Big Three Bailout- Will you be affected?

[Squeezer]

repair shops will probably get more business, since the Big 3 can no longer service these cars. of course, such a spike in business for Big-3 car repairs will mean a spike in hiring mechanics, and who best to hire? ex big 3 employees!

there's already a small industry that re-produces car parts, for antique car enthusiasts, etc. perhaps this industry will explode when demand for big-3 auto parts rises.

gas stations etc will still exist, as long as people drive cars.

once again, this is why I oppose government interventions: the future consequences of their actions are rarely given serious thought, because it's impossible to predict the future. had GM never been subsidized so heavily, they would have either gone out of business or placed themselves in a profitable position a long time ago.

of course, now the "only" way to save a catastrophe is to save GM.

perhaps we should stop and think: maybe by avoiding this right now, it will be worse in the future. maybe we should suck it up and let it happen - the children are our future!!

right. we'll see how fast those union workers take half a pay cut.

And for how long? How long would repair shops work? And what about gas stations seeing less cars, private businesses that rely on GM, Ford and GMC parts to be mobile. What happens when the price of getting these trucks and vans fixed jumps through the roof but they sell for less than Paradise's opinions?

Again, I'm not advocating that we give them the money, I'm actually in favor of not giving it to them. I agree that those at the top should be held culpable but what about the dude that worked the auto line to make his house payment (which is spiking in concurrence with his shit job getting taken)?

That being said the auto industry is also partly to blame for the skew in salaries for unskilled and college educated workers. How does putting a bumper on a car 8 hours a day somehow entitle you to earn more money and better benefits than someone teaching junior high school?

[Epinephrine]

right. we'll see how fast those union workers take half a pay cut.

And for how long? How long would repair shops work? And what about gas stations seeing less cars, private businesses that rely on GM, Ford and GMC parts to be mobile. What happens when the price of getting these trucks and vans fixed jumps through the roof but they sell for less than Paradise's opinions?

Again, I'm not advocating that we give them the money, I'm actually in favor of not giving it to them. I agree that those at the top should be held culpable but what about the dude that worked the auto line to make his house payment (which is spiking in concurrence with his shit job getting taken)?

That being said the auto industry is also partly to blame for the skew in salaries for unskilled and college educated workers. How does putting a bumper on a car 8 hours a day somehow entitle you to earn more money and better benefits than someone teaching junior high school?

My dad's company is going under. No one's going to bail them out. Why the hell should my taxes bail out the Big 3? (yes this is an issue in Canada as well, they want money from us too).

Those people who had those jobs took those jobs knowing the same thing that everyone else knows, American cars suck. If they still worked there knowing that and didn't try finding different jobs, that's too bad for them.

As for repair shops, they will exist for a long time yet. It's not like all the existing cars will magically disappear, and it's also not like the other 60% of all cars sold in America will stop being sold.

Honda, Toyota and other manufacturers employ lots as well, they will pick up the slack once they get more market share when the Big 3 fail.

[Squeezer]

My dad's company is going under. No one's going to bail them out. Why the hell should my taxes bail out the Big 3? (yes this is an issue in Canada as well, they want money from us too).

Those people who had those jobs took those jobs knowing the same thing that everyone else knows, American cars suck. If they still worked there knowing that and didn't try finding different jobs, that's too bad for them.

As for repair shops, they will exist for a long time yet. It's not like all the existing cars will magically disappear, and it's also not like the other 60% of all cars sold in America will stop being sold.

Honda, Toyota and other manufacturers employ lots as well, they will pick up the slack once they get more market share when the Big 3 fail.

Consumer disinterest is only one part of the reason these companies are failing. Mismanaged loans, corporate benefits for CEO, Poor technological development, inflated unionized wages, etc. Of all the things I listed above, only one could possibly be attributed to the wrongdoing of your father and other autoline workers. The average slag pays his union dues because he gets more pay, not because he's a union zealot. He's just trying to support himself and his family family, so I fail to see why he should be held accountable because the guys above him decided to squander the company's money on private jets and 14-year-old boy Cambodian love slaves. I don't think it's fair to say, "well tough luck, you should have seen it coming." If you've ever been stuck in a job to make ends meet you know that sometimes a steady paycheck is the only thing you can count on.

