Posted by
GunnyG© on Saturday, November 29, 2008 1:42:42 PM
It is simply amazing how the Left lies so convincingly. The bailout plan for the Big Three is nothing more than a payoff to the United Auto Workers, and to the amazingly incompetent Michigan Governor Granholm, for services rendered. We're told that we CANNOT let the Big Three go under. That it would be DISASTROUS to the US economy to let them go under. Funny, but this was not the stance of the FDR Administration during the Great Depression. Why not? Perhaps the American public would have revolted at the very idea of paying OUR TAX DOLLARS, sorry EX-Congcritter Joe Knollenberg (Rino), it IS OUR MONEY, for a bailout of a company that could not compete? Evidently, today's leftist liberals and Conservative traitors say WE MUST bail out the Big Three.
BULLSH*T!
Facts on GM:
1. GM’s legacy health costs run to about $2500 a vehicle it sells in North America.
2. The UAW imposed a contract on GM wherein the UAW workers pay a mere 7% of their healthcare costs (27-32% US Worker average) which raises the wage rates enormously, when considering the total cost of hiring labor, including health benefits.
3. The UAW imposed on GM a $22 per worker-hour in legacy costs.
4. The UAW members are guaranteed a “30 years and out” provision. (That means that a worker can retire in their EARLY fifties on a FULL PENSION! That is, 95% of their salary.) Their 2007 health care costs was 5.5 BILLION (pensioners and 1.1 million workers) which means a bailout won't help jacksh*t unless the union is broken up, which it should have been twenty years ago.
5. The UAW's additional costs, when added up, amount to over $75.00 an HOUR, PER CAR! The nearest competitor is Toyota, averaging about $40.00 an hour. Small wonder since they are not located in Detroit and don't allow the UAW to dictate to them.
6. Like the French, UAW workers get SEVEN WEEKS OF VACATION if they have tenure (there's THAT word again) of 15 years or more.
7. If their factory goes under, the UAW's contracts state that the workers are transferred to a JOBS bank where they are paid nearly full wages to not work and can sit there forever, doing crosswords, sleeping, etc, all while getting paid. Sweet deal.
The Gunny would like to lecture the Congcritters on elementary economics that state that the advantage of production will ALWAYS flow to more efficient competitors and those who operate LESS efficiently, will go under. That is how capitalism works but liberals want socialism, which rewards failure, and this is exactly what has been happening.
So what's the point? Just this, FDR did not want to bail out the following:
1. The Pierce-Arrow. FDR's own limousine was a Pierce-Arrow, as was Wilson's and J. Edgar Hoover's. The company failed to downsize, thinking the Depression was temporary (and it would of been except for FDR) and they could not compete. They were sold at auction in 1938.
2. The REO. Ransom Eli Olds' company lost its competitive edge through mismanagement (by Old mainly), and lost it all when they went bankrupt in 1935.
3. The Stutz Bearcat. They also could not compete and despite cost-cutting measures, went bankrupt in 1935.
4. The Duesenberg. They made a great car but had a poor management team. They could not compete and went bankrupt in 1937.
So here we are. The bottom line is that the bailout that the Democrats in Congress are proposing is NOT to keep the Big Three in business, it's to payoff the UAW who has carried the water for the Democrats since the 1930's. If liberals are SOOOOOOOO concerned about the "workers" where were they in the 1930's when THE ABOVE COMPANIES were going out of business? Why didn't FDR and company bail THEM out? The UAW is asking the US taxpayers to help keep them earning $75 an hour and to keep using taxpayers' money to pay billions of dollars into their newly created health care VEBA! Those benefits are far better that what the government managed Medicare system provides! It's no wonder that the UAW workers dispatched the three stooges to come begging to the Congcritters so that they, the UAW, can preserve that standard of living to which they have become accustomed and a high standard it is. Too bad for them that it is not sustainable in a competitive economy but no worries, we'll pay for it, just like we always do. The plan is that Congress is going to tax Americans so that the UAW workers won't lose their affluent lifestyles.
Bend over, that's unionism for you.