Recently, a group of wealthy Minnesotans wrote an open letter demanding that they pay more taxes. The incomparable Katherine Kersten asks some tough questions of them – undoubtedly to remain unanswered. Ironically enough, one of the signers was Jim Pohlad who’s family is responsible for the creation of a new Twins Stadium – apparently they’re willing to pay more taxes, but not pay for their own damn ballpark.
Kersten does an excellent job of piercing the sanctimony behind this statement. Exactly what is preventing these people from cutting a check to the Minnesota state government right now? The fact is that they want others to be forced to meet their ideals. This isn’t about some noble guesture, this is about shoving their worldview down the throats of others.
Compare that to the recent announcement by Warren Buffett that he intends to give away nearly his entire fortune to charity: specifically the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The essential difference between Buffett’s actions and the Gang of 200 is that Buffett is trying to lead by example, while the Gang of 200 are reveling in their own hypocrisy. Buffett’s choice is his own: and while certainly I don’t agree with everything he says, his generosity is self-evident.
And therin lies the essential moral difference between demanding higher taxation and giving to charity. There is nothing generous about taxation: the government can imprison you if you don’t pay your taxes. Agitating for them to take more is demanding that the government force others to pay for what you find to be the public good. There is no real personal sacrifice to higher taxes, and as Kersten so astutely notes, those demanding higher taxes can easily afford to pay – many others cannot.
In the article on Warren Buffett, another key argument comes to light:
Mellody Hobson, “Good Morning America’s” financial contributor and president of Ariel Capital Management, said Buffett’s act of generosity was a defining moment in the history of business and philanthropy.
“Fortune magazine ran a cover story after Hurricane Katrina about the failure of government and how business did a better job after the hurricane,” she said. “There are some really smart people in government, but business leaders are often in a better position to help because they are not encumbered by the status quo and can more easily think out of the box.”
Not only is it not all that charitable to demand higher taxes, it’s not particularly efficient either.
If the Gang of 200 wants to really improve the quality of life in Minnesota, they have the power to do so now without resorting to petulant demands for more taxation. Want to improve education? Start a foundation to give loan forgiveness for quality teachers who choose to teach in inner-city or underserved schools. Want to improve health care? Start a foundation to provide low-cost or no-cost drugs to those in need. Start a program that would pay for the education of doctors who agreed to serve in under-served areas. Want to improve transportation? How about allocating the money that would create another ballpark for the Twins and give it to a road-construction fund?
There are plenty of ways rich Minnesotans with burning senses of noblesse oblige can give back to society without compelling others. There are plenty of agencies which provide valuable services to Minnesotans and do it with a greater efficiency and less cost than government does. If the goal here is to maximize the amount of public good done per dollar, putting more into the coffers of state government is the last way of going about it. Governments are not generally known for their fiscal rectitude nor their efficiency. When you’re spending other people’s money on other people, one is generally less inclined to care about how much money is spend or where it goes.
Make no mistake, this isn’t about true morality or true charity. This is about compelling Minnesotans who make $45,000/year or more (which in the Twin Cities Metro is hardly an extravagant sum to live on) to pay more for someone else’s idea of the public good. That isn’t charity, it’s arrogance and sanctimony.
Those who want to pose and preen about “paying for a better Minnesota” should put their money where their mouths are: if they want to pay more, then they can pay more. The second they demand that others follow suit – under penalty of the law – they drop any pretense of anything other than arrogant sanctimony.
“The incomparable Katherine Kersten”
For someone who demands factual and research-based arguments from his opponents, how can you legitimately endorse the work of a one-dimensional charlatan like Kersten. She’s the kind of knee-jerk conservative pundit who give traditional knee-jerk conservative pundits like Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity a bad name.
“Those who want to pose and preen about “paying for a better Minnesota†should put their money where their mouths are: if they want to pay more, then they can pay more. The second they demand that others follow suit – under penalty of the law – they drop any pretense of anything other than arrogant sanctimony.”
Which all boils down to the conclusion of modern conservative orthodoxy that taxation can be (and in fact should be) optional to individuals rather than a shared burden. Show me a society where a small number of generous taxpayers willingly foot the bill, consistently allowing the tax-averse masses to piggyback on their contributions to the public coffers. Until you can come up with such a case-study, this oft-repeated GOP mantra rings as hollow as most of the malarkey coming from their mouths and keyboards.
“If the Gang of 200 wants to really improve the quality of life in Minnesota, they have the power to do so now without resorting to petulant demands for more taxation.”
Again, they’re only gonna be willing to do so as long as they know others of similar financial means aren’t piggybacking on their efforts. It’s the same reason why unions are all but extinct in right-to-work states. If there’s no requirement to pay union dues in a given workplace where all employees gain from collective bargaining efforts, a diminishing number of employees will choose to pay the dues while the rest will be satisfied with piggybacking on the efforts of the dues payers. It’s understandable that self-absorbed conservatives would embrace both models, they aren’t known for producing the level of success for participants that collective sacrifice for the common good does.
Lastly, it appears my response to your post from Friday evening got lost in the plumbing. The poll I referenced about Mark Kennedy being the least-trusted Minnesota politician for some reason doesn’t link to the website where it’s located. However, I tried again by typing in my Yahoo search engine “St. Cloud State Poll December 2005 Mark Kennedy”. I believe the sixth item on the search was the MN Publius page that listed the pecking order of favorable impressions for politicians in Minnesota. At the top of the list….one Amy Klobuchar at 60%. At the very bottom was George Bush at 44%, with Mark Kennedy just a notch above him at 47%.
And one more quick point regarding Mark Kennedy that was lost in my post from the other night…..in reference to your claim that his weak performance in 2004 was not a sign of any shortcomings on his part, and that GOP incumbents underperforming Bush was in fact a widespread phenomenon. I can think of only two red-district Republican House incumbents who underperformed George Bush in 2004. They were Marilyn Musgrave (CO-04) and Charles Taylor (NC-11), two poor politicians who are again considered vulnerable this fall. Kennedy doesn’t keep very good company.
Coming from you, that’s high praise.
A swing and a miss…
Conservative orthodoxy states no such thing. The very nature of taxation is that it is not optional, that it is based on the principle of coercion. Which means that if you fail to pay taxes, they throw your ass in jail. Therefore, taxation should be kept to a minimum, and only used for the most crucial of public goods. I rather doubt you’ll find a serious, thoughtful conservative who would argue that government building roads or paying for police is an illegitimate function of government.
All of this does boil down into the liberal orthodoxy of taxation which systematically ignores the fact that government is inherently inefficient and frequently corrupt and that an increase of funding does not equate to an increase of overall societal good. It’s the noblesse oblige of those who want to do good by proxy – and that’s an inherenity hypocritical position.
