Let’s Bail Out Ford and GM
November 7th, 2008We Cannot Risk Damaging the Self-Esteem of Thousands
I am reading up on the GM/Ford mess. It seems to me that the US economy is running into landmines and booby-traps we put in our own path in years past, and now there is very little we can do to prevent them from blowing us up. And what’s going on at GM and Ford seems typical.
There are a number of economic time bombs that are now going off and blowing us in the direction of socialism. The most obvious one is the mortgage crisis, which was caused by a government policy of coercing lenders to give money to unqualified minority members and people who were just plain poor or irresponsible. The carmaker problem is another example. Social Security is still plugging along on imaginary money, but it will eventually fail unless we go completely socialist and enslave the young to pay the old.
If GM and Ford go bust, they will have a hard time paying their pensioners. They are supporting 600,000 people who no longer work. If it happens, the federal guarantee program will kick in, and that’s where the pensioners will get their checks. I have seen analysts say that we should bail out GM and Ford because if we don’t, we’ll end up paying off the pensions anyway. But is that true? I’ve been reading about the guarantee program, and apparently, it seizes the assets of failed companies to pay off pensions, and it has other funding sources, and it isn’t funded from general tax revenues. If that’s correct, then you would think letting these companies fail would be the smart move. We would lose 450,000 jobs in the short term, but that’s not catastrophic. And we would gut the parasitic UAW, which apparently drove us to this crossroads. If you include benefits, unskilled autoworkers pull down about $75 per hour, according to web sources. That’s insane. That’s as much as SEVERAL prosecutors, who go to college for seven years and then have to pay off student loans. Many doctors earn less than that.
And who is to say that if GM and Ford die, someone else won’t swoop in and buy the plants and start making cars people actually want and can afford? We don’t know that. Without the UAW, you could pay people what their skills are worth, which is what GM and Ford should have been doing all along.
My dad is a labor lawyer. When he was a student, he used to work in Detroit during the summers, to get money for school. This was in the Fifties. He was shocked by how lazy and overpaid the workers were. When a new hire worked at a normal pace, that person would be taken aside and ordered to slow it down. My aunt worked up there, too, and she said she eventually ended up taking her knitting and sewing stuff to the plant, because she finished her quota in half a day.
In those days, the Big Three had no competition, and America was prosperous, so the carmakers paid the UAW pretty much whatever they asked. Then the Japanese came along, and the UAW still had the Big Three by the throat, and you know the rest of the story. It has been about 38 years since Datsun and Toyota invaded, and we still pay unskilled workers five times what they deserve. On top of that, the management is corrupt and inept, and the people who design the cars simply can’t compete with foreign talent. Many American models are very nice, but overall, we are in fourth or fifth place.
The best thing is probably to let these companies fail. If we need cars, someone else will come along and build them correctly. Haven’t Toyota and Honda already done that in their US plants? Overpaid workers and incompetent executives will have to take one for the team, but that’s what they deserve. On the whole, they will come out way ahead, because we have been subsidizing their ineptitude and laziness for decades.
If what I say makes you angry, relax. You’re going to win. These companies will be bailed out, and others will follow. Pelosi and Reid and Obama will take care of it. And you’ll pay the bill.
I am extremely optimistic about my own life, but my gut tells me the country is going socialist, and it will happen very quickly. The landmines we buried are going off, one after the other. The stimulus didn’t work. The interest rate cuts didn’t work. The bailouts we have seen so far have not worked. We still haven’t seen the full extent of the mortgage mess. We are setting precedents by bailing out the irresponsible and the dishonest, and we will have to honor those precedents in the future, with more bailouts. It might even be possible to force the government to pay up, using an Equal Protection argument. That kind of thing flies in Florida state courts, to some extent. Economies are tanking all over the place, and that means a bad market for our goods and services. Obama is going to be a very powerful President, and he is going to do everything he can to expand entitlements. Taxes are going to go up, and if you think it’s going to stop at 39%, well, you’re probably the kind of shrewd customer who believed Obama when he said he was going to rely on public campaign funding. Obama knowingly says things that are not true. Why would that change once he’s in office?
This is how the supernatural works. You do something bad, and you think everything is fine, and then after a while, things start going wrong very quickly, and you can’t do anything about it. You do the smartest things you can, but it doesn’t help, because there is more to success than human effort and human ability. You have to be blessed, and you can’t be blessed when you do as you please.
