This is going to be one giant pile of fail one way or the other. If GM goes BK it will cause a tidal wave of suppliers to go BK. Dealerships, of course, will begin to fall at an even faster rate than they are today. Then we, the taxpayers, will be required to pay for those pensions, because that's the law... sweet huh? We won't pay 100% of the value, but we'll be paying for it, don't you worry. And that's what we need right now, another few hundred million in non-collateralized debt to UAW pensioners. None of that fixes the underlying problem here which no one seems to want to talk about. Honda has 3 brands, GM has 18. GM can't merge brands and tell a dealer who used to sell one brand that now they sell another because the old brand doesn't exist anymore. There's some weird wiry stuff in the state contract laws which make the big 3 and their monster portfolios have to do ridiculous things. Of course, the BK will nullify the existing contracts... but it's not like GM can dump/merge brands over night.

There's plenty of fail to go around here from both the management and the union side of the coin. But don't think for a second that we won't be paying for this crap one way or the other. In the long run I think the BK will be better, but holy shiat adding 1% to our unemployment rate virtually overnight would be a scary scary thing in a deflationary economy.

Insurance_EE_guy: BIG 3 to congress: We're f*cking retooling for the future of the electric drive train, gm-volt, ect., chill the f*ck out. Yeah, so we're 5 years to late, but we're trying and shiat.

If I "tried" to do my job successfully I wouldn't have a work account to read Fark. Call me when the US automakers "succeed" at something relevant to the market-- as for you, I'll give you points if you "try" to pull your head out of your ass.

PascalsGhost: wren337: consumed_too_much: Regarding bankcruptcy protection: Would consumers even consider buying vehicles / products from a company that is in bankruptcy? Vehicles are a longer-term investment, and the prospect of A) Company going out of business, B) No parts for vehicle; and C) No resell value will keep most people away from buying from that company. So I think bankruptcy doesn't seem to be an option in this case.

Chapter 11 isn't an option. Chapter 7 on the other hand is always an option.

Thank you. One mutherfukker who isn't an idiot. I've had guys with Phd in econ in this thread tell me about Cpat 11 like its a viable option.

It isn't. Know what you are wishing for.

I'm going to disagree with you all about this. "But the consumer won't buy from a bankrupt company!" Of course we will: if the car competes enough (read as: cheap enough with similar performance), they'd be flying off the dealer lots all the same. Average consumers (myself included) are short-sighted and don't plan on dealing with the company again after we make our purchase--we buy a new car so we don't have to.

I still fly NWA after bankruptcy and a merger when I find them to be the cheapest...

/consumers can easily be "bought" again

moothemagiccow: So just assuming that EVERYONE buys an electric car and power plants start making a shiat load of money off of "what sells" (like GM has been with SUVs) we will be able to convince them to blow their newfound wealth on clean energy?

Ever had to argue with a business owner?


I work for a very small company, so yeah. Pretty much once a week or so. I never said this would be easy. Plus, it's kind of a threadjack. I was sort of trying to start a discussion as to what could be done between the options of 1) Letting the entire US car industry wither and perish or 2)giving them a wheelbarrow full of money with no strings attached that they will surely piss away.

In the short term it would be cheaper to toss them $25 billion and let them hang on for another year. Since, if they crater, the unemployment benefits for 3 million workers associated with the bankruptcy and lost tax revenues from lost jobs, foreclosed houses guaranteed by fannie mae etc would be more than the $25 B.

However, they will continue to be idiots, stuck in dinosaur mode so they will be back in a year wanting more money.

The nice thing about this decision is that everyone is right. We are farked either way we go.

I say let them collapse, deal with the problem now and starting getting things back on track, rather than postponing the clusterfark.

Cerebral Ballsy: someahole: I'm really hoping for a depression, personally. I don't really know or care about what's good for the economy but I do know what's good for me. I'm in a depression-proof business and right on the verge of becoming pretty wealthy, what I really need is a market collapse so I can pick up a bunch of real estate for pennies on the dollar.

Depression-proof? You'd better be selling liquor or porn. Or both.