There’s no charity in saying that one would do good by robbing another, which is exactly what the Gang of 200 proposes.
Which is a completely silly argument. The very concept of “the public good” assumes that everyone benefits. The argument that the rich “piggyback” on the efforts of a scholarship program may be true in the sense that it creates a better-educated and more capable workforce, but that’s hardly an argument for abolishing scholarship programs.
That cuts to the real heart of the libera/conservative divide on taxes. The liberal orthodoxy in wealth is one that rests on a bedrock of jealousy – the “soak the rich” attitude is basically resentment wrapped in the the thinnest faç of social conscience.
Hopefully this link gets you to the information proving Mark Kennedy’s favorability ratings statewide as slightly better than being buried in an avalanche. It’s a huge file….go to the middle of the large file and it gives the referenced graphs.
http://web.stcloudstate.edu/scsusurvey/2005rep.htm
“Therefore, taxation should be kept to a minimum, and only used for the most crucial of public goods.”
And there will always be dispute as to what “the most crucial of public goods” is. Your take on the matter is that education doesn’t rise to the level of “public goods” and is better suited to the forces of market competition. Some could apply this argument to public infrastructure….or even the military. Since there is unlikely to ever be consensus about what defines “the most crucial of public goods”, the allocation of “appropriate” tax rates will also be permanently subjective.
“The liberal orthodoxy in wealth is one that rests on a bedrock of jealousy – the “soak the rich†attitude is basically resentment wrapped in the the thinnest faç of social conscience.”
Actually, it rests on a bedrock of ability to pay with the least degree of financial strain as a consequence. Understandably though, someone like yourself who views your sole purpose on this Earth as enabling a mass concentration of the world’s wealth into the fewest possible hands is so quick and aggressive in rhetorically smacking down any pesky dissenter and branding them as motivated by mere “jealousy” of the guy across the tracks. I gotta hand it to you guys though. You’ve made it work pretty well of late…..but there are signs the tide is changing.
It’s A) a student survey B) has a sample size of only 567 respondants, and C) oversamples Democrats well above their rough parity in Minnesota. Not to mention it being over six months old.
Nice try though.
Fortunately, we have this little thing called the Constitution which (at least on the federal level) gives one a very good starting point.
Not quite. I believe that people should have a choice in the matter, and that education should be funded at the lowest possible level of government. I don’t think we need a Cabinet-level agency for education, and federal funding should be given directly to states as bloc grants. However, I wouldn’t advocate for the complete privatization of the school system.
Odd then that this particular proposal would tax everyone making more than $44,000 then. Last I checked, an increase of a few percentage in state tax rates would hardly cause a small degree of financial pain for people making that amount.
That straw man keep the crows away?
The reality is that the places with the least dynamic economies have the greatest concentrations of wealth. Except that concentration usually ends up going off the books in the hands of state functionaries.
Those who pay attention to history can clearly see the failures of socialism, even particularly half-assed versions of it. No matter how much liberals whine about “unfairness” and the like, it doesn’t change the fact that their policies just don’t work.
Wake up and smell the burning Peugots.
Europe is a perfect example of what the left would love the US to look like. And when you have double-digit unemployment, a Balkanized culture, and an economy barely able to struggle into 2% growth, the current economic situation would look like Shangri-La.
The lessons of the 20th Century should be clear: dynamic economies with low levels of state centralization succeed. Economies with confiscatory tax rates, high levels of bureaucratic red tape, and strong central controls on their economy fail.
Whining doesn’t change the facts: the policies you espouse lead inorexably to failure.
“Not to mention it being over six months old.”
And what would Kennedy have done in the last six months to boost those unfavorables?
“Those who pay attention to history can clearly see the failures of socialism, even particularly half-assed versions of it.”
A curious statement considering the disparity between globally-renowned “socialist utopias” such as Sweden and the world’s purest form of “ownership society” in modern-day Somalia.
“The lessons of the 20th Century should be clear”
Indeed. Embrace unbridled free enterprise as market worshippers did a century ago and are steering us back to today and you can expect violent peasant uprisings and an insurgency of equally unworkable Marxist governments. Your spin here is to equate the economy of Sweden with the economy of the Soviet Union…..the economy of 1950’s America to the economy of 1960’s China. Most people recognize the difference, and history bears out that the highest quality of life is attained by the populace when the economic policies of the center-left are embraced while the “sweatshops and gated communities” model is tossed onto the ashbin.
“Show me a society where a small number of generous taxpayers willingly foot the bill, consistently allowing the tax-averse masses to piggyback on their contributions to the public coffers.”
Mark, you are an absolute idiot. You are living in the United States of America, where the top 50% of all wage-earners pay 96.5% of all income taxes and the top 1% pay more than 34%. The rest ride free, about 150 million of ’em. This information is available all over the internet, from the IRS, the U.S. Census, the Congressional Budget Office and from your elected representative. You believe something that is provably false, which is why you are an absolute idiot. Nothing personal, but facts are facts. Only an idiot would not recognize his own country and believe something about it that simply is not true.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/03in05tr.xls
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/57xx/doc5746/08-13-EffectiveFedTaxRates.pdf
As for Warren Buffet, his money isn’t going anywhere. Berkshire Hathaway and the Gates Foundation is as incestuous as it gets. They sit on each other’s boards. They both realize their money is far better off being spent by a philanthropic foundation. It obtains for them both the benefit of avoiding taxation while maintaining control over how their money is spent. It’s a good deal, it’s the correct deal, because they know if they give it up in taxes it is not going to be spent on anything they care about. That’s why they set up and contribute to philanthropic foundations, to keep the money out of “government” hands, which is to say the salaries, vacations, pensions, and healthcare of government bureaucrats who have no idea what it takes to meet a company payroll, but who are always first in line to get their cut. Even the Kennedys know this. They don’t pay taxes; they build things like The Kennedy Center instead, among other things, to get the tax deduction.
Eracus:
Ah, but to Buffet and Gates, THE POINT of having the Estate Tax isn’t to raise money for the government- it’s to promote philanthropy among the wealthy, rather than dynasticism.
Given that the last poll I saw on that race (which I believe was Rassmussen) had Kennedy at 50% approval, he must have done well.
Except Somalia has abso-fracking-lutely nothing to do with the “ownership society” except in your silly little straw-man version of it.
Look at the most economically free countries on Earth. All of those places are decent enough places to live, even if Singapore is a bit too authoritarian for my tastes. Again, there is a direct correlation between economic freedom and quality of life, and the more economically free a state is, the better the quality of life for its citizens.