I think America is washed up. I really do. God just looked at our report card and cut off our allowance. Tens of millions of abortions. Gay marriages, officiated by gay clergy. Arrogance and cruelty and greed celebrated as virtues. Increasing anti-Semitism, even among so-called Christian churches. A warped Republican-conceived plan to achieve Mideast peace by carving up Israel and passing it out to barbarians. With our eyes wide open, we elected a new President who sat for twenty years in an anti-Semitic church, approving of everything his pastor said. And the God-fearing among us haven’t done a very good job of winning souls; we don’t seem to work very hard at making people understand the peace and blessings of Christian life. We’re better at turning people off by telling everyone we’re more righteous than they are. I’ve certainly done my share of that, whether or not that was my intention, and whether or not I realized I was doing it. I helped bring us here.
We flunked, by any sane measure. And we flunked consistently, over a period of decades. What possible reason could God have to help us now? “Give us more money, so we can take more drugs and have more extramarital sex and flaunt our wealth and have more abortions!” Who would listen to that? “Give us more money, so we can buy tickets to Urinetown and The Vagina Monologues, while we stiff charities and the church!” Crazy.
I suppose we can make a difference if we change our ways, but I don’t see that happening. I think we’ll be lucky if we only end up as messed up as Europe. I think our enemies are going to push us around with ease, our standard of living will plummet, and when the nations of the world have a problem, they won’t come to us any more, for the same reason they don’t try to get help from India or Mexico. We’ll be just another second-rate nation, trying to be heard at the UN.
I think our only hope lies in the individual. Change your ways, let God fix your life and your family, and hope the effect will spread to your community and the rest of America. Or go rent East of Eden and have a look at our future.
November 7th, 2008 at 10:02 AM
There is no free lunch. Never has been and never will be. Too many people here have gotten so much for so long, with so little effort that they feel entitled to the “good life” without any thought of having to labor for it.
It may be that God is finally turning His back on us, and we can’t say we don’t deserve it.
This may be an interesting 4 years for Peggy the Moocher who doesn’t think she needs to worry about paying for gas or her mortgage because the ObaMessiah is going to take care of her.
November 7th, 2008 at 10:22 AM
I expect Greg Z to chime in, as he’s a local (wish I had his e-mail).
I work for a supplier to GM, and Ford. I used to be hourly at GM (UAW) til the plant closed.
We were in competition with a plant in Texas to keep the work.
Our local president told me (in private) that he sat in a room with the Texas rep, GM and himself where the Texas guy offered to take his local out of the UAW to keep the work.
I hated being restrained by the union. Water leak? Call a pipe-fitter.
I hate that the fear of UAW mentality keeps foreign plants from locating here in MI which would normally be a logical place to locate an auto plant.
I sincerely hope that our Father in heaven doesn’t chastise the repentant/faithful with the resistant/rebellious.
But He’ll do what He does, and like Job said, “Though He slay me, I will hope in Him. Not BHO.
November 7th, 2008 at 10:30 AM
It might help if they made a product someone consistently wanted. They are finance companies that have a manufacturing arm is all. There is a healthy and growing American auto industry; it just isn’t based in Detroit.
November 7th, 2008 at 11:00 AM
I work in those factories all the time. You can not possibly believe the level of sloth. On the other hand: Cars get shipped because a select few people actually DO do their jobs, and those people will be hurt- but not for long, because they have AMBITION and will find something else to do. I know, because I used to be one of them, and got the hell out when the getting was good.
This is not general knowledge, but the Japanese have made a commitment to manufacturing their north American market vehicles IN north America. They have discovered that there are people capable of building a good car here. So Toyota, Honda, Subaru,and others are slowly, quietly increasing the number of cars manufactured here. They pay their workers a fair wage. They have good health benefits. They have normal retirement benefits. And they are STILL profitable.
I’ve already made up my mind my next vehicle will probably be a Toyota, though my family is a diehard Ford family.
November 7th, 2008 at 11:03 AM
Dude, take a deep breath. Really. This country has survived much much worse than BHO and Frank and Rangel and Reid. Well, not much worse, but worse.
The cool thing about being 300M people rather than the 100M we had in WWII is we have about three times as many smart people who love this country and work hard and raise good kids. It’s just hard to see them because we also have three times as many Joads.
Relax. Get some rest. Go on a hike with some Boy Scouts – it’s a tonic.
