Well, why doesn’t the government/fed just buy out the bondholders? It would probably be cheaper than another bailout – and this whole mess is not the UAW’s fault but they are actually the ones paying the price. As usual.

Where I grew up they used to throw dilettante balls…

I can tell you are DFH socialist!! Glen Beck and Jonah Goldberg are gonna poop their pants and it will be all your fault!!

At or for?

what did they use to sever them?

Got that right!

In the linked article I see that the bondholders are demanding that they receive the 50% deal the same as the UAW. My problem with that is that the 50% the UAW ‘got’ was their pensions and healthcare that they negotiated and worked for for years. And the UAW is not a bunch of fat cats – but people who work with their hands.

Bondholders on the other hand…

What is that thingy I always see on the prospectus for offerings? These investments are not guaranteed. You should not invest if you can’t afford to lose this money. or some such.

Screw em I say!

receivership, baby

Just for fun.

Don’t confuse the UAW with the membership of the UAW

Obama’s version of – Heck of a job, Brownie.

Well I play the home version with the neighbors, and we are in it for keeps.

what did they use to sever them?

Typo? Served with a racquet, naturally. Coincidentally, doing so created quite a racket.

Hear hear.

Sounds good. But before the catch, first they gotta be severed, right?

Right you are. Although I am speaking on the totality of the union – and while the leadership are ‘fat cats’ according to some lights, they are not on the same level as the banking fat cats, having for the most part, worked their way off the assembly lines and up through the ranks. Unlike the banking fat cats who have never dirtied their little fingers doing anything useful.

It just seems in this country that people who work with their hands are considered worthless, and in truth they are the ones who create the true wealth of this country.

My 15 for Dr. Bong at 9

Rusty, very dull plastic utensil…..

Well, that made absolutely no sense. Ha!

I take it the auto industry understands it’s being thrown under the bus.

No typo. You can’t really throw dilettente balls while they’re still attached to the dilettentes.

I was just reading that part. Generous aren’t they.

Just the American Auto Industry.

I beg to differ, it simply requires a stronger grip.

I will leave that to you two.

At the risk of escalating an already dangerous topic line…
try this instead.

That would likely lift AND separate.

If you can fling a cow and a piano…

Just out of curiosity, was the cow’s playing really that bad..?

who are the bond holders?

you get moosic in the air.

Not to mention cow-sick.

If GM goes under, could we call it Throwing the bus under the bus?

“I understand the cathartic value of performance art…”

well no. unlike Rattner (I assume this the journo-turned ex Lazard I-banker?) has some skills and a record of achievement… just the wrong skills and the wrong achievements. This guy’s of the same vein as Corsine or all hose other ex-Goldman Sachs golden boys who think they can run states and Federal agencies. At some point, pols will realize that the ability to put together overleveraged M&A deals that should never have been done in the first place is simply not a transferable skill.

I meant unlike Brownie

Laughed so hard that I go longer require cathartic.

Designers, engineers, material suppliers, pasts mfgs, shippers. warehouses, factories and workers, car haulers, dealers salesmaen, repair, autobody.insurance industry, finance, sales and a host of after market and publishing industry is already in limbo. A big disaster about to happen.

Any bailout deal ought to include universal single-payer bicycles, nothing fancy, and with lifetime warranties and replacement (like Zippos).

I’ve read several articles that refer to some large ‘institutional’ bondholders, 10 of which have joined together and hired representation. Have not been able to find an actual list of who’s who. GM is a public company – and there are stocks and bonds as a part of that ‘public’ financing.

Together they hold about $26.3B of GM debt and the fed has told GM it has to get that number cut by 2/3 by Monday or they have to give back the $14B loan they got back in December.

It’s a no-win for GM no matter how you look at it. They can give the bondholders all the money – in which case then are back to square zero. The fact that this reduction is a condition of the bailout loan means the bondholders are holding most of the cards.

The bailout was supposed to save jobs but this pressure means they are slashing even more – not what the bailout loan was supposed to accomplish.