Odd then that such a thing has never happened. For instance, look at Chile’s experiments in neo-liberal economics under Pinochet. Despite being a dictator, Chile’s government has been quite stable. Compare Chile’s performance to a more statist government within their regime – Chile’s per-capita GDP is over $5,000, while Brazil, which has more natural resources, has a per-capita GDP of just over $3,000.
No, compare something like Ireland to a country like France. The Irish economy grew 4.9% in 2005. The French economy grew by only 2.1%. The per-capita GDP of Ireland is nearly $29,000. The per-capita GDP of France is just under $23,000. That’s despite the fact that Ireland spend most of its history in nearly Third-World conditions.
The difference being that the Irish have embraced the open market while the French have rejected it. Despite being a tenth of the size and having less than a tenth of the GNP, the Irish have a significantly higher per-capita GDP than the French do – plus lower unemployment, and no burning cars in their streets.
Except that simply isn’t true. The left-leaning policies of Labour in Britain led to massive strikes and economic paralysis until Thatcher’s reforms in the 1980s – reforms that Prime Minister Blair has only slowly begun to dismantle (to negative effect). The aforementioned Ahern government in Ireland jettisoned Irish statism to create one of the most dynamic economies in the Euro-zone.
Your silly little straw-man view of capitalism doesn’t match the reality – that while socialist governments are struggling to keep their heads above water. Even domestically the models you champion – the union shops of GM are shedding workers while auto manufacturers in the South are scrambling to increase capacity.
Again, no matter how many silly little ad hominems you spout, those pesky little facts keep getting in the way…
Eracus:
“You are living in the United States of America, where the top 50% of all wage-earners pay 96.5% of all income taxes and the top 1% pay more than 34%. The rest ride free, about 150 million of ‘em.”
First of all, you’re referring to federal income taxes only. When factoring in sales taxes, payroll taxes, property taxes, and the new favorite of regressive tax policy advocates of both parties, excise taxes, and subtracting the writeoffs given to those who can afford to hire accountants, tax burden among the sweating classes and your top 1% is statistically similar.
It’s also interesting how differently Democrats and Republicans view the massive share of the income tax burden that falls on wealthy Americans. Democrats view it as a frightening maldistribution of resources where more than 100 million Americans earn so little that the collective contribution of their hard-earned tax dollars amounts to only 3.5% of the total. Republicans view it as another sign that those in the top income groups who have all but monopolized overall income growth, particularly in the Bush era, continue to be ground into dust by oppressive tax rates that are approximately 60% lower today than they were in the “good old days” of Joseph McCarthy.
“As for Warren Buffet, his money isn’t going anywhere. Berkshire Hathaway and the Gates Foundation is as incestuous as it gets. They sit on each other’s boards. They both realize their money is far better off being spent by a philanthropic foundation. It obtains for them both the benefit of avoiding taxation while maintaining control over how their money is spent.”
….what Nicq said.
“Given that the last poll I saw on that race (which I believe was Rassmussen) had Kennedy at 50% approval, he must have done well.”
Since when does Rasmussen track approval ratings for House members? Have a reference for that figure? It’s kind of amusing how Rasmussen is either the most “worthless” pollster in the business or the top authority depending on whether the results of a given Rasmussen poll reflect favorably or unfavorably on the candidate with an (R) next to his or her name.
“All of those places are decent enough places to live, even if Singapore is a bit too authoritarian for my tastes.”
Your heroes in Ireland are following the Singapore model on authoritarianism as well. Sounds like it’s essentially become a police state, particularly on “health” related matters.
“Odd then that such a thing has never happened.”
Oh really? You talked about the need to learn the lessons of the 20th century to which I responded that unbridled free markets yielded violent and counterproductive Marxist uprisings. Come to think of it that never did happen in the 20th century did it?
“The per-capita GDP of Ireland is nearly $29,000. The per-capita GDP of France is just under $23,000. That’s despite the fact that Ireland spend most of its history in nearly Third-World conditions.”
Any figures on poverty rates between the two countries? Everybody I’ve heard who’s visited Ireland in the last few years say the poor are just as poor as they were 50 years ago. While the growth statistics and per capita income seem impressive on the surface, the kind of cutthroat market climate you endorse generally does little to improve the lives of those of limited means. Perhaps that’s why every time unbridled free enterprise flexes its muscles in democratic countries, its defenders are consistently voted out by the peasants pretty much everywhere other than the United States.
“Even domestically the models you champion – the union shops of GM are shedding workers while auto manufacturers in the South are scrambling to increase capacity”
All on the taxpayers’ nickel. The only reason the Japanese automakers are operating on American soil is to sabotage the American competition from within. The fact that every $400 million plant they construct is financed almost entirely by the taxpayers of the right-to-work-law state where they choose to locate means that they have very little capital at stake in these plants….and as soon as Ford and GM crumble, they’ll leave for “greener” pastures without giving it a second thought, leaving Montgomery, Alabama, and Georgetown, Kentucky, with the same ugly shelled-out auto plants that Detroit and Flint have.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/2006/State%20Polls/January%202006/Minnesota%20Senate%20January%2016.htm
Rassmussen, like any pollster, has good polls and bad polls. Unfortunately, you have to pay (or use a library connection) to see the cross-tabs for their polls. Their next poll isn’t publicly released yet, but it’s similar to the January poll.
Other than banning smoking in pubs, not so much. Then again, liberals here at home are doing the very same thing. When they start caning smokers, you may have a point.
Eurostat doesn’t keep exact figures, but the last I heard they were both roughly equivalent. Eurostat does keep figures on those “at risk of poverty” in 2004, and it’s 21% for Ireland and 20% for France – a statistically insignificant difference.
Again, you need to read a book on basic economics. Per-capita GDP is strongly correlated to quality of life in nearly every case.
Except again, that rarely happens. Even in South America, which is having a resurgence of socialism, that isn’t always true. Luis Inacion Lula da Silva of Brazil ran on a populist platform but also has kept many structural reforms. In Central America the socialist Daniel Ortega was roundly defeated in Nicaragua. Chile remains one of the freest countries in the region.
If that were true, one would see the average scores in the Freedom House survey go down instead of up, but recent years has seen the average scores continue to improve. Situations like the Chavez takeover in Venezuala have more to do with voters being held at gunpoint than the legitimate voice of the people – the fact is that socialism is fading even in those places where it remains the strongest.
