The Auto rip-off

Aaaah! The Auto Industry...


The House giveth and the Senate tooketh away....

So... the Big 3 show up filled with arrogance to demand tax payer money so they can continue with business as usual. Which includes making sure the unions in this country no longer exist, along with the middle class.

So... they are turned down because they have no plan of action, just an extended hand.

So... they come back a bit more humble and they almost... almost... got what they wanted.

Today was the final straw and they walk away empty handed, so George W. Bush is thinking that maybe what they are asking for should, and might have, to come out of the insanely unsupervised and major league squandered tax payer dollars allocated to Hank Paulson to "save" the financial institutions.

I am betting they'll get it and there will be no oversight or a plan in place. Just the way they want it and the way this whole financial crisis has been mishandled by Hank Paulson and his buddies. More on the financial later....

In the meantime, I learn the following:

Ford is opening a plant in Mexico. Yes, where the labor is cheap, Unions non-existent and the government if far more corrupt than ours. Ford apparently has the $15 MILLION that it takes to build this factory while not bothering to consider that they already have factories in the USA with skilled, capable and ready to produce workers. Instead, laying them off is the company financial plan that resonates with Ford executives.

It is offensive to see that the Ford Fiesta will be built in Mexico to be sold in the USA.

"Ford's plans in Mexico also include moving one of its factories from large truck to small car production, and opening a new diesel engine line at another plant."

"The decision to invest in Mexico will be a blow to the United Auto Workers union, which reached a cost-cutting agreement with Ford in a bid to make US plants more competitive."

The full article can be read here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7428952.stm

In the meantime, we have Volkswagen opening plants in the USA with an investment of 1 BILLION dollars. By 2011, Volkswagen plans to be producing and selling 110,000 vehicles in the US.

You can read the full article here.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/15/business/main4263424.shtml?source=related_story

Let's not forget about the lovely car I wrote about in a previous post, the Ford Fiesta's ECOnetic which is not only produced in Europe, but sold in Europe and give 65 miles a gallon. A car that Ford has no intention of building or selling in the USA.

Check it out, it is not a golf cart or a vehicle for the vertically challenge. It would look good here too and it would sell like hotcakes.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_37/b4099060491065.htm?campaign_id=rss_topEmailedStories

How about GM? How are they doing? Well, thank you for asking, apparently they are doing fine since their Russian plant is costing them $300 MILLION dollars and they will be building SUV's, a highly sought after vehicle in a fuel rich Russia. It is their status symbol and they can't get enough of it.

Would it be a stretch of the imagination to use the plants we have here, with the qualified and trained employees they have here, to build it here, and ship it there?

No, I guess it is easier to ask for tax payer's dollars and move their operations over seas.

here is the article: http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2008/11/07/224691.html

AIG

When is a bonus, not a bonus? When you use different words to describe a stinking rose. Let's call it.... "A retention payment". Yes, that sounds good. So when you are making 4 million a year, your boss wants to hand you another million as a "retention", so you stick around for another year and "earn" another 4 million of tax payer dollars for the next 12 months.

These people will stay on until the well runs dry. YOU, the taxpayer, own 90% of AIG. These are in effect, government employees since it is no longer a privately financed company and yet, they are paid more than the Senators, the Congressmen or the President.

*note to self.... apply for employment as executive with AIG*

Back to reality.... According to AIG spokesperson, they need to make these payments to retain "the talent". I ask you, what talent? If they had any they would not be in the situation they are in.

I suggest we all screw up royally at work and do our best to bring the company to the brink of disaster and test the company loyalty to us by seeing what our "retention" check would be. Wanna bet that we are shown the door by the real talent in the company?.

The financial bailout was a bad idea then, and it is a bad idea now. We are witnessing the most blatant bank robbery in the history of the world and they don't even bother to wear ski masks to do it.

Meanwhile, our neighbors, family and friends have lost their jobs and we have reached the highest unemployment rate in the history of this country.

There is no middle class anymore, just the wealthy lining up their pockets in total glee with taxpayer's dollars.

I am sure their holidays will be jolly since the business of making money is still going strong.

Bank of America, Stanley tools and Sara Lee are going to cut thousands of jobs. Sara Lee is going to be outsourcing hundreds of jobs. KayBee toys is closing their doors.

Joy to the World! (Maybe some will trickle down in our direction)

Maybe, just maybe, someone is going to realize that the greatest consumers in the planet cannot fulfill their mandate without paying jobs? Without a roof over their heads? Without financial security and a future to look forward to? Without their retirement savings having been plundered?

Just a thought.

PEACE to all