Let me say again: I'm not for the bailouts. But I'm also not for leaving a couple million workers out to dry and decimating a very prominent sector of our economy.

Why doesn't the govt. just wait for these companies to crash and hit rock bottom so that they can buy the shares for cheaper than they're paying to bail them out? Hell, they're going to tie us all to bad loans from the private and commercial industry anyway. We might as well get them at the lowest price.

[Jerome Scuggs]

it's in the best interest of the workers to let them go under. if they want an economy in ten years, that is.

what, like the big 3 will ever have their industrial sovereignty ever again? like their profits will sustain whatever previous wages were possible? like they will wield a large economic influence?

especially when the new precedent established will create america's version of the russian food lines, as anyone and everyone lines up for money, pleading their case. when does it end, when do we let capitalism function?

don't consider these people above the interests of everybody else. their job loss translates into new signals, and the market readjusts in a better, more productive way. have a little patience, and soon enough everyone's employed again. unless of course, the government extend unemployment benefits.

[Izor]

It'd be nice if that were the case, but it's not. I don't want to make a blanket statement and say none would get hired, but there are plenty of people who never worked for the Big 3 that would get hired and will continue to get hired faster than those ex-employees

Inaccurate statement. All those people that came from those companies already have years of experience on the job, which is apparently underrated by someone who just graduated college and thinks their degree will secure them a better job than someone who has just worked in the field for 4 years.

Just use common sense. If you were an employer, having taken college classes, would you rather have that person who has done the job in question for X years or someone who is unproven, even though they may have potential. I personally am going to go with the person who gets known results

EDIT: on topic: i really dont know what to think about these bailouts...I think that the country as a whole will need to change what they believe about domestic cars vs foreign cars in order for anything to be really effective, but i dont think that laying off hundreds of thousands of jobs is going to be very smart. Throwing money at the problem at a minimum buys time for these companies to start producing gas efficient vehicles and overturning their current reputation

[Liquid Blue]

Inaccurate statement. All those people that came from those companies already have years of experience on the job, which is apparently underrated by someone who just graduated college and thinks their degree will secure them a better job than someone who has just worked in the field for 4 years.

Just use common sense. If you were an employer, having taken college classes, would you rather have that person who has done the job in question for X years or someone who is unproven, even though they may have potential. I personally am going to go with the person who gets known results

Have you worked in a shop before

Use common sense, alot of those people getting fired aren't going to want to take the massive cut in pay they would receive in order to get hired at the no-name mechanic shop

Only after a few weeks without better prospects would they come back to that shop hoping for the job

By then the guy without a college degree or experience in a big company, but with 10 years of experience with cars, willingness to deal with shitty pay, rude customers and self-absorbed managers will have already gotten the job

thanks though, especially considering I said it's not a blanket statement that applies to all those ex-employees

[Summa]

it's in the best interest of the workers to let them go under. if they want an economy in ten years, that is.

what, like the big 3 will ever have their industrial sovereignty ever again? like their profits will sustain whatever previous wages were possible? like they will wield a large economic influence?

especially when the new precedent established will create america's version of the russian food lines, as anyone and everyone lines up for money, pleading their case. when does it end, when do we let capitalism function?

don't consider these people above the interests of everybody else. their job loss translates into new signals, and the market readjusts in a better, more productive way. have a little patience, and soon enough everyone's employed again. unless of course, the government extend unemployment benefits.

^^^^ won't happen.

America always has to be the best, and to let our markets crash would show weakness, we can't have none of that! Plus if we show weakness them terrorists are going to bring us down or maybe even a Chinese invasion.

