NCAAbbs

Seems we are to BLAME for Detroit's long term incompetence.

Crazy Yankees.

What, no boycott Tennessee or boycott Kentucky websites?

I believe they both have more foreign owned auto plants than Alabama.

The senators of Kentucky and Tennessee aren't threatening to filibuster

Yeah, how dare Sen. Shelby stand up for what he believes in. Where does he think he is...America?

I say we boycott Michigan-made cars. Oh, wait, most of the world has already done that.

I can see where people in Detroit would be pissed with Shelby. Not one penny in subsidies for the American carmakers... and he kinda forgets to mention that he has a small conflict of interest with the foreign automakers in Alabama. I can't help but think he'd be talking out the other side of his mouth if it were the jobs in Alabama that were at risk, that's the nature of politicians.

Here's a excerpt from a letter to Shelby, linked off the UAW website. Yeah, consider the source... but consider the facts as well.



http://www.uaw.org/auto/11_25_08auto1.cfm

The intent of this letter, however, is not to take you to task for the inaccuracy of your comments or for the over-simplicity of your views, but rather to point out the hypocrisy of your position as it relates to Alabama's (the state for which you have served as senator since 1987) recent history of providing subsidies to manufacturing. During the segment on "Meet the Press," you stated that:
"We don't need government — governmental subsidies for manufacturing in this country. It's the French model, it's the wrong road. We will pay for it. The average American taxpayer is going to pay dearly for this, if I'm not wrong."

I trust it is safe to say that when you refer to "government subsidies," you are referring to subsidies provided by both federal and state governments. And if this is in fact true, then I am sure you were adamantly against the State of Alabama offering lucrative incentives (in essence, subsidies) to Mercedes Benz in the early 1990s to lure the German automobile manufacturer to the State.

As it turned out, Alabama offered a stunning $253 million incentive package to Mercedes. Additionally, the state also offered to train the workers, clear and improve the site, upgrade utilities, and buy 2,500 Mercedes Benz vehicles. All told, it is estimated that the incentive package totaled anywhere from $153,000 to $220,000 per created job. On top of all this, the state gave the foreign automaker a large parcel of land worth between $250 and $300 million, which was coincidentally how much the company expected to invest in building the plant.

With all due respect, Senator, where was your outrage when all this was going on? Perhaps on principal you did disagree with your colleagues in the Alabama State Government over these subsidies, but I don't recall you ever going out and publicly decrying Alabama's subsidization strategy. I certainly don't recall you going in front of the nation (as you did this past Sunday) to discuss what a big mistake Alabama was making in providing subsidies to Mercedes Benz. If you had, however, you could have talked about how, applying free market principles, Alabama shouldn't have had to resort to subsidies to land Mercedes Benz.

Competitively speaking, if Alabama had been the strongest candidate under consideration (i.e. highest quality infrastructure, workforce, research and development facilities, business climate, etc.), then subsidies shouldn't have been required.

The fact is that Alabama knew that, on a level playing field, it could not compete with the other states under consideration and, thus, to lure the German car builder to the state, it offered the aforementioned unprecedented subsidies. In effect, Alabama — your state — did exactly what you said government should not do: provide subsidies for manufacturing. It's no great mystery why Alabama politicians went to such dramatic anti-free-market measures to secure Mercedes Benz — they did it for the betterment of their state through job creation and increased tax revenues. And who could blame them? Is that so different than what would occur by providing financial aid to help rescue the domestic auto industry?

Such aid would save millions of jobs and millions of dollars in lost tax revenue. Additionally, unlike the giveaways Alabama bestowed upon the foreign automaker in question, United States taxpayers would be reimbursed with interest (as they were when Chrysler received government aid in the early 1980s) for their investment in what is clearly a critically important industry for America’s present and future.

Best Regards,
Peter Karmanos, Jr. Chairman and CEO Compuware Corporation

Within 3 years we (the State of Alabama) had every dime of that investment back. The citizens got good jobs, almost immediately. And without Mercedes, would we have gotten Honda, Hyundai, Toyota, or the International engine plant in Huntsville?