I believed back in December that Bushco had set these conditions up at the time to ensure a failure for GM. Ford managed not to take the bait. And Chrysler doesn’t have the debt. SO, I expect that GM will go down. Taking all their suppliers with them. And the suppliers also supply Ford, Chrysler, and yes Toyota and Honda and all the others as well.

New unemployment numbers for the month of February. 1.5 million. Jes’ sayin’.

Yeah, the bus, and the _______ fill in the blank of everything that GM makes. Not just cars.

Digg it!

Unions are, I submit, an unfortunate necessity. Talent should be rewarded and competition in the workplace should be the catalyst. Turning a wrench or installing a windshield, while necessary to complete the construction of a vehicle, are not “indispensible” jobs. Pretty much any able bodied person could handle that. My view on unions in general is that they add a layer of expense to the company that in most cases, isn’t necessary. Give that extra money to the workers so they can afford health care and other things.

McDonalds? What’s next… Fry cook labor union?

I’m pretty liberal on most matters, but unions for … I don’t get.

Somebody educate me.

Thanks

;~P

I don’t think we need anybody from the New York Social Diary (whatever that is) in a job like this.

How about someone who has actually built cars?

thers upstairs

Brownie had his non-transferrable Arabian horse skill set. The Saudi Royal Family likes fancy horses and the Bush Family. Ergo, Brownie the FEMA Director.

Rattner, a former newspaper reporter, knows how to raise money and how to get his (Democratic Party Chairperson) wife’s (twice over the legal limit) DWI scrubbed from the internet tubes. Ergo, Car Tsar.

To many Bong hits evidently…Unions are a skilled trained work force that get the job done for a living wage…at least the UAW. It is hard repetitive work. USA productivity has only grown. if you have done facotry work the conditions are nit like the exec suites. Get a grip.

The bonds outstanding at 9/30/08 totaled $36.05bn. We can pay the difference between that and the 50%, but it would only be fair to pay the same to the benefit of UAW members.

the 40 hour work week. safe working conditions. paid sick time. over time pay. not having to have sex with the boss (ok, that goes under safe working conditions).

bottom line in a world with a surplus of labor, without organizing, most of us would be working in a sweat shop if we were working at all.

but hey – think of all the added expenses that could be saved!

Bong gets the Gong!

Dr Bong – the reason that workers actually have company paid/partly paid health care in any industry at all is because of union bargaining. If that had not happened – this country would not have company provided health care at all.

Workplace safety is another thing that unions have worked very hard to insure. OSHA is a result of union organizing. The 40-hour work-week is another. Child labor laws another.

Wages that are paid to skilled workers are a result of union organizing. And even if you don’t have a union in your plant, chances are your competition does – and that’s why your salary and benefits are what they are. Toyota and Honda pay about the same wages and provide almost the exact same benefits package as the UAW gets – because they don’t want a union. But the workers in those plants are getting the benefit of union organizing and bargaining anyway.

Most of the gains in the ‘creation’ of the middle class during the 1940-1960s were as a result of unions. After Reagan’s union-busting activities and the right-to-work laws passed in most southern states, unions fell into disfavor, and along with a lot of laws and non-enforcement of previous laws, union-busting and threats and intimidation against unions succeeded in eroding a lot of worker protections and yes, salaries and benefits as well.

Unions do not ‘cost’ employers anything (your ‘extra layer of expense’) Other than having to provide safe working conditions, and decent wages and benefits. Which in a lot of cases, they already do because of fear of unions. The members pay dues to the union. The company does not have to pay anything.

The cost of a union is that the management has to listen to the union and bargain with them about wages and benefits. In this current climate (not the meltdown) companies seem to think that the way to profitability is to slash salaries and benefits, slash jobs, and outsource everything. Then they find out that they are in the hole and their answer (stupidly) is to do more of that.

It has been shown that union shops are very productive, the workers are happier, less ’sick’ time, and lower turnover – all of which actually saves the company money over the long term. Of course, we all know that companies don’t work in the long term any more. One quarterly report at a time.