Liquor here. Thanks!

/UAW can DIAF

tchamber: You guys really have absolutely no understanding of what will happen if the US auto industry is allowed to collapse, do you?

A bunch of whiny overpaid people will have to look for jobs that pay realistic wages?

tchamber: You guys really have absolutely no understanding of what will happen if the US auto industry is allowed to collapse, do you?

Collapse = FAIL. Re-organize under chapter 11 = WIN

nmathew01: The same argument could be made to state that all people of slave descent in this country need to vote Republican.

The Republican party that freed the slaves is not the same Republican party that nominated John McCain.

And as I said, the unions that helped our nation forge ahead in social progress are not the same unions we have today.

QED.

My job doesn't offer me a pension, and I'm young enough I'll never see a dime of social security.

So why do I need to pay for both their government social security, and their private pensions?

To hell with that.

If the government promised it, and it's coded into law for all US workers that's one thing... but a private program? To hell with that.

Can Fark readers unionize, get Fark to guarantee us $1000/week when we retire.... then Fark gets a loan from the US government to actually fulfill that?

Hagbardr: glenlivid: Everybody on Fark has a doctorate. Didn't you know that? This is where all the debate happens for all of academia. People don't debate in Universities, or publish papers, anymore; it's all done through this intensely intellectual website.

I have 4 doctorates plus a GED in law.

Why is it so hard to believe that people with an education like to make smart ass remarks, and look at the occasional Hot Red Head/Asian Girl/ Sweedish girl/ jail bait link?

You know who else hated people with Graduate Degrees? That's right...


/I think I win something for having the first Godwin in a 6 page thread. A free Pepsi or something...

itazurrako But it's going to be one world economy. You're competing with people in CHINA, and for the foreseeable future, they're far cheaper, because their cost of living is cheaper. You can't live on Chinese wages in the US.

Well, at least that's your slant on the situation.

/

Impudent Domain: We already have laws for this, it is called reorganization in bankruptcy. The firms continue to exist, but they get a chance to run more cleanly. It is not disaster, it happens with regularity.

could you describe this in more detail for the group? It might be usefull.

glenlivid: tchamber: bronyaur1: I'll bet my doctorate in economics that I do understand the consequences better than you do.

Well, EXCUSE me.

Everybody on Fark has a doctorate. Didn't you know that? This is where all the debate happens for all of academia. People don't debate in Universities, or publish papers, anymore; it's all done through this intensely intellectual website.

Penis

Sure there will be economic backlash to their suckiness, but it's the management of the "Big 3" that farked the whole mess up. The auto industry as a whole seems to be okay. I live in Tennessee and Volkswagen is expanding....spending millions on a new production plant here. Hell, maybe the Big 3 should hire some intelligent European car makers as advisors to get their arses out of this mess.

/want to keep my tax dollars

nashBridges: Degree Absolute: How many working Chevy Volts are there right now?

Counting prototypes? Over 6.

/just sayin'

That program will continue. Either in a reorganized GM or by whoever buys that asset.

The_Gallant_Gallstone: This contempt for the working people is probably the heart and soul of the anti-union mindset.

No. Working with union people is the heart and soul of my anti-union mindset. I don't even work in a factory (right now). I work in a test facility. All of the mechanics are union. If a bolt breaks or some wiring (CAN lines, 0 voltage) I need to put in a work order to get it done. A 30 second fix will take 6 hours. If you even look at their tool chest wanting to borrow something you'll get written up. Then you have a grievance on your permanent record AND the union guy gets paid double for that time because you went around him.

Oh and a bit about working with the union in factories. You can't touch anything. For example if you're a process improvement engineer and you need to figure out how to improve a process. You need to stand and watch some guy with only a high school diploma do it. You can't touch anything. See a piece of trash on the ground. Leave it (even if it's a safety hazard) if the floor sweeper sees you, you'll have another grievance because you're "Taking his job away".