Should have bombed their fried-cheese-eating asses after their militia blew up the Murrah federal Building.

BlazerPhil Wrote:Within 3 years we (the State of Alabama) had every dime of that investment back. The citizens got good jobs, almost immediately. And without Mercedes, would we have gotten Honda, Hyundai, Toyota, or the International engine plant in Huntsville?

Probably not. My point would be that we dropped half a billion dollars to buy them into coming here... and that it was a good investment.

The Detroit automakers have to a large degree made their own bed, and in normal times I'd tell them to go screw themselves, declare Chapter 11 and work their way out of the mess they made. These are not normal times. I don't think that the financing is out there right now for a GM sized Chapter 11 reorganization, and I don't think the national economy could withstand the hit that losing the Big 2 1/2 would bring.

Congress also just dumped $700B + on the banks and Wall Street without any strings or oversight. I think that a government backed loan to help these guys get back on their feet, with qualifiers, is a fairly good investment. I can't see just flushing them.

US Government should not be choosing winners and losers.
We've already been through this with Chrysler. 30 years later, they're back.
Without a complete business model overhaul, we'll be merely kicking the can down the road once again. They'll be back, hat in hand.
Chapter 11 will be the savior of the big 3 (2-1/2). Automobile mfr. industry jobs will not be lost, only unionized automobile mfr. jobs will be lost.

Quote:Congress also just dumped $700B + on the banks and Wall Street without any strings or oversight.

FALSE

+1 ob79

This bailout (#2 for them) is only going to prop them up until March. Then they will be back for their THIRD bailout in barely six months, and they will be asking for even more money. Some think it will be close to $100 bn then. Of course, the excuse will be "Well, you already gave us $40 bn combined the last two times. You don't want that to go to waste, do you? If you give us more now, we might be able to pay the taxpayers back."

Let them go under. Its their own fault for having such high overhead costs and making cars that people don't want. The government didn't help them any either with the CAFE standards, but paying someone the equivalent of $75/hr to bolt down an engine is ludicrious, especially when you think about the ones getting 90% of their salaries while not working.

Detroit has nobody to blame but themselves (mostly).

Shelby is an idiot that only cares about re-election. What is he now, a democrat, a republican, is he establishing the fascist party, is he establishing the "I paid for Vulcan with federal dollars" party (BTW, the Statue of Liberty was refurbished with PRIVATE dollars, as Vulcan should have been).

MC Blazer Wrote:Shelby is an idiot that only cares about re-election. What is he now, a democrat, a republican, is he establishing the fascist party, is he establishing the "I paid for Vulcan with federal dollars" party (BTW, the Statue of Liberty was refurbished with PRIVATE dollars, as Vulcan should have been).

If there's one beef I have with Shelby it's his love of pork. I guess that's the old democrat still in him.

UAB Band Dad Wrote:Congress also just dumped $700B + on the banks and Wall Street without any strings or oversight. I think that a government backed loan to help these guys get back on their feet, with qualifiers, is a fairly good investment. I can't see just flushing them.

Shelby voted against that too. So he's consistent.

And anytime a company can sell as many cars as Toyota and post a $30 B loss while Toyota posts a $17 B gain, there's a problem and if no private firm is willing to take a risk on them, the government shouldn't either. They won't fold in the next few years. They'll go bankrupt, reorganize, and either learn from their stupidity and get rid of unionized labor, or fail completely. Either way I don't care since I refuse to buy their crappy cars.

