 
Ffdfd
Member
Username: Ffdfd
Post Number: 198
Registered: 09-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 12:25 am: |    |
Scott, do you teach this course?
http://www.luc.edu/curl/projec ts/past/passport/docs/Unit02Po liticalCynicism.pdf |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 795
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 12:52 am: | |
Ffdfd,
I'm flattered but no. That course is more optimistic than I am. For instance, this is from the document you linked to:
"The clear majority of public servants work hard and are honorable."
I have never found that to be true. Those that work hard are generally working toward something at odds with what would truly benefit the people; those who would work toward true positive change quickly become too frustrated to work very hard.
Look at the results we are getting, in Michigan and America, and try to disagree with a straight face. Let me know how that goes. |
Lowell
Board Administrator
Username: Lowell
Post Number: 4175
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 12:58 am: | |
Professor Scott, the collusion between business and government is rampant here in Michigan. The problem is that government has gotten into the business of bribery here as much as China. It is government and business vs. the worker. All they ahve to do is breath the word jobs and the tooth fairy shows up. The following is a little snippet I caught from this week's Crains. Who wouldn't like some of this chedda? The decision process of handing out that welfare also creates a wide opening for corruption.
Aeronautics firm plans
600 jobs in Pittsfield
Grupo Aernnova, a Spanish-
based designer and
manufacturer of aircraft
parts, plans to spend $10
million to build an aerospace
engineering center in
Pittsfield Township that
will employ up to 600.
The Michigan Economic
Growth Authority board on
Tuesday approved a 15-
year, $18.5 million state tax
credit for the company last
week. Other local credits
included:
A seven-year, $1.7 million
tax credit for Torontobased
Azure Dynamics Corp.,
which will move its headquarters
and some of its development,
testing and production
operations to Oak
Park, creating 125 new jobs;
A seven-year, $4.6 million
credit for Credit Acceptance
Corp., which will expand
its Southfield
headquarters and hire 506;
A 10-year, $1.9 million
credit for a joint venture
between Mars Advertising Co.
Inc., Southfield, and Prize
Logic Inc., a Scottsdale,
Ariz., online promotions
company, expected to create
150 jobs; and
A nine-year, $2.2 million
tax credit for Sysco
Food Services of Detroit L.L.C.,
which may spend about $18
million on a 90,000-squarefoot
expansion in Canton
Township. The proposal includes
130 hires. |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 797
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 1:08 am: | |
I see your point, Lowell, but the difference in the United States is that cities are competing against each other to attract specific plants, doing it piecemeal, and failing over the long term.
I can quickly come up with several examples where the State of Michigan and its communities have given tax breaks (which are not the same thing as direct subsidies) to companies in exchange for a certain level of employment or investment, and the companies have failed to live up to their end of the bargain, and the tax breaks go on anyhow.
Begging for crumbs is not a "policy", it is a form of prostitution. |
Ffdfd
Member
Username: Ffdfd
Post Number: 200
Registered: 09-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 1:56 am: | |
Prof, it's interesting how people perpetually give Congress abysmal approval ratings, but approve of the job their own representatives are doing. Here is a link to one of my favorite segments from This American Life -- three days with then-freshman Michigan legislator Steve Tobocman. It has the power to both increase and decrease one's cynicism (although mostly increase).
[start listening at around the 24-minute mark, segment goes until the 50-minute mark approx.]
http://www.thislife.org/Radio_ Episode.aspx?episode=250 |
Danny
Member
Username: Danny
Post Number: 6585
Registered: 02-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 6:51 am: | |
ATTENTION!
A tentative contract deal between GM and UAW has been reached. Strikers can now call off the picket signs and return to work. The unions have WON the WAR VICTORY, VICTORY, VICTORY!
SOLIDARITY FOREVER! |
Cincinnati_kid
Member
Username: Cincinnati_kid
Post Number: 17
Registered: 07-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 7:01 am: | |
We'll see if they actually won, when they review the language of the contract. It might not be what it seems. |
Sstashmoo
Member
Username: Sstashmoo
Post Number: 432
Registered: 02-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 10:21 am: | |
Re: The pitfalls in the absence of labor unions. The scaretalk that without unions we'd all be living with 3rd world conditions is just pro labor rhetoric.
In the South there are good examples of life without unions. Employer demand, Skill, experience, expertise and effort put forth all dictate wage amount. If you want good people you have to pay for them. If you want a good wage, you have to work for it. Companies fight over able workers that will produce profits for them. Its a natural system that promotes growth on all fronts. The effect on the community is lower prices across the board, housing, food, etc. There is not a huge contrast in payscales. So if one is not part of particular sector of the wagescale, they are not crushed under staggering costs imposed by workers that are.
