In Defense of Detroit

UAW members are guaranteed a traditional "30 years and out" provision, meaning that many retirees begin drawing full pensions in their early Fifties, burdening the Big Five with unrivaled legacy costs.

Nice, who do you have to payoff to get a job like this?

I am tired of reading half the posts that blame management and the other half that blames the unions for this mess. They made their bed together, and now they need to lie in it together. Everyone of us who gets up and goes to work has a stake in their company. Don't cry to me about the "poor" line worker who has only earned about triple the national average (benefits included) for unskilled laborers for the past 25 years. Also don't whine about the "poor" CEO who only got a few million last year. The whole industry stinks. Welcome to reality, where the rest of us live.

The government can't even govern efficiently, how the he** do they think they can build cars efficiently? If the government is going to buy an automaker, why don't they at least buy one that makes a decent product?

I'm not sure that it matters what anyone thinks. Pelosi has already announced her position and It is unlikely that the President elect will see things differently. The only question remaining is how much and when. Also, we can only wait and see what is done to achieve viability. There will probably be some help here as well.

This is another so called "free market "solution" that will allow the Big Three auto companies to have a business model more like Walmart. Great! Like Walmart, they can be removed from the "burdens" of providing health care, pensions, good wages, and benefits to the vast majority of their employees. But where will those burdens go? Who is going to take care of that auto work force? Hmmm. I'll tell you. Onto everybody else! That is assuming that we still have a heart & provide these people with health care, a living wage, and a respectable retirement. I love these "free market" fools who think that that labor costs are the source of all ills. Who do they think buys those cars? THE SOLUTION IS THE OPPOSITE: HIGHER WAGES, PROFIT SHARING, MORE BENEFITS, & EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP OF THE BUSINESSES IN WHICH THEY WORK!!!!! That will end the conflict of interest between workers and management.

Are we missing the big picture: employed people have a paycheck to spend; which in turn keeps other people employed. The bigger their checks, the more money they have to spend. Benefits also keep other companies afloat; I'm sure that more then one HMO survives mainly on GM, Ford and Chrysler employees <primary insured>. Clearly allowing these companies to sink would cause to MUCH short term pain. As awful as it sounds I think the employees should consider taking a 2% paycut, and benefits though required should be scaled down <again by no more then 5%>. If the employees show us; they are willing to start the bailing out process, I'm all for giving them a helping hand. Also lets get some quality control people out their and improve quality; I'm tired of hearing how Michigan isn't making a quality product.... there is nothing different about a Michigan employee then their is about a Tenessee or Ohio employee. Have you all lost your minds--- we can't possibly let a large group of Americans go under if they are willing to make an effort-- I say extend the helping hand so long as they are making an effort to tread water themselves.

The real question is viability. It is absolutely pointless to pour money down a bottomless pit. Whatever relief is ultimately offered to the Big 3, the end result absolutely has to be companies which can be self sustaining and competitive with the rest of the auto industry. Conditions for relief should include, at a minimum:

1. Management teams who can come up with business plans which will sell customers the cars they want.
2. A cost structure which will be competitive with other auto manufacturers in this country. Surely they ought to fire most of the managers and keep the taxpayers from subsidizing ridiculous pay packages. But any rescue which does not bring their overall labor costs in line with other manufacturers is doomed to fail. It is wrong for taxpayers to subsidize excessive (non-competitive) executive pay. It is wrong for taxpayers to subsidize other excessive labor costs. UAW workers compensation packages are currently 50 percent larger than the rest of auto manufacturing workers in this country. They are nearly double the size of packages for manufacturing workers in general in this country. GM will never be viable as long as their labor costs are not competitive with other manufacturers in this country.
3. Taxpayers need to be assured that they will be repayed, including an adequate return on their money as soon as the borrowers return to viability.

Obama ran against business as usual. That is doling out government gifts to special interest groups. Designing benefits which allow the UAW to remain above the effects of the competitive market place which effects the lives of the vast majority of non-UAW workers would simply be a different version of the ???special interest??? dole against which he railed throughout his presidential campaign.

END PROTECTIONIST CURRENCY MANIPULATION BY ASIAN GOVERNMENTS !
This is not free trade.

It's all just so the don't have to reorganize and have to re-negotiate with the union.The unions want status-quo.

The idiotic arguments that it is all the fault of the Unions and Management ignores the fact that for the last 25 years the gas guzzling trucks and SUV's were more than 50% of the American market, who bought these vehicles, We the people did, we demanded cheap fuel and big vehicles. Toyota makes more kinds of trucks worldwide than GM and Ford. We the people could have chosen small fuel efficient vehicles but we did not. Why because we were a bunch of energy guzzling idiots, remember America has 5% of the worlds population and uses 25%+ of the worlds energy. Is this the big threes fault no it is ours.

The Japanese and the Korean governments have subsidised their auto industries with health care and be the source of pensions and favorable tax and trade arangements while our domestic industries had to bear the burdens unassisted. Given a choice we bought 8 million pickups and SUV.s. How many times have you seen 1 person driving a Suburban in a state where the need for a 4 wheel drive is silly. We the American Consumer is the problem. Killing the Middle Class has killed our economy, given a choice of quality or a low price we go for the cheap.