The Sunday Paper Staff Blog

SR: Did you applaud a friend for buying a Datsun Truck? Say it ain't so! Do you really want your loyal reader(s) to mount a grass-roots "Let
The Big 3 Die" effort based on allegory?

Okay. Fine. I had a 97 GM 3/4 ton pick-em up. Loved it. My sister has it now. Runs great. Has almost 200,000 miles on it. Wish I had it back.

Now, should we call Saxby's office and ask him to support the UAW bail out plan? NO. But I did LOVE that truck.

The problem is that the dems can't deny the elephant in the room, but can't address it if they want to get this thing through.

I favored the "Wall St Bail Out" because the financial markets are a sort of "utility" and we could't take the chance of letting the thing unravel further.

The feeding frenzy was then on. The spend-delirium set in and the American public was becoming somewhat desensitized to the concept of "the big gov bail-out".

The cause of the problem with the US auto industry can be tied almost directly to the union. Politicians who want to bail them out without first saying what to do about the UAW are just plain crazy.

Maybe even as crazy as your Nissan Pickup driving buddy.

Note: any tongue-in-cheek use of parentheses in this comment was just for fun and added by an admitted moron.
 

Another foolish article by an author who knows nothing about which she speaks.

For example, Ramage opined that her Mazda was superior to Ford, GM or Chrysler - American - cars.

Truth is, American auto companies are truly global, international companies now.

In fact, GM owns Saab, while Ford owns Volvo and Land Rover and yes, the author's chosen brand Mazda.

Get a clue before you write your next article. Please. You are criticizing and praising the same company and line of products at the same time without knowing it.

And the Mazda you are boasting about was most likely built by United Auto Workers in Michigan, where many Mazda's were built at the time you bought your blessedly reliable Mazda.

So yes, I agree with you, Ford builds some pretty great cars. You just don't know you're driving one.

Here's some relevant history and context for you and your readers:

My father was a White Collar Ford Guy - Engineer - his father a Blue Collar Ford Guy - Electrician.

My blue collar grandfather was killed by cancer he most certainly developed working for 4 decades in what were then extremely toxic environments - Ford's Rouge River Steel plant burning coal, toxic paints and chemicals in the air he breathed every day at work wiring other factories, etc.

My neighbor growing up, decades ago, was a GM guy with a similar Blue Collar Union job. He was burned to death at work on a sunny Friday afternoon while his kids were at school, in an accident involving molten nickel and other metals used in chroming those beautiful bumpers back in the day.

My father, who worked his whole life as a White Collar - non-Union - Ford guy, just had his retirement benefits slashed, by which I mean his retirement package health insurance that he paid into his entire lifetime at work. Such benefits he earned with his 4 decades of loyalty and service were just dismissed by the company, which threw him and myriad other retirees onto the public Medicare/Medicaid health care lists, as they work up to completely dumping their pensioneers onto the Federal dole and eliminating the rest of his monthly income.

As dad likes to say, "One more Board Meeting discussing cutting off retirees pensions and I'll be eating dog food the rest of my life."

He now lives daily just waiting for the inevitable loss of everything he worked for and paid into his entire life. 70 and he's out working again, after having worked his entire life to get maybe 5 years of rest at the end of his life. But hell, he doesn't need a rest at 70, there's always a Wal-Mart greeter job out there just waiting to be filled. He's over-qualified for any other job out there, too old for a company to invest in by giving him a career job.

And you seem to believe that the auto industry bail out will cost too much money, is a poor investment, and should be voted against on behalf of today's American taxpayers working at Wal-Mart or McDonald's?

And that the Union is bilking everyone else in America because even though their members work in dangerous, health destroying, life-threatening environments every day, they greedily managed after almost 100 years of fighting to achieve a whopping $29 per hour pay/benefits rate?

Amazing how people think these days, isn't it?

Do the math. Is $1200 a week before taxes, to break your back, literally, and risk your health working your hindquarters off really too much to ask?

Wise up. You watch the Big 3 go under and you will see millions of people sucking up Trillions of dollars in unemployment - which they have paid into with each paycheck all these years and are going to collect - health care costs, as these same folks hit the emergency rooms with their sick kids, or the Medicare lists when they become sick with the diseases their industrial work environment inevitably cause, etc.

Whole towns will go into Depression Mode, as suppliers, dealers, and plants shut down. The trickle over to restaurants and retailers, school systems without tax revenues, etc., will devastate parts of the country that have no idea they are even involved in the auto industry.

Mark my words, as a guy brought up by two generations of Auto Men with experience in both the Blue and White collar sides of the business - America could blindly throw 100s of billions of dollars into these companies now - and it will still be cheap money compared to the results of letting them go under.

And please, don't even get me started on the "Billions for Iraq and Wall Street, Zero for the Industrial Base" side of this argument. The hyprocrisy and poor reasoning is too obvious to go into further.  