Be nice… I’ve always been a office puke.

Right you are. However, I would prefer the bondholders to be told to suck it up. Hang on to your bonds and hope that everything works out okay.

After all, if you read the prospectus – that’s what it basically says. You are holding unsecured debt. And if GM goes bankrupt you will get nothing.

SO what are you doing? You’d be better off leaving well enough alone. Without all this undue pressure, GM just might be able to recover. But with you jerks tightening the noose, not so much.

Not get to feeling too put-upon. The things about union history don’t obviate the fact that UAW contracts grew to be ridiculously bloated. Increases in procuctivity were achieved despite them, not because of them.
But as to unionization in general, it helped greatly.

I think that the guy who is in charge of GM right now should be given a chance. After all, he has only been there a little over a year. That’s really not enough time to turn around a behemouth like GM. (We let all the CEO’s of the bankrupt banks stay on…)

It is absolutely asinine to think that GM is going to be profitable again in three months if the banking/credit thing does not get fixed first. Customers cannot buy cars if they cannot get financing. GM cannot buy parts to build cars (of any kind) if they cannot get financing. GM cannot re-tool their plants for new-generation cars if they cannot get financing.

This industry (like the whole country) runs on credit. That is the reason the entire auto industry is in the dumps right now – including the foreign ones. None of them have a chance if the credit thing doesn’t get resolved – and in the meantime – if the automakers are going to survive – they will need help. The quickest way to solve that is to fix the credit thing – and I have seen nothing that leads me to believe we are any closer to a fix for that now then we were six months ago.

Thanks selsise, bigbrother and especially lokywoky.

The only contention I have is the “extra layer of expense”.

If I have to pay my union dues of 10%, or whatever, of my wages, then my wages need to be 10% more from my employer to make up the difference. Thus, my employer has to pay 10% more… so I feel fully compensated. That’s all I’m saying.

Nite

Yeah – bloated according to who? Are you listening to the anti-union talking points? As usual comparing apples to rocks.

UAW contracts are almost identical to the pay and benefits packages that are being paid to Toyota and Honda workers. The UAW has been taking actual pay CUTS for the last two contract cycles.

Don’t listen to the propaganda. And productivity never happens despite contracts – it happens because the workers are secure, safe, and well-paid.

Union dues for an autoworker average aroun $35 per month – not 10% of wages.

The company doesn’t pay. The workers do.

“… they are the ones who create the true wealth of this country.”

A BIG, huge BINGO!!!! loky

Money does NOT and CANNOT produce wealth. (Money that is actually ‘backed’ by real assets, any other kind is bogus, is merely a measure of wealth.)

Since the dismantlement of our manufacturing ‘base’, we have simply been been living off of our principle. And that is NEVER wise. But, then, wisdom seems in ever diminishing ’supply’ in America, as there is no ‘demand’ (and especially ‘effective demand’) for it. Mindless greed and voodoo economics (’trickle down’ pixie dust) have held sway for too long.

Only the rendering of ‘resources’ into tangible things, creates wealth.

How grim do you imagine things must get before that fundamental truth is acknowledged?

It is going to have to get pretty much more grim IMHO. Because all the MSM and the fat cats do not or cannot see this – the yammering in the public discourse does not acknowledge that the laboring hands have any value at all.

i.e. the first attack at GM was at the unions. Bust the unions. Now B of A is using its bailout money to attack EFCA. Yeah! Way to go!

I think that having Hilda Solis as Labor Secretary goes a way toward a new respect for workers. But she has a huge job ahead of her to rebuild trust in that department and get it working FOR the workers again.

In the meantime, I think workers, union or not, should start boycotting big banks, organize and organize and organize some more – and do our best to get back to living in a cash economy. When the wealth creators use their labor to get cash and then spend it wisely and locally, maybe then the big fat cats will get the message.

Unfortunately, I don’t see this on the horizon. Yet.

oooh, very Mistress of the Universe, pulled over in The Bronx with a DUI!

