Delphi Proposal to Cut Wages in Half!

Re: Delphi Proposal to Cut Wages in Half! Group: alt.autos.ford Date: Wed, Oct 12, 2005, 2:22pm From: snipped-for-privacy@mailcity.com (Mike=A0Hunter)

Alcoholism has been ruled a disease under the Disability Act by some Federal district courts.

Reply to
Eric Toline
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If there families full time income is less at minimum wage they get their health care at no cost via Medicaid ;)

mike hunt

Reply to
Mike Hunter

Tell that to the federal judges in the Districts that made the rulings. My guess is the Supreme Court will need to weigh in at some point.

mike hunt

Re: Delphi Proposal to Cut Wages in Half!

Group: alt.autos.ford Date: Wed, Oct 12, 2005, 2:22pm From: snipped-for-privacy@mailcity.com (Mike Hunter)

Alcoholism has been ruled a disease under the Disability Act by some Federal district courts.

Reply to
Mike Hunter

Re: Delphi Proposal to Cut Wages in Half!

Group: alt.autos.ford Date: Wed, Oct 12, 2005, 2:22pm From: snipped-for-privacy@mailcity.com (Mike Hunter)

Alcoholism has been ruled a disease under the Disability Act by some Federal district courts.

Reply to
James C. Reeves

MoPar Man wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@Man.com:

By what measure? % of GDP is the one that counts.. but you may be right.

But they ARE living a LOT longer and yes it is more expensive to let them live longer... so euthansia?

More people producing more and buying.more.. a wash..

Uh yeah... because folks demand more services, and environmental needs are far more complicated, sewer rates being excellent example

see above

We could limit birth to one child/family

Are you sure?

That does not necessarily follow... it MAY be in growing expectatioons of lifestyle.

Social services and environemtnal and personal protection

Utter CRAP.

If you look at the costs... even at 1/5 the actual money US actually spent, it would have been FAR better deal to do what Chirac did... make an under the table deal for Iraqi oil.

- in fact, there were rumors and innuendo that the US TRIED that... if the charges could have been proven there would have been hell to pay!

But then Cheney et al would be facing charges for that instead of the French and Russian guys.

You really need to read between the lines of the news instead of swallowing kool-aid wholesale.

The REAL news is right here on Pravda...

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Note that the Euro's keep saying their economy problems are due to population stagnation... yet they are running 12 % unemployment.

What's our unemployment?

What's the difference? Yep... social services and govt red tape.

the Delphi news isnt good, but we've been through that sort of thing before.

Go peddle your sky-is-falling crap somewhere else!

Reply to
Backyard Mechanic

If you can find someplace I suggested doing so, please post a message ID. I'll be over here waiting.

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

Riiiiiiight, unions are all that's preventing massive, wholesale elimination of all jobs.

It's amazing to me how the unionists will wave their little flags and chant their vacuous little slogans as long as it's the union bosses who call the shots. Let it be the government instead, and these same sloganeers start bitching and whining about socialism.

Reply to
Daniel J. Stern

The problem with health insurance these days in the US is that people basically want to use it to pay for everything.

I personally am in the "struck it rich" category, as about 10 years ago I was under one of those red-carpet HMO's of the time and got cancer - I'm cured now but the total bill for me was in the $100,000+ range. All but about $3K of it paid by insurance. But you see, this is what health insurance was originally designed to cover, and what it -should- cover.

The problem today is people want health insurance to cover things like checkups, and outpatient medical procedures in the under-$5000/year range. But how does an insurance company pay the rare $100,000+ claims like mine when every last one of it's customers who is paying about $10K a year in health insurance premiums is pulling about $5K a year out of the health plan in benefits for piddly shit? (and a lot of them are pulling more like $7K -$8K)

And it's really a vicious circle now because even the people who are willing to pay for the piddly-shit themselves can't do it - because the doctors offices play billing games, they know the insurance company only pays out 30% of a given procedure so they inflate the cost of a $20 procedure to $80, then the insurance company knocks it back down to $30 and the doctor makes a $10 profit. A person who doesen't want to have their insurance cover the cost doesen't have the option of just giving the doctor $30 because they aren't in a plan. They have to give them the $80, so there's no incentive now to step outside of the sytem.

