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Entitlements
DCH,
A putative argument defined in one sentence...the rest of the world has learned how to build cars.
Chris D: You're doing it again, you 'ignorant fool'
Chris D says, "I consider an electrcian semi-skilled at best."
Chris D, I consider you an ignorant fool at best. Go read NFPA 70, the national electrical code. See if you can understand one word of it.
CL:
I know I couldn't understand a word of it, at least in the technical sense. This war of words, gentlemen, is getting a little too inside baseball. Soon folks in this forum'll be asking you to take it outside, so to speak. :)
-- DCH
We here in Michigan are not 'ganians, but 'ganders
Quote: "I suspect I speak for many Michiganians when I ask..."
If the author cannot properly call us Michiganders, then he certainly is not one of us. As such, he should not try to speak for us either.
I am a proud Michigander, not a "Michiganian" (sic).
Don't ever call me that again.
Otherwise, yes, I agree. To veto a bill simply because one's name is not on it is absurd. If it works, it should pass. Michigan passed the point of ego stroking long ago. Those who still need their ego stroked should be shunted aside so some real work can get done.
JDL:
I stand corrected, because I double-checked. Michigander is the noun; Michiganian the adjective. That said, have never claimed to be "one of us." Was born in Ohio, but was not -- repeat, not -- raised a Buckeye fan. Some things are just too horrible to contemplate.
-- DCH
'If your degree is worth so much ... compete globally like everyone else'
Chris_D, because of your obviously self superior attitude toward others, I would not hire you. I doubt very many employers would; knowing you would alienate much of their workforce and disrupt corporate synergy. The fact is, an engineer or any other specialist is as much a dime a dozen as any electrician. Their only safety is in immigration laws - government intervention. If you think your degree is worth so much, then why don't you want to compete globally like everyone else?
Entitlement mentality, lack of job skills is losing proposition
First of all, please learn to read. I didn't bash you for being unskilled, I bashed you for your entitlement attitude in light of your lack of job skills.
You spent a lot of time researching, maybe you don't work very much or very hard. But your sloppy research, self-aggrandizing and chest-thumping only underscores my point...
I'm familiar with what it takes to be a union electrician (I know two former union electricians)and [in] journeyman programs. I consider an electrician "semi-skilled" at best. So did they, that's why they went back to school got "real" credentials (college degrees) and got out of Michigan. They saw the future for semi-skilled laborers, leaving the rest of their counterparts to fight over scraps from dismembered industries.
Let's face it, in today's job world, you're not competing with with people who have HS degrees or six to 12 months of electrician's training (which you got paid for, by the way). You're competing with people who have 4-, 6- and 8- years worth of college education. They paid their dues putting themselves through school and working in a job with no union protection or "due process". Let's also not forget the obvious, they are MUCH harder to replace than you are...
What have you done? What choices did you make to put you where you are today? Why should you be entitled to the same perks that that those with "in demand" skills receive?
You were paid for training and now work in a "protected" and "structured" union environment. So stop your sniveling because you can't compete outside the UAW without a significant cut to your bloated lifestyle...
Your list of companies is impressive. But you didn't bother to mention which of those companies provides those services to their manufactuing employees company-wide on a global basis. Oh, most of these companies aren't manufacturers. How naive of you trying to compare them.
With your list of McDonald's benefits, you also assume that those services are absolutely free and are as robust as your UAW benefits. Nice try. Anyone with half a brain knows that is not the case....
By the way, I find your snobbish inference about people who work McDonald's -- ("Talk to your employer, even Mickey D's has employee benefits they offer.") -- ironic coming from a UAW member who's skills aren't much higher.
Maybe you should take advantage of the "educational assistance" you've had access to for years (but clearly haven't used), to educate yourself and better your career. Nah, that's too much work. Crying about conditions is much easier than adapting to them...
In summary, your limp attempts to research and unseat my argument have failed because you have only done the job halfway. But that's the kind of job we've come to expect from UAW members. Thanks again for validating my points...
CD:
Might quibble with your delivery, but not the content of your argument. What you're positing here -- and the reaction it elicits -- is a perfectly rational economic argument joined with an equally predictable response: Change the terms of the debate, weight it with sarcasm and a dollop of entitlement and attack the messenger. Welcome to my word. Ain't it fun?
-- DCH
'Pile another embarrassment:' Uninformed misses Metro handle
What the hell does DTW stand for?? No where in your blog do you give the entire name. As a former newspaper journalist I give you an F in composition!
MG:
You can give me an "f," but I refuse to take it. Ever flown in or out of Detroit? DTW is the international designation for Detroit Metropolitan Airport, which used to be "Detroit-Wayne." Hence, the handle. Thanks for asking.