Workers should also from credit unions, which they control.

Your prescription, loky, is precisely the right and proper ‘medicine’ that the times require.

[It would be helpful if the Political Cla$$ (starting where the proverbial buck ’stops’) actually cared.]

As you say, ‘this’ is rather a ways beyond the visible horizon.

i wish i could discern where you are coming from, jane hamsher.

the board of directors of general motors corp[se] has behaved as if a gangster entity for some years.

with the divestiture of a number of GM assets into their creation, delphi, they announced their criminality.

it is a story that goes undiscussed, in the main, but i would assert that the delphi history reveals all.

let us reflect upon the creation of delphi by the general motors’ board of directors and the spin-off of a number of general motors’ assets into delphi. the objective of this strategy was to force a fraudulent reduction in gm’s average variable cost in automobile production.

now, i recognize that i get censored on this board routinely. for saying things that many purported “progressives”, “democrats”, do not want to hear. i disagree with that policy of censoring “inconvenient truths”, but i shall continue to try to air reality.

the general motors’ strategy for using delphi as a cover for fraudulent average variable cost reductions was first revealed in a wall street journal article[A18, 31/03/2006], entitled SHOWDOWN ON COSTS LOOMS AS DELPHI GOES TO COURT.

in that article, it is revealed that when GM owned the AC spark plug operations in Flint, GM had to accept the average variable cost of manufacturing a spark plug when it accounted for the average variable cost of producing a vehicle. according to the article, that cost to GM was $2.05 per spark plug. BUT, after these operations were spun off into delphi, GM would only pay delphi $1.70 per spark plug. still, the average variable cost to delphi was at least $2.05. so, delphi took a $0.35 loss per spark plug supplied to GM. and GM touted wonderful manufacturing cost reductions to its stockholders, bond holders, et alia.

knowing what i think i know, everything spun-off into delphi by GM was forced to take similar losses. so as to enable rick wagoner to claim afterwards how GM had reduced its manufacturing costs.

now, i am going to say something here that many may not want to hear[grounds for censorship], but at the management level of the uaw, this scam was known.

i regard this delphi spin-off and the below cost selling forced upon it by GM as a financial crime. though criminally unadjudicated, rick wagoner and the board of GM are really de jure financial felons. and the management of the uaw is guilty of misprision of their felonies. because they were aware of that scam. and were silent. are still silent.

as you know, delphi was finally forced into bankruptcy. principally because it couldn’t survive when GM forced it to sell everything to it below the average variable cost.

this scam impoverished all delphi stockholders, bondholders. and thousands of delphi employees. oddly, it is a story that gets no air.

neither from the right. nor from the left.

one might want to delegate someone[s] to investigate the bankruptcy court filings/rulings in the matter of delphi. i think that they are mostly secreted by protective order.

i shall close this way, the AC spark plug operations were secretly returned to the ownership of GM a year ago. they have been sheltered opaquely in an entity that i have identified as delco logistics. god only knows how all this delphi fraudulence has been obscured by the federal bankruptcy court.

i close this way, when the the AC spark plug operations were restored secretly to GM last year, GM had to accommodate an increase of at least a 20.5% increase in spark plug costs per vehicle.

this is a story that the mainstream media will not discuss. will not air. will you?

will some investigative reporter who monitors this board take a run with it?

Lokywoky…wonderful off of the cuff explanation.
DrBong…the opportunity was to much to resist so I indulged in some humor at your expense…nothing personal. Labor has had a struggle to get respect and working conditios/wages. By far most of the labor in this country live under poverty paying over 50% of income for housing and no health care, no retirement or maternity leave.
There is still a huge gap between these folks and the middle class let alone the wealthy. They also enjoy the highest percentage of prison occupation. Anything labor gets it is the old fashioned way…they earn it, unlike Smith Barney and the rest of the over paid exec class.

Very well said, AC, thank you.

