Still Lacking "PLANS," GM, Ford, Chrysler DEMAND Bailouts -- But WhatAbout CAFE "Increases" By 2020? Are We Suckers, Or What?

By 2020?

Unless this federal mandate is revised to force the not-so-Big Three
to meet a 35 mpg minumum by 2012, any bailout will be meaningless.

Yet we've heard little or nothing about this incredibly ludicrous,
loosey-goosey CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) standard during
the bailout beggings.

By 2020, half the people negotiating auto makers' relief will be dead
or ****ting their beds in nursing homes!

I still say no bailouts, period!

Chapter 11 is just the right medicine to ensure that the Big Three
don't even THINK about remaining big.

http://blogs.consumerreports.org/car...g-by-2020.html

-----------------------------

"UAW Offers Detroit Concessions"

"Urging an Auto Bailout, Union Retreats on Terms Of Health Care, Jobs
Bank"

By Steven Mufson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 4, 2008; D01



An angry Ron Gettelfinger, president of the United Auto Workers, said
yesterday that his union was ready to make new concessions despite a
landmark cost-cutting labor contract signed just last year, as he
urged Congress and the Bush administration to step forward with a
multibillion dollar rescue plan for Detroit's beleaguered automakers.

The UAW, whose membership at the Big Three Detroit car manufacturers
has dropped by half in the past five years, said it would let General
Motors, Ford and Chrysler delay payments owed to a massive health-care
fund for retired workers and suspend a program that pays laid off
workers for up to two years.

Gettelfinger made the new concessions reluctantly, complaining that
the federal government was stepping in to rescue financial
institutions while letting the car companies dangle near collapse.
"I'm having a little problem myself understanding why there's a double
standard here," he told reporters after a meeting of union leadership.
"But we accept it and we'll play by those rules."

Despite the union's moves, the chances for a government bailout --
which GM and Chrysler say they need before the end of the month to
avert financial collapse -- remained uncertain at best. Democratic
leadership aides said prospects for the $28 billion to $38 billion
package sought by the companies were dim in the House. Auto industry
sources said that House members were being flooded with mail from
constituents opposed to federal help for the companies.

The White House, however, appeared to leave all possibilities open.
Spokeswoman

Dana Perino said the administration, which has urged Congress to
divert $25 billion in funds authorized last year to promote fuel
efficiency, needed more time to evaluate the plans.

"I think that to the American people, that giving $25 billion in
taxpayer dollars to a specific industry is generous," Perino said.
"But these are very serious times, and I'm sure the companies have
spent a lot of time thinking through what they think they will need."

The union's concessions came as top executives for the companies made
the rounds in Washington to rally support for a federal bailout of the
auto industry.

During an interview at the Washington Post, Ford chief executive Alan
R. Mulally said he was pressing Congress for money even though his
company currently does not need federal help because if any of Ford's
rivals collapsed, the pain would spread to suppliers and Ford itself.

Mulally, who said he drove from Detroit in a hybrid Ford Escape, said
he saw no sign of improvement in the economy. He acknowledged that the
automakers' public pleas for help are likely scaring off buyers.

"This conversation is hurting us," Mulally said.

The president of Chrysler, Jim Press, stopped at an auto dealership in
New Carrollton where dealers and local officials said the collapse of
the automakers would spread pain far beyond Detroit. "If we don't get
these loans, and for some reason we have to stop producing cars,"
Press said, "the dealers would have no business. It's catastrophic."

"It's not just the dealer," said Tammy Darvish, vice president of the
chain of Darcars dealerships. "I have 233 local vendors that I do
business with, and I pay them combined over $83 million a year. You
have oil guys, messenger services who would be affected."

But lawmakers and analysts were still asking whether the three major
U.S. automakers had plans to become viable or whether they would end
up asking for even more money from taxpayers. A Goldman Sachs report
issued yesterday took a more pessimistic view of GM's international
sales than the company and said that GM might need even more than the
$18 billion it allowed for in its worst-case scenario.

With cash shortages running so big, it was hard to see what could save
the companies other than federal aid. Gregg Lemos-Stein, an auto
expert at Standard & Poor's, noted that GM's total annual interest
payments on its debt came to less than half the cash the company went
through during the third quarter of this year alone.

"The cash losses are so severe that debt reduction alone can't be the
entire solution," Lemos-Stein said.

