Domestic auto dilema

Black Knight Society
41

Eh, lemmie take a minute to clarify my stance.

I feel unions are the appropriate end result of a fundamentally flawed corporate structure. The way a lot of old-school big businesses were (and in some cases are) run, they’re a necessary evil, like I said. But the things about that old-style management and pay system that made unions needed are the same things that I feel need to be removed from a business to make it truly successful.

I won’t hire someone unless I can pay them at, or if possibly slightly higher than, industry standard for their time and efforts, and I wouldn’t ask anyone to do something that I myself wouldn’t do in their position. If those two tenants are held by a business, then a union is fucked up and wrong. If those two tenants aren’t, then a union is still fucked up, but needed.

42

I have a feeling you would be responsible like that stinger.

I do have a question and a true one at that … were any of the banks that failed unionized ? I actually have not researched that fact.

43

and the reason I post so much is so I can see my sig over and over

:slight_smile:

44

[quote=“mystic,post:30,topic:2322”]
Because it’s only a loan if the big three somehow magically turn it around and succeed? Why would it be any different starting now? As soon as they run out of money and fail (again) then it becomes a gift.

[quote=“mystic,post:30,topic:2322”]
Yep, and that was stupid, so why should we make that mistake again?

[quote=“mystic,post:30,topic:2322”]
It’s called re-tooling, and if a small company cannot find anything else to do with their skills, then they’ll have to find new jobs. But most likely, a little bit of effort, a little bit more education, a few new employees perhaps, and they’ll be back in business making a slightly different part. The demand for their part hasn’t changed, it’s just coming from a new, more successful company.

[quote=“mystic,post:30,topic:2322”]
Because NOONE is gambling with LIVES. Jobs, MAYBE, but the lesson here is simple. Not every job lasts forever. Just ask the highly educated telegraph operators of the late 1800’s. Or the removable type printing press operators. Or how about the hundreds of thousands of accountants who sat all day doing nothing but mind numbing arithmetic??? Those people were replaced by computer spreadsheets. And the good news is, that for the most part, those are all shitty jobs! Better jobs awaited those people as their industry progressed.

GASP!!! HOW DID WE SURVIVE? We adapted, plain and simple. One of the best historical examples of this sort of “fear of change” is the New York snow shovelers union. Before modern snow removal technology, there were tens of thousands of new york citizens, who had part time jobs shoveling snow. When the first snow blowers were introduced the snow shovelers union told it’s workers to “hide crowbars in the snow” so to break the snow blowers, ensuring the snow shovelers were still needed, and could keep their jobs. We can look back and realize how silly this is, but it’s the exact same thing, but instead of crowbars to keep them in business, they’re asking for “one more chance” from the citizens to give them a gift, which they’ll gladly pay back, that is of course if they can somehow start succeeding today.

And I’m sorry if it seems like I don’t have compassion for people losing their jobs, but its a fact of life. It happens from time to time. As an IT professional, people in my field lose their jobs ALL THE TIME, because progress happens so quickly. It doesn’t matter how good you were with Windows 3.1 and NT in the early 90’s. If you haven’t learned new skills on your own time, there is no way you still have a job today. This kind of turnover happens every decade in the tech world, I’m sorry this is the first time in 100 years the auto industry has felt any real progress. We’re left with three inefficient monstrosities, and in order for progress to happen, those companies need to be allowed to fail as a result of their own incompetence, and new investors will buy up their assets. Any employee of those companies, (or any of their supply chain) who can’t find a place in the “NEW” job market will either have to re-educate themselves, or find another job. That’s how it works. And this isn’t a bad thing, it’s a VERY GOOD thing. It’s progress!

45

Dude… Do you know one of them to ask? That’d be great. Must be an old person. Be cool to talk to a person that old. Unless they kept calling me a “whipper-snapper”… Then I’d kill them.

Uh, yeah. Long live progress. Sorry if your job is in the way, but yeah… Old things need to go away so new things can get here faster. Since the old things have already been around way longer than they should have been, we need to get rid of them faster than we’ve ever ditched any technology that wasn’t a computer.