[Izor]

Have you worked in a shop before

Use common sense, alot of those people getting fired aren't going to want to take the massive cut in pay they would receive in order to get hired at the no-name mechanic shop

Only after a few weeks without better prospects would they come back to that shop hoping for the job

By then the guy without a college degree or experience in a big company, but with 10 years of experience with cars, willingness to deal with shitty pay, rude customers and self-absorbed managers will have already gotten the job

thanks though, especially considering I said it's not a blanket statement that applies to all those ex-employees

Man, you really dont understand the working world...reflect upon what you just said in a couple years. As a professional, I know some of what my field has to offer right now and what I'm worth. I know this because working in a shop with contractors, they often times talk about the economy and their job security based on the fact that if the DoD cut spending right now, they'd be out of a job and we bluesuiters would take over (granted this would never happen because we dont know enough to run that system cause they do all the work). I'm not going to go job hunting with unreasonable expectations of what job I will be able to get. Keep in mind that I know this, having a job that I really would have to try and get fired from. I'm sure that workers at all of those places have a contingency plan, because it would only make sense to. You havent worked in the real world for long enough to truly understand this, but like i said give it a couple years.

Your 'non-blanket statement' is the other way around. And its more of a blanket statement. If they're looking for jobs actively, with their resumes, they'll find em. It's the not college educated, joe schmo with 10 years of experience working with cars and no resume/documentation to prove it that will suffer the effects (btw who gets a college degree to work on cars...)

[Liquid Blue]

Man, you really dont understand the working world...reflect upon what you just said in a couple years. As a professional, I know some of what my field has to offer right now and what I'm worth. I know this because working in a shop with contractors, they often times talk about the economy and their job security based on the fact that if the DoD cut spending right now, they'd be out of a job and we bluesuiters would take over (granted this would never happen because we dont know enough to run that system cause they do all the work). I'm not going to go job hunting with unreasonable expectations of what job I will be able to get. Keep in mind that I know this, having a job that I really would have to try and get fired from. I'm sure that workers at all of those places have a contingency plan, because it would only make sense to. You havent worked in the real world for long enough to truly understand this, but like i said give it a couple years.

Your 'non-blanket statement' is the other way around. And its more of a blanket statement. If they're looking for jobs actively, with their resumes, they'll find em. It's the not college educated, joe schmo with 10 years of experience working with cars and no resume/documentation to prove it that will suffer the effects (btw who gets a college degree to work on cars...)

Actually I do understand the working world, you're just trying to find something to disagree with. Like it's been said before, if those workers haven't come up with a contingency plan (and some haven't) then it's their own fault. As dumb as it seems, some haven't and will actually expect to land a shitty mechanics job with similar salary pay and somewhat similar benefits, because they don't plan ahead. It's unrealistic for you to even think that everyone at those Big 3 companies all have contingency plans and ways to avoid frantic, last-minute, late night job-searching.

There are thousands of blue and white-collar workers that end up on their ass when their companies go belly up that don't have a contingency plan for a number of reasons- they thought their job was safe, they didn't plan for emergencies, they felt they were "too busy" or it was "too much of a hassle" to look for another job. These are the people that usually end up with a shitty job that is much lower than their expectations to pay the bills, while they search for a real job to replace their old spending habits, and old way of life.

Let's look at this example of a mechanic shop, which by your last paragraph I can tell you've never worked near one.

1)There are walk-ins all the time, of mechanics who haven't worked at one of the big 3 companies with just as, if not more experience working with cars - that will get a job much faster than one of those big 3 ex-employees. Faster because they'll work for lower pay, won't ask for benefits or it might be something as simple as they know the other mechanics or used to work at the shop down the street.

2) Winter is coming, and that means it's going to be slower as shit in most, if not all shops. If those companies close shops might get a little bit more business right away, but most won't see any spikes until summer, which means most shops won't be looking for mechanics. The mechanics make their money off of how much business they get, not hourly wages- so even if they do land these jobs they won't be getting anywhere near the amount of money they are used to and will probably get told this by the managers of said shops.

3) Working on cars is a career field just like going into the army is, that's as dumb as saying said "who needs a college degree in the army, you just shoot things"

An auto-mechanic degree is what will get you actual work as a mechanic instead of some shit job like General Service(keyword, bitch) in a shop. It's just like you need to take classes and get tested if you're going to be a safety inspector, if you want to get those "phat stackz" then going to school and getting a tech degree is only going to help you in the long run.

[404 Not Found]

(btw who gets a college degree to work on cars...)