Gettelfinger asserted that labor made up only 10 percent of the cost
of a car. "To be honest with you right now, if a UAW membership went
into these facilities and worked for nothing, according to our
research department, it would not help the companies that much," he
said.

UAW members numbered fewer than 150,000 at GM, Ford and Chrysler, down
from about 300,000 five years ago, the union said.

Many critics of the auto industry have cited high labor costs.
However, cutting those costs were at the heart of the last two
contracts. Yesterday, Ford's Mulally called the 2007 UAW contract
"transformational" because of the savings it generates.

"The word concessions, I used to cringe at that word," Gettelfinger
said in his news conference yesterday. "But now, why hide from it?
That's what we did."

According to Ford, by the time the contract expires in September 2011,
hourly labor costs, including wages and benefits, would be $58, just
$4 an hour more than foreign-owned companies with nonunion plants in
the United States.

But that calculation assumed that the companies would be able to hire
new workers at lower wages and that these new hires would make up
about 20 percent of the companies' workforce. Because of the economic
downturn, however, Ford said it hasn't hired any new workers and that
the differential was currently about $9 an hour.

The 2007 contract also transferred the cost of retirees' health-care
plans from the auto companies to an independent trust known as a
voluntary employee beneficiary association, or VEBA.

The changes reduced the companies' liabilities for retiree health care
by 50 percent, according to the UAW. In return, the companies promised
to make huge lump-sum payments into the trusts to cover much of the
retirees' plans. Ford, for instance, paid $2.7 billion into the VEBA
in January. GM is due to make about a payment of about $7 billion in
2010. The companies want to defer future payments, and there might be
enough money in the trusts to allow them to do so without affecting
retiree benefits for some time.

While the UAW can delay VEBA payments and eliminate the Jobs Bank
without a vote of the membership, further concessions would require a
vote.

"We recognize that going forward there's going to be a restructuring
of the companies and all the stakeholders are going to have to make
sacrifices, and we're prepared to do our part," said Alan Reuther, the
union's Washington legislative director. "But that path forward, as
painful as it may be, is preferable to bankruptcy, not only for our
workers but also for the economy and whole country."

Robert L. Shanks, a Ford vice president and controller, said that UAW
concessions on the program aiding laid off workers, known as the Jobs
Bank, would be helpful, but that Ford has only about 1,200 workers in
the program, which costs the company about $120 million. While that
number is substantial, it pales next to the $9 billion to $13 billion
Ford said it might need if the economy weakens.

For now, Mulally said, "We don't want to borrow any more money." He
added that if Ford were to need the full $13 billion, it was because
the company faced a worst-case scenario that assumed "depression-level
economics."

Gettelfinger in Detroit said that neither the companies nor the unions
were to blame. "I want to stress that this issue is not brought on by
the companies. It certainly wasn't brought on by our union," he said.
"We're just in a major economic downturn that's rapidly spreading
around the world."

[Staff writers Kendra Marr and Thomas Heath contributed to this
article.]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...120301474.html

On 2008-12-04, Amelita > wrote:
> Unless this federal mandate is revised to force the not-so-Big Three
> to meet a 35 mpg minumum by 2012, any bailout will be meaningless.

Why are people so fixated on telling others what they can drive? It's
your sort of control freakism that has caused much of the problems.
Here's a clue, it's not profitable to make those vehicles with UAW
labor.

> I still say no bailouts, period!

Instead of the tiny (relatively) loans for the automakers you might want
to look into the 8 or so trillion for the banks.

On Dec 4, 6:12*am, Brent > wrote:
> On 2008-12-04, Amelita > wrote:
>
> > Unless this federal mandate is revised to force the not-so-Big Three
> > to meet a 35 mpg minumum by 2012, any bailout will be meaningless.
>
> Why are people so fixated on telling others what they can drive? It's
> your sort of control freakism that has caused much of the problems.
> Here's a clue, it's not profitable to make those vehicles with UAW
> labor.
>
> > I still say no bailouts, period!
>
> Instead of the tiny (relatively) loans for the automakers you might want
> to look into the 8 or so trillion for the banks.

Where does the giveaway stop? Detroit is DOA.