-XC
November 7th, 2008 at 11:16 AM
Here is a audio link for a speech Ronald Reagan gave in 1964. Many of the issues faced four decades ago we still face today. It may make for interesting listening and commenting. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/ronaldreaganatimeforchoosing.htm
November 7th, 2008 at 11:32 AM
Just wait until the unions get the name-approved-by-Minitrue Employee Free Choice Act passed.
November 7th, 2008 at 12:18 PM
If you listen to enough Christian testimonials you realize that many people have to “hit bottom” through drugs, alcohol, abuse, injury, disease, etc, before they accept Christ. Maybe God is allowing the US to hit bottom so at least some of us will wake up and turn the right direction. Just a thought.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:14 PM
God is bigger than any of this of course. I look forward to the challenges because in them God lives and does His most incredible works. I know it will mean a lot of misery for many of us, but our joy should not be based on circumstances.
I have been reading your stuff a long time and back in the day considered stopping because I thought you might be going the wrong way. I am still here because thankfully I was wrong. Your topics challenge me to be more vigorous in my faith.
November 7th, 2008 at 1:43 PM
Og: don’t forget BMW has an American plant, too. They made/make the Z3/Z4 and X5 (and maybe newer models; I haven’t paid attention.)
November 7th, 2008 at 2:02 PM
I don’t disagree with your logic, but I hope we’re not that far gone as a nation yet. This nation has historically sent and continues to send more missionaries and Bibles throughout the world than any other. And while our charitable giving is not what it should be, it still exceeds that of all other nations to my knowledge. I’ve heard it said that in most churches, 10% of the congregants provide 90% of the volunteer work and donations, and God can and does bless those churches. Hopefully the same ratios apply to our nation.
November 7th, 2008 at 2:07 PM
I hope you’re right, and I don’t want to come off like a Democrat, hoping the nation fails so I can say “I told you so,” but I have this feeling God’s blessings are shifting from the nation to individuals.
November 7th, 2008 at 4:15 PM
Well Chris I don’t agree with your logic.
How many free passes do we get on killing unborn children?
How many bibles passed out per killing?
How many dollars to a third world country gets us a pass on priest molesting children?
How many missionaries to other lands gets a free pass on all the pulpit pimps we have on TV, using the old testament as a means to drum up money to support their disgraceful life style.
The country is getting just what it asked for, judgement.
God isn’t interested in brownie points, He is interested in the condition of our hearts.
The word says “pick up your cross daily and follow me.”
We are about to be interduced to our cross.
We as a nation have squandered decades of His wonderful grace.
Now we will see the wheat and shaft sifted for awhile. Let’s pray that we are wheat.
November 7th, 2008 at 4:18 PM
sorry about mistake on introduced.
November 7th, 2008 at 6:08 PM
I wouldn’t mind seeing some reverse alchemy to turn into lead the obscene golden parachutes allowing executives who were well-connected and not t especially productive to walk away with tens of millions. Retroactively. Like take the trust funds from their kids.
Those who think we will survive should look at the fall of Britain in the last 100 years. Where once the sun never set on their empire, their capital, Londonistan, is now home to an occupying force of 600,000 radical Muslims. England can almost trace its fall to its turning on the Balfour Declaration. From there, it’s a steep descent.
John Adams noted that all democracies eventually commit suicide. I don’t think he meant this happens quickly. It took Athens decades of neglecting their military as the elite oligarchs ran things into the ground so that the barbarians easily overran it. How much resistance could the Czar put up against Lenin? Things can fall much faster than we think.
Folks, it’s time to re-read your George Orwell.
And I think Obama knows of skeletons in the director of minijew Rahm’s closet and will use Rahm Emanuel as the club to beat Israel defenseless as Obama drags his feet to the Security Council only to fail, again, to remember that Russia has veto power. “I did what I could” will be his excuse. Or he will blame Israel for its being an aggressor. As much as we’d love to see Israel be able to be free to act independently, it can’t. If it had to wage war, it would run out of supplies in less than a month. It has no oil and no steel. I recommend reading the lyrics to Bob Dylan’s prophetic 1983 song Neighborhood Bully.
http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/neighborhood-bully
There’s a saying in the Talmud that we are not charged with completing the job but we are not allowed to desist from trying to make progress. Complacency is the enemy.
Leftism and the desire to be lazy and to be taken care of is human nature. The United States is an exceptional experiment to the contrary, an experiment in individual responsibility and in acting like grown-ups. Civilizations may look back a century from now and lament how we let it go.