2007 Profit/Loss GM vs. Toyota: Same # Cars
http://www.mrswing.com/articles/Profit_L..._Cars.html

GM sales in 2007: 9,370,000 vehicles
Toyota sales in 2007: 9,366,418 vehicles
GM profit/loss in 2007: -$38,730,000,000 (-$4,055 per car)
Toyota profit in 2007: +$17,146,000,000 (+$1,874 per car)
HT: Larry Kudlow and Sen. Tom Coburn on CNBC's "Kudlow & Company"

from NationalReview.com
Subsidizing Failure
By the Editors
December 10, 2008 7:00 AM
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Mjk...RjZjAzZDI=

Congress and President Bush appear close to an agreement that would bail out the Big Three Detroit automakers. Politics has trumped prudence, and the real goal of this bailout plainly is not to help the automakers become sustainable businesses but to preserve union jobs and subsidize hybrid cars. We understand why the Democrats are happy with this arrangement. It is less clear why the president should agree to it...

...The agenda also calls for the appointment of a federal “car czar” to direct a restructuring of the car companies. But it does not give this person a mandate to force the autoworkers’ unions to make the realistic concessions that are required if the Big Three are to become competitive again — something a bankruptcy judge could do. The Big Three’s labor costs, work rules, and job-security arrangements are relics of a bygone era; if you want to see what a successful American auto industry looks like, look to Toyota, Honda, and Nissan, which employ a non-union workforce of more than 100,000 at their American assembly plants

oldblazer79 Wrote:2007 Profit/Loss GM vs. Toyota: Same # Cars
http://www.mrswing.com/articles/Profit_L..._Cars.html

GM sales in 2007: 9,370,000 vehicles
Toyota sales in 2007: 9,366,418 vehicles
GM profit/loss in 2007: -$38,730,000,000 (-$4,055 per car)
Toyota profit in 2007: +$17,146,000,000 (+$1,874 per car)
HT: Larry Kudlow and Sen. Tom Coburn on CNBC's "Kudlow & Company"

That right there is staggaring. Two companies in the same industry have a $56billion gap between the two.

Yeah, $14billion is really going to do a lot of good for the big 3. Time to read the writing on the wall people.

What the state government does to lure industry has nothing to so with Shelby. It didn't cost people in Michigan one dime to get Mercedes here. That's our business, so they can butt out. The UAW people are just pissed that we have successful, profitable, NON-UNION auto plants, while they have failing plants throughout the rust belt. Besides, if some yankee is whining about how their economy is suffering because of what Alabamians are doing, forgive me if I don't shed a tear in sympathy. Seems like they did a pretty good job wrecking ours once upon a time.

On the topics of unions, I have heard grumblings that nurses are looking to form unions and that it is scaring the heck out of hospitals.

It seems that if the nurses who want to form these unions pay close attention to the long-term affect on organizations they might think twice about it.

STLouis Blazer Wrote:On the topics of unions, I have heard grumblings that nurses are looking to form unions and that it is scaring the heck out of hospitals.

It seems that if the nurses who want to form these unions pay close attention to the long-term affect on organizations they might think twice about it.

California has unionized nursing, which is why they are so understaffed and so many nurses travel there to work. If a nurse in Cali works over an 8hr shift, he/she gets paid time and a half for any hours over the 8. If a nurse in Cali works over 40hrs a week, they get doubletime for the hours over 40. I just talked to a friend who is travel nursing in Cali right now and a regular staff nurse makes $200-300k easily once you factor in all these things.

dfarr Wrote:

STLouis Blazer Wrote:On the topics of unions, I have heard grumblings that nurses are looking to form unions and that it is scaring the heck out of hospitals.

It seems that if the nurses who want to form these unions pay close attention to the long-term affect on organizations they might think twice about it.

California has unionized nursing, which is why they are so understaffed and so many nurses travel there to work. If a nurse in Cali works over an 8hr shift, he/she gets paid time and a half for any hours over the 8. If a nurse in Cali works over 40hrs a week, they get doubletime for the hours over 40. I just talked to a friend who is travel nursing in Cali right now and a regular staff nurse makes $200-300k easily once you factor in all these things.

And you are still in B'ham...why?

BlazerFan11 Wrote:

dfarr Wrote:

STLouis Blazer Wrote:On the topics of unions, I have heard grumblings that nurses are looking to form unions and that it is scaring the heck out of hospitals.

