Big 3 Bailout - The Senate Bails On It — Page 4

"I think JustAGuy got my point, Phyllis Rogers Stone."

No...I did not get your point..I think your "point" is preposterous, ludicrous and unrealistic. There are people that are "living the American Dream." on less than $36 dollars an hour. It may not be your "American Dream", they may not own the house or drive the car that you would want to, but you can certainly do both for less than $74K a year. No one is owed or promised the "American Dream", you work for it. I've never heard of the "American Dream" as being something that you are entitled to.

So...if you think the pizza delivery person should make $36 an hour, how much do you think the college educated, highly skilled, professional should make? Or should we all just earn the same? That would certainly be an incentive to achieve wouldn't it?

"Yes, Miss Sim, I know you just created the first car to run on recycled plastic bags...no you cannot have a raise, I'm sorry, you only get paid $36 an hour, the same as the pizza delivery boy...now get back to work."

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Updated On: 12/17/08 at 02:54 PM

"Never did I say someone should make $36. hr without working for it. But if you look at the real estate prices - at least where I live and on much of the west coast- the "American dream" is lost to many Americans."

There is no guarantee that the "American Dream" gets to come true for everyone...I think that's why it's called a dream. I have no doubt that there are some who are earning $74K or above who feel that the "American Dream" hasn't come true for them either...it's all relative.

"Making a living is not something that should be available only to people with a higher eduction or the privileged."

I don't believe I said that it was...you continue to make these statements as if someone actually said those things. So far I haven't seen anyone in this thread say any such thing.


"Perhaps you don't mind that many American veterans are homeless today. Perhaps you don't mind seeing the mentally ill being thrown out on the streets to live."

Which has nothing to do with a $36 per hour minimum wage. There are veterans and mentally ill who are not homeless and not being thrown out on the streets as well. What the hell are you talking about. You're bouncing all over the place.

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It's not just the unions. It's not just the greed of the companies. It is a COMPLETELY FLAWED AND OBSOLETE SYSTEM THAT CAN'T BE FIXED.

It will quickly dawn on the car-buying public that they have been had over and over and over again by being made to think that they NEED a new car, on the average, every three years. That is the bull**** people have been fed. The garage mechanics know this and will tell you to keep your car until it won't run at all or until it needs so many repairs that it is cost-effective to buy a car. And they'll tell you to buy a used car.

That is the crux of the whole greed invested auto industry.

The related scam of this is the pressure from others who have bought new cars. Ah! And you are supposed to be green from envy. And so you might give in. Thus if the bull**** ads won't wear down your common sense and native intelligence, your "friends and neighbors" will.

So let Deeee-troit bend their cars parts into plougshares and go do some work that will benefit humanity.

Just on the news, I was most heartened to see Chrysler is essentialy in the toilet. I recall crock-a-dile crock-of-**** tears from Lee Iocucko some years ago. He who behind the CEO cloak beat his wife and was a drunk. He got big bux from the government=you and me. And now retribution. Ain't no more Chrysler.

And any fed lawmaker who votes to give money to these losers should be tarred and feathered and sent to Iran.

NOTE that the missing, deleted work was--and I have sort of coded it, yet here it is, below.

**** = s*h*i*t.

A common word. Something we do every day, ideally. :)

Updated On: 12/17/08 at 07:10 PM

Let's stop deliveries for a month, then the next month stop all entry level attornies from working for the month. You'll see which one society needs the most.

We need safety nets, whether for the mentaly ill and those who can't work, or for workers who perform vital functions on sub-living wages. Different specifics, same principle. If it's bureaucracy that gets in the way from making it happen .... the net has holes and it ain't working, is it?

"I believe that the minimum wage should be tied to the cost of living and be raised accordingly every year."

I agree, but we don't agree on where that level should be set.

And where are these $36./hr attornies? The last lawyer I hired was over 10 times that.

Dots enough?

I'm surprised you even bothered to continue this thread.

(Our shoot was called off, temp was too high for what we needed to do, not that anyone is wondering.)

Deliveries for a month isn't just pizza - it's Fedex and UPS, too. It's food, medical supplies and even organs for transplant. It's all trucking and shipping. It's a major component of what makes the economy run. Entry level lawyers? Won't be missed.

JK, when Iaccoca negotiated the loans for Chrysler years ago it was at no cost to taxpayers - both the government and the lending institutions made money on the deal.

As far as everyone buying new cars every three years, they don't. There are over 202 million registered driver in the US. The standard auto market in the US in a good year sells less than 17 million units. For 2008 the number will probably be around 13 million sold with fourth quarter sales absolutely in the sewer at what would be an annual rate of 10-11 million sold.

There is tremendous competition in the US auto market. In November the sales leader, GM, captured just under 21% of sales. The Big 3 plus the three major Japanese company groups (Toyota, Honda, Nissan) captured only 83% of sales. The remaining 17% was split between 11 different companies (and these are majors, not extremes or exotics)!

In November market share order:

Top 6 - 83%
GM (Buick,Cadillac,Chevy,GMC,Hummer,Pontiac,Saab,Saturn)
Toyota (Toyota,Lexus)
Ford (Ford,Mercury,Lincoln)
Chrysler (Chrysler,Dodge,Jeep)
Honda (Honda,Acura)
Nissan (Nissan,Infiniti)

The remainder - 17%
BMW (BMW,Mini)
Hyundai
Kia
VW
Mercedes(tie)
Mazda(tie)
Subaru
Audi
Mitsubishi
Suzuki
Porsche

yet athletes and performing arts stars make a killing

if you think everyone is entitled to the same rewards as those who spend their time and money getting higher education, then you have a bit of a skewed perspective

I never said that. But it is more complex than this. It depends on what the higher education is and how it applies in society's scheme of things.