We have a project going on "Why is this bolt failing" on a certain product of ours. Turns out that it is over torqued at the factory. So management and the powers that be put out an official decree: No air wrenches on X bolt. The union continues to use them. Legally we can't 'take them away' or go into their tool boxes after they leave. So our bolt continues to fail because Joe Blow is too damn lazy to use a proper torque wrench.


And how is it different in a non-union shop? (Coming from my experience in the same company at a different, non-union plant). It's absolutely farking wonderful. I can walk out on the production line. Grab a tool, use it to see how something is done and then go finish my report/project. One day I had to build a proto type. I was all scared because I had just left a union shop. I was out there all timid until one of the guys spoke up "Oh, we're not union." Then he rolls over a tool chest. Gives me a 10 second demo on how to use the overhead crane. And leaves me. At the end of the day he helps me sweep up my stuff. We BS about the project and it was an absolute joy.

And one of the biggest things I noticed is there's no such thing as "That's not my job." (My friends at Toyota point this out readily). If you have one production line down and one that is short of people. You go work on the one that needs people. In a union shop you get "that's not my job." So the workers from line X sit and play cards while the workers from line Y barely meet demand.

Wonder how Toyota and Honda and BMW do JIT (just in time) delivery? You can take someone off of a slow production line (Say an SUV line) and put them on a small car line in a day of training. Most factories are idiot proofed to the point of you don't even need to know english to put bolt X into nut Y and tighten with the wrench.

That's why union sucks and that's why I think they need to be abolished.

To those banking the future of GM on the Volt, you *do* realize that the car has been upped to almost $40k, takes overnight to get enough charge for an hour of driving, and gets a total MPG rating -- with electric usage included -- of about 38...

...right?

It's not that good of a vehicle, and certainly not the revolutionary product that GM needs. If your justification for pawning the big 3's failures off on taxpayers involves any variation of the phrase "they're just about to turn a corner", then it's time to stop drinking the kool-aid.

Do you know how much money the unions give to politicians in washington? shiat loads. Trust me, congress will take care of their own.

What about the other sectors of the economy that are hurting but don't have a collective voice like the UAW. Well you guys can fark off. Congress doesn't want to hear from you useless bastards.

Friction8r: itazurrako But it's going to be one world economy. You're competing with people in CHINA, and for the foreseeable future, they're far cheaper, because their cost of living is cheaper. You can't live on Chinese wages in the US.

Well, at least that's your slant on the situation.

/

So we need to send the UAW to China then?

SpectroBoy: The UAW is a parasite that bled it's host dry.

waaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh we're still thirsty.

They need to tell them the trough is empty, where is reagan when we need someone to fire all the union people????????

US automakers are clearly completely incompetent. The produce crap cars that have destroyed the enviroment for 50 years. They should execute all executives and board members AND investors (dumbasses)..

/Let teh MOTHERFARKERS burn !!!

Chapter 11 - I wouldn't mind having the government provide some DIP (Debtor In Possession) financing after the bankruptcy filing with the condition that the f*cking union contracts be renegotiated AND with a significant reduction in capacity (which means in the real world a lot of plant closings with loss of jobs, reduction in property taxes, some cities becoming ghost towns, etc.)

Reality is a biatch. GM does not and can not work like it has been doing for the past thirty years....

/The big flabby milk tit has done gone dry (sorry corrupt union bosses and sorry ass management idiots).

cxjohn: If these companies want to make money, why don't they start selling their cars? Has anybody seen any real effort to reduce their inventories and clear out the showrooms? Certainly none going on here. Instead, their CEOs have flown to DC on their private jets to form their own little welfare line. They deserved to have their A$$es handed to them on a silver platter (even if we can only afford a paper plate).

Who do you suggest buys their cars? Who? Where are the loans going to come from? Seriously, who is going to give out a car loan? Looks now that unless you have credit score of 700 or higher, you aren't getting a loan now. There is nobody to buy cars. Jobs are disappearing. Credit is gone. Even if these guys were selling $10,000 electric cars that had a range of 200 miles, they would STILL be sitting on lots right now. Dinosaur or not, you can't plan for the destruction of credit leading to the immediate demise of your company. Chapter 11 isn't going to help. They can be profitable in a year or two, pay off their loans, but NOBODY is going to loan them money. Credit is gone. Their immediate bankruptcy can be attributed to the post Lehmen brothers bankruptcy credit panic.