Zera makes a good argument here. Imagine all the computer mainframe operators who were all pissed off when PCs became standard? Keeping you guys in business for the sole reason of keeping you in business is bad economics.

46

Let them fail and we go head first into a depression ?

47

Let them fail OR we go headfirst into a depression.

Which may happen anyway.

Merry Christmas.

48

Failure is a part of growth and progress.

Depression isn’t assured, and even if it was, depression often leads to revised ways of thinking and doing business. We’ve been living outside our means for far too long now. A depression could be healthy.

And if a depression IS coming, all we would be doing by bailing out failing businesses is prolonging it, and making it FAR WORSE when it does finally come. Thanks to Bush and his big-government policies the national debt is now 10 Trillion dollars. This is not sustainable, so you can either deal with the debt (not likely at the rate of bail-outs and empire-building that we’re doing) or you can suffer through a depression. Deal with it now, or prolong it, and make it much worse.

49

http://www.treehugger.com/20081209-the-bailout-shitty-cars.jpg

50

Since we’ve had a depression already in the last 100 yrs why are we having another ? Do we not learn from our mistakes ? Were certain safeguards removed ? And Zera how is it healthy to have mass unemployment and starvation ?

And stinger, yeah It might be inevitable regardless and that :embarassed: :frowning: sucks

Ohhh and Zera I dont think its so much their cars are shitty… more like the economy is shitty and no one is selling cars right now. They are large investments and they won’t do well in a period of money hiding.

51

I think I’m done with this debate. I hope when it’s all said and over all is well. I feel all you care about is money, that is how i translate your conversation. Calculate the unemployment costs up for the country when this is over and I’d bet a 15 billion dollar chance looks a TON better.

Mystic
Ken

52

I agree myzzz 15 billion will be child’s play once they fail and all the families affected, the children … sad sad days ahead.

“AS LONG AS ITS NOT ME” what a pitiful mantra

53

Sorry you feel slighted, Ken. I respect you, and it’s with respect that I disagree with you. I do hope things work out for you, but from my perspective, I translate your conversation to mean that you have no problem with adding another 15 billion dollars to a debt that will cripple our entire country for half a century. That 15 billion dollars could mean an extra year of yours and my great grand-children paying off debts that we left for them because we made greedy blunders, and as a people refused to live in our own means.

I’m sorry, but you said “Generation ME” earlier, referring to someone else, and I think the real fundamental difference between our vantage point and yours is that you have that switched. What you’re advocating is that our government, in the middle of a terminally ill economy, should jump in and bail out a bunch of people who’ve squandered wealth and opportunity afforded to it by completely ignoring trends for the sole purpose of further immediate profit margins. “Gas now, fuck new technologies, give us money now.”

You think I’m being selfish. I think you’re being selfish. I do respect you, though, and I hope everything does work out for the best. I don’t really know you, man, but I still like you. I want you to do well. But our whole country is about to be hit with something very bad. We’re all going to be in serious financial “trouble,” and almost everyone in the U.S. of A. is about to get a tough lesson in living exactly to how much money they can make in a day. If we play our cards right, and we learn how to start paying off that debt now instead of adding to it, it may only be a decade of a serious gut-check nation-wide depression-style roller coaster ride.

But if we start paying out because other people were greedy manipulative pigs who ignored every very obvious sign that this was going to happen “one day” because they were making money today, then it would never stop.

I want my kids to live in a country where they don’t have to be afraid about whether or not they can feed their families. And if we don’t draw the line here, now, then that may well happen. It’s going to suck for all of us, Ken. I’m not willing to add on an indeterminate number of years to this imminent future disaster so that you don’t have to go job hunting a few months before everyone else does.

Sorry again that we’re at odds here. I’ll not mention your points here again, and I do genuinely wish you well.

“FUCK FUTURE GENERATIONS, AND FUCK ALL OF YOU, I NEED HELP FIRST!” - From where I’m sitting, that’s how your side looks.

Peace, guys. Clearly we’re not going to agree on this, but I’m still quite fond of you charmingly disagreeable bastidges.

