Well I've been in Toronto all this week where they just announced that Toyota is going to build a SECOND assembly plant in Ontario where their is socialized medicine and Toyota doesn't have to deal to a huge extent with health care.
Whether GM's cars and designs are crap every year really doesn't matter. They are going to build cars, whether the market loves or hates them, because thats what GM does(besides the fact that the finance division makes more money than the car).
What they are going to do and by they I mean the useless management greedy CEO and executives etc are going to to is build them where they cost less money to build. Period.
Management picks bad designs and they are stupid.
Management builds cars where it costs less and they are evil.
Business 101
We can sell a car for A
In one place it costs B to build and in another it costs C
If B is greater than C I guess we'll build it at C and save the money increase profits(what little they are)
UAW response boo hoo evil dumb management is taking our jobs away etc.
If you show the stupid greedy management how to build a car in place B for the same money as place C maybe you still might have a job.
And we haven't started on the Pension plan invested in their own company.
Glad I Just shoot commercials and movies for a living.
Steve

Maybe they should have put a littlte bit more money into research and developement, instead of grabbing all the profits. I know of very few people that have good resolution with a problem with a GM product.........

All this is still talking around the point. They put tens if not hundreds of millions into R&D.
They are still going to try and build their product where it costs less to manufacture.
Bottom line STARTS with that.
ANd by capitals I'm not yelling just capitalizing.
Steve

So it costs $1500 in healthcare for every car sold. Steep? Yes. One auto industry analyst mentioned that if GM was selling millions of cars as it should without having to give them away, they wouldn't be in this spot, the $1500 wouldn't be as much of an issue. As Cdnone1 said, Management approves ugly, gas guzzling cars that no one wants.

Actually GM has put BILLIONS into their hydrogen fuel cell research. Of course it'll take 10 years for that to bear fruit. Too bad they have no interim solution for the "fuel efficient" auto market.

From what I have read, I don't think GM will really be laying any one off per se. Most of the 25,000 jobs lost will be through normal attrition with no one replacing them. Autoextremist.com has good articles on GM failure to turn themselves around.

I read they will be closing several plants, so it doesn't seem like it'll simply be attrition.

I am in Michigan. The wifes family pretty much all work for GM. They are entering the layoff situation right now. They do get 80% of their wages when on layoff. If this is temporary, there is no real problem. If the closings and layoffs are long term we will all see a dip in our economy. It will effect us all.

The finger seems to be pointing at rising health care costs. Health care benefit costs are rising faster than the cost of living. The copays are increasing and the out of pocket expenses are going up. Doesn't every worker deserve to have good health? Doctors don't seem to be making a lot more. Is it the drug companies? Is it the lawyers? Do we need to set a limit on who gets to have bypass surgery? We all seem to pay the burden caused by aging smokers who now need extra health care due to their decision to smoke early in life. Maybe a national health care tax on booze and cigarettes needs to occur to help defray the costs these choices cost us all in the long run.

I am amazed at the complicated paperwork path that seems to occur with health care. Can't things be standardized to make that system a a little more manageable?

We're all in this together, I don't care if its the lazy workers fault, the overpowered unions fault, the overpaid managements fault, the overpriced health care systems fault, the money hungry lawyers fault, the governments fault, or the educators fault. How can we better organize the system to benefit us all. We need reform in every area to get out of this downward trend. Changes need to be made. What do we tear down and start over with, and what works well enough to keep the same?

What we spend on healthcare we save on Social Security.... No easy answers.. :eek:

It all seems too much "Us against Them". Management against union, my state against your state, my team against your team. Don't get me wrong, I like competition, just not selfishness. Competition makes us stronger, Selfishness makes us weaker.

You can't just totally blame the smokers though.... Just about every state in the US has sued big tobacco, and walked off with huge settlements. Yet, none of that money was put back to combat the 'burden' as you say, instead it was used for other things as the state deemed fit.

I personally think that the government needs to step in, and set some serious limits on insurance. Insurance is simply a money making scam, designed to make the themselves richer. As health care insurance costs rise every year, payouts seem to go down. The PPO networks are designed to find the cheapest doctors, and attempt to only pay them pennies on the dollar, which makes the doctors raise their rates to the uninsured, to try to make ends meat themselves.

Health insurance isn't the only culprit. Look at home and car insurance..... I think auto insurance is the worst of the bunch, as the states all require insurance in order to tag and operate a vehicle, yet the insurance companies are unregulated and can charge whatever rates they deem fit. And when you do finally have a need for the service, getting a paid-out from them can be as comfortable as pulling teeth, and then hope your rates don't go up or that they don't drop you like a bad habit.


I remember during one of my past jobs where I was paying attention to my health insurance costs.... I believe that 4% a year is considered a cost of living increase, most jobs give you ~4% per year raise based on merit. My health insurance cost went up 10% per year, and that was just for the bi-weekly payment, I didn't look at the co-pays and deductibles for that estimate......

4% huh? I was a gubmint worker for a dozen years, and a 4% raise would have been delightful, to say the least. Every few years, we got perhaps a raise that was never close to 4%. Most years, nothing. FYI.

Unions are not responsible for rising health care costs. Nice try. Unions are also not responsible for companies' financial and market health. The job of handling those issues is what we call "management." I'd say "nice try" here too, but blaming business bankruptcies on unions is a tired, dishonest excuse.

Yep economy is white hot, I hear. I wonder what the net difference in jobs and national "earned income" will be when Dubya's finished killing people and creating more America hatred in the ME and leaves office. Then I'd be further interested in comparing that to the change in profitability of oil companies during the same period.

Wake up, America. You're being fleeced.

Yes, we need to deal with health care. And a long list of other stuff. Unfortunately, we're going to be worse than broke very soon. And we're going to run out of friends at about that same time. How many "allies" have we got left? One?

Yep, we just need to empower the unions! Pay our workers more! Less hours! More benefits! This sounds like a sure fire plan to get our country competitive again. I tells ya what Sup, we don't always agree, but when you're right ....you're right:rolleyes:

You want management to shoulder the blame? yet you want to cut them off at the knees with labor.....and the EPA.....and the law suits.....etc.....

I just checked and every country that's kicken our ass is doing so by doing the EXACT opposite of everything you prescribe for America! Does the light ever turn ON?

No we can sit back, pretend we didn't live beyond our reality for the last 50 years and b1tch about todays inevitable wake-up call. That's also an option I guess.

Then again, maybe we can pay brain dead lug nut spinners $70k a year for 4 days a week and full gold plated bennies and still lead the world, I mean what the hell do I know:rolleyes:

It's really not about unions - it's about being competitive in the market. Drive the wages up and jobs will migrate where the wage costs are lower as long as there is no perceived difference in quality. Now produce a superior product that is a good value and the world will come knocking at your door.

The biggest problem I see is the unions have taken a good for me right now - the management operates on a 1Q this year vs 1Q last year and nobody has any direction or long term vision to see that it's the competition and the lowest cost suppliers (especially from other countries that don't have the same social burdens that we do) that everybody needs to worry about.

So..... pay our labor at the current 4-10 times competition level... pretend it doesn't matter. Have our factories operate under the most restrictive regulations in the world....pretend it doesn't matter. Foster a legal system that bleeds corporations like hogs....pretend it doesn't matter.

The problem is management makes too much and lacks vision....all of em......even the ones we hire from successful foreign companies!

Anything....anything... as long as it doesn't mean admitting we're a grossly fat and overpaid workforce. Not to mention our dumbass legislators seem to be TRYING to push business overseas with the tax/legal/environmental horse****.