People that want it and can manage their affairs, live well. The ones that don't care are not lumped in because they belong, and drag down productivity and profits. Bad system, it costs everyone.
The other scaretalk is that without unions, employers will mistreat employees. Not true, we have labor laws that protect workers now.
When the unions are gone, life will go on. And without them and their fees added back into the system, folks may find they live even better. |
Corktownmark
Member
Username: Corktownmark
Post Number: 346
Registered: 12-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 11:17 am: | |
and ends.
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/a pps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/2007 0926/REG/70926001/-1/newslette r05 |
Cambrian
Member
Username: Cambrian
Post Number: 1660
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 12:14 pm: | |
I agree the UAW's future does not look good. They need to figure out a way to be more appealing to the needs of 21st workers and figure out a way to offer something to them. That would include our "brothers and Sisters" south of the Rio Grande and on the other side of the Pacific. Contrary to popular beliefs Unions are alive and well in China, Wal Marts there are the only Unionized ones in the world. Clinging to the hopes that things will change on our soil in time to reverse thier fortunes are risky. |
Cambrian
Member
Username: Cambrian
Post Number: 1662
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 3:34 pm: | |
From Autobeat Daily Exclusive:
GM, UAW HAIL LANDMARK AGREEMENT. General
Motors Corp. and the United Auto Workers say each side
won important gains in the tentative four-year contract
reached early today.
Besides creating a union-run trust to handle retiree
healthcare costs, the tentative agreement would:
• Create a two-tier wage system for workers not doing
core manufacturing jobs. New non-manufacturing hirees could be paid as little as half the $28 per hour that current
UAW workers receive.
• Freeze wages and replace annual hikes and cost-ofliving
increases with lump-sum bonus payments of 3%, 4%
and 3% in the contract’s last three years.
• Dole out a $3,000 signing bonus to each worker.
• Cap out-of-pocket healthcare expenses for active
workers at current levels. Those workers also will divert a
portion of future wage increases to pay for healthcare for
active and retired workers.
• Require GM to make “significant” investments in U.S.
plants. Those commitments hinge on reaching agreements
at each plant to adopt more flexible work rules.
• Restructure the Jobs Bank, which pays idled workers
most of their wages and benefits, to limit the time
during which laid-off workers qualify for payments. The
deal would expand the geographic region in which idled
workers will be required to take an available job from
the current 50-mile radius.
• Offer another program of early retirements and
buyouts. That will open up jobs to make 4,100 temporary
workers permanent.
GM says the union’s concessions will help it close
“fundamental competitive gaps” with rival OEMs. A preliminary
estimate from CSM Worldwide Inc. figures the pact
could eliminate 40%-50% of GM’s $25-$30-per-hour cost
gap with non-union automakers in the U.S.
In exchange, the UAW says it won “outstanding” job
security guarantees for members, a top priority.
Analysts say the framework of this sweeping agreement
will likely set the tone in future bargaining with the
Canadian Auto Workers union, North American auto parts
suppliers and other industries with similar cost and flexibility
issues. |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 4077
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 4:31 pm: | |
It doesn't appear that GM has much going for it to remain a going-concern for too many more years. To my way of thinking, GM is now another dinosaur (as Zenith was in consumer electronics--the last US holdout) in the auto industry.
GM's fixed overhead, still tied to its huge legacy costs, almost robs it from ever again making any significant future profits which could otherwise sustain its continued existence. As I posted earlier, it and Ford are just staying in business for as long as they can and making payrolls for their players until their inevitable bankruptcies occur. After that, they will continue under federal bankruptcy court supervision and their former legacy costs will be quickly phased out.
Afterwards, GM and Ford will be small slivers of their once selves--if they continue in existence. The US auto industry will eventually follow the game plans of the final US firms in the consumer electronics industry, which died out during the 1960s and 1970s. |
Cambrian
Member
Username: Cambrian
Post Number: 1665
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 4:39 pm: | |
The last 40 years of doing business is an alarming trend where the only companies that can turn a profit are ones on foreign soil. Japanese ones turn profits here, we turn profits in China. Too much competition is not healthy. |
Spartacus
Member
Username: Spartacus
Post Number: 235
Registered: 07-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 5:23 pm: | |
LY: do you ever get tired of being so negative?
Cambrian: Do you really think that domestic companies are not making money? Corporate profits have exploded over the last 40 years.
As for your statement that "too much Competition is not healthy" I think this epitomizes why I will never agree with you on much of anything (at least where politics/economics are concerned). The whole concept of the efficient market is based on competition. Without it markets don't function properly. Competition is what breeds innovation. I would say that the inverse of your statement is true, not enough competition is unhealthy. I will grant you that the byproduct of competition is that there are winners and loser, but this beats the alternative. |
Civilprotectionunit4346
Member
Username: Civilprotectionunit4346
Post Number: 510
Registered: 06-2007
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 5:31 pm: | |
Plan A: Fire all lazy american autoworkers.