We have two choices.

1. Give the automakers a LOAN to get them through these times and have them PAY IT BACK.
2. Pay unemployment and medicare to the workers who were fired, all the way down the chain of companies the depend on the big three. Up to 2 million people. At an extremely low estimate of $1,000 a month, that's 2 BILLION dollars a month. That's completely ignoring the loss of tax revenue causing the projects and jobs those taxes depend on to disappear. That also ignoring the cost of individual governments talking out bonds to pay for things now, since the dramatic loss in revenue wasn't planned for; Oh yeah, those cuts in government services will mean higher crime, as police departments downsize to stay within budget.

Which choice do YOU prefer?

DaScribbler: Anyone else find it hysterical that the UAW is TELLING Congress what to do?

While the idiots in charge of the Big 3 (shiat 3) basically begged for $25 billion with NARY a plan for how to use the money? Just give it to us. We PROMISE we won't waste it.

Seriously. Here, let's pinky swear.

Fark all of them. DIAF with a UFIA and in this case the F stands for fist.

Don't hold back man.

Cowboy Spencer: One could argue that the many worker protections you enjoy and the relatively higher wages you receive are a product of the efforts of unions in the past.

Quite right, and if I lived in the 1920's I would probably be pro-union. But the unions long ago passed the point where they became ate up with power, patronage, politics, and organized crime.

Hard to gin up any sympathy for them. Or for the auto execs either.

Cat Food Sandwiches: There are Toyota, Honda, BMW, and Mercedes plants in the USA, and they aren't asking for anything. Difference - non-union.

And none of those companies have or ever will have any US employees working for them long enough to retire.

It is a very smart business plan to under pay your workers and then push them out the door long before their retirement time.

DPoem: Subby? Thank you. I don't know why, but this headline just cracked me all the hell up.

I betting it must be that first part.
"UAW to congress:", that cracks me up just writing it.

emt92339:

Collapse = FAIL. Re-organize under chapter 11 = WIN

Collapse = I pay someone else's retirement.
Bankruptcy = I pay my own retirement, UAW and execs get new jobs.

Reorg under chapter 11 doesn't do anything and you know that...

They aren't going to actually reorg.

Airlines never fixed their problems under Chapter 11. It just screws their suppliers who are out money until they feel like paying. Just screwing more hard working people while this industry flies their private jets around.

If Chapter 11 and bailouts worked, US Airlines would be awesome right now... instead they suck. You can't just blame oil, because most other countries have airlines still surviving despite the same oil prices.

Bairon: barneyfifesbullet: Because, it's up to taxpayers to see that a bunch of spoiled UAW union workers that make $70 an hour keep their cushy jobs.

Go blame your employer's bad management, UAW members, and your union's greed.

No bailout. Let them go bankrupt.

Unless they are making time and a half, I know of NO Union member making anywhere near that figure. The figure you keep quoting people, includes benefits. If you have benefits down to the WalMart, even if you are making $8 and hour chances are you would be considered making $35 an hour. Should we now ask that WalMart people take a pay cut, or give up their benefits?

Dumbasses

No, Wal-Mart isn't going bankrupt and asking for billions of dollars to bail themselves out.

Dumbass.

Heck I'm pretty pro-union, but the UAW definitely needs to stop biting the hand that feeds them. If they have so much to offer the average worker, why aren't they concentrating on organizing the workers at all the Toyota/Honda/Hyundai/MB plants in the US?

Reminds me of the Operators Union here in San Diego. Right now San Diego is undergoing a transition whereby non-union Contractors are taking many of the big construction contracts. However rather than make inroads to unionize these companies or prop up the pro-union contractors in these competitive bids, they would rather go after us for BS stuff such as having adequate apprentices on a job and providing the "right" members with the extra overtime work. They need to suck a dick too.

Friction8r: Well, at least that's your slant on the situation.

