41–50 of 193 posts
These same companies lobby multiple governments for grants & incentives to operate locally via their local subsidiaries. Then when they get it they lobby another govenrment citing that they cannot be expected to compete at a disadvantage to their sister/paretn company.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Romney has a proven record of turning around sinking ships. Both the Bain Company and the 2002 Winter Olympics were in bad shape when he took the reins in 1990 and 1999 respectively. He fixed both of them and remade them into viable ventures. I'm quite apt to take his word when he says a managed bankruptcy is the best option for the US auto industry.
Romney has a proven record of turning around sinking ships. Was that a deliberately mixed metaphor? Turn around a sinking ship and all you get is a wreck which faces in the other direction.
one must ask why a waitress at denny's who makes minimum wage and has no healthcare must bail out union workers at gm who make 8x the wages, do less work, have ZERO DEDUCTABLE healthcare (do you? i doubt it), and full pensions. or why should a succesful worker at honda in ohio subsidize not only a failed competitor, but in essence have his own taxation used to undermine his own hard work? as for saving jobs and inves…
FWIW, a large part of this problem has already been solved. You may not have noticed it, but a while back the UAW made a deal with the big three that in exchange for a large cash payout they would take over retiree pension and post-retirement healthcare obligations.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This might sound crass, but companies who knowingly and actively pay people to do nothing on a perpetual basis deserve to die: http://www.detnews.com/2005/autosinsider/0510/17/A01-351179....
We can probably all agree that's it's silly to require that workers play dress-up and come to a non-existent job every morning. But, assuming that requirement were dropped, you haven't exactly explained why it was wrong of the workers to ask for a piece of the (extraordinarily high [0]) earnings the company enjoyed at that time, or why it was wrong of the company to pay it. Am I wrong to assume that the company thoug…
Anyways...
The company should have invested more of their marketing budget in R&D and produced quality cars. Empirically (consumer reports, Car & Driver, et al) U.S. cars have been subpar compared to their foreign counterparts for many years. Though some of my friends & family insist they're rapidly catching up nowadays. In the present, I don't know one way or the other.
In the States' current system, the company doesn't have any obligation to share high earnings with their employees. They have an obligation to deliver profits to shareholders - that's it. If the employees don't like it, they can get another job that pays them market wages or treats them better. In short, that's the best part & worst part of the system. Paying employees above market wages is not sustainable.
In the short term, companies can unfortunately deliver profits to their shareholders with shady tactics, breaking the law, gray area revenue recognition, poor employee treatment and "earnings management". In the long-term, that doesn't work and is stupid. And many times it's against the law.
It's not a coincidence that the companies that treat their employees the best outperform the market. [1]
one must ask why a waitress at denny's who makes minimum wage and has no healthcare must bail out union workers at gm who make 8x the wages, do less work, have ZERO DEDUCTABLE healthcare (do you? i doubt it), and full pensions. or why should a succesful worker at honda in ohio subsidize not only a failed competitor, but in essence have his own taxation used to undermine his own hard work? as for saving jobs and inves…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This post smacks of jealousy. What is wrong with zero deductible healthcare? I don't fault someone for trying to climb society's ladder. I want everyone in America to be able to earn a living wage. Being in a union doesn't make one lazy or overpaid. How do you over pay someone anyway? Who deems what a job is worth to society? It is very unfortunate that the big three made the agreements they did, but they made them.…
Person A, a waitress at Dennys, making about $8-10/hour with high deductible health care. Person B, an auto worker at GM, making $30-40/hour with zero deductible health care. [edit: see response to this post, auto worker gets $73/hour.] The bailout: tax person A in order to help person B, with 3 large corporations taking a cut of the proceeds. Does this make any sense? Incidentally, the original poster did not descri…
Also, the idea behind bailouts like this is that they are a loan. Ideally the government is profiting from this sort of thing, especially when you consider the overall economic impact of laying off thousands of GM employees, or allowing thousands of pensions to swirl down the drain.
I'm against the bailout, but it's overly simplistic and entirely useless (not to mention just plain incorrect) to say that it's morally wrong because someone at Denny's doesn't have health care.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Romney has a proven record of turning around sinking ships. Both the Bain Company and the 2002 Winter Olympics were in bad shape when he took the reins in 1990 and 1999 respectively. He fixed both of them and remade them into viable ventures. I'm quite apt to take his word when he says a managed bankruptcy is the best option for the US auto industry.
Romney has a proven record of turning around sinking ships. Was that a deliberately mixed metaphor? Turn around a sinking ship and all you get is a wreck which faces in the other direction.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We can probably all agree that's it's silly to require that workers play dress-up and come to a non-existent job every morning. But, assuming that requirement were dropped, you haven't exactly explained why it was wrong of the workers to ask for a piece of the (extraordinarily high [0]) earnings the company enjoyed at that time, or why it was wrong of the company to pay it. Am I wrong to assume that the company thoug…
That's a strawman; I never said it was wrong to ask. Anyways... The company should have invested more of their marketing budget in R&D and produced quality cars. Empirically (consumer reports, Car & Driver, et al) U.S. cars have been subpar compared to their foreign counterparts for many years. Though some of my friends & family insist they're rapidly catching up nowadays. In the present, I don't know one way or the…
I never suggested that they do. In fact, I think I rather explicitly argued that they paid those wages because it was the best deal they could negotiate at the time. If they could have negotiated a better deal, they would have.
More generally, if I agree to do a certain amount of work for a certain pay, it does not imply that I deserve that pay (whatever that means). But surely it means that the person paying me thinks that wage (considering the alternatives) to be in their best interest.
"If they don't like it, they can get another job that pays them market wages or treats them better."
Or collectively negotiate better wages?