This guy came armed for bear. He makes some good points, fails at others.
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Good stuff.
Virg Bernero is an ass.
Virg is awesome. I worked for his campaign when he ran for mayor a few years ago.
This guy’s just paying lip service to his voting constituency. He doesn’t mean a single word that he says. He’s in the pocket of big business like the rest of them.
Regardless, it’s always entertaining to see a flabbergasted news commentator.
“Race to the Bottom” pretty well sums up the USA economic policy for the last 20 years.
“This guy’s just paying lip service to his voting constituency. He doesn’t mean a single word that he says. He’s in the pocket of big business like the rest of them.”
And you know this how?
“Virg Bernero is an ass.” Now there’s an intelligent argument. Excellent logic. Completely convinced me on its merits.
I wish more people would “blow their corks” on the media and give them a taste of their own medicine…
Bernero didn’t answer the question about losing $2000 a car, he went on about wall street instead.
Just like a good politician, he avoided real answers and spouted sound bytes.
Sorry, no go. Cars are in a competitive market. Toyota makes money, GM loses money.
The reason GM looses $2000 a car is because they have to price their cars comparable to similar models from other companies.
Those other companies, though, actually make money on their cars, even when including shipping, import fees, tariffs, etc.
Mr. Bernero and his like want to close their eyes and wish themselves to Fantasyland where the world is as they want it to be.
Now there are some things we can do, like cheap electricity (Nuclear), Affordable healthcare (expand Medicare), improved infrastructure, lower corporate tax, etc. which can bring the cost of manufacturing more in line with our competitors without sacrificing our standard of living.
But don’t count on it anytime soon.
McCullough
He makes some good points, fails at others.
OK, so what arguments did he fail at? It sounded to me like he hit the nail squarely on the head.
Well said #6.
I live in California, But I’m voting for that guy.
Twice
I liked it! Anything that sticks it to FOX is a net positive discussion right there.
Still, agree the mayor had basically something he wanted to get off his chest regardless of the question.
$70/hr. is a ridiculously high wage for sticking parts on a car.
That’s $145,600 a year. I never made that much money and I owned my own company for 23 years.
Talk about Faux Noise blowing smoke!
$70/hour – total lie:
http://tinyurl.com/6n8fep
And no “healthcare for life”?
Medicare is $1200/yr on single incomes of $85000 or less for retirees.
#10. He failed to answer the hard questions. I too have a hard time believing the average autoworker makes $70.00 per hour.
How CAN a business sustain itself when they lose 2K per unit?
Who gets lifetime healthcare in the private sector?
No one that I know of. Personally, I just took a voluntary 20% paycut in order to keep myself and others working. And I make nowhere near what the average autoworker makes. So it’s hard for me to have much sympathy if they aren’t willing to make concessions to stay employed. And that goes double for upper management.
His Wall Street comments, however are spot on.
So he makes all these points, and in the end Gm goes bankrupt with his ideas.
#17–McCullough==I agree completely.
For the USA Car industry, its all legacy costs/healthcare costs which in the main our competitors don’t face. Every business with high legacy costs (retirement, older workforce) looses fairly quickly to newly established/no legacy cost businesses. Makes it almost impossible for 100 year companies to exist. Why should they with a new generation coming on line every 25 years?
The Unions were fairly effective at raising benefit packages when the USA Auto’s had little competition and we led the world. Not so much in times of downturn. Hard to give up hard won benefits just because the company will go broke in 5 years without a change. Hard for Exec’s to give up their 6 month bonus by bringing things to a head now rather than go along and wrack up that bonus while it is still available.
Regarding Wallstreet. It can’t be said too often: Its a shell game and a fraud. It extracts wealth from the true engines of creation.
In simple essence–wallstreet should be eliminated and NOW is the time to do it===not bail it out to continue its nefarious ways.
If only people would continue to eat “chocolate covered cotton”. Its whats good for wallstreet and America.
