Guaranteed pensions..... Yeah, what could go wrong.... State of Illinois enters the chat.

 

Speaking as a taxpaying citizen of the State of Illinois, I don't agree with your glib one-liner economic/political analysis. But since this is supposed to be a car chat, I'll stop at that.

 

Mike, with all due respect, Fed Chairman Powell has explicity and repeatedly said out loud that the very purpose of these interest-rate hikes is to damage working people. I'm not making this up—he's explained in detail that the goal is to depress the job market and hurt buying power to weaken workers' leverage over their wages and drive them into submission.

Here's a multimillionaire CEO explicitly congratulating the Fed and other Western banks for doing so:

Millionaire CEO Leads Call To 'Kill Attitude' of Workers Empowered by COVID

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other...id/ar-AA1gFdhF

 

Not meant to be political at all. However, as a taxpaying citizen of the State of Illinois you should know the state of the Illinois' finances.

 

Yes, some people will be hurt by higher-interest rates. But my point was that many others, whether they are working-class or not, will ALSO be helped by (finally) getting more interest on their bonds, CDs, and bank-accounts. That part, without getting too deeply into politics, is something that Mr. Powell apparantly failed to note.

 

Initially, three plants are being targeted right now...The GM Wentzville, MO plant where the Colorado/Canyon are built, the Ford plant at Wayne, MI where the Bronco and Ranger are built, and the Stellantis plant at Toledo, OH, where Jeep Wranglers are built.

Interestingly enough, the strike coincides with the year's Detroit Auto Show....which is running, and started on the 13th.

 

UAW doesn't give a toss if their demands kill off the company because they know government will bail them out again. I'd love to know the productivity of UAW plants vs. non.

 

If these corporations can afford to pay their CEOs and high-ranking Execs eight and nine-figure salaries (and massive perks), they can afford reasonable pensions for the factory-workers who give thirty and forty years to the company (often in difficult and dangerous work) and deserve a reward for their years of labor. Most of this "we can't afford it" stuff is a bunch of nonsense. These companies make a profit of around 10K or so for every large full-size truck and SUV they sell....and that is factory profit, not the dealership.

 

Divide the CEO compensation by the number of workers and see how much that ends up being per person.
Profit? Net? Gross? What are their EBITDA margins? I don't follow the big 3 automakers closely.

 

I've always been puzzled by the seething anger directed at the auto workers over the 2008 bailout loan guarantees.

I'm not a big fan of George W. Bush, but when his administration (not that other one, as commonly misstated) saved the automakers by guaranteeing their debts, people forget that the nation was teetering on the brink of a 1929-sized mass economic collapse. The auto industry could not get financing not because they were inherently loser businesses, but because the banks were paralyzed. The loans saved a million good American jobs that couldn't be replaced in any other way, stabilizing the economy at a moment it was critically ill, and were ultimately repaid in full.

I'll tell you what does chap me:

First, the auto loans were literally 1/100 the size of the massive theft pulled off by the bankers, who never did repay and who CAUSED the crash but were never prosecuted for their crimes.

Second, in a cynical act of bad faith, GM management in particular then proceeded to take their new lease on life—a second chance at survival meant to save American jobs—and cynically enriched themselves at the nation's expense by essentially outsourcing themselves into becoming, in everything but name, a Chinese car company. The loans should have been written with strings attached to make that impossible, but W's people failed to impose that sensible moral restraint, and GM's greedy execs obviously have shown none of it themselves. They have stolen from our nation. Against that backdrop, I think the cynical sneering that auto WORKERS expect some sort of handout is rather misdirected.

 

I'm talking about the UAW specifically, not the workers. They have no choice but to be union members, or go work for another company.

 

History has proven that unionism needs all the workers included in order for it to be viable. "Right to work" works only for their billionaire masters, who divide and conquer them. If this weren't true, billionaires wouldn't have spent so feverishly for generations to outlaw union shops.

 

GM actually operates plants in South Korea that, although not utilizing American labor, are at least unionized, so they aren't paying Chinese-style semi-slave wages....and, of course, South Korea is one of our allies, in contrast to the Communist Government of China, which is arguably our greatest potential opponent today. One reason I bought an Encore GX (among MANY other reasons), and may end up purchasing another one in a few more years, is the fact that it is at least built in Korea in the unionized plant, rather than in a Chinese sweat-shop.

But, yes, the Chinese people DO love their Buicks (and I can't blame them for that, as I like them myself)...they purchase some 80% of Buick's total-sales (as opposed to 20% in North America). So, GM's reasoning is that you build them where you sell them....and the Buick Envisions are built there.

 

i'll just leave this here...

https://uawinvestigation.com/

 

None of us has ever said UAW leadership was perfect. In fact, one recent UAW President (Gary Jones) actually spent some time in prison for embezzlement/tax-evasion. But that is not an excuse for not having unions, and someone has to represent worker's needs/interests.