I’d prefer splitting red-blue into United Capitalist States of America and United Socialist States of America. Peacefully, I’d hope, or no worse than the partitioning of India into India and the two Pakistans. But that would be preferable to slouching into permanent socialism.
November 7th, 2008 at 6:21 PM
XC – I agree with you about the Boy Scouts, though I’m not sure that BHO will allow them to continue. On Sunday, I’m getting trained to teach Cub Scouts how to shoot BB guns so that I can take the dens in our Orthodox Jewish pack and teach them the fundamentals of safety and the beginnings of a philosophy of self defense and the value of the Second Amendment.
Maybe we’re being tested to see if we’ll start volunteering?
Jewish tradition is that God didn’t split the Red Sea until Nachshon ben Aminidav proved his faith in God’s promise to split the sea by wading in up to his nose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahshon
Read the Wikipedia entry to see who Nachshon is the ancestor of.
November 7th, 2008 at 8:47 PM
It does kinda feel like Armeggedon. But the End of the World has come and gone so many times…
I do believe that this hype and hope will be blown away fast, in a whirlwind of screwups by this administration. They can’t possibly hide the incompetence for long, nor continue to blame it on Bush for too long. People know better. They knew better before they cast their hopeful votes for change.
I’d be surprised if the forces of darkness can move fast enough to stifle all honest dissent, and the honest telling of what’s really happening. But then, I’ve been surprised a lot in my life…
Still. I’m hopeful we can recover.
November 8th, 2008 at 12:21 AM
Steve,
I work in one of those Japanese owned factories. Most of us come from varied backgrounds, but we like the work we do here. My company could have laid us off, but didn’t. We are not paid nearly what the UAW workers are paid, but I think we are paid a fair wage. In the case of my factory, we work in a setting which can be dangerous, is often uncomfortable (the plant is in the south) and we rotate shifts every two weeks. And we are expected to work! But we knew that coming in. Few of us want a union; my main job is transporting parts, but I also use hand tools, weld, use the drill press, etc. I also stand an almost 100% chance of repetitive motion injury. Having a union would likely not really enrich us much, but it would place a lot of restrictions on what work we can do. None of us likes to stand around.
I agree that the UAW is part of the problem; anytime you have an adversarial management vs. worker situation you are going to have major problems. Our focus at my plant is to build the best damn vehicles we can, safely. Not to fight with the management people. We work together.
November 8th, 2008 at 12:40 AM
What XC said. If Obama was smart, he’d point to the Scouts as exemplars of true volunteerism (not the government-mandated kind). Since the high minority turnout in the election is already getting blamed by gays for the losses of gay marriage propositions, Obama now has nothing to lose by associating with the Scouts. Does he have the sand?
XC also alludes to what I call the Julian Simon outlook on life. Steve, my brother, you can always count on the zeal and inventiveness of free people to overcome all obstacles. And our society is too open to become unfree. If China can’t totally control its traditionally closed society, Obama sure as hell can’t control the Home of Liberty. Sure, there will be outrages, but they will be known, and fought, and they will become rallying points.
God judges individuals, not countries. Don’t descend into Pat Robertson territory. Redemption is a depthless well. Individuals redeem themselves continually, as you personally have demonstrated.
November 8th, 2008 at 12:50 AM
Oh, and GM/Ford/Chrysler must be allowed to fail. The productive parts will be bought and rejuvenated, and the “job bank” slugs and middle-aged pensioners will have to settle for the bankruptcy proceedings. That will finally turn them back into productive citizens, who will then finally abandon the unions that brought them to their downfall. We should welcome this.
Our best days a just ahead, and Obama will hasten their arrival by his mistakes. He’s gas on the pyre from which the phoenix of American industry will rise. Any Biblical metaphorical references to fire and cleansing?
November 8th, 2008 at 1:56 AM
In a logical world the Big Three would go Chapter 11, which would allow courts to rewrite their labor contracts, which would make it possible for better managed companies to buy their assets and save a lot of the jobs. This is not likely to happen under a Democratic administration, however. Instead the companies are probably going to get bailed out in a way that rewards the UAW for its greed, destroys incentives for top managers to work in the industry, and puts taxpayers on the hook for the risk.
November 8th, 2008 at 9:07 AM
If you take a closer look at the Bible, it is hard to deny that God has a long-established pattern of judging nations. He judged nations over and over in the Old Testament, and he judged Israel in 70 C.E.