Ted

Reply to
Ted Mittelstaedt

Only because, as I said, people in the US aren't used to it. At least right now.

During the Civil War I think it was Petersburg, was shelled so heavily under seige and for so long that people ended up paying no attention anymore to the shelling. They would duck around a corner if they heard a shell coming but otherwise completely ignored them and went about their business unaffected.

The same thing happened in Ireland and I observed the same thing in London when my wife and I went there on our honeymoon about 10 years ago. At the time there had been a number of terror bomb attacks in the underground, and literally if you left a bag sitting on the ground unattended for more and

5 minutes, a bobby would run up and grab it and run off with it. There were signs plastered all over the place regarding this. But the inhabitants completely ignored the fact that they could be blown up without warning and went about their business.

People grow accustomed to anything, even the unexpected.

911 only made history because it was the first time a major office building in the US was dropped with airplanes. But for the last 30 years the security inspection in US airports was a standing joke. Everybody said that it was inadequate and we all were waiting for something like this to happen, but we wern't really believing someone would actually do it.

It's like leaving your car unlocked on the street in front of your house. The first time you do it you are scared to death someone will steal the car. Then each time you do it you believe less and less that someone will steal it. Finally a year later it happens and your furious. Well, stupid you. Stupid us Americans for letting the airplane inspection get so lax. But it's easier to blame the terrorists and make war on them then to get mad at ourselves for being so stupid as to allow the inspections to be lax.

Anyway, the vast majority of terror attacks are not grand spectacular ones like 911. They are the low-grade car bombs and such like in Iraq today. People get used to them and then they become ineffective as instruments in affecting policy.

You assume a lot when you assume 911 had a lasting effect on the country. We are too close to 911 now. They haven't even rebuilt the twin towers. You wait 20 years after the attack when the WTC site is all rebuilt, and the

911 attack is old history, and tell me then what 'lasting effect' that 911 has had.

If you really want to look at something that has had a lasting effect on US society, look at the television. TV has had much more lasting effect.

Ted

Reply to
Ted Mittelstaedt

Bullshit. The cost of living, food shelter clothing, is fixed for everyone in the US. Nobody puts a gun to your head and tells you that you must buy that Rolls Royce rather than that Chevy for your car. Or that you must drink that fine wine instead of tapwater. The rich at the top can live on the same things that the rest of us live on.

Because of this, the middle class has little disposable income, the rich have lots. Thus the rich owe far more to the society that gave them tons of disposable income that they can use to buy that fine wine and that Rolls with, than the poor do. So, no more of this "pay more than their fair share" poppycock out of your hole.

In the early part of this country, the rich like the Carnagies, the Rockafellers, the Mellons, the Gettys, they all understood this. While they didn't pay a higher tax rate at the time they gave far more back to the society in the form of endowments and charity payments than the middle class and poor did.

Unfortunately so much of the new rich these days are greedy and grasping and have the disgusting me me me me me me attitude like you do. That is why we had to adjust the tax rates so as to make them pay more taxes. Left to themselves they would not lift a finger to help their neighbors.

Ted

Reply to
Ted Mittelstaedt

It ain't sky is falling crap. The resources of the Earth are finite. Raw materials are finite. This is what Entropy is all about.

Every time we manufacture another car we lose a bit of the steel that goes into it, due to corrosion over the life of the car. So even if we have 100% and perfect reclamation of all cars, we still need tons of new steel every year to keep the cycle going. That steel comes from a mine, and each year that mine is dug deeper, until the vein is played out. Then the process repeats with another mine.

One day far in the future all those mines will be played out. We will still have all the steel we ever dug up - but now it will be in the form of itty-bitty bits of rust scattered all over the face of the Earth.

Well, we could reclaim that, probably by distilling large quantities of seawater. But the process is ten times more expensive than just digging up the ore.