It's coming. There is nothing particularly unique about North American workers.

/yes, that includes "knowledge workers"

spotted dick.......lol

the uaw has gave and gave and gave.......the money is in plain sight in the asia investments, europe as well. South American ops too.

/hotlinking is almost as bad as flying in a private jet to go begging for handouts

Randall to UAW: "You overcompensate for a job a trained monkey could do!"

sorry, the financial bailout was an attempt to save the actual products and transactions, no one cared about the employees (who continue to be laid off by the 000's).

auto help should be to save a good product that people need, and - can afford to buy. 0 for 2.

fortunately these bailouts only hurt the taxpayer, which nowadays is only 40-50% of the population. Half of you don't have to worry.

tchamber: Economy to taxpayers: Have a nice depression, then.

You free-market shills need to wake up and smell the coffee before it's too late.

If not wanting to throw good money after bad makes me a free-market shill, then guilty as charged.

Many agenda-driven socialists have taken these financial crises as indictments of free-market economies. This could not be further from the truth. Look at the two sectors in trouble:

1. Finance - a government-spawned subprime market is the culprit for most of the banking system's woes.
2. Auto - unsustainable union contracts have left the Big 3 unable to innovate, and unable to compete.

Both are examples not of free-market failures, but of failures by markets tainted by activist government.

fireclown
Impudent Domain: We already have laws for this, it is called reorganization in bankruptcy. The firms continue to exist, but they get a chance to run more cleanly. It is not disaster, it happens with regularity.

could you describe this in more detail for the group? It might be usefull.

From Wikipedia:
Chapter 11 is a chapter of the United States Bankruptcy Code, which permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Chapter 11 bankruptcy is available to any business, whether organized as a corporation or sole proprietorship, and to individuals, although it is most prominently used by corporate entities. In contrast, Chapter 7 governs the process of a liquidation bankruptcy, while Chapter 13 provides a reorganization process for the majority of private individuals with unsecured debts of less than $336,900.00 and secured debts of less than $1,010,650.00 as of April 1, 2007.

It does not liquidate, it reorganizes so that the business can continue.

Bairon:

..I just wish the south had a "regional" product, so the rest of us could tell them to quit whining and suck it up.

The South does have a Regional Product - it's called BACON - go on, try to live without that!

I think the source of hate for the unions is contempt.

The idea that these lowly, uneducated, peons making a living comparable to that attained by a college graduate makes people angry. It's like the contempt that the old nobility had for the noveux riche. Poke around the anti-unionist mentality long enough, and you'll find it.

darkscout: You need to stand and watch some guy with only a high school diploma do it

The_one_with_that_guy:
While some electricity is generated off "green sources" there are quite a few that aren't. Where do you think the electricity used to power these cars comes from?

Coal. I already said that. You do understand that in terms of miles per drive, you car gives off more pollutants than a coal plant would powering your car? It's cleaner to use a coal plant to charge your battery than it is to use a gasoline engine. Coal is NOT a green source.

Is there anything the unions can't completely fark up?

Renowned transvestite sexologist:

1. Give the automakers a LOAN to get them through these times and have them PAY IT BACK.
2. Pay unemployment and medicare to the workers who were fired, all the way down the chain of companies the depend on the big three. Up to 2 million people. At an extremely low estimate of $1,000 a month, that's 2 BILLION dollars a month. That's completely ignoring the loss of tax revenue causing the projects and jobs those taxes depend on to disappear. That also ignoring the cost of individual governments talking out bonds to pay for things now, since the dramatic loss in revenue wasn't planned for; Oh yeah, those cuts in government services will mean higher crime, as police departments downsize to stay within budget.

Which choice do YOU prefer?


There is a nice little assumption you are making in Option 1. What makes you think they will pay it back?

Its more like Do you prefer Option 2 or Option 1 without repayment followed by Option 2?

If there are no buyers, how the hell is giving them loan going to make things better? You have successfully argued against yourself and hence, you don't even stand to win internets :P

Where were all of you pro-bailout folks when the textiles industry went belly up?

The poultry industry is lining up as we speak...