"If you pay peanuts, you'll hire monkeys."

[Brad Johnson]

corporate shareholders and executives will extract every last penny out of it in the meantime

Correct, Mr. Corporate Shareholder.  Where would you, your pension fund, and your IRA like their dividend checks sent?

Brad

[Paddy]

Well lemme ask you this, Mr. Brad Johnson.  Do you think government should regulate and enforce building codes, for example, or do you think anybody should be able to build any kind of piece of crap structure they want (like in Mejico where thousands die in earthquakes on account of no building codes).  Do you think gov should oversee & regulate meat packing? Or would you just rather rely on the integrity of anybody who wants to package mystery meat for your consumption?   Do you think government should enforce standards for the licensing of, I dunno, how about doctors?  Or should anybody be able to practice medicine unencumbered by those onerous rules?  And on and on.........

[Brad Johnson]

Apples to oranges.

One deals with strictures on the safe levels of bacterial contamination in food, structural strength in construction, or a physician's level of anatomical knowledge.  The other, our topic at hand, is strictures on monetary gain/loss, organizational profits, or personal wealth.  They are two completely different and totally unrelated issues.

Brad

[The Rabbi]

And with them we have idle factories that used to produce steel and cars.  Take your choice.

  When the industrialists could no longer exploit Americans, they outsourced (and continue to outsource) to third world countries where they can exploit impoverished people.  But we don't care.  All we care about is how much cheap Chinese crap we can fill our SUV's with from Walmart and Costco.  It's the American way, after all.  Well, this consumer based economy's days are numbered. We'd better start manufacturing something of value again.

We must defeat the running dogs of capitalism!  Workers of the world unite!  You have nothing to lose but your chains!

But I notice it is amazing that those exploited impoverished people will line up for days to get the work being offered.  I pity the fools.  Here  they could be out honorably begging in the streets and scrounging for bread crusts and instead they go to work for Big Industrial Group making more money than they or their parents have ever seen.  Tools.

[Paddy]

Brad Johnson said:

Well, if our over-regulated, over-litigated, and over-unionated industries ever have a chance to crawl out from under the umpteen thumbs holding them down they might be able to catch up. Until then, foreign-sourced products will be the rule of the day.

So according to you, U.S. industry has been sabotaged by a cabal of government, lawyers, and unions.  Let's look at the failed U.S. auto industry.  Aren't imports (Toyota, etc.)  subject to the same regulations as domestic vehicles?  Aren't imports (Honda, etc.) subject to the same vulnerabilities for litigation as domestic vehicles?  Now, with unions, you may be on to something.  Japan doesn't do unions AFAIK.  BUT, the automakers entered willingly into contracts with the unions.  They didn't have to; they could simply have refused the union demands.  But no, they were too concerned with immediate profits (the shareholders, ya know) and signed on the dotted line, not caring whether it created future profitability problems.

In the end, they've only themselves to blame.

[The Rabbi]

So you agree the problem was outrageous union demands, demands that management caved in to.
There is also the issue that American industry's plant is old and OSHA rules required upgrades while the Japanese had had their industrial capacity bombed to infinity and so everything was built new post WW2.  Ditto with the plants they built here.

[Paddy]

OK, Rabbi, first-yes the union demands were outrageous and completely unrealistic.  I remember when minimum wage was $1.65/hr and rank and file autoworkers were making $12-16/hr by virtue of their union contract.  The automakers had to know that couldn't be sustained-but they had the lock on the market.  This was before the gas lines and shortages of the early '70's.  That's when the Japanese imports began to sell here.

Your second point relates to my answer to the first.  The American auto industry had a lock on the U.S. market until well into the 1970's.  By that time (since the end of WWII) they had made more than enough profits to rebuild to compete with imports (Japan). But they refused to read the writing on the wall.  In their arrogance and greed, they continued to produce the big behemoths that the American people weren't buying.  Civics and their ilk were becoming increasingly popular.  I don't know how old you are or whether you remember those times, but that is what happened.

[Brad Johnson]

BUT, the automakers entered willingly into contracts with the unions.

And if you believe that I have a bridge to sell you.  

Apparently you missed the part where the unions shut the factories down, formed picket lines so no workers could cross, and threatened those who actually wanted to work with bodily harm.  All this to bring the automakers to their knees and force them to accept to the union's demands.  That's not constructive gains for workers, that's backalley thuggery and price-fixing.