Except for the fact that isn’t true. First of all, the amount of capital necessary to build an auto plant is huge – the only reason why Ford and GM are shuttering plants is that they simply can’t afford to keep them. It’s insanely expensive to build a new plant, and even more so to build it in a place with a poorly-educated workforce. The fact is that the Japanese model is succeeding – and providing a better of standard of living for their workers than union shops are. The reasons why these companies open plants here are because it makes financial sense for them to do so, and the reason why Ford and GM are failing is because they failed to heed financial reasons for decades and the unions have guns to their heads on nearly every issue.
“Rassmussen, like any pollster, has good polls and bad polls.”
That’s not what you had to say here….
http://www.jayreding.com/archives/2004/09/07/more-electoral-college-gaming
Check out your first comment to remind yourself of your feelings towards Mr. Rasmussen 21 short months ago. But don’t bother to read any of my comments about the status of Ohio in 2004 as I had one of my exceedingly rare false observations.
Kind of amusing, though, how you attempt to discredit my obsolete six-month old poll with a five-month old poll.
“Other than banning smoking in pubs, not so much”
I caught a news report shortly after the smoking ban passed indicating Stalinist Irish Health Minister Michael Martin was seeking a smackdown on everything from alcohol to coffee, and was even planning to place restrictions on where gum could or could not be chewed.
“Then again, liberals here at home are doing the very same thing”
Liberals like the Governor and state Legislatures in Georgia and Florida? Or how about in those left-wing enclaves like Fayetteville, Arkansas; Lexington, Kentucky; and Lincoln, Nebraska?
“Situations like the Chavez takeover in Venezuala have more to do with voters being held at gunpoint than the legitimate voice of the people – the fact is that socialism is fading even in those places where it remains the strongest.”
So it’s your contention that Hugo Chavez is not popular in Venezuela?
“The fact is that the Japanese model is succeeding”
With $400 million or more in taxpayer-financed freebies for every new plant they build, I would hope it’s succeeding.
“and providing a better of standard of living for their workers than union shops are”
The only reason Alabama and Kentucky rednecks in these Toyota and Honda plants are earning more than the $8 an hour that most Alabama and Kentucky rednecks earn is the fact that they’re piggybacking on decades worth of hard-fought collective bargaining rights by their inadvertant sugar daddies in the UAW. If (or more likely when) the domestic automakers crumble and take the UAW with them, the bubbas of Montgomery who have consistently played the cowboy and rejected UAW affiliation will have no recourse to hold off catastrophic concessions.
“The reasons why these companies open plants here are because it makes financial sense for them to do so”
Uh, yeah. A minimum of $400 million worth of corporate welfare giveaways, clueless non-union gomers on their factory floors, AND a troubled domestic auto industry that the Japanese companies can help to obliterate….it clearly does make financial sense for them to be here…..at least until the American automakers are out of the picture at which point it makes no sense for Toyota and Honda to stick around.
“and the reason why Ford and GM are failing is because they failed to heed financial reasons for decades”
No argument there. Both in terms of the contracts they signed with the UAW and their idiotic and/or arrogant choices of car and engine designs in the last quarter century, Ford and GM have made stupid decisions at just about every turn.
“and the unions have guns to their heads on nearly every issue.”
The unions have actually been quite accommodating in recent years. And 99% of GM and Ford’s problems stem from a grave of their own digging. When GM offered retiree health benefits a half century ago, the union certainly wasn’t going to reject them anymore than Toyota employees in Alabama would in the unlikely event that their employer offered the same. Clueless supporters of the Japanese auto companies’ domestic infiltration fail to recognize that Toyota and Honda’s only endgame is to sabotage the vulnerable American automakers. One of two things will happen when Ford and GM are either vaporized or skeletons of their old selves…..the Japanese automakers will unilaterally declare the need for an “adjustment” in the wake of bourgeoning Chinese competition and will demand wage and benefit cuts to the tune of 80% or more for its non-union workforce or the taxpayer-financed plants will be shut down entirely and production will be moved to the Third World. For decades now, the South has been trying to convince us that low wages was the ticket to saving American manufacturing jobs, yet in the new millennium they have shed more manufacturing jobs than any other region of the country. The South will be used as a stepping stone on the race-to-the-bottom in the auto industry just as it has been in every other manufacturing industry.
Rassmussen’s state-by-state polls in 2004 were worthless. However, they did get the final number right which suggests that A) their earlier polls had methodological problems B) their samples were wonky earlier on or C) undecideds broke decidedly for Bush. There some evidence C is what happened.
Since Rassmussen just so happened to be right in 2004, and he’s the only national pollster who’s done outside polls in this race, that’s the standard I go by. The 42% Kennedy to 45% Klobuchar figure is consistent with what I’ve heard about internal polls, although I’ve never seen one myself.
But that’s all off-topic…
Of course, the voters of Ireland can always pressure Prime Minister Ahern to remove him. None of those indicate that Ireland is any less economically free than we are.
And liberals like those in the Minneapolis and St. Paul DFL machines. Smoking bans are politically expedient, and about the only people who are seriously putting out any opposition to them happen to be libertarian-oriented Republicans.
How much money has been spent in Michigan bailing out GM and Ford? I’d bet good money that the amount of taxpayer money spend propping up the UAW makes the economic incentives for the Japanese plants look like chump change.
Last I checked, it was the UAW plants that were having problems with “catastrophic concessions.”
The UAW is one of the most singularly corrupt organizations on the planet. Union leaders are skimming millions while the workers get screwed. Wake up and smell the layoffs… the old union model is dying, and it’s dying fast.
Well, at least we all know about your arrogant view of people who actually want to keep their jobs, rather than watch the unions take them away… I’m sure those “clueless gomers” would have a few things to say to you were you to have the balls to tell them that to their face.
Of course, the facts speak otherwise. Pesky things, those facts.
The fact is that the Japanese auto makers would be idiots to try and move those plants. For one, they’d have to invest the capital necessary to move them, which is prohibitively expensive. Secondly, they’d be moving away from their biggest markets – and shipping 2,000 pounds of steel across the Pacific isn’t cheap by any means. Finally, the fact is that when it comes to labor costs, you get what you pay for. Chinese workers are nowhere near as efficient or productive as Americans.
Again, the facts speak for themselves. The people getting laid off are the ones who are getting shafted by the unions, while the ones who are keeping their jobs are the people who understand that the unions actively hurt workers. This is the 21st Century, and the average American worker is smart enough to look out for their own interests – and they’re doing a better job of it than their union-affiliated counterparts.
“Rassmussen’s state-by-state polls in 2004 were worthless.”
Yet the Minnesota Senate poll you cited was a Rasmussen STATE poll.
“And liberals like those in the Minneapolis and St. Paul DFL machines. Smoking bans are politically expedient, and about the only people who are seriously putting out any opposition to them happen to be libertarian-oriented Republicans.”
