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Letter to the Editor:
Monday, Feb. 23, 2009 | 2:01 a.m.
Why are we rewarding failure (General Motors, Chrysler), laziness (refusal to work/welfare) and bad behavior (company mismanagement/failure to pay mortgages)?
And who is financing these rewards? The ambitious, the businesses and job creators, and the people who pay their mortgages and bills, that’s who.
Penalizing success, ambition and honesty cannot be a good thing for this country’s future.
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Back in the 80s, Lee Iacocca helped Chrysler by taking a $1 a year salary and putting himself last on the list of people who would receive stock benefits once the company was back on its feet. He put his money where his mouth was. What we should do today is fire the lot of these executives and hire in graduates from Harvard or other professional business schools who are eager to prove themselves. They'd probably happily take a much lower salary, and once they bring their companies into financial solvency, they can be brought up to higher salaries by other, established companies.
My, someone is full of it today.
The most productive auto plants in the world are run by the Big Three. Check the Harbour Report for 2008. There is about $800 worth of labor in every car and truck. These companies faced the same problems we had when the speculator drove up the price of gas and oil for no good reason other than profit. The cost of steel went from $280/ton to over $1200/ton. The cost of plastic, rubber and other commodities went through the roof. Get some facts and cut off FOX Noise.
"My, someone is full of it today.
The most productive auto plants in the world are run by the Big Three."
Somebody is full of it!
Just a few years ago, the big 3 use to be far behind its foreign competition in productivity.
They have made gains but at the cost of quality.
"The Oliver Wyman Harbour Report also shows that the Big Six (GM, Ford, Chrysler, Toyota, Honda, and Nissan) have become so competitive the difference between the most and least productive is a mere 3.5 hours to assemble a vehicle. This near-parity is a far cry from a few years ago when the Japanese could out-produce the Big Three 2:1. "
"And while quality usually goes hand in hand with productivity, it is not always the case, as Chrysler's stellar performance in the Harbour Report comes a day after the automaker slipped in the J.D. Power survey that assesses initial quality of vehicles in the first 90 days of ownership."
Everybody knows that the Big 3 are burdened by the cost of its super platinum retiree plans and its benefits that it pays to current employees and to the crazy work rules that make productivity gains result in a big chunk out of quality.
Right now they are trying to redo contracts to save the big 3.
If UAW workers insist on keeping the platinum benefit packages then their companies should live and die on the quality and productivity that they can produce to earn those benefits.
I think that there will be a taxpayer revolt if it turns that taxpayers will have to pay for platinum benefit packages for UAW workers.
The big three US automaker business model is broken. Rather than bail them out they should be forced into Chapter 11 where they would be forced to reinvent themselves under bankruptcy judges. Warranty guarantees and Debtor in Possession financing could be provided by the taxpayers at that time. The US automakers have had enough time to save themselves, and they can't do it with UAW interference, incompetent management and intelligent US car buyers opting to drive foreign cars made in the US by American workers.