Angry Ford dealer in SC calls imports "rice ready...not road ready"

Careful you don't get called a Commie with comments like that. Isn't America the beacon of free trade and the free market economy? Isn't that what sets you apart from the rest of us pinko Commie bastards living in our totalitarian world?

 

The days of US unilateral free trade and unrestricted access to US markets are soon to be over. I doubt the average joe American ever supported so called "free" trade. It was pushed by politicians on the corporate dole. With all of the debt that the US is incurring by bailing out all of these bums, the US will have to enact a Value Added Tax (VAT) - a hidden tariff - just like many of the other countries we trade with. Australia has a VAT doesn't it? It would be interesting to compare the cost of an American car model (after tax is applied) bought in the US against the same model bought in Australia, after tax is applied.

VAT puts American car manufacturers at a disadvantage even in US domestic markets against foreign car manufacturers. Maybe that is part of the reason why they are forced to sell lower quality vehicles to compete at the same price. May be also part of the reason why they couldn't compete with foreign companies on smaller cars, so they went with the bigger ones to stay in business.

I'm not putting the blame on other countries - they'd be stupid not to take advantage of our naive open market unilateralism.

 

Hi All,

Unions are worthwhile and neccassary in many companies.

The problem with Ford Chrysler and GM is that there is one union between the three. The UAW has a regional monopoly for Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana at least automotive manufacturing labor. They have more power than the individual companies, consequently, and have used it effectively, and in ignorance of the finacial details of their employers. If a Big Three guy tries to negotiate with the UAW, he is not really negotiating with the workers in his company, but the workers, and cost structures of of all those other companies. Some of those companies have very profitable exterior operations, or even non-automotive operations which they can call on funds. So, the UAW says - look company ABC is giving us this, if you do not match, we strike. Company ABC may be a better company and can afford that. Over time, the companies all jostle back and forth, and the labor compensation is ratched up as one company is better than the other two, and then it switches. But, the labor compensation always goes up, even when the company is not good enough to pay that rate and benefits. Now, all three companies are not good enough to pay that rate and benefits.

The UAW should probably be broken up, just like AT+T, Standard Oil and others were. It should be Ford AW, GM AW and Chrysler AW , and any collusion between them should result in jail time. Just like with companies that try to set prices, Unions that try to set prices for services in a whole industry should be just as illegal. Unions should be limited to the workers of single companies, when the company employs above some number of workers -something like 1000 or so.

In the rest of the country, you do not get paid a rate for what you do, but how the company can monitize what you do. But that is not the case in GM, Ford and Chrysler. If you do not like what that level of monitization provides to you, your free to go to another company.

 

It wasn't just the deregulation. It was the outright CRIMINAL activity that really sunk us

Our little buddy Madoff is out and about, though pissing and moaning because he has to wear an ankle bracelet. That's cute. If he doesn't like the ankle bracelet, I'll happily use a chainsaw to cut his foot off, no more ankle bracelet

 

This is where "teacher's unions" are different than others.

We get paid a yearly salary, usually once a month. The salary is based on how many years we have been with the district and the level of our education. I.E. a teacher that has a master's degree will get more than one without, even though both have taught for 5 years. This is also why teachers are NOT "free" to go to "another company". Because when you go to another district, you lose your years of service. You start at the bottom again. If the district really wants you, they might give you a few years of credit for your previous experience, but it's usually a fraction of what you've had. Unless you've only been teaching a few years, a teacher that transfers to another district loses a lot of pay.

Our union deals less with pay and more with environment. Class size, safety concerns and violations of the contract due to job transfer and job description duties. When a contract is due to renewal, health benefits are also part of what they negotiate.

We do not have "tenure". We have "just cause". That means the district has to have a very good reason to "fire" a teacher if that teacher has had consistently good job evaluations. Why? Because of the pay scale. Our current superintendent would like to save money by getting rid of any teacher on the top half of the pay scale (those with more than 10-15 years and with advanced degrees; yes some teachers even have doctorates) and then replacing them with newly hired teachers.

Some districts have trouble hiring teachers in the first place, because word has gotten around that that district routinely lets teachers go their last probationary year before they become a "permanent" employee and thus qualify for "just cause" under the contract. That is why the union fought Arnold when he wanted to extend the "probationary" time period from the current 4 years to...I think it was 6 or 7 years. No teacher wants to put in 6 years with a district and then get released before they become permanent and then have to go somewhere else and start at the bottom again. Do that 3 times and that's half your career.

There is a process to get rid of "bad" teachers. I have yet to meet an administrator willing put in the work and documentation to do this.

 

The US government taxes vehicles they export, madness.
Yes Australia has a VAT although we call it a goods and services tax and it's 10% of the final sale price. GST replaced a wholesale sales tax of 15%.
Australia has never taxed exports, to do so is madness for your trade balance.

Australia does have import duties on motor vehicles of 10% also but there is an offset scheme allowing a manufacturing company to ofset their exported cars and components against the imported cars and components.
This means if GM Holden export Commodores to the value of a H3 Hummer they pay no import duty on that Hummer. This doesn't mean we buy the Hummer cheaper though, I think it means Australians subsidise you when you buy a G8 Pontiac. You can buy them much cheaper than we can. You pay $28KUS and we pay $55kAU($37.4KUS) and that is after going half way round the world!

 

A dealer in Winnipeg was advertising a Pontiac G8 with the giant 6 litre V8 and leather seats, for $34,000 Cdn. It's almost enough to make me want to rush out and buy one, then arrange for you or somebody else to purchase the "correct" Holden badging

It would be cute while stuck in traffic. All the Canadians scratching their heads

"What the hell is a Holden Commodore SS V?"

