tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2882908810289419378.post1348522247403420366..comments2023-10-29T08:39:38.306-07:00Comments on Purple People Vote: Trouble for the Auto Industry Bailoutkmorrisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03347537654817446050noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2882908810289419378.post-72678737005980876872008-12-12T10:41:00.000-08:002008-12-12T10:41:00.000-08:00Hi Joe,My complaint is that no one is saying how t...Hi Joe,<BR/><BR/>My complaint is that no one is saying how this bailout will work. At its simplest these companies need to be taking in more than they are expending and clearly they aren't doing that right now. If the Dems don't want the unions touched then come up with plan that will show how to turn the companies around, and they yet to do that.<BR/><BR/>I'll have to give you a more detailed response later; we had a huge ice storm in NH and I'm running behind.kmorrisonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09902467449040313159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2882908810289419378.post-18634642372188275532008-12-12T07:13:00.000-08:002008-12-12T07:13:00.000-08:00KM, this is Joe from Boston.-------Worth the readL...KM, this is Joe from Boston.<BR/><BR/>-------<BR/><A HREF="http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=1026e955-541c-4aa6-bcf2-56dfc3323682" REL="nofollow">Worth the read</A><BR/><BR/>Let's start with the fact that it's not $70 per hour in wages. According to Kristin Dziczek of the Center for Automative Research--who was my primary source for the figures you are about to read--<B>average wages for workers at Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors were just $28 per hour as of 2007. That works out to a little less than $60,000 a year in gross income</B>--hardly outrageous, particularly when you consider the physical demands of automobile assembly work and the skills most workers must acquire over the course of their careers.<BR/><BR/>More important, and contrary to what you may have heard, the wages aren't that much bigger than what Honda, Toyota, and other foreign manufacturers pay employees in their U.S. factories. While we can't be sure precisely how much those workers make, because the companies don't make the information public, <B>the best estimates suggests the corresponding 2007 figure for these "transplants"--as the foreign-owned factories are known--was somewhere between $20 and $26 per hour, and most likely around $24 or $25. That would put average worker's annual salary at $52,000 a year</B>.<BR/>But then what's the source of that $70 hourly figure? It didn't come out of thin air. Analysts came up with it by including the cost of all employer-provided benefits--namely, health insurance and pensions--and then dividing by the number of workers. The result, they found, was that benefits for Big Three cost about $42 per hour, per employee. Add that to the wages--again, $28 per hour--and you get the $70 figure. Voila.<BR/>Except ... notice something weird about this calculation? <B>It's not as if each active worker is getting health benefits and pensions worth $42 per hour</B>. That would come to nearly twice his or her wages. (Talk about gold-plated coverage!) Instead, <B>each active worker is getting benefits equal only to a fraction of that--probably around $10 per hour</B>, according to estimates from the International Motor Vehicle Program. <B>The number only gets to $70 an hour if <I>you include the cost of benefits for retirees--in other words, the cost of benefits for other people</I></B>. One of the few people to grasp this was Portfolio.com's Felix Salmon. As he noted yesterday, the claim that workers are getting $70 an hour in compensation is just "not true."<BR/>----------------<BR/><BR/>The GOP blocked this bill for one reason and one reason only… to bust the Unions.<BR/><BR/>Proof? Demanding that the UAW drop their pay to that of non-union workers is beyond stupid and is blatantly trying to bust the union. What would be the point of being in a union at that point if you say sure… pay me what non-union workers make.<BR/>If you read the article above, the difference in actual pay is only about $4 or $5 per hour. The GOP makes it sound like the UAW is getting $10+ more dollars per hour and it would be a huge savings. Not really so.<BR/><BR/>Why is $700 billion BAILOUT with NO conditions for the Financial industry accepted, but not a $14 billion loan for the auto companies? This wasn’t a bailout it was a lifeline <B>with conditions</B>.<BR/><BR/>Wait until one or more of the big 3 goes down and millions are out of work. You think the number of forclosures are high now? Wait until then. The financial companies will need another $700 billion.<BR/><BR/>So go on righties… rejoice that you blocked the Dems from doing this. Be glad that you are adding to the economic crisis.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com