Might I suggest that a ‘diary’ on Oxdown could, possibly, further interest in the history you so well describe?

DW

Thanks for the support bb. My dad was a union shop steward, my late husband a lifelong union member. When I was in school, we studied the history of union organizing in this country – and the struggle was just as hard, and took lives, blood and sacrifice in the same measure almost as the civil rights movement of the sixties. Most union members are just hard-working people trying to keep their noses above the water and feed and shelter their families. They are not sailing around on yachts, driving expensive cars, shopping at fancy stores, and a movie night out once a month is a real extravagance.

Our whole family was absolutely horrified at Reagan’s union-busting of PATCO, and all of us felt at the time that the country was on a down-hill slide that would result in something dire. Well, it has.

The adverdarial relationship needs to change to a partnership capital needs labor and labor needs capital.
Look at the German approach?
National labour laws
Each European country operates a distinct system of labour legislation and judicial enforcement. This is often closely linked to the process of collective bargaining and social partner consultation arrangements. Set out below are brief introductions to the framework of labour laws in a number of European countries followed by examples of primary legislation in English.
The work force is well trained n public schools (Facshule). The labor laws are clearly defined. Take care of your worker and they will take care of you.

Workers rights are civil rights.

The struggle for these fundamental rights is thwarted at the cost of all humanity.

I am convinced that ML King was assassinated to silence his suggestions along those very lines, loky.

Your eloquence is powerful beyond, perhaps, what you realize.

You have my deepest appreciation.

DW

A civil society cannot survive (and thrive) without a social contract that, essentially, delineates what you have outlined, BB.

Some very critical and important points are being made here this evening, and I feel honored to have the privilege of witnessing them.

Thank you, BB.

DW

I have often felt that the European model of labor contracts is something that would be wonderful to have here. Unfortunately, as we have seen, anything European is derided as ’socialist’, or ‘European’ as if that was some sort of epithet.

It’s too bad that we have such an ethnocentric viewpoint that the experiences of other advanced societies cannot be used as an example or even a starting point for discussion because of the antipathy of some towards anything not ‘American’.

Thanks for that link. I will spend some more time reading it later!

and it goes without saying that the stockholders, bondholders[and now the us taxpayers]have also been the victims of the fraud that was the delphi spin-off.

a very vast financial crime. every bit the equal of bernie madoff’s.

most of the bankruptcy court’s actions in the matter of delphi have been sealed, but i think that we do know this, the bankruptcy court has been forcing GM to restore into GM most of the entities spun-off into delphi.

to me, this is tantamount to an acknowledgement that delphi was always a fraud.

however, this gets no ink. the financial press will not touch this story. probably because it means the demise of GM.

and in another sense, it also means the end of the UAW as managed by ron getmyfingerupyourass. this involvement of the UAW in the delphi fraud will also get no air. principally because the financial press prefers a supine and compromised labor movement. the current uaw is preferred to any revolutionary uaw.

venceremos?

who was walter reuther?

Thanks for all the kind words DW. I do my best, feeble as it is.

MLK as assassinated for many reasons. His advocacy for poor people not only here but around the world, for economic justice, and for his stance against the war in Vietnam. His rhetoric in the last three years of his life has largely been hidden and is almost never talked about. But one speech in particular, he made Jeremiah Wright seem like a pansy, and I’m sure that the powers that be were no more tolerant of that message then than they were to hear it again now.

Especially from the lips of a black preacher!

Thankfully we are only using media-assassination against people like that now. (at least I hope so…)

Again, thank you for the kind words and support.

oh, and by the way, in my experience, the minutes of the GM bod concerning the delphi creation, the spin-off of entities into it, the restoration of those entities to GM, should be the subject of minutes of the GM board.

an energetic lawsuit should be revealing of that.

is there a delphi stockholders suit? if so, who are the plaintiffs attorneys?

are they straight? or are they really working for GM?

fraud attorneys.