You attempted to spin smoking bans as an exclusively liberal undertaking. I called your bluff, you got caught, and now you’re trying to undo your previous talking point. In other words, you were a Republican being a Republican.
“How much money has been spent in Michigan bailing out GM and Ford? I’d bet good money that the amount of taxpayer money spend propping up the UAW makes the economic incentives for the Japanese plants look like chump change.”
That would be a very interesting number-crunching experiment. How many Japanese auto plants are operating in the South right now? It’s gotta be at least a dozen. Figure $400 million worth of freebies for all of them are you’re talking some real money. Does that compare to what GM, Ford and Chrysler haven gotten in bailout money over the years? I don’t have the answer to that. But seeing as how the corporate welfare trough is expanding for the Japanese companies and emptying for the American companies, if Toyota, Honda, and Nissan haven’t caught up yet, they sure will by the end of the decade.
“The UAW is one of the most singularly corrupt organizations on the planet. Union leaders are skimming millions while the workers get screwed. Wake up and smell the layoffs… the old union model is dying, and it’s dying fast.”
All that assembly line anti-labor propaganda may have helped you forget about the main point I raised about the economics of Japanese automakers, but you can rest assured that I’m not gonna let you off that easy. Do you really believe that the salaries being offered by Toyota and Honda are their Southern plants will be sustainable if their UAW sugar daddies are no longer around to piggyback them? Had it not been for high UAW wage and benefit levels, Alabama and Kentucky bumpkins would be making salaries at Toyota and Honda plants similar to the $8-an-hour pittance their bumpkin neighbors make after generations of proud anti-unionism and corresponding poverty. Do you seriously believe that if the UAW goes, Toyota and Honda will continue paying $30 an hour (or whatever the existing wage rate at their plants is) out of the goodness of their hearts? The only thing keeping these Southern autoworkers earning the big bucks is Toyota and Honda trying to disincentivize unionization….but if the UAW goes, these cowboys have no collective bargaining capacity to avoid inevitable concessions.
“Well, at least we all know about your arrogant view of people who actually want to keep their jobs”
Again, with Southern right-to-work states hemorrhaging manufacturing jobs faster than the nation at large, the thesis that poverty wages and anti-labor policies are an insurance policy against job loss is as full of holes as every other Republican economic fantasy.
“I’m sure those “clueless gomers†would have a few things to say to you were you to have the balls to tell them that to their face.”
Nah….when they’re not in the plant they spend their free time standing on the steps of the Alabama State Capitol screaming “Put the Ten Commandments back!!!!!” These are “values voters” Jay. Unless I insulted their religion, talked with a lisp, or threatened to take the shotgun of the rear window of their truck, I’d have a hard time getting their attention, letting alone provoking their ire.
” Secondly, they’d be moving away from their biggest markets – and shipping 2,000 pounds of steel across the Pacific isn’t cheap by any means.”
Their biggest markets of the future will be Asia. They’d be better off heading back overseas and abandoning America after sucking the oxygen out of our domestic auto industry. That’s likely what their plan is. As for shipping 2,000 pounds of steel across the Pacific, they don’t have steel mills in Asia?
“Chinese workers are nowhere near as efficient or productive as Americans.”
The gap will shrink with each passing year….particularly when measuring up industrious Chinese with notoriously fat and lazy Southern bubbas.
“The people getting laid off are the ones who are getting shafted by the unions, while the ones who are keeping their jobs are the people who understand that the unions actively hurt workers.”
That’s a stupid and infantile argument. Ford and GM are mainly hurting because they’re not selling cars. They’re not selling cars because of idiotic business decisions in the 1990’s that the UAW had precious little input over. And the auto workers “keeping their jobs” happened to have been hired by companies not saddled with legacy costs that were run up in a previous era. I guess you can argue that those legacy costs are the UAW’s fault, but they were mainly pushed by Ford and GM themselves as bargaining chips in decades-past negotiations and were not the UAW’s pet projects at any point in time. How exactly is anything that’s going on in the American auto industry right now the fault of the UAW? Your hatred for unions and working people making a decent living is once again clouding your judgment.
“This is the 21st Century, and the average American worker is smart enough to look out for their own interests”
Oh yes! History is just full of the success stories of workers individuals pitted against organized commerce and coming out ahead. Every quality-of-life improvement attained in human history has been the product of peasants collectively standing up against the powers that be. No matter how much unimaginable dipshits like yourself wanna believe that the rules of human nature has changed that much and that corporate generosity is now built in to the world’s social fabric, reality will continue to prevail and the less organized the global workforce becomes, the more its participants will be malcompensated and thus be driven to some level of organized revolt.
Last I checked, it isn’t 2004.
Which for the most part is true, it’s just that far too many Republicans have blithely gone along with it.
Which assumes that they’re all getting “$400 million worth of freebies” – which is almost certainly untrue. And that assumes that the benefits in terms of higher wages and infrastructure don’t outweigh the costs – which they certainly do.
The biggest cost of labor is with non-salary compensation. The difference between union and non-union shops is that non-union shops don’t make idiotic demands that cause employers to have to shed capacity. Again, from the article I linked to:
The reason why UAW workers are getting laid off en masse is because any group so arrogant as to absolutely refuse to bear even any part of the rising cost of health care isn’t being rational.
The workers in non-union plants get nearly the same salary in areas with significantly lower living costs in exchange for paying a more equitable share of their pension and medical costs – but in the process they also get much greater job security.
Yes, because unlike the arrogant and corrupt unions, workers at non-union plants are willing to work harder, be more productive, and accept their share of the health care costs. And again, while UAW workers keep getting pink slips, their jobs are secure.
Care to cite an actual source that makes that argument? At least in the auto manufacturing field, the exact opposite is true. Southern plants are thriving, while Detroit continues to go down the crapper.
Typical liberal arrogance. Is there some rule that being a liberal requires one to be an insufferable prick?
Which is one of the stupidest things I’ve heard yet. Gee, yeah, they’re going to abandon the largest market on the planet for Asia, where they have to compete with native companies getting government subsidies and a workforce which is infinitely less productive. They’ll just stop selling cars in America…
Jebus, whatever you’re smoking has got to be some really nasty stuff…
Fat and lazy Southern bubbas? And again we get to the petty arrogance of the liberals.
Bullshit. The unions wouldn’t accept any increase in health care costs. They demanded unrealistic pension plans. They put a gun to Ford and GM’s heads threatening strike after strike and they got almost everything they wanted – UAW retirees have no out-of-pocket health care costs, which means that GM has $15 billion in liabilities on health care alone.
Get real. Your little union buddies have been screwing over workers for decades now, and sooner or later the piper has to be paid.
