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They don't own the company - the CEOs do.The government owns GM and CHRYSLER. Whats puzzling is the union's silence. The union owns a piece of the pie, too.
They don't own the company - the CEOs do.
Nope...the stockholders do...the CEO's run things...the government owns some of GM and Chrysler by virtue of the taxpayers money loaned to them...when that's paid back, the companies still have to answer to the stockholders. I wonder how much GM and Chrysler stock is held by the union pension funds?![]()
They don't own the company - the CEOs do.
Any one of you idiots want to guess when all the automotive plants moved to Mexico?
Lets see 26 dollars a day. 55 dollars an hour. That's per employee.
Don't you just love unions? They had a reason when they started but shortly became what they were began to fix.
So How is this Obama's and the democrats fault again?
Since when did BIG business ever pay any attention to politics ?
If you can get a part made cheaper or better (or even both by going to a cheap labour area, you're gonna do it.[/QUOTE]
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Not to pick on you, Handley Page, but your statement is indicative of a malady affecting many.
Labor Union Wages are just part of the reason that industry seeks a more favorable business environment. The US has one of the highest Corporate taxrates in the world. The restrictions and regulations are so tedious and expensive to follow and the environmental approval so expensive and long termed that industry simply cannot compete on the world market.
The free market is also a moral barometer of individual freedom. Where there is high taxation and government imposed operating procedures, as in all totalitarian governments, the free market moves elsewhere, if it can.
Although the Brits and other Euro's hate to admit it, when Europe began to tend to the left, towards more central, Statist control of business and industry, an amazing 'brain drain' took place as the wise ones migrated to the United States until they were forbidden to do so or had their bank accounts seized by government.
The function of a free, competitive market place is to produce the best product and the lowest possible price to the consumer.
Anything else, and there are hundreds of examples, simply does not work. Take for instance, Handley, your country where high taxes on Petrol, gasoline, for your purposely made small cars, have limited the ability of the common man to afford and operate a motor car. Also note the building restrictions, which I posed to Oggbashan some years back, housing controls force many young couple to wait years for a 'flat' of their own.
When government determines the course of business, it is the people, the individual, that suffers. Take that as a mathematical equation, and as fact, for it is inevitable.
Oil and gasoline prices in the US could be reduced by half, overnight, if fuel taxes were eliminated and restrictions removed from energy companies.
Of course, those high taxes and restrictions are always for the greater good, right?
Amicus
Why is it that no one talks about the multi milliondollar salary that Wagoner and his cronies got while GM's gas guzzling cars were not selling?Any one of you idiots want to guess when all the automotive plants moved to Mexico?
Lets see 26 dollars a day. 55 dollars an hour. That's per employee.
Don't you just love unions? They had a reason when they started but shortly became what they were began to fix.
So How is this Obama's and the democrats fault again?
No. I am 100% right.Youre crazier than a shithouse rat.
The free market is also a moral barometer of individual freedom. Where there is high taxation and government imposed operating procedures, as in all totalitarian governments, the free market moves elsewhere, if it can.
Ami, if you're saying that the US government is a totalitarian government, perhaps you should rethink your definition of "totalitarian".
When government determines the course of business, it is the people, the individual, that suffers. Take that as a mathematical equation, and as fact, for it is inevitable.
Governments, elected by the people in places like the US, put laws and restrictions in place to protect the people and the environment from the results of undisciplined business and corporations. (Think Love Canal, BP (okay, that one didn't work), Enron, sub-prime mortgage meltdown (another oops), flames on the Hudson River, ocean dead zones, acid rain, coal mine disasters.....)
Companies, corporations, especially the energy companies, love to advertise how much they are doing to protect the environment. (We burn Clean Coal!!!....) when it's those companies that have fucked the environment in the first place.
...health, safety, security and the environment – fundamental rules and guidance to help us protect the natural environment, the safety of the communities in which we operate, and the health, safety and security of our people
Thats from BP's posted code of conduct....
http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9003494&contentId=7006600
An Associated Press article shoots holes in that......
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...Y_PLANS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
BP's plan to contain any spill, even the "worst case scenario", which is pretty much what they're dealing with right now, was nothing but a tissue of lies.
BP asserts that the combined response could skim, suck up or otherwise remove 20 million gallons of oil each day from the water. But that is about how much has leaked in the past six weeks - and the slick now covers about 3,300 square miles, according to Hans Graber, director of the University of Miami's satellite sensing facility. Only a small fraction of the spill has been successfully skimmed. Plus, an undetermined portion has sunk to the bottom of the Gulf or is suspended somewhere in between.
I'd say that the problem isn't that government interferes with the oil industry, but that it wasn't interfering enough. The US Minerals Management Service was in bed with the oil industry, not properly overseeing and regulating it. This epic oil spill was the result of human error at the drilling site and a hopelessly inadequate ability on the part of BP to respond to it. BP figured the well was taking too long to be completed and capped (costing a fee extra bucks), so they rushed things, fucked up and didn't have their promised ability to deal with it.
So much for the benefits of unbridled free enterprise. I've read that BP made about 26 billion last year. This is what happens when they wanted to save a few hundred grand at the drill site. To BP, that's coffee money. Considering what the top execs at BP make, I wonder how many hours of their combined salaries and bonuses it would take to make a few hundred grand.
From data released from the ship recovering oil and gas from the top cap and multiplied by 51 days, 122 million gallons of oil were spilled along with 6 billion standard cubic feet of natural gas.
As of the time of the blowout, BP was already 24 million over the budget for the job. Rig cost alone for the well being drilled was over 120 million dollars.
If you want to make a small fortune in the oil business, start with a large one.
Fuel to the fire.![]()
No. I am 100% right.
Why did GM go under? Because their cars were not selling. FACT.
Why were GM's cars not selling? Because people were buying MORE EXPENSIVE, fuel-efficient Japanese cars. FACT.
Who was responsible for GM building gas guzzling cars that no one wanted to buy? GM upper management. FACT.
Now, I challenge you, show us where any of the above facts are wrong. If you can't, you are an idiot for claiming that I am crazy.
And this, folks, is how I totally trounce LITTLEJOHNSON and make him shut the fuck up.
You, sir, are factually in error. The profit was missing because their cars were not selling.Your mind is apparently uncluttered by fact. GM's sales numbers while not spectacular were about as expected; what was missing is profit.
You, sir, are factually in error. There was no profit because their cars were not selling. GM sales were in the pits.There was no profit because labor costs had simply overrun the balance sheet.
As I said, sir, GM's problems stemmed from sagging auto sales, not Union pay and benefits.Last year’s drop in global auto industry sales was not only keenly felt in the United States, but in other markets as well. General Motors, which had been the largest producer of passenger vehicles in the world for 77 consecutive years, saw that streak end as the Toyota Motor Corporation ended the year with a 616,000 unit edge.
But, Toyota also saw its sales drop (down 4% v. GM’s loss of 11%) and the new number one is expected to post its very first operating loss ever when the company’s fiscal year comes to a close on March 31st.
Globally, GM’s sales were 8.35 million units, a figure that is well below its all time high of 9.5 million cars sold annually as recently as two years ago. Chevrolet still manages to sell almost as many cars year after year than all other GM brands combined and will continue to play a critical role in the automaker’s turnaround over the coming years.
You again, sir, are avoiding the issue of the millions of dollars GM wasted on CEO and upper management salaries while the company was going under.GM had negotiated a Unon Labor contract which insured then and insures now that GM cannot pay the people who supply the money to enable GM to continue to exist.