in luxury.
datadipshit, I’m not going to wade through that word salad to see if you have a point hiding in there somewhere.
Datadave translation attempt: Eisenhower sent men to the moon, workers in the 1920s here in the US lived like feudal peasants gnawing on turnips, that ghastly damned statue downtown created by a WPA worker is better than Michaelangelo’s David, communism ended before 1980 but no one bothered to tell teh Chinese about that, and Joe The Plumber has a hedge fund and a Swiss bank account and that’s the problem.
Or not.
Thanks, ushie. It still doesn’t make sense, but at least it’s shorter. :-)
wall o’text from anecdotaldave. Good Allah, it never changes.
“…health care overpriced and outcomes no better than Cuba’s!”
Sweet jeebus on a surf board, that boy is in-sane.
First thor, now dataless.
Could it be contagious?
A zooedemic among the barking moonbats, perhaps?
Spies – Shorter version
Babble babble blah blah EAT THE RICH blah blah lie lie make up “fact” lie blah blah
[…] response to an earlier post: Talk about arrogance, but apparently New York Times Columnist Timothy Egan wants to stop Joe the […]
declarativedave is soporific, if nothing else. it’s very fond of its own opinion, and generously willing to share it – unfortunately!
Dear Mr Brown:
This article reeks of a sheer ignorance of Economics 101. The voters’ reluctance to bail out Detroit has nothing to do with class; it has everything to do with not rewarding private enterprise when it fails. Private enterprise–unlike government programs, for your information–rewards risks and penalizes failures. Successful businesses do not run around giving their profits to taxpayers. The taxpayer has nothing to do with the success of a privately-owned business. By the same token, taxpayers are not responsible for bailing private enterprises out when they screw up. Failed business do what is called ‘taking their lumps’. Since I don’t profit by their success, I am damned if I am responsible for their failure.
Car buyers have voted with their pocketbooks–just in case you haven’t noticed. If a product is bad, you can’t give it away. (When is the last time you bought a set of square wheels? Please tell us all, we want to hear.) If a product is good, you can’t sell it fast enough–whatever the price. Think iPhone.
Learn some fundamental economics before you start running your mouth. Your work is so shoddy, I’m amazed you receive a paycheck. I guess you feel the paper should pay you regardless of the quality of your work.
How dearly would I love to work at a job where I could earn $75/hour for producing something that no one wanted to buy! Nice work if you can get it.
Feh. It’s 6pm. I’ve been in the office for 6 hours. I’ve decided not to give them the big data chunks — the tables with tens of millions and hundreds of millions of entries in a sample.
They’ll get the bare minimum, and they’ll like it. Or at least, not bitch about it too much.
Being an employer isn’t that much fun so it does deserve maybe a corporate tax holiday and substantial federal benefits. But one gets rich off the work of others to a point that one gets greedy and lazy and wants workers to sacrifice more while working harder and those types usually leave the hard work to their supervisors and bookkeepers.
I think here dave is basically explaining that because he is totally immoral and unethical he assumes everyone must be and that is what shapes his world view. What is tragic about this, besides his empty soul, I mean, is he comes really close to seeing what is happening here.
Most employment gains in this country are from middle class employers only making a bit more than their employers…not from rich people who only speculate and play with their money.
He just can’t recognize that it is the Republicans who best represent that middle class, while the Dems are totally in the pocket of George Soros and his buddies.