Looks, sounds like you're going to toe the union line and there's nothing that will persuade you.  Whatever floats your boat.  You have every right to lower yourself to the lowest common denominator and allow others to dictate your worth.  Personally I think more of myself than that.

Brad

[Brad Johnson]

In their arrogance and greed, they continued to produce the big behemoths that the American people weren't buying.  Civics and their ilk were becoming increasingly popular. 

If Americans weren't buying the "behemoths" why did the automakers keep making them and how, if they weren't selling, did the automakers have all this money?  Can't have one without the other.  Eco 101.

The reason "Civics and their ilk were becoming increasingly popular" is because the Japanese automakers had been forced - for economic reasons - to become very good at making small, efficient, inexpensive vehicles.  Had it not been for the oil embargo, horrendous inflation, and a very advantageous yen-to-dollar ratio, these cheap gas-sippers from the Land of the Rising Sun would never have seen their overnight leap to fame into the American market.

I remember when minimum wage was $1.65/hr and rank and file autoworkers were making $12-16/hr by virtue of their union contract.  The automakers had to know that couldn't be sustained-but they had the lock on the market.  This was before the gas lines and shortages of the early '70's.

If you are in a market where $2.00 is considered average and you are making six to eight times that, the WORKERS AND THE UNION should have known that it couldn't be sustained.  No one wants to pay a premium cost for an average product and will eventually find ways to offset the expense (like moving jobs to Mexico).  Sounds to me like a bunch of folks who were their own undoing.  Your "lock on the market" bit is a nice interjection, but completely unrelated to the rest of your statement.  Throwing it in to keep the "Big Auto Is Bad" tone of the message serves no purpose other than being inflammatory rhetoric.

Brad

[Strings]

Heh... I was the first non-union worker for a network cabling company. I was nothing more than a lead tech, and yet my take-home was half-again what the manager of the Milwaukee office (which was union) was pulling in. The reason? Union dues...

 Unions used to serve a purpose. Now, they drag industry down...

[Balog]

Unions used to serve a purpose. Now, they drag industry down...

Ding ding ding!!! We have a winner.

PS whatever happened to "Hunter Rose" anyway? Get tired of people thinking you're a girl?

[Paddy]

If Americans weren't buying the "behemoths" why did the automakers keep making them and how, if they weren't selling, did the automakers have all this money?  Can't have one without the other.  Eco 101.

 

C'mon Brad.  You're smarter than that. You know very well I mean that the accumulated profits between the end of WWII and the 70's (when the imports began to sell here) were more than enough to update the means of production to compete with the looming import threat.  Engage the argument, Brad.  Don't play word games.

If you are in a market where $2.00 is considered average and you are making six to eight times that, the WORKERS AND THE UNION should have known that it couldn't be sustained.  No one wants to pay a premium cost for an average product and will eventually find ways to offset the expense (like moving jobs to Mexico).  Sounds to me like a bunch of folks who were their own undoing.

All you're saying here is that the 'workers and the union' were as shortsighted as ownership and management.  It takes two to make a contract, dontcha know.
 

Your "lock on the market" bit is a nice interjection, but completely unrelated to the rest of your statement.  Throwing it in to keep the "Big Auto Is Bad" tone of the message serves no purpose other than being inflammatory rhetoric.p

That may be your kneejerk reaction to anyone who would critique unregulated capitalism.  However, the fact is that GM, Ford, Chrysler and AMC had no competition from foreign sources during those years.

[Perd Hapley]

In their arrogance and greed, they continued to produce the big behemoths that the American people weren't buying.

I'm sorry, what's greedy about producing cars that no one wants?  What's arrogant about misreading what the market wants? 

[The Rabbi]

In their arrogance and greed, they continued to produce the big behemoths that the American people weren't buying.

I'm sorry, what's greedy about producing cars that no one wants?  What's arrogant about misreading what the market wants? 