It seems that if the nurses who want to form these unions pay close attention to the long-term affect on organizations they might think twice about it.

California has unionized nursing, which is why they are so understaffed and so many nurses travel there to work. If a nurse in Cali works over an 8hr shift, he/she gets paid time and a half for any hours over the 8. If a nurse in Cali works over 40hrs a week, they get doubletime for the hours over 40. I just talked to a friend who is travel nursing in Cali right now and a regular staff nurse makes $200-300k easily once you factor in all these things.

And you are still in B'ham...why?

I have zero desire to live on the left coast, or be a part of a union.

Ah, I read that as travel nurses making $200-300K. I don't blame you then. If you could move there for one year as a travel nurse and make that, you'd be crazy not to.

BlazerFan11 Wrote:Ah, I read that as travel nurses making $200-300K. I don't blame you then. If you could move there for one year as a travel nurse and make that, you'd be crazy not to.

I could easily make $100k traveling. It is tempting and I might do it eventually.

Why don't we (IE: the government) just buy $15 billion worth of cars instead of giving them the money free. I mean, according to the UAW and the companies, the problem simply is that we aren't buying enough cars, right?

mixduptransistor Wrote:Why don't we (IE: the government) just buy $15 billion worth of cars instead of giving them the money free. I mean, according to the UAW and the companies, the problem simply is that we aren't buying enough cars, right?

See the above stat about how much money GM (and probably the other two) make per car. The big 3 made money on suvs & trucks and lost on the smaller cars. Detroit needs a MAJOR restructuring of both their business model and how they pay employees. When you have as much overhead as they do you either need to sell cars with a higher price or you need to sell lots of cars which are marginally profitable (like Wal-Mart does). They do neither, and their books show it.

dfarr Wrote:

mixduptransistor Wrote:Why don't we (IE: the government) just buy $15 billion worth of cars instead of giving them the money free. I mean, according to the UAW and the companies, the problem simply is that we aren't buying enough cars, right?

See the above stat about how much money GM (and probably the other two) make per car. The big 3 made money on suvs & trucks and lost on the smaller cars. Detroit needs a MAJOR restructuring of both their business model and how they pay employees. When you have as much overhead as they do you either need to sell cars with a higher price or you need to sell lots of cars which are marginally profitable (like Wal-Mart does). They do neither, and their books show it.

I know, I was being sarcastic.

mixduptransistor Wrote:

dfarr Wrote:

mixduptransistor Wrote:Why don't we (IE: the government) just buy $15 billion worth of cars instead of giving them the money free. I mean, according to the UAW and the companies, the problem simply is that we aren't buying enough cars, right?

See the above stat about how much money GM (and probably the other two) make per car. The big 3 made money on suvs & trucks and lost on the smaller cars. Detroit needs a MAJOR restructuring of both their business model and how they pay employees. When you have as much overhead as they do you either need to sell cars with a higher price or you need to sell lots of cars which are marginally profitable (like Wal-Mart does). They do neither, and their books show it.

I know, I was being sarcastic.

I figured as much. Even a pinko commie tree-hugging hippie can grasp this concept.

STLouis Blazer Wrote:On the topics of unions, I have heard grumblings that nurses are looking to form unions and that it is scaring the heck out of hospitals.

It seems that if the nurses who want to form these unions pay close attention to the long-term affect on organizations they might think twice about it.

A number of years ago the nurses of Baptist Montclair tried to unionize and the hospital administration "busted it to Hell". The effect on staff morale was devastating and long lasting on their relations with the nurses and the nurse-patient relationship. The hospital never recovered and years later is gone. I can't prove the way they "resolved" the labor/ management challenge had anything to do with its eventual demise, but after my last stay there, I changed to another hospital for future care.

dfarr Wrote:

STLouis Blazer Wrote:On the topics of unions, I have heard grumblings that nurses are looking to form unions and that it is scaring the heck out of hospitals.

It seems that if the nurses who want to form these unions pay close attention to the long-term affect on organizations they might think twice about it.