Like the non-union workers who said “to hell with the UAW, we can negotiate our own deals with employers or threaten to move elsewhere, and not have to worry about getting laid off”. Those guys are succeeding, while the union workers are out looking for work.
Da, tovarisch! Viva la revolucion! Despite your psuedo-Marxist cant, the world doesn’t even remotely resemble your outdated, irrelevant, and arrogant worldview. Those fat Southern bubbas are a hell of a lot smarter than the union thugs who think that the average worker is just too dumb to manage their own affairs. Unions are irrelevant without a convenient oligarchy to antagonize – in an era when there are any number of major auto manufacturers actively competing for American workers, it’s no wonder that Southern autoworkers have roundly defeated every attempt by the UAW to try to shaft them like they did their brethren in Detroit.
“The difference between union and non-union shops is that non-union shops don’t make idiotic demands that cause employers to have to shed capacity.”
On the surface, that’s a fair point. Until you recognize that spiraling health care costs have already pushed a pile of U.S. auto jobs north of the border where national health care offsets higher Canadian labor costs. Perhaps if the Republicans had been responsible enough to adapt a necessary national health care plan like every other country in the world has, this wouldn’t even be an issue. The unions realize that giving an inch on health care contributions will ultimately mean losing a foot….and then ten feet. That’s what is happening all over the country, and will continue to unless national health care becomes a reality…..not to mention assuring that Japanese automakers will vanish like thieves in the night as soon as they decapitate the domestic automakers. No matter how much lower Toyota and Honda’s health care costs are than Ford and GM’s, it will scarcely matter with health care inflation being what it is. The location of the foreign automakers Southern plants assures them of the unhealthiest workforces in the country, giving them further motivation to get out of Montgomery.
“Again, from the article I linked to:”
I’ve read the article before. It validates my premise that the only reason these Southern automakers are paying what they do is as a disincentive for unionization. Once the UAW is either killed outright or weakened to the point of powerlessness, the wages WILL go down as there will be no reason to accommodate powerless non-union workers in communities with prevailing wage rates of $8 and $9 an hour.
“The workers in non-union plants get nearly the same salary in areas with significantly lower living costs in exchange for paying a more equitable share of their pension and medical costs – but in the process they also get much greater job security.”
Again, you would have to be a stark raving dipshit to actually believe that. Ultimately though, you don’t….and as soon as the avalanche of inevitable concessions (or outright departures from American soil) begin at the UAW-piggybacked Southern auto plants, you’ll have to push your chair under the desk at your cubicle to hide your erection just as you do every other time the forces of globalization and/or deunionization smack down working people.
“Care to cite an actual source that makes that argument?”
http://www.workingfilms.org/onthejob/teachers/article_detail.asp?ID=48
“Gee, yeah, they’re going to abandon the largest market on the planet for Asia, where they have to compete with native companies getting government subsidies and a workforce which is infinitely less productive.”
And you don’t think the same subsidies will be afforded to Japanese automakers moving to Asia? And even if there aren’t, the massive reduction in wage and benefit costs will more than outweigh them. East Asian employees will be made to be infinitely more productive than notoriously lazy American Southerners. Couple that with more 1,000 new East Asian drivers per day and it’s a no-brainer for them to move back to their region of origin.
And on the subject of foreign affairs, you inferred yesterday that Hugo Chavez came to power in Venezuela by holding a gun to the head of voters. When I asked if you were honestly suggesting the man is unpopular down there, my response was hours and hours worth of chirping crickets in the distant background. Care to take a stab at it today?
“Typical liberal arrogance. Is there some rule that being a liberal requires one to be an insufferable prick?”
For the past few years, you righties have informed the rest of us it’s perfectly normal for Southerners to ignore economic issues in favor of values and cultural issues. Now you’re suggesting they would knock me on my ass in outrage if I told them they were making foolish choices at the workplace. Clearly you can understand my confusion with all these mixed messages about Southerners from those who know them best….which is obviously those who hail in that great enclave of the Old Confederacy, Sioux Falls, SD.
“Like the non-union workers who said “to hell with the UAW, we can negotiate our own deals with employers or threaten to move elsewhere, and not have to worry about getting laid offâ€.”
I gotta hand it to these Toyota workers in Montgomery, Alabama, and Georgetown, Kentucky. For all of human history, individual workers playing the cowboy against organized commerce have gotten eaten alive, ultimately opting in favor of organization that led to empowerment and higher standards of living for all. Yet after thousands of years of humankind, these NASCAR dads in the American South have figured out how to “negotiate their own deals” with corporate barons all by their lonesome and have assured themselves of permanent job security in the process. Clearly, it’s these former $9 an hour cotton mill workers who have single-handedly orchestrated a wage package of $24 an hour at Toyota. There were no external forces, say a majority-union workforce in their industry that has raised the bar for prevailing wage levels, that are responsible for these Montgomery geniuses to earn the big money. Had the UAW never existed, these Southern autoworkers would still be able to “negotiate their own contracts” with Toyota and Honda for $60,000 per year. Hard to believe that it took thousands of years for the human species to figure out how to pull in huge salaries for manual labor from major corporations one individual at a time, but let’s just be glad these few thousand Southern autoworkers have showed us how it’s done!
No, they have not. Canada’s auto industry is struggling as much as Detroit’s is.
Which is completely and utterly wrong. A nationalized health-care system would be a disaster in this country. Such systems aren’t even remotely economically sustainable over the long term. Both the Canadians and the British have had to open their nationalized systems to private care, and they have much smaller populations then we do. Trying to scale a system that can barely provide service to 30 million to 300 million is asinine in the extreme.
Odd how the transplant companies don’t have those problem – mainly because they don’t have arrogant union thugs demanding that they don’t pay their share.
Except that never happens in the real world. Auto manufacturing isn’t an oligarchy like it was for most of the 20th Century. If wages drop at one plant, auto workers simply move to another that pays the same wage, or switch to different jobs. Labor markets don’t work the way you think they do, and if you had the most basic clue about economics you’d understand that.
Again, no sane company would make a sizeable investment in capital then abandon that so long as that investment was profitable. The transplant factories are still very much profitable, and the productivity of the workers more than matches the wages they’re paid. The same is not true of Asia where productivity is lower and government interference is more pronounced.
Either keep your arguments reasonably civil or I ban your ass, understood?
The fact is that your side is losing. The fact is that Detroit is dying and the South is thriving, and all your arrogant, condescending crap doesn’t change that fact.
Furthermore, manufacturing is declining everywhere. Hell, China lost manufacturing jobs in recent years. The reason is very simple: durable goods are more durable. A washer/dryer lasts 15 years instead of five. Autos don’t need tune-ups for 100,000 miles. Air conditioning compressors are made with better-quality materials.