Bingo.
Managers at the American car companies totally misread the market and foolishly gambled that it was cheaper to appease the unions than endure a strike.  They passed off the legacy costs to future generations.  We are those future generations.
I was born in 1962 so I well remember the 1970s.  American industry was just beginning to cope with imports and high inflation at home.  And they didnt do it too well either.  Remember AMC and their ghastly Pacer?
In the 1980s companies either got lean, got bought, or went out of business.  As that decade was getting going, American business regained their lead and became competitive again.  Right now we are shedding low-wage unskilled work and sending it to places that appreciate that sort of thing.  But we remain a net importer of jobs from abroad, high tech high paying jobs.

[doczinn]

BUT, the automakers entered willingly into contracts with the unions.  They didn't have to; they could simply have refused the union demands.

If that were true, you'd have a point. But it ain't, and you don't.

[K Frame]

Ask Mtnbkr about his "loud-mouthed idiot" coworker...

Don't forget to ask about the near complete autonomy I have in doing my job, including the hours I work and the locations I work from.

Chris

Did I forget to ask about that?

Gee, I'm sorry...

Your bitching about "Chatty Kathy" must have driven it from my mind... 

[K Frame]

"In the 1980s companies either got lean, got bought, or went out of business."

Except with the automakers, they couldn't get lean -- the unions resisted that tooth and nail because getting lean in part meant reducing some of the benefits that made autoworkers, as a class, among the best paid workers in the nation. Some of the contracts that the unions forced onto the auto makers in the late 1970s and 1980s were really the tombstones to the woes those unions, and their members, are facing now.

Sure, the automakers could refuse the union contracts, resulting in protracted strikes (just a case of the heartless big business shutting out the poor working man, I guess).

Chrysler and Ford both managed to take steps in the 1980s that did help them regain much of a lost competitive edge, but it was an extremely painful process that the UAW resisted the entire way.

[Perd Hapley]

So, when the boss gives me a bag of peanuts every week, he's trying to tell me something?   

[Brad Johnson]

Quote
If Americans weren't buying the "behemoths" why did the automakers keep making them and how, if they weren't selling, did the automakers have all this money?  Can't have one without the other.  Eco 101.

C'mon Brad.  You're smarter than that. You know very well I mean that the accumulated profits between the end of WWII and the 70's (when the imports began to sell here) were more than enough to update the means of production to compete with the looming import threat.  Engage the argument, Brad.  Don't play word games.

No word games, just a simple spot analysis of your assertion.

The bottom line is pretty simple, and Rabbi hit the nail on the head above.

Managers at the American car companies totally misread the market and foolishly gambled that it was cheaper to appease the unions than endure a strike.

The unions tend to be so short-sighted that they will actually push an employer out of business in an attempt to "save the workers".  Case and point - auto makers.  The unions pushed employement costs so high that the auto makers were forced to find cheaper alternatives.  Car companies don't exist to provide jobs, they exist to make cars and sell them at a profit.  When those profits were being threatened by artificially high workforce expenses (due directly to union pressures) the manufacturers moved operations to a place where the workforce expenses were lower.  In this case, Mexico.

There are also multiple examples of what happens when the unions are no longer a viable entity in the workplace ... namely the overseas companies that have built factories here.  The unions were so greedy and so blatantly negative in their tactics that the companies were able to outmaneuver them at their own game.  Without a union presence already firmly extablished, the companies offered competitive wages in a more open and cooperative work environment and, guess what, the product is more cost effective and better quality, the company is more stable, and the overall attitude is positive.  Plus, the workforce is more satisfied with their employer and employment environment, unlike the rigidly structured environment of the union shops where you can't get anyone to do anything unless it's "in their contract", and then it's only done to satisfy the contract specs.

Brad

[Brad Johnson]

So, when the boss gives me a bag of peanuts every week, he's trying to tell me something?   

That you need more fiber in your diet?

Brad

[cordex]

And what's wrong with unions?  Without them we'd still have sweatshops with 16 hour workdays and child labor.

Just as an aside, I did agricultural work for a Co-Op from the time I was 14 to the time I was 16 (when I could get another job).  I currently work at least 17.5 hours a day.

If some union bozo tries to "fix" my situation I will be mighty upset.

[Tallpine]

Do you think government should regulate and enforce building codes, for example, or do you think anybody should be able to build any kind of piece of crap structure they want

That's the way it is in most of Montana.  A few people live in caves, hay bale houses, log cabins, pole sheds, and school busses, etc.  But most of us have fairly normal decent houses.

I was born in 1962

Geeze, you're just a kid then