For the record, I am an entrepreneur. I own businesses and I hire and employ people.

"You've still not answered the most vital question..."

Are you really expecting me to give a simple answer that can be posted in a few seconds on a BWW internet message board? Do I, you or anyone else here really have that answer or the answer to the problems I brought up? Tackling these problems isn't so easy. But prolonging wars like the ones we are now in doesn't seem to be the answer either.

In the months ahead, expect to see new waves of homeless and more people needing food, clothing & assistance with other essentials in America. Some will be out of work, some will be working with insufficient pay.

This will not be Obama's fault.

"Athletes and performing arts stars are part of industries that generate the kind of funds that lead to those incomes."

Yet tax dollars are building stadia.

"The 'vital question' he asked is the one that most of us are wondering about - where IS this money supposedly coming from?"

I'll be happy as hell to see the overpriced coastal areas, driven mostly by Wall Street greed, fall flat on their faces as the fundamental, core industries of national economic strength are no longer neglected by the Federal administration.

That is to say, as the upward redistribution of wealth stops.

Updated On: 12/18/08 at 03:40 AM

"In the months ahead, expect to see new waves of homeless and more people needing food, clothing & assistance"

New waves HERE, you mean - because those conditions have existed world-wide for quite some time.

Welcome to the 21st Century, where the world is becoming one entity. We here in the US have lived too high with too little for too long - and it's biting us in the ass as we type.

I live in a household that is proscribed by a teacher's retirement salary and some meager investments - and we are STILL statistically within the top 5% of wealth on the PLANET.

It is time for the US mentality to have a reality check - and all the pathetic whining will be seen as just that, pathetic.

Are we going to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and find the way to move forward? Remains to be seen. Frankly, I don't have as much faith in the incoming regime as some do - but who knows.

But I DO know that carrying on about the same old same old like we've done in our entitled myopia will lead nowhere at all - except to debtor's prison to the rest of the world.

Who are pissed off, by the way - and with good reason.

"Deliveries for a month isn't just pizza - it's Fedex and UPS, too. It's food, medical supplies and even organs for transplant. It's all trucking and shipping. It's a major component of what makes the economy run. Entry level lawyers? Won't be missed."

And the people that drive those trucks and make those deliveries are not working for minimum wage either. Most are probably Teamsters.

We were specifically speaking about minimum wage earners...such as Pizza Delivery or Grocery Delivery people...NOT long haul big rig drivers. There's a huge difference between the two, not only in skill set but also in necessity. Which is why they get paid more.

I frankly, can get along without either the pizza delivery person, or the entry level attorney. But that doesn't change the fact the the entry level attorney is more skilled than the delivery person, and as such can demand a higher salary.

No one has yet been able to justify why the delivery person should be paid as much as the entry level attorney or how the cost would be offset by doing so. Which was basically what Krissy and I were discussing.

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"Nope, especially not now that Mexican trucks are allowed to run in the US."

What I replied to was this:

"Deliveries for a month isn't just pizza - it's Fedex and UPS, too. It's food, medical supplies and even organs for transplant. It's all trucking and shipping. It's a major component of what makes the economy run. Entry level lawyers? Won't be missed."

My response was specifically aimed at your comment re: FEDEX and UPS...not Mexican truckers.

UPS drivers are members of the Teamsters. Most of Fedex isn't now...but the Teamsters are making inroads and they will probably all be unionized sooner rather than later. Currently FedEx uses what they call independent contractors who own their own trucks and they are paid a salary that is well over minimum wage, plus a percentage on the mileage.

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Q et al,

I have to step in and assist Yawper somewhat because he's onto something that is often glossed over in these discussions. The US as a nation can simply not thrive without a solid manufacturing base transporting finished goods to PORT CITIES for EXPORT. Some years back while in grad school, I gave a presentation on the economic impact of the US port cities on the national economy. In short, kill the ports and we have no nation to speak of.

When the US was a very young Republic, commerce gravitated toward port cities first because shipping was (and still is) a relatively cheap means of transporting finished goods to far away destinations. Forget about Wall Street, if the Port of NY-NJ didn't exist NY today would be nothing to write home about. Shipping facilitated the earliest form of interstate-commerce in our nascent nation long before interstate highways and railways were laid, both along the coastline and along the Mississippi River.

Furthermore, our earliest railways often terminated at a major port. One of the reasons the Port of Baltimore has taken a beating at the hands of the Ports of Philadelphia and NJ-NY is that the latter have much deeper channels permitting larger freight. Grain from the Midwest is still hauled by trucks to rail depots for further transport to ports. It is also no coincidence that Amtrak services the major port cities since the railway was already laid prior to startup.

What is really disturbing now is that we have deficit in foreign sea freight tonnage via the major US ports. See the link below. Scoff at the source at your peril because the stats correlate to those available at the Dept of Labor. One could infer that this is due to our trade deficit with major players such as China and my dad’s persistent suggestion that the only things we make domestically are salon products and bad movies.

So, I for one agree with Yawyper who suggests that the bi-coastal real estate bubbles are partly to blame for the pickle which we find ourselves in economically, but only partly. There's a historical reason that land in the port cities comes at a premium.

That said, I encourage Yawyper to revisit the ugly history of passenger trains in the US as it relates to "ORGANIZED LABOR", "interstate commerce commission" and "competition from automobiles & planes". Then it will be painfully obvious that we’ve come full circle. Despite all this bullsh*t about the new post-industrial economy, I’m not quite ready to write off the mechanized one.

Finally, not everyone is pleased with Richard Nixon’s little experiment that became Amtrak either. In fact many fiscal conservatives still suggest that Amtrak should get off the public dole.

Sorry for the treatise.
List of ports in the US

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