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Ford CEO on his ‘epiphany’ after talking to factory workers in 2023

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Re: Ford CEO on his ‘epiphany’ after talking to factory workers in 2023

#121

Post by djohnston »

constantcrying wrote: post #105
djohnston wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh... "ridiculous" is a matter of perspective. If you're running a country and you want your people to be well-compensated and live meaningful lives, shuffling the hand in their favour is not violating some physical law. Countries restrain naked competition all the time to benefit their people. To me it seems much more ridiculous to expect Western citizens to accept a degradation in living standards for the abstract…

You don't get it. This is not a moral argument, it is about economic inevitability. You can not be long term more prosperous than the rest of the world, while consuming more and producing less. The prosperity in the west is the result of historic circumstance, where mass production of basically every good allowed for an enormous export of goods, while the west was radically innovating in science and engineering and e…

> But it is competition between countries.

Which, again, is restrained all the time. Countries will subsidise their own industries for strategic benefits. They also make trade deals with allies and sanction their adversaries. All of this is corrupting the true economic efficiency of the global economy and everyone is doing it constantly.

Re: Ford CEO on his ‘epiphany’ after talking to factory workers in 2023

#122

Post by runlaszlorun »

silverquiet wrote: post #111
ramesh31 wrote: post #42

Just tell them to go live in a van down by the River Rouge, Mr. Farley.

Fun note, Jim Farley is indeed a cousin of Chris Farley.

That's too funny. Having just looked, the resemblance is totally there.

Re: Ford CEO on his ‘epiphany’ after talking to factory workers in 2023

#123

Post by runlaszlorun »

michael1999 wrote: post #80
nerdsniper wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% of the time, I agree with you. But hypothetically, what would you call a situation where 20 companies would all be willing to pay salaries of $1 million/year to fill 10,000 open positions that required 5 years of training, but there are only 5,000 people who have that training? Would that be a "labor shortage"? It seems your solution works for companies willing to pay more to poach from other companies, but might…

You could call that excess capital as easily as a labour shortage. Or a shortage of training pipelines in an irresponsible industry. When GM realized they needed more mechanical engineers than existed, they built a whole university. These days, capital just whines. If you can spend $100 BILLION on data centers, you have the budget to stand up a proper school.

> If you can spend $100 BILLION on data centers, you have the budget to stand up a proper school.

That is a good point. Odd that our reactions, including my own given that I think the AI data center boom is pretty nuts, to that much being spent on data centers is "not surprising" while a company standing up a school sounds like something from science fiction.

Re: Ford CEO on his ‘epiphany’ after talking to factory workers in 2023

#124

Post by runlaszlorun »

DrPimienta wrote: post #57
throw__away7391 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every junior I've brought in over the past 7 years or so with the expectation of training them has immediately left after I've invested not only money but also significant amounts of more experienced developers time to bring them up to speed before I managed to recoup anything useful for that investment. I can already hear people say pay more, but that isn't up to me and besides that if we're going that route why not…

A big part of them leaving is the fact that the wages aren't actually that great. I'm a programmer and have far less buying power than a Kmart cashier from the 70s had. I don't get a pension. They did. There's no loyalty because we're all poor compared to every previous generation besides those literally living in log cabins.

Ngl, totally envious of a log cabin lifestyle.

I dated a girl who was a project manager for high end homes in SF. What hit me as sad was that a long list of things that are now ultra luxury were basically attainable by any hunter gatherer - a view, a fireplace, living near a lake or river, a large yard, indoor outdoor space, etc.

Re: Ford CEO on his ‘epiphany’ after talking to factory workers in 2023

#125

Post by tennisflyi »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #69

This article is wild. I love it when rich people tell you 1) they've been asleep for a decade and 2) their politics are insane. he was especially struck by stories from young factory employees. Many of them said they could not support themselves by working at Ford alone. “When I met with my entry factory workers, they were saying [they] had to have three jobs.” So, the thing people have been saying in public for 10 y…

I’m with you until the bootcamp - cap

Re: Ford CEO on his ‘epiphany’ after talking to factory workers in 2023

#127

Post by baby_souffle »

nerdsniper wrote: post #36
baby_souffle wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At some point, the salaries are indeed "high enough" but the skills still just aren't available to hire. But the incentive to develop the skills should sort this out, no?

Sure. But the GP is arguing that "there's no such thing as a labor shortage". I'm trying to determine what their definition of "labor shortage" is. Perhaps the GP believes that the term itself is meaningless, or perhaps they believe that no current real-world situation fits their definition. So I created a hypothetical situation to illustrate what, to me, is a clear example of a temporary labor shortage. As you say,…

> As you say, "the incentive to develop the skills should sort this out" ... and I'd say that's true, but until it gets sorted out, the situation can reasonably be described as a "labor shortage".

That's fair. I wasn't thinking about the types of skills that take years to develop. I was thinking more along the lines of re-training in the sense that I can take somebody that's got a solid base of tangentially related skills and get them up to speed quickly.

Re: Ford CEO on his ‘epiphany’ after talking to factory workers in 2023

#128

Post by deaux »

ratelimitsteve wrote: post #108
jkestner wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was the Dodge brothers back when they were minority owners of Ford, and it was the case that poisoned us with “fiduciary duty to the shareholder”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co .

what's wild is that it could be argued that this was in the shareholders' best interest as well, because it was in the best interest of the health of the company, but somehow that doesn't satisfy a "fiduciary duty" When someone tells you "my hands are tied" it's always worth asking whether they made the rope

> When someone tells you "my hands are tied" it's always worth asking whether they made the rope

It's not worth asking, as they're lying and they know it. It does not mean every decision made has to be to maximize shareholder wealth. As you're pointing out, even if incorrectly interpreted as such, any decision could be justified as doing so besides outrageous cases of intentionally tanking the company. This, in turn, is why no business gets prosecuted over this either.

Re: Ford CEO on his ‘epiphany’ after talking to factory workers in 2023

#129

Post by deaux »

jkestner wrote: post #29
nickdothutton wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't there some law suit from Chrysler, who tried to _stop_ him doing that? Presumably because it would give workers too much wage setting power in the market?

It was the Dodge brothers back when they were minority owners of Ford, and it was the case that poisoned us with “fiduciary duty to the shareholder”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_v._Ford_Motor_Co .

It didn't poison us at all, it's meaningless. Not a single one among the millions of societally-damaging decisions made by companies in the pursuit of profit ever since that case, was made because of that case. A. It doesn't mean companies have to maximize shareholder wealth. B. Even in the scenario that it did, it doesn't set a time horizon for this maximization C. Anything can be construed as being good for companies in the long run. And this is why no company ever gets prosecuted for it - it's a total non-factor.

As I write this, you're right, it has poisoned us; it has mistakenly made a number of laymen believe that this is one of the reasons why greedy, evil psychopaths such as Mark Zuckerberg and tens of thousands of lesser known names, behave the way they do, that law is to blame for their decisions.

Re: Ford CEO on his ‘epiphany’ after talking to factory workers in 2023

#130

Post by watwut »

bilekas wrote: post #56
watwut wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not even that. Plenty dont have a choice and participate in rackets. It is not like they were swimming in money and riches But some places are worst then rackets the town nearby.

> Plenty dont have a choice and participate in rackets I do appreciate that, but seems to me that the path towards change (CEO epiphanies) is for as many people as possible boycott the job.. It's a mentality change and I'm glad to see GenZ and others pushing to change it.

GenZ need to eat, room to live in, gas into car and occasionally healthcare. They can't ignore jobs unless their parents are wealthy and willing to pay for them forever.
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