And indeed, North Carolina has had positive job growth for the past five years (your source was from 2001 in the beginning of a recession). North Carolina’s economy has shifted from manufacturing to IT and other growth fields (especially in the Raliegh-Durham area). The fact is that the idea that manufacturing jobs are the key to long-term economic growth is simply wrong.
Yup, those Southerners sure are lazy. Odd then how their productivity is better than even many Japanese plants.
Furthermore, the US is still by far the biggest auto market, and will be for a very long term. Why the holy hell would an automaker, when US auto buying is constant, move a factory to China rather than simply build a new one to increase their output. That makes no sense.
Your argument, like every one you make, is economically illiterate.
Voting behavior is not economic behavior.
You’ve so far accused them of being a buch of lazy redneck hicks. You’re damn right they’d knock you on your arrogant, pasty liberal ass.
Welcome to the 21st Century, kid. The days when people worked for one company and only one company all their lives are over. The days when heavy manufacturing was the backbone of the world economy ended when material science advanced to the point where a car can go tens of thousands of miles without much more than an oil change every 3,000 miles.
Even if unions did at one time help workers (and there’s admittedly a strong argument that they did), the time in which they still do that has long faded. The UAW is now a corrupt massive bureaucracy. The AFL-CIO has split. Union membership is down, and union power is flagging.
The reason for that has nothing to with evil companies or rascally Republicans, or the Chinese. It has to do with the world having moved on, with workers being more empowered now than they have been ever before, with an economy in which labor mobility is unprecedented.
It’s just that some people can’t accept the fact that the world has changed. Then again, those people end up spending the rest of their lives blaming others for their own personal failures.
“Canada’s auto industry is struggling as much as Detroit’s is.”
I’ll admit to not knowing that. Nonetheless, the health care expenditures that you cite as destroying Ford and GM in America can’t be to blame in Canada. The deteriorating situation in Canada contradicts your entire premise about UAW-sanctioned health care costs single-handedly driving Ford and GM into financial turmoil.
“A nationalized health-care system would be a disaster in this country.”
You’re right. The current system, where two out of five employers can no longer afford hyperinflating health care coverage for their employees, works too well to emulate the rest of the civilized world.
“Again, no sane company would make a sizeable investment in capital then abandon that”
Given that the taxpayers made the sizeable investment in capital, your equation doesn’t fit. Toyota and Honda can abandon their Southern plants and still be “sane companies”.
“And indeed, North Carolina has had positive job growth for the past five years”
Throughout the 2004 Presidential campaign, multiple news reports cited the massive loss of manufacturing jobs in both Carolinas. I recall an interview with the Charleston, SC, Republican Mayor who conceded that the old Southern formula of luring jobs to his part of the country through lower wages and nonexistent union presence no longer worked in the global economy…..that they have become merely a stepping stone on the race to the bottom.
“Why the holy hell would an automaker, when US auto buying is constant, move a factory to China rather than simply build a new one to increase their output. That makes no sense.”
It’s possible they’ll do that, but only if they get near-universal concessions from their American workers, whose pay is entirely the product of union activism industry-wide. Either the jobs go overseas on the business model follows that of the domestic meatpacking industry which also deunionized and slashed wage rates by more than 60% in the last three decades.
“You’re damn right they’d knock you on your arrogant, pasty liberal ass.”
Glad to see you’re taking your own advice about “keeping your arguments reasonably civil”.
“Even if unions did at one time help workers (and there’s admittedly a strong argument that they did), the time in which they still do that has long faded”
One has to be either stupid or monstrously arrogant (or likely both) to believe that the conditions that once inspired unions will not return in a heartbeat if unions go away.
“It has to do with the world having moved on, with workers being more empowered now than they have been ever before, with an economy in which labor mobility is unprecedented.”
It has to do with the lingering but diminishing presence of organized labor propping up working conditions for everybody. It’s mind-blowing that there are people arrogant enough to believe that they can singularly uphold quality workplace pay and benefits any better than their ancestors were able to in the days before unions came to be.
And let’s see if the third time is the charm on this Hugo Chavez question. Is it really your contention that his wild popularity in Venezuela is entirely the product of supportive poll respondents having a gun held to their head? Think you can answer it this time, buddy?
Not necessarily. Except I never said that was the sole cause. That may be one of the biggest causes, but it is by no means the only one.
The current system fails not because it\’s a free-market system, but because it isn\’t. There\’s absolutely no reason why health care should be tied to employment at all, and plenty of reasons why that arrangement doesn\’t work. That\’s why I support things like HSAs that decouple health care coverage from employment.
Except tax incentives aren\’t investments in capital – they\’re deferrals in future costs. Toyota wouldn\’t be so stupid to spend billions of dollars to open and maintain a plant only to close it. Again, you need to have a basic understanding of economics before you can have an educated conversation on these topics.
There\’s a loss of manufacturing jobs everywhere. That\’s why successful states are broadening their economic base to other industries. Manufacturing will never be as important as it was in 1950 because technology has made it less important. Unless you want to go back to driving Studebakers that rust out after 50,000 miles the economy you pine for has long been swept up by technological change.
Except meatpacking is a no-skill job. Auto manufacturing is still a skilled trade, and the labor costs in the transplant factories are what they are because that\’s what\’s profitable to the company. There is a limited (and diminishing) pool of qualified workers who can do the jobs that auto manufacturing requires. Again, this is basic economics. A company that cuts wages dramatically watches as their expensively-trained workforces goes bye-bye to another company that pays better.
Again, your little visions of the manufacturing worker doesn\’t have even the slightest resemblance to reality. It takes a sizable investment in capital to train a modern manufacturing worker, which is why they make a hell of a lot of money compared to many people. The only auto workers who are getting screwed are the ones who were foolish enough to put their trust in the unions to save them – the only thing the unions give a damn about is lining their own pockets.
No, it wouldn\’t. This isn\’t the 1930s. You can\’t just take some schlub and put him in front of a multi-million dollar welder and expect him to replace a qualified tech. The reason why vehicles last so much longer is because the technology behind them is much, much more complex. The reason why it takes only 18 hours to assemble a vehicle in a transplant factory is because the workers are specialized in their particular area. They\’ve been trained, at great expense, to do what they do.
Again, welcome to the modern world. The 1950s were 60 years ago. Manufacturing has changed.