Justin,

Although Ford has indeed made some great vehicles right here in the U.S. the Mazda Protege is not one of them.

The Protege, which is the Mazda I drive, has parts made in Japan and assembled in New Zealand, Taiwan, Colombia, Malaysia, or South Africa.

In fact, according to the United Auto Workers, the only Mazda made in the U.S. is the Mazda 6, which is made in Michigan.

Also, saying Ford owns Mazda is quite a stretch. Ford owns a 33 percent share in Mazda. It does not own the whole company, and the effect of that 33 percent buy-in was to put more Mazda engineering into Ford cars, a gambit that has worked to the benefit of Ford, helping to make Fords better. In fact, it was Mazda that engineered Ford's bestselling SUV, the Explorer, which was kind of ironic bc the Mazda version, the Navajo, didn't sell nearly as well.

So, while I sympathize with your family and others like them, the basis of your argument regarding my car, and Mazdas in general, is misinformed.

I hope auto manufacturing employees are given a better deal than the union has given them--a more stable future based on world-leading innovation and energy efficient cars, a more diverse selection of Ameircan car manufacturers to choose from as employers, and more of a stake in their employers' companies as opposed to merely a stake in a union.

--very best, Stephanie Ramage

 

Oops, looks like Ford may own evern less than 33 percent of Mazda now:

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/apwire/24db5a10790a79f0f5fcc5b75a95a38b.htm
 

American cars are inferior to Japanese cars. That is a certainty. Having 25 years experience in the automotive repair field, I can make that statement with authority. It disturbs me that the big 3 are as deaf, dumb and blind as they are. Take for example, GM's issues with Dex cool coolant. You can spend forever reading about, and if you care to, start here ( http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/case/dexcool_damage.html ). The condensed story is this: GM has been using a coolant, starting in 1996, that is corrosive and damaging to engine components and gaskets. The class action law suits have been batted around for years. Everyone in the industry knows the shortcomings of this product (it is touted to last 150,000 miles) and the damage it causes. Everyone except GM. They are STILL using it in vehicles produced now. Why? Go figure. Why won't the unions make concessions? Go figure. Why is GM failing while Toyota and Honda are still going? GO FIGURE  

The argument that the US auto industry should not be "bailed out" because they produce crap is ridiculous.

I've owned brands from Oldsmobile and GMC to Toyota and Subaru, and never felt that I got "a lemon".

I've been impressed with the improvements in quality made by our american auto makers. Any unbiased consumer reporter will testify to the same.

A reporter on a political beat should offer a substantive review of why the indigenous industry is failing- not an argument on why they drive a Mazda. I'm sure that they'd be in similar dire straits had you purchased an Escort or a Malibu instead.

This discussion digressed into a "Import versus Domestic Debate", ignoring the fact that the problem is not on the revenue side of the balance sheet.

McCain said it on Letterman last night: we have to renegotatiate labor contracts. Not just in regard to how much money they make, but how much influence they wield.

2 of the top 4 auto makers in the world (by volume) are American. Our auto manufacturing produces vehicles that compete globally. The automobiles are good and getting better, it's our auto industry that stinks.


 

Drew, as a "political reporter"--or anything else for that matter--I've given far more here than an argument for or against my Mazda. Please see above for a discussion of union labor, the global market, the imbalance of pricing as a result of those two factors, etc. (Sheesh, Middle Ga., do you only read the comments? There's a column above these, my friend.)  

Drew, if you boil this down, here's what ya' get. The big 3 are not selling their products. They are knee deep in vehicles that nobody wants. The product is not even close to the quality of the Japanese product. It is painful to admit, but Americans are not making quality cars. A bailout isn't going to correct that, and therein lies the problem.  

As you probably know, Sen. Corker (R-TN) asked the United Auto Workers to agree to reduced pay, basically pay at same level as that at "transplant" facilities--plants run by foreign manufacturers in the U.S., like Nissan and Honda. The UAW refused.

The New York Times reports today:

In 2007, the U.A.W. agreed to sharply lower starting wages and benefits for newly hired autoworkers at the Detroit companies, as well as for workers in jobs away from the assembly line, like janitors and maintenance personnel.

But the cuts did not affect most long-time union members, whose hourly pay and compensation is about $55 an hour. The figure ranges above $70 an hour when the automakers’ costs for health care for retired workers and retirement benefits is factored in.

By contrast, workers in plants run by foreign companies in the United States earn about $45 an hour, and the nonunion companies do not have the hefty burdens for future 'legacy costs' that are faced by the Detroit companies."

 

SR: Not only did I read this piece but I also read the other "let 'em die" article. There's some actual meat in them both.

The problem is that allegorical fodder like "my friend bought a foreign made vehicle for less" and "I drive an import because what we build sucks" so "let the big 3 croak" isn't meat.

It isn't even fat or gristtle: it's below the floor-scrapings that go into our Vienna's, and it's beneath you, my dear.  