You can play with the GM Canada configurator to see what the Commodore - I mean Pontiac G8 - costs here.

http://www.gm.ca/gm/english/vehicles-2009/pontiac/g8/overview

2009 Pontiac G8 gallery page on gm.ca

Personally, I think the Holden looks nicer than what Pontiac has done to the car. The fake hood scoops and the split in the grille, is downright repulsive

 

Do you dare to enter the dark world of republican double-speak ?

Money to a family: "welfare"
Money to a corporation: "support"

Growing retirement fund: "the virtues of small government"
Shrinking retirement fund: "the evils of small government"

Unemployed neighbor: "free market capitalism efficiencies"
Me unemployed: "failed capitalism due to inept government"

Thriving US company: "American ingenuity"
Failing US company: "Foreign government intereference"

... ...

 

Well said.

But you forgot The Big Lie:

Homeland Security: Anything but.

Focus on the horizon, out there are people who will do you great harm...

Meanwhile behind your back, the government doesn't govern, the regulators
don't regulate, Social Security is going bankrupt, your home value is halved,
your pension fund is halved, and your job is at risk, and taxpayers get to
bailout the Detroit 3.

Hey! Don't turn around, I told you the threat is out there...

Sleep well, the Gub'mint says the Homeland is Secure.

 

It's not a fun process. I do know administrators who have gone through this process, having hired a few. Unless the teacher has done something illegal, and even that might not be enough, it is very difficult to remove a tenured teacher. In larger districts it's often easier and more cost effective to transfer the "bad" teacher to a broom closet and leave them there until they retire. It's harder to do that in small districts with correspondingly smaller budgets.

I wish there were a better way to balance the need to protect teachers from improper dismissal while rewarding good teachers. If someone has found the perfect solution for this, please let me know about it. I could use it right now.

Tom

 

For some, this is already a reality. We're not quite there, yet, but we're close. I have many friends who do not own a car and have never held a driver's licence. Both my wife and I work at home and/or walk to nearby businesses. Most of what we need can be obtained within a short distance, and rapid transit is just down the hill. There are indeed neighbourhoods where everything is within walking distance, and they will be more desirable as people discover the folly of living outside of the city, driving back in to work, driving to shop on the opposite side, and driving yet somewhere else to play.

Suburbia is a design relic of the automobile.

 

A couple of comments:

1) I think we will soon see a major rethink of the very idea of the income tax in the USA. I personally blame a huge portion of our financial mess on the Federal income tax system, one that costs us around US$300 billion per year in compliance costs, discourages savings and investments and causes criminal behavior from various means of income tax evasion.

2) We will see substantial changes in our financial sector regulation. One major change: substantially higher minimum margin requirements to do hedge fund trading, which will cut down on the type of trading that drove up the price of oil to ridiculous levels this past summer and drove down the price of financial stocks steeply in a short period of time. (I mean, would you do pure speculation of crude oil futures if you had to put up 30% of the price of the commodity just to trade it? Very few traders or institutions could do it at 30% minimum margin requirement.)

:focus:

Anyway, I still wish the Ford dealer in South Carolina would just calm down! Ford has a number of very exciting new products in the pipeline for the US that everybody wants to buy in today's more fiscally responsible environment, especially the new Fiesta coming at the beginning of 2010 and the new Focus coming summer 2010.

 

In the immortal words of Walt Kelley:

" We have met the enemy and he is us!"

 

Exactly my point. Same with other imports. So if we can buy a (subsidized) import cheaper than a similar US made vehicle, how can a US manufacturer compete with that? Simple. He has to lower his material and manufacturing costs (e.g. lower quality) to compete at the same price.

Now he has to deal with his US customers saying that he is designing/selling crap (which he is) and that they can buy a better import for the same price (which they can).

 

It is an interesting phenomenon, the US consumer buying foreign goods and then wondering why their collective standard of living is plunging. I guess it must take a rocket-scientist to figure out that simple economic equation.

 

Again, you have it nice person-backwards. The US consumer did NOT make this choice. Various politicians and corporate leaders made this choice, the consumer was then presented with this choice

 

In the case of the G8 I can bet General Motors don't go out of their way to inform the consumer that the car they are looking at with the American brand is in fact made in the land of kangaroos and emu.
When I say Australians are subsidising the G8 what I meant was the profit margin on the Commodore SS V is very high and I suspect it is on other high performance and luxury vehicles, this allows the G8 to be sold at a slight loss to the US. There is also a trade swap type of deal where if a company exports product they can import up to an equal value of product without paying import tariffs. By holden exporting cars to USA and Saudi they offset some of the cost of the imported engines they bring in from USA.

That's right, Holden import to Australia every V8 engine in every SS V or for that matter every V8 engined car they make. In fact the engine in a Pontiac G8 has had a half way round the world return trip by the time the car hits the showroom floor back in the good olde US of A.

I might also add, Holden exported 4.4 million 4 cylinder engines since 1981 and currently exports V6 engines to Saab and Alfa Romeo among others.

Does anyone want to talk about subsidised farm produce? A US speciality.

 

You are right, the politicians, media elite, and wall-street are much more to blame.

The 2nd half of this exchange on morning joe is right on the money:

msnbc.com Video Player

 

Oh well, what the hell, it's only taxpayer money

"Home Security"

Hmmmm. Those banking executives had better retrofit their homes with ballistic windows. Maybe have Blackwater experts patrol the lawn.

There are going to be a lot of angry people out there