California has unionized nursing, which is why they are so understaffed and so many nurses travel there to work. If a nurse in Cali works over an 8hr shift, he/she gets paid time and a half for any hours over the 8. If a nurse in Cali works over 40hrs a week, they get doubletime for the hours over 40. I just talked to a friend who is travel nursing in Cali right now and a regular staff nurse makes $200-300k easily once you factor in all these things.

Back when my youngest daughter left her "Early Childhood Development" at Jax St.after her Frosh year to enter the 2 year RN program at Samford, she said it was a difficult choice. After getting the 2 yr degree and going to work at Children's Hospital, she worked her regular shift and holiday overtime. In her first year she earned over $40,000 which was more than I made that year after 25 years of teaching with a Master's Degree and two supplements (Chair of Dept. and Academic team coach) and summer school. She has never looked back.

That's why I'm concerned over the feverish recruiting I've seen to avoid a nursing shortage. The personality characteristics to be a high achieving teacher are very similar to those of good nurses. I wonder how the education field is going to be able to compete for the "best and brightest" of our youth when an RN with an Associate's degree is able to out earn right away what a teacher will make after earning advanced degrees and years of service?

BAMANBLAZERFAN Wrote:

dfarr Wrote:

STLouis Blazer Wrote:On the topics of unions, I have heard grumblings that nurses are looking to form unions and that it is scaring the heck out of hospitals.

It seems that if the nurses who want to form these unions pay close attention to the long-term affect on organizations they might think twice about it.

California has unionized nursing, which is why they are so understaffed and so many nurses travel there to work. If a nurse in Cali works over an 8hr shift, he/she gets paid time and a half for any hours over the 8. If a nurse in Cali works over 40hrs a week, they get doubletime for the hours over 40. I just talked to a friend who is travel nursing in Cali right now and a regular staff nurse makes $200-300k easily once you factor in all these things.

That's why I'm concerned over the feverish recruiting I've seen to avoid a nursing shortage. The personality characteristics to be a high achieving teacher are very similar to those of good nurses. I wonder how the education field is going to be able to compete for the "best and brightest" of our youth when an RN with an Associate's degree is able to out earn right away what a teacher will make after earning advanced degrees and years of service?

Get rid of the government monopoly of education and you'll see teachers' wages go up if competition is allowed. It's called capitalism.

And I'm not sure about the whole Baptist union thing, but my cousin had both her kids at Montclair and never had any complaints about anything.

December 8, 2008
UAW Workers Actually Cost the Big Three Automakers $70 an Hour
by James Sherk
WebMemo #2162
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2162.cfm

dfarr wrote-
Get rid of the government monopoly of education and you'll see teachers' wages go up if competition is allowed. It's called capitalism.

And I'm not sure about the whole Baptist union thing, but my cousin had both her kids at Montclair and never had any complaints about anything.
[/quote]

I'm not sure I understand your use of monopoly in regard to schools. In Metro-B'ham there are secular private schools ( Altamont and Indian Springs) and there are many private schools tied to churches (Briarwood, Jefferson Christian, Alliance Christian schools, Catholic schools, etc.) and , of course, there is home schooling. Anyone who wishes to take the free enterprise based chance to make a profit can take their best shot. The Charter schools are an example of that.

The problems start when private school forces want to have access to public tax money to subsidize some private schools through such measures as vouchers. I have always said that if a private school will accept the state voucher contribution as payment in full (or at least 80%) for a student's yearly TOTAL cost, I think something can be worked out. Any smaller % would not enable poor parents to pay the difference so it would simply wind up being a subsidy for those who could afford to pay the whole thing anyway, but would welcome the financial aid.

oldblazer79 Wrote:December 8, 2008
UAW Workers Actually Cost the Big Three Automakers $70 an Hour
by James Sherk
WebMemo #2162
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm2162.cfm

To put that into perspective, I will graduate with a doctor of physical therapy next december. That's 4 years of undergrad and 3 of post grad. I'll start off making somewhere around $28-30/ hr. No wonder they have no profits.