I assume you never heard of a college called McPhearson in Kansas? Graduate from that school with a background in Auto Mechanics and you can almost be guaranteed a minimum salary of $75,000.00 or can open a shop with a backlog of customers before the doors open.

My sons friend is graduating from this school next year and has already been recruited by a restoration shop for Ferarris and Maserati's. This kid as well as many of his classmates worked for Jay Leno the last two summers. Lenno has some 200+ cars I think?

[Jerome Scuggs]

Last year there were 200,000 bankruptcies in this country, according to U.S. News & World Report. Yet we have selected only the largest for our aid. This is discrimination of the crassest sort. We ignore the smaller victims of this government’s policies simply because they are small. Only the largest, those with the most clout, the most pull, get our attention. This aristocracy of pull is morally indefensible. What answer can be given to the small businessman driven into bankruptcy by government regulations when he asks: "You bailed out Chrysler, why not me?" No justification can be given for this discrimination between the powerful and the powerless, the big and the small.

It is an axiom of our legal system that all citizens are to enjoy the equal protection of the laws. That axiom is violated daily by our tax laws, and now by this proposed corporate welfare plan for Chrysler. Apparently some citizens are more equal than others. That is a notion I reject, and I hope you do, too. I urge you to reject this proposal for all the reasons I have stated.

ron paul back in '79

i'm glad we hate this guy

[Izor]

1)There are walk-ins all the time, of mechanics who haven't worked at one of the big 3 companies with just as, if not more experience working with cars - that will get a job much faster than one of those big 3 ex-employees. Faster because they'll work for lower pay, won't ask for benefits or it might be something as simple as they know the other mechanics or used to work at the shop down the street.

3) Working on cars is a career field just like going into the army is, that's as dumb as saying said "who needs a college degree in the army, you just shoot things"

People who worked for the shop down the road arent what im talking about...I'm talking about people who have never held a job in the field before getting beaten out for every opportunity by veterans of the field. If the economy truly gets that bad, theyll know they have to take a pay cut.

Officers need a college degree in the army, but if you plan on staying in enlisted theres not much of a point in pursuing one.

Technical degrees will obviously help you, but from what I've observed the best way to learn about cars is to work on them. I could be wrong who knows, but thats my perception of it.

[Vehicle]

I reccomend we take this thread, put it in a time capsule and bury it for 20 years.

I'm so tired of this car bailout shit. You didn't run a lucrative business. We as a nation have supported you and your shitty policies for decades. Your unskilled laborers don't want to get new jobs, unless you fire them they aren't going to. Way to fly your corporate jet to beg for money. It would only cost 5 billion to buy enough shares of GM to practically own the damn thing. Fuck you. Fuck your employees. Stop crying wolf like you've done so many times before. Declare chapter 7 and reorganize, if that leads to chapter 13 so be it. If you want to make an omellete you got to break some eggs.

[Cops]

^ I agree with Vehicle.

Fuck, this whole economy meltdown is really freaking me out about getting a job. Canwest laid people off and CTV Globe Media is on a hiring freeze. All across the board jobs don't exist and I'm entering the working world during the midst of a recession. Don't get me wrong, I know it's only a mild recession but professionals with real job experience are in the same race as me to find work.

[Squeezer]

it's in the best interest of the workers to let them go under. if they want an economy in ten years, that is.

what, like the big 3 will ever have their industrial sovereignty ever again? like their profits will sustain whatever previous wages were possible? like they will wield a large economic influence?

especially when the new precedent established will create america's version of the russian food lines, as anyone and everyone lines up for money, pleading their case. when does it end, when do we let capitalism function?

don't consider these people above the interests of everybody else. their job loss translates into new signals, and the market readjusts in a better, more productive way. have a little patience, and soon enough everyone's employed again. unless of course, the government extend unemployment benefits.

sigh, this is why I don't argue shit with you. All I say is that maybe we shouldn't leave all the auto industry workers out high and dry. Maybe we should have some sort of plan in place for all the unemployed that are about to drive our taxes through the roof.

And I get, "this country will be Russia soon!"

-_-