And this problem affects -every single- mineral on the Earth that we use as raw material. Every time we suck an oil well dry, or dig out a vein of ore in a mine, or whatever else, we make it more and more expensive to get the same thing again.

Thus it is a given that it is impossible to support a continually increasing human population. It may also be impossible to forever support a technological population.

Remember the Earth supported a hunter-gatherer population of humans for something like 12 million years. It's quite obvious that that model of living is sustainable. However the Earth has supported a technological population of humans for something like 200 years. It's nowhere near obvious that this living model is at all sustainable.

Ted

Reply to
Ted Mittelstaedt

Yes because there's a bunch of laws that the federal government has regulating the content of US work in cars. That's the only reason that Toyota is here assembling cars in the first place. If they had their wishes they would never have come here.

Ted

Reply to
Ted Mittelstaedt

No, not for electronics.

Has little to do with that.

With electtronics the move is to integrate everything on a single chip or a set of a few chips simply because what the devices are expected to do nowadays is so complex that it's impossible to design it in discrete components that would have any reliability. Take an ordinary DSL modem, that is a device that has as much computing power as a 15 year old Cray supercomputer.

And when you tie most of it up in a single chip, you cannot repair that chip if it breaks..

Ted

Reply to
Ted Mittelstaedt

I don't agree with pay cuts, for any workers, Delphi or not. I have never agreed with the idea of pay cuts.

But I do understand that some people are clearly overpaid.

This isn't the fault of the worker, however. Workers must be assumed to try to get as much money as they can, whatever the circumstances. Management must be assumed to pay out as little as possible, whatever the circumstances.

If in a given business like Delphi, the workers happen to be overpaid, this is not a worker problem. It's Management being stupid by giving away too much at the negotiating table and letting the salaries go to high.

If a businesses conditions change and they find their line of work to be less profitable than before, thus making it more difficult to continue to pay at the same rate of pay as before, then their management must find other more profitable lines of work. This is what diversification is all about. That is why management is running the company, not the workers. If management does not do that then they have failed and the usual result is bankruptcy and shutting down the company. This is a management failure, not a worker failure. Nobody is holding a gun to any of Delphi's managers and telling them they cannot quit their jobs anytime. Those managers are staying there because they are claiming they are competent to run the company. If they are not competent, than they are liars. If their company fails it is better for the economy because then it will be replaced by another company that does have competent managers.

All of this is Business 101 and I think it surprising that these concepts are so difficult to understand.

Ted

Reply to
Ted Mittelstaedt

"Ted Mittelstaedt" wrote

Which has been said, relying on best data and methods available, for over one hundred years...

  1. The higher the standard of living, the lower the birth rate - thus population increase slows
  2. Assuming we NEED all that steel... not at all evident, MEANTIME..
  3. Check the amount of shale oil, check oil reserves untouched, check use of oil vs synthetic from other sources - most renewable.

The fallacy is that most doomsayers choose to decry the techno-society for depletion of resources yet in that techo-society lies the hope, not to mention the proven benefit to quality of life.

Yes, EVERYONE has a part in that... even the tree huggers. Raising the issues, however false their conclusion spurs innovation. Going overboard, however, in artificial restraint of use or development certainly isnt the answer.

As to your hunter-gatherer population being 'sustainable'... that part isnt even well thought out. It is the LEAST sustainable of all the models!

Reply to
Backyard Mechanic

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: "With electtronics the move is to integrate everything on a single chip or a set of a few chips simply because what the devices are expected to do nowadays is so complex that it's impossible to design it in discrete components that would have any reliability. Take an ordinary DSL modem, that isa device that has as much computing power as a 15 year old Cray supercomputer. And when you tie most of it up in a single chip, you cannot repair that chip if it breaks.."

I agree with having to repair the chip but you van just replace one chip instead of throwing the whole thing in the garbage and buying another. This would reduce the demand on such things as plastic and resins used in making theses device. So why not repair? Because the manufacture makes more money selling you a whole new one then they do selling you just a chip. This has made us a disposable society.

