Who in the hell pays for these morons salaries in the first place? Coming to Washington on private corporate jets asking for 25 Billion, nobody ever thought that this might be a bad idea? What the hell.
They are deserving every bit of the scorn and disgust that they are receiving right now.
At this point I don’t give a shit if the American car companies go in the shitter right now. Also a large fuck you to the UAW for helping in the destruction of a once great industry.
This does affect me in a personal way since my father worked at Ford for 35 years on the lines and his knees will probably not hold out much longer and if Ford goes under he gets to sit in a wheel chair for the rest of his life.
The only reason I made this rant personal is because of the complete and utter stupidity. If nobody from Ford, GM, or Chrysler thought this was a bad idea then they deserve to be unemployed.
I’m with you on the stupidity of coming on what I think are several private jets (judging from the comment about how come they couldn’t jet share.)
But I’d like to add to this excellent pitting.
Why the fuck did the Congress have to tell these morons to come back with a plan? If someone went to their board of directors meeting asking for a big chunk of money without a very clear plan on the benefits he’d get his ass kicked out of the board room and very likely the company. Asking for money because the division was losing share without a plan to turn things around would be just as bad. Yet these morons want $25 billion because otherwise they’d have to face the consequences of their actions.
GM’s announced that they’ll be giving up two of their leased jets. I can actually understand why a megacorp like GM would have one executive jet, since there are times when you’re going to need to get from one place to another in a relatively short period of time, and the private jet would save some time (since you’re not going to have to dick around and be dicked around by airport security). Multiple executive jets, however, are just fucking stupid.
If, however, we’re going to say “fuck you” to the Big Three, then we’d better have some kind of backup plan. Like maybe giving $25 billion to Tesla, and some of the alternative energy powered car start ups.
Not if they’re smart, they won’t. Doesn’t matter what kind of package Tesla (or whomever) offers them, the workers will still demand to be represnted by the UAW because, “Its the only way we can protect our jobs!” LIke the union did such a good job the last time around. :rolleyes:
Probably too good. The long-term interests of workers may not be well served by saddling their industries with insupportable labor costs.
And don’t let Big 3 management off the hook - they agreed to labor contracts that now look like poison (something like 45% more costly that what Toyota has). Compared to that level of money drain, the cost of zipping to DC in a private jet is chump change.
If I was in charge of the money, I would make my first requirement for a bailout that the companies had to fire every one of their top management, and that said management and all future management forego any and all stock options, bonus payments, Golden Parachutes and the like until every cent of the loan had been repaid twice over.
Then I’d make them fuck each other in public, so they get a taste of what they’re trying to do to the American taxpayer.
Then I’d just have them all kneecapped, as a lesson to future generations.
Tesla is building 100 thousand dollar cars. Any one can do that. Mass production and affordable cost is what distinguishes an auto maker from a pretender.
The ‘we make our cars too good’ defense Really pisses me off. Wow, you mean I’m supposed to walk into a dealership, plop down $35 grand, and get crap that falls apart in 5 years??? BTW- You’re the A-holes who totally jam-satured the car market by pushing metal at any cost, robbing future quarters to look good now. Well, the future quarter is here, and it ain’t Alaska, Bub.
Sure there’s a strong used car market and because salaries haven’t kept pace with every other sector of the economy, we can’t afford your 2008 techno-whirly-gig bangs and whistles. We can afford 2005’s best, so we do by making do. Its the American way. Some of us buy at COSTO instead of Whole Foods too, morons.
Oh, and a great big razor-studded dildo up the butt of all the knee-jerks spouting union busting. Yeah, our take-home pay sucks in our consumer driven economy nation, so lets go bust the unions. You know, so pricks can pay us even less? Smaaaart.
Having worked in both union and non-union shops, I can honestly say, “Fuck unions.” Their time has come and gone, in America (they need to be agitating in the developing nations). I’ve never had anyone in a non-union shop bust my chops for picking up a broom and sweeping, but I damn sure have in a union shop. Doesn’t matter that my work area’s filthy and all the trash is creating a safety hazard, or that I literally only have about 1 hour’s worth of work in an 8 hour day, its not in the union contract that I can sweep my area, so I’m not allowed to do it.
Or, hey, maybe I’ve got an idea which will make my job easier, while increasing productivity. Sorry, the union says I can’t do it that way. Its not in the contract that I can make changes, so I have to keep doing things the same way they’ve been doing them. For fifty fucking years.
Unions have to be re-evaluated, not destroyed; i have someone who i care about who works in middle management, non-union, and h is treated very poorly- there are constant layoffs, 60-70 hour weeks, and he’s not even allowed to take a lunch break or walk away from his desk. That’s been the norm in his industry for a while.
Basically, what unions have to do is compromise. Let their staff get used for other things, on occasion. Stick to wages, hours and benefits, not micromanaging the work shop.
The main problem is that the execs are making huge amounts of money and getting incentivized for cutting overhead-that means cutting the jobs of salaried employees, and forcing people to work more hours while stripping away benefits, stripping away retirement plans, and making them pay for their own lightbulbs, computer repairs, etc. This kinds of stunts are not uncommon in some workplaces. And all of this has happened while raking in huge profits and handing executives golden parachutes, multi-million dollar contracts, and opportunities for stock options. All while keeping the middle class in suspense as to whether their Christmas gift this year will be a pink slip. Not cool.
You forgot to mention year after year productivity increased . More production, Less workers and greater profits. Workers wages went down ,so we know who got the profits.
Maybe it makes a difference whether you live in a" right-to-work" state or not.
My 24-year union job in Nebraska included a lot of time spent cleaning up stuff.
Whenever contract time came around and management proposed “crossing crafts”–making us plant operators do more of the routine maintenance of our equipment and reserving the big repair jobs for the maintenance crafts-- our attitude was always that we never turned down work, but that we weren’t gonna do it for nothing.
So we always took on the extra work, and they always gave us decent raises.
Would they have teated us so decently without a union? I say probably not.
This is certainly true in a lot of industries, and was certainly the case for typists, secretaries, folks working on mainframes and other obsolete technologies, and many other workers. However, when the average work week for those left behind balloons from 45-50 hours a week to 60-70, and in some cases higher, and employees are no longer taking lunchbreaks, you have to wonder if they are trimming employees to bloat their own paychecks.
Just a thought- but you are absolutely right that technology made many jobs obsolete.
I’d kind of like to be in a position to say to those CEOs, “Okay, you’ve convinced me it’s necessary for the good of the country to save your companies. One thing: you have to resign, today, and leave with no severance pay, no stock options, no bonus. Since you fucked it up.”
