$65,000 A Year? Bye, U.S. Auto Workers!

Don't you even get anything right? I trade every two years and my cars go mostly to my friends or relatives and are run for many years on average, some to 200K or more.

mike hunt

Worldwide demand has driven up the price of oil. The problem is this. Once the forgein companies built aassembly plants in the US, they were able to deliver cars at the same rate at the American companies.

Competition inproves quality and lowers prices, but the American companies cannot lower prices and make a profit if they have higher labor costs.

The majority, if not all of the forgein manufacturers use less expensive, non-union labor.

US car companies have to cut costs in order to lower prices, in order to move vehicles.

Labor costs make up the majority of any company's costs.

Something has to give.

The guy who installs the brakes and airbags should get twice what a doctor makes.

Don't forget all the legal fees to fight the frivolous lawsuits...

SO, if this is true then should a mechanic make 2 X $65K per year?

If so, I shall go to mechanics school starting tomorrow morning!!!

Priorities:

1. A person with a high school or GED education is worth K per year
2. A doctor with an 8-year college education should only earn 0K per year.

I say #1 is very wrong and #2 is spot on.

Who agrees?

ps. When those brakes and airbag fail you in a wreck, care to guess who it is that is going to save your life? Hint:It isn't an auto worker.

************************************ If you wait by the river long enough your enemies will float by.

Just an observation but the care with which the auto worker installs those airbags/brakes determins which profession handles you after a wreck...a Doctor or an Undertaker...

Not unheard of.

Feel free to ask for recommendations.

Ever hear of Bill Gates?

For some, that would be way overpaid.

Intelligence/worth isn't measured by how long someone stayed in school.

What if he's a volunteer EMT?

You've gotta be joking...

My first car was a '79 T-bird (Heritage edition), with a 5.8l 351w. I agree it had some power, but I would have had to put around 1,000$ in repairs (in

1988) to keep it. Everything would break or jam.

I scrapped it and got myself a '79 Celica GT Coupe (not the hatchback version) for 600$ canadian

It was fat, peppy, I used to lose 'stangs in curves, I might have put around

400$ on it in a year (when I broke the tranny, it cost me 300$).

Fixing the import was easy, fast and cheap. (doing front brakes on it was so easy, it took longer to jack the car up and remove the wheel than replacing the disc and both pads)

(besides, the pads on my Celica were cheaper than those on my domestic Chevette)

Actually, as I think about it, my *best* car, the toughest one was made in France. a Renault 5.

That thing was indestructible. 52HP, not a chick-pick-me-up car, but it got the job done. (lasted even longer than my '84 Chevette)

Doctors think too highly of themselves. They need to come back down to the ground once and awhile. Some are great. Too many others make serious mistakes and take rather than save lives on a regular basis, quietly shuffling over to the next regional hospital once the body bag count gets too high at their current abode.

Same with college professors. Some are damn good, Others are pompous old farts in need need of a serious colon cleaning.

Bottom line:

Where I live , just outside of NYC metro area, $65k is considered average median household income. A small house on a quarter acre lot will cost you no less than $400k with $14k of property taxes. $35K a year will buy you a cardboard box in an alley or a tent in the woods.

People would not need a total compensation package worth $65k a year if the doctors, insurers, lawyers, and korporate Amerika were not so greedy.

See you at wally world.

To live on the equivalent of $30K in most of the Midwest would take about $80K in northern New Jersey and probably double that in Manhattan.

Umm... How do you get 2080 hours in a year "not including holidays and overtime"? Mistakes like this make like this make anything you say suspicious.

Says you, a person who is less than accurate, to say the least.

Define "well over", Mr Facts.

2080 is the normal 40 hour work week per year including vacation time . Over eight and over 40 hours are overtime as well as the overtime premium paid for holidays worked

mike hunt

Dizzy,

I made no mistakes.

40 hours a week times 52 weeks a year equals 2080 hours worked, base pay. Read your check stub to make sure your boss is not ripping you off.

7.65% is any employers FICA contribution foreach employee, just call your payroll department. You should know what your boss takes out of your paycheck,eh?

As far as my "well over" comment, fringe benefits are paid for by your employer, that cost plus the cost of your hourly wages combine to make the total cost the employer pays the employee. Your payroll department and/or your union rep should have explained all of this to you when you began your employment. In the case of the $51,000.00 base hourly wage, these other costs will account for the total cost being over $65,000.00

Frank

Frank, Dizzy has once again demonstrated that his News Group name is well-earned! *lol* Methinks his name was chosen by the group members, based on the quality of his comments!

I am beginning to see that, feel bad to have a battle of wits with an un-armed individual.

mm NO that's NOT my opinion- it's from DIRECT and factual experience from WORKING IN THE FACTORY and with management itself... How are you going to tell me that I don't know that the quality control standards are for a place that I WORK FOR? I saw what went on, on the lines (which I worked also), in multiple departments 12hrs/day 6days/wk

365/days/yr. I was also part of the quality control group that delt with defective parts from numerous production lines etc... I KNOW what I'm talking about. Not to rub it in your face or anything, but come on guy, think before you post something like that. Even the janitors that work in said factories know a much more about what goes on that someone reading over hyped reports in the mass media etc. Try talking with people that see what goes on and over hears management making all kinds of strange and shady deals to cut production costs and increase profits, at the detriment to the buyer. Either way, I no longer give much of a hoot about the whole thing. It's a classic case of what's wrong with this whole ultra-aggressive-pro-capitalism hegemony- selling out the citizens of this country for the almighty dollar. Hrmm I bet that last statement will spark up more noobish rants and tangents... haha good day.

Wait... on second thought... GM, Ford, Chevy etc... they actually can and could make some quality products, but the stigma of "cheap and profitable" patriotic ideologies are holding them back. Ford's GT40 remake (even though it uses a super charger), Chevy's Z06, aren't exactly my fav sports cars, but they are a testament to the quality standards that they COULD impose on lower tier models and and ideology they should start forcing the rest of the world to see: that indeed they CAN and WILL start producing world competitive and possibly leading automotive technologies. It's a matter of shaking off that old iron-worker methodology of lower quality, mismanaged, all-for-profit mass production Vs mass production, higher quality, and Sigma Six management style accountability. blah blah blah blah...

This is true. If the price of gas is still 99 cents a gallon, honda and toyota would be non-existent.

Don't believe that. That's a bunch of lies. They (exxon and all the rest) want more profits.

Do you believe the oil companies can control the prices, outside the market forces, to increase their profits? If they actually could do that the price of gasoline would never go down, it would only ever go up. ;)

mike hunt