The Pendng 'Auto industry" Bailout

by jwright
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I'm a native of Michigan, retired on a shoestring and now live "Up North" in Cadillac. Ten years ago while living in Colorado I vacationed in Michigan for a short time. One evening after shopping at the new Wal-Mart in Alma and walking back to my car, I noticed that EVERY automobile parked in the row with my Chevy rental car happened to be American made. Curious, I drove around the entire lot and didn't see a single foreign nameplate in the place. 'Remarkable,' I thought to myself. My old Michigan friends and neighbors are really supporting our home-grown auto industry. Now it's 2008, what a difference 10 years makes, hmm?
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In my lifetime, I have bought and owned (even sold) nothing but American made cars, the majority of them being Chrysler products. I wonder how many of the folks clamoring for an additional $25-billion for the Detroit auto industry can say the same thing?
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It was reported last week that the average American made auto hourly costs are more than $70.00, compared with the average foreign name plate, even those built down south, are around $40.00. Quite a difference. Union vs. non-union? Corporate management?
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Several years ago, maybe three, I read on line where a UAW member mowing grass at a Saginaw MI factory was earning more than $70.00 hourly including his benefits. He must have been one highly talented individual to deserve that kind of money.
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I spent most of a lifetime working in construction. With my God-given talent I can build a house, or most anything else, from the ground up with the help of a few grunts for muscle. During my career as an hourly worker, I never earned more than $32.50 per hour, with no benefits, and I had to invest more than $8,000 in tools in order to do that. Maybe I should have invested in a lawnmower instead.
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I'm not complaining, it was my choice, just as it was the automakers choice to cave in to organized labor and be tied up in massive labor and benefit contracts that now have come home to roost.
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The taxpayers have already made a $25-billion loan to the auto industry for future retooling in hopes of manufacturing a “green” automobile one day, now we are asked to do it again. My question is simple: where does that kind of money come from? Printing presses? And how much of it will be going to bail out the UAW? And the pensioners that are NOT working but are ENTITLED to fat retirement checks and health benefits according to their previous contracts with the automakers?
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As you may know, when Uncle Sam (federal government) gets involved in anything, many times the situation deteriorates and gets worse. I don't want and we don't need Senator Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or even president-elect Barack Obama micro-managing the designing and manufacturing of our cars.
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I say let the Detroit auto industry do what most any of us that don't qualify for massive government loans would be forced to do: file for bankruptcy, restructure, and start anew. Learn to operate their company's in a logical, mature, business like manner for a change. They could look at the successful American auto industry in the southern states and maybe follow their lead?
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Will it ever happen? Who really knows?
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The Liberal Democrat politicians choose to use the expression "auto industry" when speaking of Detroit's "Big 3," including our next president, Mr. Obama. It's intentionally misleading. The American auto industry outside of Detroit and Michigan in particular is thriving; building new autos with foreign nameplates using high quality American labor (non-union of course.) They are a major part of the "auto industry" and don't need or want a bailout.
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This latest $25-billion fiasco that Obama, Majority Leader Reid, and House Speaker Pelosi & Company want stuffed down the taxpayers throats is nothing but a UAW labor union bailout, and guess what? The AP recently reported that UAW president Ron Gettlefinger says workers will not make any more concessions, and that getting the automakers back on their feet means figuring out a way to turn the economy around. (No kidding. What an amazing grasp of the obvious.) So, in essence, screw the taxpayers and the country; we got ours and we ain't gonna' budge.
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Having lived in Michigan most of my life, it's my opinion that that type of attitude is what put us, and the auto industry, in the shape its in today.
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Just for the hell of it, did you know that GM has more non-working retired former employees receiving benefits and health care coverage today than it has actual auto builders in the factories? And GM will run out of money soon and won't be able to keep their promises agreed to in the 2007 contract agreements with the UAW. Talk about corporate mis-management coupled with labor greed.
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On top of that, with all of the multiple billions of dollars the elected representatives in D.C. are doling out today, this country is in hock more than $36-TRILLION in 'future unfunded mandates'? (Future Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid promises/commitments made to our retirees and financially disadvantaged.) Or is that $36-Trillion stored away in some secret "lock box?" LOL!
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$36-TRILLION is more than the United States is worth if every bit of our combined assets, private and federal, were liquidated, and yet the politicians still get starry-eyed with their power to incessantly spend the taxpayers money. It has to end one day. Will it?
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jaq~