Ever been in an auto shop? I didn’t think so. The skills trade UAW workers are extremely skilled, besides college and long apprenticeships, it takes years to build up all the knowledge they have. You could never get some one from off the street to do any of the skilled trades union jobs.

Why do you think union contracts were bloated? Please give us an example.

GM’s CEO Rick Wagoner has been with GM for over 25 yrs, working his way up in the company. Ford and Crysler’s Ceo have been there only 2 yrs.

The UAW does deserve some blame for this, for beating the domestic automakers over the head for one-sided concessions over the years, only conceding in the past few years, then assuming that that’s enough.

Do they want all of their rank-and-file to lose their jobs? It’s a no-win situation for them.

My next car was going to be a born-in-the-USA muscle car, but my next car will now be born-in-South Korea instead. I don’t need Nancy Pelosi telling me that I can’t have a Camaro because muscle cars are teh evil because Greenpeace sez so.

The Car Czar should be Ralph Nader. No one knows this industry better than him.

soon there’ll be no cars .. why do we need a car tzar ..

the repubbies won’t ever be happy until we’re all working at mickey-d’s for 3 bucks an hour .. or less ..

halthcare ?? forget it .. that’s why they make graveyards ..

I delegate you. You can publish your results here:

http://oxdown.firedoglake.com

obama skipping merrily along in GWB’s path appointing unqualified people to posts.

Uh, no. We want a car czar that will save the industry, not destroy it.

The only correct answer is Roger Penske. Successful businessman, owner of auto dealers and owner of successful teams in the Indy Racing League, American Le Mans Series and NASCAR.

Yes, NASCAR, the sport where eco-fascists have an aneurysm every time it’s brought up. And yes, it’s a sport, let’s see YOU drive for 500 miles at 190 MPH, with 42 other drivers doing the same thing, crowding up all the time… it’s not as easy as it looks.

I hear an awful lot of talk from people that have never worked in a factory , unionized or not, they have never experienced the machinations that transpire every year as management tries to increase productivity by (10) or (15) percent year over year. This accomplished by removing people and re-balancing jobs. Anyone that thinks that unions are not necessary ahoul be exposed to the old sweat shops.

dear jane hamsher,

thanks for what i guess was intended to be a compliment.

i am not retired. i own and manage a manufacturing entity that produces an internal combustion engine component that is often thought to be exclusively automotive. it isn’t. i try to stay as far away from the automobile industry as i can. my experience with it some decades ago was that it was ridiculously corrupt. perhaps that has changed. my guess is that it hasn’t.

the reason for my brief essay was that if i know the reality of the delphi spin-off[also ford’s visteon spin-off], don’t you think it is a compelling mystery as to why it has been that no journalist, no congresscritter, has related, explored the history that i have introduced?

gm/delphi have been highly secretive concerning their machinations in the federal bankruptcy court[and there is an area of jurisprudence that needs a strong light and a microscope]. when the ac spark plug operations were returned to gm by delphi, the only public mention was/has been a press release that certain delphi assets may be restored to gm.

no gm press release has ever announced the return of those assets. i find this very interesting since the ac spark plug operations were the core of alfred sloan’s aftermarket parts cash flow. in a very real sense, it was the cash flow from aftermarket spark plug sales that financed sloan’s establishment of the used car market, that financed sloan’s outstripping the ford motor company. until 1958, the ford family never recognized the spark plug as being such a cash cow.

it is my prediction that eventually all of the gm entities that were spun-off into delphi will be reabsorbed into gm. as this occurs, gm’s profitability/survivability will continue to be endangered. unless gm ceases the sourcing of components manufactured within the usa.

finally, the other issue that goes unmentioned, which really surprises me, is how the managements of the automobile manufacturers have been/are compensated. oh, i listen to the media and the congresscritters wail about the wages/benefits of the worker bees, but don’t you find it interesting that no one has cared to comment upon/investigate the compensation schemes for the managers? again, all this should be specified in mandatory filings with the sec. why do you think it is/has been that no journalist has cared to publish those compensation realities?

thoughts for a sunday afternoon.