Auto Execs Fly Corporate Jets to D.C., Tin Cups in Hand

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by PM_Mama00

Pray for yourselves America. You don't know what's about to hit you.

... Really? You don't think anyone gets it?

I mean . . . losing a million jobs sucks, but it's not like the situation is "pick one: jobs or no jobs" or anything nearly that simple. Maybe it's not the best idea to have 299 million people fund an archaic industry with shitty management, poor direction and a decided lack of common sense, for the betterment of the other one million?

What's "about to hit us" other than unemployment? We can deal with unemployment - turns out, the skills needed to run an assembly line are similar to the skills needed to repair bridges so people don't die during the morning commute, and that sort of investment from the majority at least shows tangible promise of return, including materials etc.

Let's not get overly dramatic here - this is an absolute tragedy for the city of Detroit. That's a fact. Extending anywhere past that is just hyperbole.

[AGDee]

The news this morning is that they are asking the President for an executive order.

The analyses of how far reaching this will be tends to agree more with PM_Mama than with Ksig RC. Some sources:
http://www.time.com/time/business/ar...862737,00.html
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/stor...6BE8721E73E%7D
http://blog.oregonlive.com/myoregon/..._would_ha.html

I'm off to move what I still have in a 2030 fund over to money markets. The Asian auto stocks are tanking today.
ETA: They pick a heck of a day to have the retirement fund website unavailable for maintenance. GRRRRRRR Ironically, during a big chunk of the bad crashing in early October, we were unable to move any funds because they were in the process of changing which of our funds were available and had a "freeze" period.

[KSigkid]

Originally Posted by AGDee

The news this morning is that they are asking the President for an executive order.

The analyses of how far reaching this will be tends to agree more with PM_Mama than with Ksig RC. Some sources:
http://www.time.com/time/business/ar...862737,00.html
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/stor...6BE8721E73E%7D
http://blog.oregonlive.com/myoregon/..._would_ha.html

I'm off to move what I still have in a 2030 fund over to money markets. The Asian auto stocks are tanking today.
ETA: They pick a heck of a day to have the retirement fund website unavailable for maintenance. GRRRRRRR Ironically, during a big chunk of the bad crashing in early October, we were unable to move any funds because they were in the process of changing which of our funds were available and had a "freeze" period.

Sorry, but I don't see how any of those articles dispute what KSigRC is saying (and, the Oregon Live blog entry is written by the President of an employee benefits administrator, so you have to take that for what it's worth). I think you're misreading his posts - he's not saying that the unemployment and its effects will be limited to Michigan.

The problem with even discussing this (and a reason why I've tried to stay out of the thread) is that it's SO personal to people in Michigan and those with families in the auto industry, which is completely understandable, but that tends to cloud the arguments. The general direction I've seen in this thread is "You're not from Michigan, so you don't understand."

AGDee made a comment earlier about punishing a whole industry because of the actions of CEOs. I don't think that's what anyone on the board is saying, or what most of the anti-bailout people are saying. There's a real concern that these companies didn't have a longterm view of things, and a concern that the bailout will just put off the inevitable. If a bailout happens, should the leadership be replaced at the Big Three? If not, beyond the Car Czar and government oversight, will there be any real change in how the company leadership acts? Or, will they pay lip service to the present concerns, while continuing with the status quo? Will the unions play ball and give concessions on top of those they've already made in previous contracts and agreements?

I don't know the answers to these questions. I'm not a big bailout guy, so admittedly that is clouding my own arguments. I would feel better if I didn't think this would just be a managerial band-aid, and that we'd be right back to square one in a few years. I feel for the people in the auto industry and all of the subsidiary industries, just like I feel for people in all lines of work who are losing their jobs or are in danger of losing their jobs in the near future. I just don't think it's such an easy issue.

[preciousjeni]

Originally Posted by AGDee

Ironically, during a big chunk of the bad crashing in early October, we were unable to move any funds because they were in the process of changing which of our funds were available and had a "freeze" period.

It's not coincidental. They do things like this to keep money from flowing out.

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by preciousjeni

It's not coincidental. They do things like this to keep money from flowing out.

The one in October was coincidental. It had been planned since April or May so nobody knew that far in advance that the market would be tanking in the fall. The one this morning? I'm not so sure.

[PM_Mama00]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

... Really? You don't think anyone gets it?

I mean . . . losing a million jobs sucks, but it's not like the situation is "pick one: jobs or no jobs" or anything nearly that simple. Maybe it's not the best idea to have 299 million people fund an archaic industry with shitty management, poor direction and a decided lack of common sense, for the betterment of the other one million?

What's "about to hit us" other than unemployment? We can deal with unemployment - turns out, the skills needed to run an assembly line are similar to the skills needed to repair bridges so people don't die during the morning commute, and that sort of investment from the majority at least shows tangible promise of return, including materials etc.

Let's not get overly dramatic here - this is an absolute tragedy for the city of Detroit. That's a fact. Extending anywhere past that is just hyperbole.