On 2008-12-04, Jim Higgins > wrote:
> On Dec 4, 6:12*am, Brent > wrote:
>> On 2008-12-04, Amelita > wrote:
>>
>> > Unless this federal mandate is revised to force the not-so-Big Three
>> > to meet a 35 mpg minumum by 2012, any bailout will be meaningless.
>>
>> Why are people so fixated on telling others what they can drive? It's
>> your sort of control freakism that has caused much of the problems.
>> Here's a clue, it's not profitable to make those vehicles with UAW
>> labor.
>>
>> > I still say no bailouts, period!
>>
>> Instead of the tiny (relatively) loans for the automakers you might want
>> to look into the 8 or so trillion for the banks.
>
> Where does the giveaway stop? Detroit is DOA.

My point is the media and the congress are diverting our attention. It's
chump change to what the bankers are getting. All this effort over what
probably buys a half hour in iraq. The public is all on this detroit
auto maker bail out while the war machine and the bankers make off with
well, most of the remaining wealth of the country.

Amelita wrote:
> Unless this federal mandate is revised to force the not-so-Big Three
> to meet a 35 mpg minumum by 2012, any bailout will be meaningless.

CAFE already kills thousands of people every year* for no better reason
than to reduce already tiny amounts of air pollution. Increasing CAFE
standards will kill more. Anyone who votes to do it should go on trial
for genocide against drivers.

* by forcing them into smaller cars, where more of them die in wrecks
than would otherwise. USA Today documented this years ago.

Jim Higgins wrote:
> Where does the giveaway stop? Detroit is DOA.

Unfortunately, it's only likely to stop when the political party that
receives the lion's share of the dues extorted from UAW members (and
needs that money to maintain itself in power) gets voted out again.

"For the good of the country" my ass.

On 2008-12-04, John David Galt > wrote:
> Jim Higgins wrote:
>> Where does the giveaway stop? Detroit is DOA.
>
> Unfortunately, it's only likely to stop when the political party that
> receives the lion's share of the dues extorted from UAW members (and
> needs that money to maintain itself in power) gets voted out again.
>
> "For the good of the country" my ass.

"Let them fail; let everybody fail! I made my fortune when I had nothing
to start with, by myself and my own ideas. Let other people do the same
thing. If I lose everything in the collapse of our financial structure,
I will start in at the beginning and build it up again."
-Henry Ford February 11, 1934

On Dec 4, 7:42*am, Amelita > wrote:
> By 2020?
>
> Unless this federal mandate is revised to force the not-so-Big Three
> to meet a 35 mpg minumum by 2012, any bailout will be meaningless.

If you want to kill the automotive industry and at the same time make
it impossible for you to buy a new car that you both want and can
afford, that's a great place to start.

You do realize that CAFE was one of the driving factors behind the SUV
craze, yes?

nate

Brent > wrote:
> On 2008-12-04, Jim Higgins > wrote:
>> On Dec 4, 6:12 am, Brent > wrote:
>>> On 2008-12-04, Amelita > wrote:
>>>
>>>> Unless this federal mandate is revised to force the not-so-Big
>>>> Three to meet a 35 mpg minumum by 2012, any bailout will be
>>>> meaningless.
>>>
>>> Why are people so fixated on telling others what they can drive?
>>> It's your sort of control freakism that has caused much of the
>>> problems. Here's a clue, it's not profitable to make those vehicles
>>> with UAW labor.
>>>
>>>> I still say no bailouts, period!
>>>
>>> Instead of the tiny (relatively) loans for the automakers you might
>>> want to look into the 8 or so trillion for the banks.

>> Where does the giveaway stop? Detroit is DOA.

> My point is the media and the congress are diverting our attention.
> It's chump change to what the bankers are getting. All this effort over
> what probably buys a half hour in iraq. The public is all on this detroit
> auto maker bail out while the war machine and the bankers make off
> with well, most of the remaining wealth of the country.

That last is a pure fantasy. And if the economy tanks completely, the cost will be MUCH higher.

"Brent" > wrote in message
...

> "Let them fail; let everybody fail! I made my fortune when I had
> nothing
> to start with, by myself and my own ideas. Let other people do the
> same
> thing. If I lose everything in the collapse of our financial
> structure,
> I will start in at the beginning and build it up again."
> -Henry Ford February 11, 1934

Henry Ford often said things that were not exactly true - this is one
of them.

Ed