Arrogant? Give me a fracking break. Your view of the economics of labor wouldn\’t get you a passing grade in Remedial Macro. The fact that non-union plants are doing much better is a direct contradiction of your arguments. Furthermore, if the UAW disappeared tomorrow, there\’s no reason why the threat of unionization wouldn\’t still be effective. The only thing the UAW does is subsidize their cronies while screwing everyone else – just ask all the people in Detroit who are looking for work because they got screwed over by a corrupt and malicious patronage system.
Then again, why am I surprised you\’d be providing apologia for Hugo Chavez\’s dictatorial regime? The left always loves a tyrant, provided he says the right things…
“That\’s why I support things like HSAs that decouple health care coverage from employment.”
Unfortunately, HSA’s also decouple health care coverage from actual treatment if the ailment is serious enough and exceeds the fund balance of the HSA….and in the case of most people saddled with an HSA as their only health care provider, that would essentially be every ailment.
“Except tax incentives aren\’t investments in capital – they\’re deferrals in future costs.”
Clever wordplay, but pretty much every tax giveaway can ultimately be defended as such. You get an A for effort, but an F for consistency.
“Except meatpacking is a no-skill job. Auto manufacturing is still a skilled trade”
Give me a break. Most of the employees at auto plants are screwing in bolts. Sure, there are a few skilled engineers, machinists, and welders on the floor, but for the most part, the butchers cutting off specific chops of meat from a cow or hog need more training than the guy tightening a bolt into a socket. Meatpacking is a fascinating case-study on how employers can “deskill” the workplace as a means of cutting wages. Even in your most “high-tech” auto plant, the same can be done.
“The only auto workers who are getting screwed are the ones who were foolish enough to put their trust in the unions to save them – the only thing the unions give a damn about is lining their own pockets……The only thing the UAW does is subsidize their cronies while screwing everyone else”
Repeating stupidity over and over doesn’t make it true. The UAW is in full-on concession mode, and even GM and Ford brass are singing their praises, publicly at least. Your hatred for the decentrallization of wealth and basic workplace justice measures is guiding you towards overblown anti-labor bombast that only scarcely applies here. Plenty of non-unionized companies are crumbling for the same reasons Ford and GM are…..failure to sell products at the pace that their competition is. Ultimately, that’s what it boils down to. The UAW can and will make reasonable concessions to help GM and Ford turn the corner (hopefully but not likely) and come up with vehicles that people want to buy. If they don’t, they’ll go the way of non-union Montgomery Wards and Woolworth’s who, like Ford and GM, fell upon financial hurt because they let their competitors win over public favor on the supply-and-demand front. For somebody preaching how the rest of the world doesn’t understand economics, it’s amusing that you can’t grasp how basic supply-and-demand principles in the consumer market are killing Ford and GM, not unions.
Except every HSA program I’ve seen adds catastrophic care coverage to the mix. Catastrophic care is actually a relatively small part of health expenses that can be insured. It’s things like prescriptions and regular doctor visits that accumulate into a huge aggregate cost.
A reduction in future taxes doesn’t make the equipment for a factory any cheaper. It doesn’t make the steel for the building cheaper. It doesn’t reduce the cost of labor. It doesn’t defray any of the capital expenditures necessary to build an auto plant. It just reduces the future cost of operation, which is overhead, not capital.
Do you have a single clue about how cars are made?
Take a look at your car. See any bolts?
No, almost everyone on the floor is a skilled machinist. The robots do the welding and much of the other menial labor. They’re more efficient than we sacks of meat. Auto manufacturing is an extremely skilled trade now. QA needs and “six sigma” manufacturing techniques require a skilled workforce.
Again, there’s nothing preventing auto plants from leaving right now. There are plenty of places where labor is cheaper. Auto companies spend billions on putting capital in the United States because the level of technical expertise needed to manufacture a modern auto is a shitload more complex than screwing in bolts.
Last I checked, meat doesn’t consist of a complex set of electronics and engine parts travelling at 70+ mph for 100,000 miles without a tuneup. If your cut of beef isn’t quite right, it really doesn’t matter. If your car is a lemon, the car company can take it up the tailpipe.
If you’re honestly so uninformed as to think that cutting a side of beef and making a modern automobile are equivalent, you and reality need to get reacquainted.
Yeah, because GM and Ford are going to badmouth the people who have them by the balls…
Gee, and labor costs have nothing to do with that? Give me a break!
Odd then, isn’t it, that the companies that are succeeding are the ones who have a largely non-unionized workforce.
That is certainly part of it, but there’s no doubt that corporate culture has a hell of a lot to do with it. When you have a liability of $15 billion in labor costs, that hurts your bottom line, makes it harder to get new capital, and makes it much harder to get out of a rut.
A unions the only reason why Ford and GM are failing? Certainly not, but they’re one of the largest contributing causes.
“Auto manufacturing is an extremely skilled trade now.”
Interesting then how virtually every autoworker that gets interviewed doesn’t even have a high school diploma.
“If your cut of beef isn’t quite right, it really doesn’t matter.”
Given the risk for e coli and other diseases borne out of improper meat production and processing, I suspect the meatpackers would disagree with you that there are fewer consequences to inadequate meat production than there are to cars with insufficient windshield glue on their Pontiacs.
“Odd then, isn’t it, that the companies that are succeeding are the ones who have a largely non-unionized workforce.”
For the most part, the American automakers’ poor judgment on determining consumer tastes is mutually exclusive from their unionized workforce’s reluctance to contribute to their own health care premiums. Your effort to blame the union for GM’s decision to put all their marbles on SUV’s rather than build quality cars with improved gas mileage is absurd….and shows your true motivation is to suppress the standards of living of workers through anti-labor posturing.
Which makes the assumption that being skilled in a trade requires an advanced degree, and that the autoworkers who get interviewed on the news are representative of all autoworkers as a whole. Neither of those contentions seem right to me.
Except most cases of food poisoning come from improper preparation, not the packing plants.
Again, if assembling vehicles required no more skills than meatpacking, why aren’t immigrants dominating autoworking like they do meatpacking? Even in the non-union plants, most autoworkers are Americans.
The fact is that manufacturing a vehicle is a skilled trade. You can’t just take any Joe off the street and expect him to start manufacturing cars to six sigma quality levels. The idea that you can replace autoworkers with unskilled laborers off the street just doesn’t fly.
Except I made no such argument. In fact, I said that union problems is one of the strongest contributing factors to GM and Ford’s slide. It’s by no means the only one. However, you’d have to be exceptionally obtuse to argue that $15 billion in liabilities isn’t a major problem.
$1,500 of the price of every GM car goes to health care for workers. For Toyota, the price is $100. GM can’t price their cars as cheaply as the transplants can. Even if they could offer a car with the same quality as a “foreign” car (most of which are built here anyway), they couldn’t offer it at the same price.