The most obvious judgment that comes to mind is the series of plagues against Egypt. You can say God was judging Pharaoh, but it was the Egyptians as a nation that suffered. God then judged the Hebrews by causing them to wander in the desert for 40 years, and it is clear they were judged as a group, because he included the righteous Hebrews among them.
David sinned by doing a census, and tens of thousands of his people died. The Jews sinned, and God sent them into Babylonian captivity. Orthodox Jews believe the Messiah will return if all of Israel starts observing the Sabbath, so you could say they believe the Jews are suffering a type of judgment right now.
November 8th, 2008 at 9:57 AM
Of course I’m going to chime in. The problem is that the autocompanies have in the past 2 or three years renegotiated for much better wages (soon to take affect) and shown they can build good cars people want to buy. And then some jackasses (ostensibly, the market) somewhere spiked oil prices and killed our profitability. The requested loans are to infuse short-term cash so the businesses can stay in business long enough for changes to take affect.
Joeseph is actually making the UAW’s case. The factory he works at sounds like it’s going to wreck him and then wave bye-bye when he can’t work anymore. That’s a pretty stupid labor policy. But you don’t need a union to improve health and safety.
November 8th, 2008 at 5:37 PM
“Closer look at the Bible”. All metaphors and parables. Was 9/11 God’s way of punishing “us” (Americans) for homosexuality and other sins tolerated in our society, as PR asserted? Of course not. 9/11 was the deliberate acts of evil men, supported by other evil men who espouse evil ideologies. They justified their acts as reflections of God’s will and the result of their prayers. That other people suffer because of the sins and evils of individuals is not a proof of God playing some sort of heavenly version of the board game “Risk”. Individuals are accountable to God, not governments or countries. Those who assert otherwise flirt with megalomania.
November 8th, 2008 at 5:45 PM
The Bible itself asserts that countries are accountable to God, as noted above, with numerous examples. Where do you get the idea that the Babylonian captivity, which was a historical event, was a parable or metaphor? What about the other punishments mentioned above, which were also historical events? Observant Jews and Christians believe all of them happened, and even secular historians believe some of them happened. What do you mean, comparing them to metaphors and parables?
As for God punishing homosexuality, why not? Under God’s Torah, it’s a crime.
How does megalomania, which involves delusions of grandeur, relate to the way God treats nations?
November 8th, 2008 at 5:52 PM
The carmakers negotiated SOMEWHAT more favorable wages for SOME workers. Did they reduce their bloated pensions, too? Toyota still has a big labor-cost advantage.
November 8th, 2008 at 8:33 PM
Greg,
In any labor job you run the risk of repetitive motion injury. At least Toyota has on site programs to help us get better. The injuries are not usually catastrophic nor permanent. They do try to take care of us. There are also constant in-house evaluations to make the jobs safer for us…injuries can cost a company a great deal of money. I have a better than average understanding of this stuff (medical) as I worked in the field at one time.
Steve,
Toyota uses a lot of automation, as much as possible. One reason for that is to avoid huge amounts of retired workers in the future. We also do not stockpile large amounts of parts; inventory is like dollars just sitting on a shelf, they don’t do much good just sitting there.
Oh, and by the way…I am not trying to represent Toyota. These are just my observations.
November 9th, 2008 at 7:40 AM
I remember a long conversation that Job had with God …and I ain’t so sanguine at all about bad things happening to good men for no apparent reason (not even for reason of purifyin’ the soul, turning dross to gold). And to countries, too.
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Job 1.8 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
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Nor about my ability (at least) to divine the mind and intent of God. He lets some things slide, sometimes. He don’t, other times. Hard to say for sure …at least, hard to say convincingly. And even harder to argue convincingly.
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This I *do* know: sometime between the next few seconds and the next few decades, I’ll pass, like all have before me …and I figure I’ll either be as non-existent as the atheist’s claim, and so it really won’t matter and I won’t care …or I’ll be privy to the vast unknown, and talking with God direct.
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I wonder if any of the questions I have now will make any sense to even ask at that point.
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Probably not …probably not.
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Job 42:12 So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning …
November 16th, 2008 at 10:07 PM
GM needs new leadership that is not committed to old Lock-ins if it is going to ever be a viable competitor. Only someone from outside the industry will be able to implement necessary Disruptions and create White Space that will allow GM (or Ford or Chrysler) to address long-term shortcomings. I don’t know why Jobs would take the job, but someone who is Jobs-like is necessary. Read more at http://www.ThePhoenixPrinciple.com