You can argue till the cows come home whether or not Ford's 30%+ stake in Mazda gave it governing control of the company, or pooh pooh all you want that "only" 33% of Mazda's profits go into the Ford coffers - the point still remains that Ford is a global company, not just an American one, and it's fortunes in the marketplace and that of Mazda's are interwoven to a large degree.

Hundreds of millions of dollars in business are going down the drain and you are chortling over a couple hairs you can split rhetorically on the issue?

The other points I made above are also valid, in spite of the smokescreen of your phony sympathies toward my family and that of other autoworkers - for whom your contempt is obvious and oft stated.

And the quip - "Oops, I guess Ford doesn't own as much Mazda as it used to." Was neither empathetic toward your fellow Americans, mature, nor in good taste, nor a sign of particularly good personal judgement.

Whistling Through the Graveyard and cutting quips while millions of Americans are about to lose their jobs is just tacky, to say the least. In fact, that was about the poorest taste I've ever seen anyone display in public regarding watching a couple million fellow citizens and their families thrown out of work.

Simply put, you let this many Americans become jobless next year and this much infrastructure go out of business and you are talking about a Depression that will cost even columnists their jobs in the long run.

And then maybe we can all laugh about this economic meltdown - when it takes YOUR job.

I know I will. Because that will be funny, in the sense of being completely ironic and well deserved.

Call it Karma if you will, but you've got a ton of it coming back to roost on you someday, after the snide remarks about those about to lose their livelihoods.

Real nice people you've got working over there at the "Sunday Paper".  

Justin,

Moving beyond your ill wishes for me (a nightmare I've already lived through more than once, btw), let's look at the facts: Given that the GOP senators wanted only for the UAW to accept a reduction in pay that would bring their union members' paychecks down from about $55 per hour to about $45 per hour--in line with the paychecks earned at Nissan and Honda factories in the U.S.--it's a little hard to feel much sympathy for the UAW. The union's Gettelfinger, not giving a damn about his country, turned up his nose at a perfectly reasonable offer. (He objects to having to set a deadline of some kind--not meet one, mind you, but SET one. He's a union president; I would assume the concept of "deadline" is not foreign to him.)

But, obviously you don't want to hear from me, so savor this moment, because it's a rare one: I will now refer you to The Nation (!), a source you won't see much here.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081201/howl2

In it, you will read the wise words of Nicholas von Hoffman, written in mid-November. Here's a preview:

If the standard for giving out money to companies is the threat of lost jobs, the auto parts suppliers' claim is as good as that of General Motors. The argument against subsidizing money-losing companies to preserve employment is that it would be impossible to think up a more expensive way of helping people.

There ought to be another way--and there is. Unemployment compensation should be expanded to ensure those losing their jobs will not lose their houses or their health insurance. Helping people on that scale will not be cheap, but helping them by propping up corporate losers is infinitely more costly: sooner or later people will find other employment, but the automobile companies will never turn a profit.

They have been steadily losing money for a generation. Their predicament has nothing to do with today's credit crunch or the stock market crash. It has to do with their being incorrigible foul-ups.

Their record for money-losing is beyond comprehension. David Yermack, professor of finance at New York University's Stern School of Business, has calculated how much capital the car companies have destroyed over the last few decades.

He writes, "General Motors and Ford...between them...destroyed $110 billion in capital between 1980 and 1990.... GM has invested $310 billion in its business between 1998 and 2007. The total depreciation of GM's physical plant during this period was $128 billion, meaning that a net $182 billion of society's capital has been pumped into GM over the past decade--a waste of about $1.5 billion per month of national savings. The story at Ford has not been as adverse but is still disheartening, as Ford has invested $155 billion and consumed $8 billion net of depreciation since 1998. As a society, we have very little to show for this $465 billion."

Having eaten its way through almost a half-trillion dollars, the American car industry will gulp down the $25 billion now proposed to save it faster than most of us can swallow."

Bankruptcy would force the Big Three to restructure, it would also free them of the stranglehold of the UAW. We should expand the unemployment benefits and let the Big Three file for bankruptcy. If the workers are as sharp as you say they are--and I believe that a lot of them are--such a bankruptcy would only revive America's auto industry, and it would be better than ever.
 

Rather than dumping this into the court system, we should make restructuring a part of a bail out and redefine the role of big labor in the deal.

Why get even more lawyers involved in the process while further tarnishing the "brands" we're talking about rescueing?

The cost associated with litigating the bankruptcy and the value of our auto brands could be saved simultaneously.

 

Justin, be certain of this. If Ms. Ramage were to ever lose her job (God forbid), there will be no bailout for her or anyone else in her line of work. Why? Because it doesn't effect the GNP, the stock markets or interest rates. Noone would care, or pretend to. The fact that taxpayers are (proposedly)funding a safety net that doesn't extend below them, is too much for most people, including myself, to embrace.