I don't think YOU get it.

It's not just unemployment. This is millions of jobs across the country. That's millions of people on the street not spending money at the billions of big business and small business across the country. We can't deal with THAT MUCH unemployment. Michigan can't even deal with it now.

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

What's "about to hit us" other than unemployment? We can deal with unemployment - turns out, the skills needed to run an assembly line are similar to the skills needed to repair bridges so people don't die during the morning commute, and that sort of investment from the majority at least shows tangible promise of return, including materials etc.

Let's not get overly dramatic here - this is an absolute tragedy for the city of Detroit. That's a fact. Extending anywhere past that is just hyperbole.

This post makes it sound like it will have no effect on anywhere but Detroit and that it is only affecting blue collar workers on the assembly line. I would think that the people who work in the 100,000 dealerships around the country feel differently.

Here is a list of all the auto plants by state:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/27808154
They are hardly limited to Michigan.

That doesn't include suppliers, many of whom are not in Michigan. I guess we'll see how bad it could get if Bush doesn't assist. If he does, some will never believe how bad it would have been.

[KSigkid]

Originally Posted by AGDee

This post makes it sound like it will have no effect on anywhere but Detroit and that it is only affecting blue collar workers on the assembly line. I would think that the people who work in the 100,000 dealerships around the country feel differently.

Here is a list of all the auto plants by state:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/27808154
They are hardly limited to Michigan.

That doesn't include suppliers, many of whom are not in Michigan. I guess we'll see how bad it could get if Bush doesn't assist. If he does, some will never believe how bad it would have been.

It seems more like he was responding to the concerns of how this was going to hit the blue collar workers, since that is where most of the concern has been directed in this thread. I may be wrong, but no one (or almost no one) in this thread has been questioning how upper level management (and even middle-level management) is going to recover from losing their jobs.

Again, I don't think anyone, even the people who are anti-bailout, are sitting around thinking that this is a good thing, or that it will have no (or minimal) effect. It seems like it's more of a balancing of the relative merits of the bailout versus the problems of it.

[KSig RC]

Originally Posted by AGDee

This post makes it sound like it will have no effect on anywhere but Detroit and that it is only affecting blue collar workers on the assembly line. I would think that the people who work in the 100,000 dealerships around the country feel differently.

Here is a list of all the auto plants by state:
http://www.cnbc.com/id/27808154
They are hardly limited to Michigan.

That doesn't include suppliers, many of whom are not in Michigan. I guess we'll see how bad it could get if Bush doesn't assist. If he does, some will never believe how bad it would have been.

I was using "Detroit" as representative of the auto industry as a whole - my apologies for being unclear.

Let me reiterate my point here:

If the three automakers fail and dissolve, millions of jobs will be lost. This is a big deal, this sucks for people in dozens of related fields, this is not something that will simply be "absorbed" by the rest of us.

The solution to that is NOT necessarily forcing every other person to subsidize the auto industry to protect those jobs. This MAY be a proper solution, but will it actually result in changes that protect those jobs over the long term? Would it be better to revamp the way America handles semi-skilled jobs, of which hundreds of thousands would spring up to fit the now-flooded (and wage-depressed, I'll admit) market?

Granted, we'll (at least partially) pay for this as a collective either way, through Welfare benefits, food stamps, even crime - what have you. However, and this is a hard pill for anyone close to the situation to swallow, I understand, but . . . it may be best to allow the companies to fail, rather than prop them up with little tangible evidence that there will be substantive changes to the way business is done.

We've propped up airlines in the past - guess what? The airlines are still, for the most part, poorly run.

Also, it is completely disingenuous to claim that millions of blue-collar workers are "suffering" due to the ineptitude of their CEOs. They may be suffering due to inept management in general, but even if each CEO had paid himself one billion dollars it wouldn't account for the losses of each. There was no contingency plan in place - or, rather, there was one, but it involved government bailouts instead of corporate strategy. They were caught with their pants down.

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

I was using "Detroit" as representative of the auto industry as a whole - my apologies for being unclear.

It was pretty clear to me. Isn't it synecdoche or metonymy or one of those crazy 8th grade grammar words that describes how Detroit=the auto industry, much like how Hollywood=the entertainment industry?

[ThetaPrincess24]

Originally Posted by KSig RC

... Really? You don't think anyone gets it?

I mean . . . losing a million jobs sucks, but it's not like the situation is "pick one: jobs or no jobs" or anything nearly that simple. Maybe it's not the best idea to have 299 million people fund an archaic industry with shitty management, poor direction and a decided lack of common sense, for the betterment of the other one million?

What's "about to hit us" other than unemployment? We can deal with unemployment - turns out, the skills needed to run an assembly line are similar to the skills needed to repair bridges so people don't die during the morning commute, and that sort of investment from the majority at least shows tangible promise of return, including materials etc.

Let's not get overly dramatic here - this is an absolute tragedy for the city of Detroit. That's a fact. Extending anywhere past that is just hyperbole.

Agreed.