I have worked in both resin unit, a polypropylene catalyst production unit and now an ethylene unit all within on manufacturing plant in the last 15 years. I have seen how much production has had to increase to keep up with demands. The only slow down came in the late 80's and early 90's but it is back up. When I started in the job in the resins unit, we made a 5 million pounds of a resin used in coating computer circuitry boards. This run would take about a month. When I transferred to the catalyst production unit, the resin unit was making 25 millions pounds per year along with increases in the 80 plus other resins they made. The increase in production was due the request of current customers orders and new customers they acquired. I seen the same thing happen in both the catalyst and ethylene units.

We are a disposable society, we need to put more demand on the three "R's". Recycle, Reduce, Reuse

Sarge

Reply to
Sarge

On 10/14/05 11:03 am Sarge tossed the following ingredients into the ever-growing pot of cybersoup:

But when a replacement part is expensive compared to the price of the whole device, and when you have to pay for a minimum of an hour's labor at, say, $70/hr. (auto repairs in NY were $90/hr. two years ago), and you can buy a new and improved model for $150 (built on an automated assembly line in Asia supervised by $2/hr. workers) with a factory warranty, why spend $100 fixing the old one?

Perce

Reply to
Percival P. Cassidy

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: "Bullshit. The cost of living, food shelter clothing, is fixed for everyone in the US. Nobody puts a gun to your head and tells you that you must buy that Rolls Royce rather than that Chevy for your car. Or that you must drink that fine wine instead of tapwater. The rich at the top can live on the same things that the rest of us live on. Because of this, the middle class has little disposable income, the rich have lots. Thus the rich owe far more to the society that gave them tons of disposable income that they can use to buy that fine wine and that Rolls with, than the poor do. So, no more of this "pay more than their fair share" poppycock out of your hole. In the early part of this country, the rich like the Carnagies, the Rockafellers, the Mellons, the Gettys, they all understood this. While they didn't pay a higher tax rate at the time they gave far more back to the society in the form of endowments and charity payments than the middle class and poor did. Unfortunately so much of the new rich these days are greedy and grasping and have the disgusting me me me me me me attitude like you do. That is why we had to adjust the tax rates so as to make them pay more taxes. Left to themselves they would not lift a finger to help their neighbors."

You need to go back to school and learn economics. We pay income tax on our income and not what we spend. The rich pay taxes in a higher tax bracket then the middle class and even higher then the poor. Some poor don't pay any taxes or very little that the government gives them money back in the Earned Income Credit.

Yes, the rich buy more expensive toys and luxuries of life but what your are saying is that we should not allow them to use their income on theses things those lowering the sales tax they pay on theses items. If knowing is allow to buy them then these jobs would be lost and then they would have to go to work in places making the Chevy type products you suggest they spend their money on. Many of the rich do give money away each year. They do that because they need to lower their taxes. Then there are some that make tons of money in tax free investments and give very little back to society since they don't have to pay taxes they don't need the tax break. They invest in tax free municipal bonds.

Look up the richest 400 in America are and you will see that just about all of them give money to different causes. Even though some only gave 1%, they still gave more then most of us as a whole and they still paid more taxes them most of us. I have more of a problem with them donating their money to foundations that then have tax free status and take in millions of dollars in donations and then only give out a small percentage of the donations back as grants. To me to get a tax free status they need to have at least 60 to

70 percent of their assets distributed each year. The rest could be used for running the charity.

Sarge

Reply to
Sarge

What's depressing about "Pictures of Matchstick Men"?

Reply to
Hairy

When I retired I did not applied for SS since I have more than enough income. When I turned 65 my heath insurance provider sent me a letter informing me I could no long keep my coverage because I had not signed up for Medicare. I seems they do not have a policy available for those over 65 who are not on Medicare and pay for part 'B.' I had to sign up in order to get the catastrophic coverage I wanted. The policy I have picks up the balance of what ever uninsured amount that is over $15,000 annually. The cost is relatively inexpensive with that amount of the deductible. Talk to your agent.

mike hunt

Reply to
Mike Hunter

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