(From the podcast thread, even just the first page should be read by all:
http://dailykos.com/story/2009/2/19/05524/5446/499/699191
#9, Ah_Yea said, “Sorry, no go. Cars are in a competitive market. Toyota makes money, GM loses money.”
Really?
Reuters, Fri Feb 6, 2008, said, “Toyota Motor Corp’s operating loss for the year to end-March would be 450 billion yen ($5 billion), three times the loss it had forecast just six weeks ago. Its sales fell 34 percent last month in the United States, its biggest market.”
Like GM, if we don’t buy their cars, they go belly up, too.
The mayor is an idiot. Either the company, with its current cost structure can compete or it can’t. Not much else to talk about.
#17, McCullough
He failed to answer the hard questions. I too have a hard time believing the average autoworker makes $70.00 per hour.
They don’t earn $70.00/hr. Before Christmas, the number was $89/hr. Both made up numbers.
Anyone in business will explain “Labor Costs”. That is the cost to employ a person per unit of time. That includes all wages, taxes, pension and other contributions, supervisory staff, and even such mundane things as what the parking lots costs to clear the snow. A rough estimate is that Labor Costs will be two to three times the hourly wage.
#7 – I don’t think he was trying to convince you of something. Don’t think it was factual either. Looks to me he was sharing is opinion, like me saying you’re a douchebag.
The problem is GM, Ford and Chrysler don’t make car’s people want to by.
They are a pensions and benefit scheme that finds building cars an inconvenience.
If they get back to building cars people want to buy at a reasonable price/quality point they will stay in business. If they can’t, game over, business over and jobs over.
#22. Fusion- “They don’t earn $70.00/hr. Before Christmas, the number was $89/hr. Both made up numbers.”
Then his failure was his inability to refute the newscasters point.
Like Hopper I had my own modestly successful business for 13 years, and even as a business owner I didn’t make $70 per hour. So, what is the average salary the autoworkers make? We are talking about relatively unskilled assembly line workers, correct? Even if its $50.00 per hour it’s still much more than many people in my field are taking home. I live in a very high cost of living area, much higher than the Detroit area, and yet I can live quite comfortably on the combined income of my wife and myself. I have adequate health care, but it’s certainly not for life. I am no trust fund baby, have almost zero debt, and handle money wisely. Maybe it helps that I am not obsessed with material things. It seems that some people just get used to a higher standard of living not realizing that market forces can (and will) change. This is no revelation….it’s been coming to Detroit for many years an we all saw the handwriting on the wall. Except for these guys? Sorry, not buying it.
The computer industry faces the same problem, it wont be long before disposable computers will force a large portion of that industry to reexamine it’s options. It already has for me. It doesn’t even take much foresight to see that it’s already upon us.
Thanks Mr. Fusion. I’m unaware of the real pay these workers get, but I’m pretty sure the average autoworker does not see gross wages of $2800. for a 40 hour week. I thought the mayor should have been quick to point that out. But I enjoyed his rant all the way.
I know a few people who work at auto plants assembly lines in Detroit.. the make barely under $20/hr. They wish they make $70. I don’t see many bling out car in plant parking lot.. if they’re pulling 70/hr you know every will be driving nice cars.
Might be time to crank up the price of cars 2,500.00, so they can make some cash.
God Bless Bernero.
#25, McCullough,
They don’t even make $50 /hr. They are good jobs, I won’t argue that point. To suggest they earn $50 is ridicules though. A top skilled trade could earn up to $30 /hr. For unskilled assembly line work, look for around $20 /hr.
Again, the $89, $70, and $50 are all numbers someone has pulled out their cell phone parking recepticle. To the gullible, naive, and stooopid though, they are convincing that they are bad people.
There used to be a time when our steel mills paid money like that. Now, we import our steel. Our telephone companies paid well too. Now all the work is done by outside contractors who are paid a lot less. The textile workers didn’t get paid that much but their jobs were sourced out anyway. And guess what happened. We lost the middle class that bought all these items.
The “newscaster” didn’t have a point. He had an agenda of seeing the country race to the bottom.