Andrew if they didnt bail out the banks and autos we would be in a depression and we wouldnt even have our electric on to argue these points. have a good night

Heh. I am just a dude who tries to see things as logically as possible while remaining realistic.

prove it.

This is a common misconception. It actually falls exactly under what Andrew was saying if you think about it. We are destroying our future by spoiling the present.

If said businesses weren't declared to be "too big to fail" do you think they would have made the insane gambles they did? Probably not...

On another note, you are endorsing the taxpayer support of corporations regardless of there ethics or conduct, simply because people are employed under them. If a business cannot stand on it's own at anytime it must be allowed to fall. This is what promotes good business and discourages bad judgement all on it's own, without taxpayer money or government policies.

But in order to understand that, you would have to understand the fact that in order for a job to actually contribute to progression, or the economy, one must provide a valuable service, or make a valuable product. If this weren't true, then i would suggest we just pay everyone to count rocks in their own back yard for a living.

So back to the argument of us being in a depression if we didn't give the rich billions and billions of dollars for making bad decisions... It may hurt in the short run. But in the long run we will be better off.

Ya know....one thing I will give the " too big to fail " bunch....

They were, at the time, looking, in part, at the fact that this country had already lost an absolute shitload of jobs in the manufacturing sector.

Allowing the car companies to go into bankruptcy would have cause many, many more people to lose their jobs, which would have resulted in a lot of businesses closing up further down the line. That, in turn, would have caused even more unemployment.

I think the idea itself was a good one for a short term solution. There was really not a lot of choice.

The problem is that the people involved have yet to see the long term effects the bailouts will have on future generations.

I Suppose my principles tend to step in, and make me hesitant for any government involvement in the market. But i do see your point.


However, i think that not only will future generations be paying for it, i think this one will eventually.

The more time goes by, we need more money. The need grows exponentially with the growth of the money supply. Historically and mathematically, these systems grow increasingly unstable until collapse. I think we are nearing the end of our current system.

My basic principals argued against it too. But my sense of reality made me less irritated about it than I normally would have been. There was just too much to lose at the time.

I do agree with you that we are going to wind up paying a heavy price for what has occurred in the last year or so. But I am also realistic enough to know that there is no one person responsible for what has gone on.

It's been building up for a lot of years now.

The thing is, I feel a lot of those jobs exacerbated the problem. By bailing them out, you really didn't do anything but put a band-aid on it. So long as the UAW has the government in its pocket, the auto industry in America will never be competitive.

I understand that too.

The UAW basically priced it's workers out of the job market.

Again, it was a case of a severe lack of foresight on the part of the UAW and GM.

Anyone with any sense should have realized that the company wouldn't be able to remain competitive when they had to continue people who they weren't getting anything from as far as production.

The UAW put GM in an untenable position by making demands that the company couldn't really refuse because doing so at the time would have been corporate suicide.

there was already a process in place for bailing out banks and automakers

it's called Chapter 11

Chapter 11 forces companies to reorganize their management under court supervision

all this bailout did was remove money from the economy and redistribute it to people who didnt deserve it

But, in regards to the UAW, there is no way, short of what actually did happen, that the union would have taken the concessions needed to keep the business afloat.

well yeah

the unions have pretty much killed American competitivity in the global market

Meh. The company I work for is unionized and they are doing better than ever.

The law of supply and demand is working wonders for the company.

Amazing concept, eh?

Two questions though:

What industry are you in?
What is the legacy expense for your company?

If you are in a high profit-margin industry or one that requires a skill (i.e. welders) then you can be unionized, get higher wages, and likely still compete. I'm not against unions so much as I'm against their protection. If they stood on their own, so be it, but this crap that you have to join a union if one exists is bull.

The other point is that GM has huge liabilities to retirees. They essentially would never have to save a dime in their lives and would be set once they retired after 20 or so years. When you make more than the average household, I think a little responsibility for your own retirement is in order. I've never made as much as the average UAW worker and even at 19 I was adding a few thousand to an IRA. I try to max my contributions every year actually.

I work in the sugar industry.

The legacy costs for the company, over the last few contracts, have been minimalized. There are still a few people hanging around drawing a pension, but they are few and far between. They have also removed the costs of health care for the most part.

Our union is one of the few that I know that will, rather than try to squeeze every possible dollar out of the company, works to help the company remain profitable.

We only ask them to be fair. The majority of the time, they are. There have been a couple of clashes here and there when the contracts have come up. But for the most part, the company and the union have a good relationship.

We do employ welders and mechanics ( specialized to work on the equipment in the plant ) and several other positions that are extremely specialized. The people ion those jobs get paid accordingly. But the majority of the people who work there make less than ten bucks an hour.

Yep...

And doing a lousy job.

I expected change...

I got pissed on.

Then I commend you guys for actually doing what is right and not just right for yourselves. especially since you are such a union-friendly state as michigan.

I think the main problem with a lot of unions ( and the one I belong to is included in that because of things I have seen and heard going on at other places ) is that they just don't have the common sense to realize that if they keep demanding more and more, eventually the company isn't going to be able to survive if things take a turn for the worse.

Now, the local I belong to has always had pretty good leadership in that they have known that the entire goal is to keep people working. They know that if people aren't working, there isn't any union.

Therefore, they will take slightly less than what a lot of people would want, but we help make sure the place stays up and running.

I think the unions should work for a bowl of rice 7 days a week till they drop dead like all the workers in the third world.

Where the heck have y'all been for the last 25-30 years?
The Government has steadily been killing the Unions influence in America. Why?
Because it was the largest organized group of "the people" in America, and stood in the way of globalization (outsourcing American jobs for a cheaper labor market).

If the Unions had the government in their pocket the trade tariffs would still be around.