Plan B: Move all those jobs over seas
Plan C: Destruction of the Middle Class
Plan D: All the one's who profit get to buy a nice new shiny yacht!
Both sides are to blame in this argument...I know the strike is over.... It's as plain as a plain piece of paper. Hey good news for everyone the Candian Dollar is worth as much as the American Dollar...
(Message edited by civilprotectionunit4346 on September 26, 2007) |
Ray1936
Member
Username: Ray1936
Post Number: 1978
Registered: 01-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 5:40 pm: | |
"I can quickly come up with several examples where the State of Michigan and its communities have given tax breaks (which are not the same thing as direct subsidies) to companies in exchange for a certain level of employment or investment, and the companies have failed to live up to their end of the bargain, and the tax breaks go on anyhow."
I'll take up that challenge. Name three. |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 4078
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 5:42 pm: | |
Duh! Be sure to check the financials of the Big Three in the future, and you will see for yourself what "happy-talk" spin and being cheerily positive gets you. |
Spartacus
Member
Username: Spartacus
Post Number: 236
Registered: 07-2005
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 5:52 pm: | |
A lot of people a lot smarter than either of us invested a lot of money in GM today (the stock price rose over 9%). Maybe you could at least acknowledge that your viewpoint isn't universal and not an inevitable conclusion one would draw after reviewing their F/S. |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 4079
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 6:56 pm: | |
+9.4% for GM. Ford shot up too--almost by the same percentage. But, you claimed that it was people smarter than me making those purchases. Well, that's bogus, too.
The vast majority of shares traded the past two decades are not done by humans at all, but institutionally, via computer programs--mostly unattended. Many of those computer-programmed decisions are made for the very short term. And many of them are not based on sound decisions. Notice how well (NOT!) the industry revolving around the exchanges are performing.
Instead, why not mull these financial ratios from GM and Ford. Pay attention to the two last financial years and note how poorly GM's returns on equity were. BTW, those figures contained inside parentheses are losses, not gains: (49.94%) and (43.21%) the past two years...
Although it's been eons since I successfully passed all four parts of the Uniform CPA exam, I still know financial ratios and can read financial statements... |
Lilpup
Member
Username: Lilpup
Post Number: 2817
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 8:07 pm: | |
quote:Professorscott:
"I can quickly come up with several examples where the State of Michigan and its communities have given tax breaks (which are not the same thing as direct subsidies) to companies in exchange for a certain level of employment or investment, and the companies have failed to live up to their end of the bargain, and the tax breaks go on anyhow."
Ray1936:
I'll take up that challenge. Name three.
The most obvious is Pfizer. I'm sure there are *at least* two others.
In 2003 the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette did an investigative story on tax breaks. They found that not only did companies fail to meet promised conditions, many actually laid off employees! Shortly after, some researchers at Indiana U conducted a study which revealed that most tax abatement programs are not beneficial to the providers ~ National review of tax abatement programs finds generosity and a lack of focus |
Cambrian
Member
Username: Cambrian
Post Number: 1666
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 10:05 pm: | |
I think too much competition saps innovation Sparticus. Why would I spend the time, money and energy to invent something just so some body in India can take my design, copy it and sell it for half what I need to recoup my investment? |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 4084
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 10:18 pm: | |
Canbrian, US firms such as Intel have had tens of thousands of US EEs replaced some six or seven years ago by Russians, alone. Russians! The same people who were considered the "enemy" just a few years before that!
And, of course, US EEs are being replaced by EEs and software "engineers" in the Philippines, Korea, and India (among others). And you're just beginning to cry about your field??? |
Cambrian
Member
Username: Cambrian
Post Number: 1667
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 10:25 pm: | |
So how is that a good thing LY? What benefits do we realize when someone gets "replaced"? |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 4085
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 10:45 pm: | |
Duh! It's been happening for a long time already.
You're lucky that it hasn't happened sooner to you--or else you were unaware of reality elsewhere because your own ox wasn't gored yet. That's why. |
Cambrian
Member
Username: Cambrian
Post Number: 1668
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 10:49 pm: | |
Those aren't benefits LY. Why should we all jump in your apple cart and embrace globalization? |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 4088
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 10:56 pm: | |
You don't have any choice. You're now going to have to manage as the rest of us. Your sacred cowness is coming to its end. |
Cambrian
Member
Username: Cambrian
Post Number: 1669
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 11:00 pm: | |
Choices yes. There are always choices. GM had the choice to move all production work out of the country and the UAW convinced them other wise. |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 4089
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 11:04 pm: | |
Keep playing the role of the victim, why doncha?
