Delphi Proposal to Cut Wages in Half!

Once again what you seem to believe to be true, is not The plant which you reference is the exception.. The reason is the GM/UAW contract requires US parts content to be at least 75%. All of Toyotas other plants are operated far differently. In case you haven't noticed Toyota has decreased the amount of US parts used in the Camry, and others merely assembled in the US, to below 40%. The first number of the VIN is no longer a '4,' it is now a '5,' and Toyota has changed its advertising to include the statement 'assembled in the US of world sourced parts.' ;)

mike hunt

Comparing US and Euro unemployment figures is totally meaningless. The Euro numbers reflect the number of people actually unemployed, while the US numbers only count those still actively seeking employment. Those who have given up are not counted, so the actual US vs. Euro unemployment is much closer than the official number indicate.

Sure get the "real facts" by going to some union web site. Maybe we can learn about good investment opportunities in Las Vegas too. At least the UAW showed that maybe they do have some braincells working this week though.

As I said before you are entitled to you personal opinion but a search of the IRS site will prove you opion to be wrong. GM pays millions in federal corporate income taxes annually, and has for as far back as you chose to search. Ford several years ago did not pay federal taxes during one year,

2000 if I recall, because they had a loss. Union wages and benefits, in the auto industry, far exceed those of any non union plant period. ;)

mike hunt

What would happen if we closed our markets to imports, and required U.S. companies to keep jobs here? I am sure that other countries would do the same to us, so that we would not be able to export, unless those other countries could not buy the goods they need elsewhere. Any thoughts or ideas on this?

-Kirk Matheson

snipped-for-privacy@sisna.com wrote: "What would happen if we closed our markets to imports, and required U.S. companies to keep jobs here? I am sure that other countries would do the same to us, so that we would not be able to export, unless those other countries could not buy the goods they need elsewhere. Any thoughts or ideas on this?"

You would have a global war everyone else against the US. The US has enough resources that it could stand alone for a while but other countries require our resources.

Sarge

...and they'd be welcome to buy our resources. What makes you think otherwise?

Sure, that will not, and can not, happen under current trade laws.

mike hunt

May I interject an alternative view? As I recall Rockefeller had to be dragged down before he went on his charitable donations and led the way, I do believe. And the person who dragged him down was Ida Tarbell, a journalist of the first rank who went after him. He, Rockefeller appreciated this, because I do believe it helped his health. He had been quite ill. When he decided to just not get it all but give it away, his health improved.

About giving back to society has me perplexed? How can the poor give anything back to society, for the most part? And the middle class? Well, this has been changing. But many people have to be coaxed and exposed before they decide that it's embarrassing that their particular group is not giving anything back to society. Some newspaper exposure does wonders!

The problem is that it's gotten too complex for a simple answer like this.

Consider a real simple example, manufacture of electrical circuit breaker panels (not the breakers, the panels that they mount into)

The businesses involved in the supply chain here are as follows:

1) Mining operations that dig the iron ore out of the ground and process it into pig iron

2) Steel mills that take the raw iron and produce sheet steel

3) The panel manufacturer that takes the sheet steel and cuts and bends it into the box

The well meaning government decides there's too much cheap sheet steel coming in and it's damaging the domestic steelmakers. So they raise tariffs on foreign steel

The panel manufacturers were buying cheap foreign steel to make panels here. Now they can't so they have to raise prices, and then become uncompetitive. Now the foreign panelbox manufacturers can undercut them and flood the market.

So the upshot is you have helped out one domestic industry but in so doing you have harmed many other domestic industries. The effect is you simply shift job loss from one industry to another.

The key in all of this is getting the consumer to buy in. If you can convince the consumers to insist on domestic suppliers, they will put pressure on those suppliers to also buy domestic, who put pressure on their suppliers to also buy domestic, and so on right up the supply chain. Unfortunately this is not a concept that has been trained into the American public since grade school, which is why there is so incredibly much low-quality junk sold in the US, since people buy so much on price only.

We ARE starting to see these attitudes change in certain markets - particularly food. People in the US are beginning to push their local grocery stores to buy from local farmers and suppliers, for example.

But, so many industries have been foreign-dominated for so long that now theres no domestic suppliers left. For example the manufacture of TV sets. Even people willing to pay more for a domestically produced TV simply cannot do it.

Unfortunately the genberal public in the US seems to be unable to retain much for very long. Every time the US goes through an economic slump, people start getting a clue about "Buy American" and we see interest in this, along with various advertising campaigns about it. But as soon as the economy starts to recover, people lose interest and are right back to ignoring everything on the product except for price.

The American consumer must lean from the Japanese once again, as the American manufacture have learn that quality counts. Japanese consumers have consistently been more incline to buy those products made in the own country rather than product made in other courtiers. They understand it is far more important to support ones own economy than that of foreign countries. Unfortunately many Americans are confused about from whom they are buying.. Toyota for instance gives the impression that many of the vehicles it sells in the US are made in the US. The fact is the majority of their vehicles are imported and those that are assembled in the US are assemble primarily of cheaper imported parts. Honda does a much better job of actually building in the US on mostly US parts. In the case of both however the profits still leave the country federal corporate tax free.

mike hunt

Actually what is far worse than the profits leaving tax free is the fact that only the lower-level people get a salary from them.

It probably is unfair to say but if you look at new manufacturing business starts in the US, and I'm talking non-retail, and non-service, your going to find most of them beng done by folks who worked in the corporate boardrooms for 20+ years making six figure salaries. Those are the employers we want to have in the country. We need new retail business starts like a hole in the head - all they do is push the few surviving ma-and-pa retailers out of business and put in giant multiplexes that employ a bunch of high school students at minimum wage.

When companies like Toyota and Honda come in, the six figure executive positions are reserved for the motherships in their homeland. Additionally, particularly with the Japanese, they dislike making infrastructure investments in the US, the first choice of suppliers is Japanese firms, they nickel-and-dime everything they build here. There are not a huge number of spinoff firms coming out of Honda and Toyota investments here in the US. Contrast that to General Motors and all of it's spawn.

While an economy filled with workers making $70K a year would probably be a fairly pleasant thing, it's not going to be able to produce many new business starts that are worth sneezing at. While a lot of people decry the rich/poor gap, the fact that we have a good number of people making half a million bucks a year, after taxes, running around in the country does provide a fairly fertile ground for new busines starts. And that is one of the things that keeps the US going, since there's always going to be business failures every year and unless your replacing these with new business starts, you end up with all business becoming giant monopolies and everyone working for big wasteful conglomerates.

Ted