54

[quote=“mystic,post:51,topic:2322”]
Oh that’s a cheap shot. I could translate your “conversation” as “refuse to respond to any rebuttal I’ve made, and instead just play the victim”

Do you really think that just because the auto industry is HUGE that it should be immune to change? Why should we blindly perpetuate something just because we fear change?

Should the government bail out 3DFX because they were inferior to nVidia and ATI and died out because they couldn’t compete? Or weren’t they big enough to warrant a handout? Where do you draw the line for failed business ventures? Where does individual responsibility cease, and taxpayer responsibility begin?

And like Stinger said, we’re just debating ideas here. I do not intend to offend. The spoof “ad” i posted was just meant to be humorous, mostly for the last line: “We’re the big 3, we don’t need to compete.”

55

LOL !! Sorry stinger but the present needs to be addressed before the future at this point. These are dire times and just the beginning. And how would saving these companies effect the future ? Other start ups with more fuel efficient vehicles will still hit the market. At the very least this will offer more competition to keep prices down.

What you fail to realize is bankruptcy is next . Now that’s a taxpayer nightmare for another thread. Its gonna cost either way. And alot more down the road. This 14 Billion dollar loan might keep all that from happening.

as long as its not me say it with me

and Zera, aren’t you a teacher ?

56

[quote=“Ruckus,post:52,topic:2322”]
So 30 minutes ago Ruck was IN FAVOR of the bailout, but a MONTH ago, Ruck was TOTALLY AGAINST the idea of any bail out:

What gives Ruck??? Only in favor of bail-outs when you percieve they are going to (as you put it) “working families” ?

57

What ??? lol lets hang the executives of the big 3 also I’m all for hanging bad executives. Thanks for reminding me. Oh wait the money has been dole’d out and no executives were harmed. That fucking blows.

Aren’t you a teacher Zera ? I take it if you are you aren’t in the union. Am I right ?

58

I taught last summer at a technology camp. No I’m not in a union. But lets not change the subject. This is a bailout discussion, not a union discussion.

So you were IN FAVOR of the bailout to the bankers? If not, what changed your mind?

59

Ruck, seriously here man. You can disagree all you want, but that doesn’t make us wrong. You’re seriously trying to argue that it’s morally acceptable to continue an endless flood of debt “just a little while longer, because there’s a few people over here who haven’t gotten a slice yet.”

Dude, there will always be someone else going under right now! Don’t you understand the depth of what’s happening? Everyone is going under! Businesses are failing every day, and they don’t get any money! My father’s out of work. I’m self employed and living paycheck to paycheck. My mom and my step father just lost $100,000 of their retirement funds in a venture that their banker told them was safe. Everyone’s going down, and you have some balls accusing me of being selfish when your argument is literally “I don’t care how much longer future generations are fucked, I want their tax money now.”

Everyone is going down. Where’s the government bailout protecting my mom? Hey, I’m sure I’m eligible for a grant from the US government because I’m starting my own business! But wait, I’ve never applied for one… I wonder why? Oh yeah, it’s because I don’t think the government is obligated to feed and clothe and house me! But yeah, you’re right, I’m a greedy republican who only cares about money. Clearly that’s easier than me having a point.

60

I think you misunderstand my position. I will not lose my job, I will stay employed. There is a 2% chance I will be unemployed before I retire, we do special things where I am at. Even tho it is auto related, it is not truley big 3 dependent. Here is what I do http://katechengines.com/katech_inc/ I do not know if you have heard of Confederate motorcycle, but Tom Cruise (the freak that he is) has one of the bikes we helped design and produce.

Zera, I did not mean to take a “shot” and I was not referring to your or stingers replies alone. It seems it is the general consensus not only on this thread but many people who do not work with these people. I misused my words slightly and apologize.

The reason I am stopping my part is this. I love a good debate, I debate for both Democrat and republican views. When I find myself feeling personally attacked (again not singling out you or stinger), I need to just stop. Then the debate is just an argument that nobody will be willing to see the other side clearly.. (referring to myself). When other debates come up I will be more attuned to join in. I have been a quiet part of the community for a long time.

I am sorry to all that I may have offended, I get carried away sometimes.

Mystic
Ken