We engineers adapted a decade or longer ago. It's now your turn, and frankly, I (we, assuredly there are millions of others in the US like me) don't care if you want to continually live in the past. |
Cambrian
Member
Username: Cambrian
Post Number: 1670
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 11:11 pm: | |
So there are no benefits, just except the lower wages and be thankful the boss wants to employ your sorry ass. That's great LY! You oughta take that message on the road, maybe good ole washed up lame duck GW can put you to work as an errand runner for some Saudi oil family. Your belt tightening and sacrifice is commendable, but don't be fooled no one appreciates it. |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 4090
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 26, 2007 - 11:18 pm: | |
I give up! I'm not trying to sell you on anything, BTW. You're simply way too stubborn or much too dense to see the world as the rest of us have seen and lived it.
And get this! According to you, it's now Bush's fault although this global shift was already occurring during much or maybe all of the Clintonian era.
Get real! |
Mod
Member
Username: Mod
Post Number: 113
Registered: 07-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, September 27, 2007 - 12:01 pm: | |
LY, you just can't reach everybody.
Most of us have embraced the fact that in the past 5 years, 2 billion people have entered the global workforce (and became consumers for that matter). I have learned to adapt as many others.
If you don't accept this, you will become extinct. Basic laws of nature. |
Smitch
Member
Username: Smitch
Post Number: 27
Registered: 04-2007
| | Posted on Thursday, September 27, 2007 - 12:24 pm: | |
Its useless trying to get Cambrian to see any reason. A couple of posts on an internet forum will do little to erase the years of UAW brainwashing. |
Cambrian
Member
Username: Cambrian
Post Number: 1671
Registered: 08-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, September 27, 2007 - 12:26 pm: | |
Bah bah say the sheeple on the way to the slaughter house. |
Professorscott
Member
Username: Professorscott
Post Number: 804
Registered: 12-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, September 27, 2007 - 6:49 pm: | |
The settlement seems to me a good compromise, the basic idea of "compromise" being that nobody gets exactly what they wanted but everybody gets something.
The biggest thing, from what I'm reading now, is that GM employees have a reasonable expectation that there will be lots of GM manufacturing jobs in the United States into the future.
Of course, if you're in the GM "rank and file" and you don't like it once you've seen the details (which I have not), you can vote "no". |
Lilpup
Member
Username: Lilpup
Post Number: 2823
Registered: 06-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, September 27, 2007 - 6:56 pm: | |
quote:The biggest thing, from what I'm reading now, is that GM employees have a reasonable expectation that there will be lots of GM manufacturing jobs in the United States into the future.
I agree - keeping jobs here is huge and can be a springboard in the future.
Just today I heard of an unemployed guy who paid a former employer $1,000 to rehire him - is that the future workers want? |
Jimaz
Member
Username: Jimaz
Post Number: 3350
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, September 27, 2007 - 7:08 pm: | |
quote:Just today I heard of an unemployed guy who paid a former employer $1,000 to rehire him ... Is that even legal in Michigan? |
Livernoisyard
Member
Username: Livernoisyard
Post Number: 4099
Registered: 10-2004
| | Posted on Thursday, September 27, 2007 - 7:27 pm: | |
quote:Is that even legal in Michigan?
Just what is it that might be illegal? Somebody saying...quote:Just today I heard of an unemployed guy who paid a former employer $1,000 to rehire him - is that the future workers want? is probably still not made illegal...
Gotta report all that bogus hearsay, especially if it rarely, if ever, happens. |
Jimaz
Member
Username: Jimaz
Post Number: 3351
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, September 27, 2007 - 7:37 pm: | |
Maybe I'm confused.
I recall hearing back in the '70s that it was illegal to buy a job in Michigan. Of course businesses can be bought and sold but not jobs.
Has that changed? Was I misinformed? |
Angry_dad
Member
Username: Angry_dad
Post Number: 166
Registered: 02-2006
| | Posted on Thursday, September 27, 2007 - 9:26 pm: | |
Illegal to buy jobs?
Since corporations figured out that can play any level of government against each other while those elected "representatives" only act in the bets interest of their own jobs, this is a joke.
Why can the Japanese who have been clearly manipulating markets and currency values for years still get tax breaks from various states across the nation? Tax breaks which are funded by revenue sharing from states like Michigan.
Of course GM is doomed but we still re-elect complete idiots. The Germans and Japanese are smarter. They actually care about the guy down the street. Instead of believing or caring what an idiot writing for Consumers Reports writes.
Illegal to buy a job? Tell that to the clowns in office that sell theirs at every election. |
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