-- DCH
Toyota hand: Don't believe GM about the viability of the Chevy Volt
DCH: Love your stuff, but come on. If Toyota doesn't do [it], GM shouldn't do it. The Steelers and Patriots don't model themselves after the Lions, and Jessica Alba doesn't follow Rosanne Barr's fitness routine. At that price point, GM is continuing to "whistle by the graveyard," as they have done for decades. Do you have any doubt a Volt would need $2,000 worth of repairs annually to keep it on the road as soon as it's out of warranty?
S:
And you based your prediction on the warranty repair record of a Volt on what -- the numerous models just like it that GM has fielded in the past? Remember: Global automakers push technologies that are right for, in part, their home market. The Germans love diesels because their governments and tax regimes do, the same reasons the Americans hate diesels. The Japanese, mainly Toyota, prefer gas-electric hybrids cuz they've been successful with them and they're acceptable in their home market, which does't like diesels, either. You get the picture.
What I know if that GM needs to push the envelop with the Volt, especially now. If you're right and GM falls flat with the Volt, you'll have the satisfaction of being right -- not that it would help things 'round here much.
-- DCH
The best piece of advice of all: 'Quit your whining'
Just to add on...These programs were implemented in the best interest of the employer, not the employee! Talk to your employer, even Mickey D's has employee benefits they offer. Here is the list taken directly from your employers website:
* Vacation
* Holidays
* Anniversary Splash
* Sabbatical program
* Summer Hours
* Leave of absence
* Alternative Work Approach
* Adoption assistance
* Child care discount
* Educational assistance
* Matching gifts program
* Employee Resource Connection
* Auto and home insurance group discount program
* International Fitness Club Network
* BeyondWork Internet discount program
* Profit Sharing and Savings Plan (includes our 401(k) feature)
* MCDirect Shares
* Mc$ave
* Credit union
* Financial planning services
* Base pay
* Incentive pay
* Company car program
* Recognition programs
* Medical
* Vision supplement plan
* Dental
* Flexible spending accounts
* Short and long term disability
* Employee and dependent life insurance
* Accidental death & dismemberment (AD&D)
* Travel and business travel accident insurance
Quit your whining!
N:
Is this where we should cue the "Dueling Banjos" music from "Deliverance?" Who gets the Martin guitar?
-- DCH
You are doing it again!
Response to Chris D. in Ann Arbor. First off unfortunately since you just want to badmouth me based on me being non-skilled, I am a SKILLED electrician at Ford. This invalidates your 2nd assumption automatically. If we don't have the benefits, then how can that be used to determine over-compensation? When Ford established these programs for their upper level, mid level and low level management no one complained. When they allowed SKILLED and non-skilled workers to use these facilities (some require out of pocket expenses with NO DISCOUNTS) then you whine? Yes other companies support child care sponsored programs,there are over 1000 and still counting. These are NOT FREE to the employee!
* 3M
* Adobe
* Allstate
* Alston & Bird, LLP
* American Express
* Amgen
* Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts
* Boeing
* Bristol-Myers Squibb
* Carnival Cruise Lines
* CBS Corporation
* Chick-fil-A
* Cisco Systems
* Eli Lilly and Company
* EMC Corporation
* Ernst & Young
* The European Commission
* The George Washington University
* GlaxoSmithKline
* Intuit
* J Sainsbury plc
* JFK Medical Center
* Johnson & Johnson
* JPMorgan Chase
* Johns Hopkins University
* Marriott International
* Mattel
* Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center
* Merck & Co.
* Morrison & Foerster LLP
* NBA
* NBC Universal
* Northwestern Memorial Hospital
* The PGA TOUR
* Procter & Gamble
* Ropes & Gray LLP
* SC Johnson
* Staples
* Target
* TIAA-CREF
* Time Warner
* Toyota Motor Manufacturing
* The Venetian
* Viacom
* Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children
These are just a small sampling.
Me=1, you=0! Don't make assumptions. Do some research and base your argument on facts.
This is just the kind of "uninformed" sentiment that makes people hate whiners.
Entitlement sentiment 'makes people hate the UAW ...'
Quote from UAW member:"We gave back our hard earned programs such as Education reimbursement, child care centers and fitness centers design to help us reduce stress and injuries on the job. So who is actually doing something to help out their industry? Surely Daniel Howes isn't."
This quote speaks volumes about how over-compensated these non-skilled workers really are...
Can this worker point to any other industry in the US that provides these kinds of benefits to non-skilled workers?
I'm tired of hearing the UAW members belly-ache about "givebacks" and other "benefits" they are entitled to. I think they should all go out and find non-union jobs to find out what the REST of us get...
This is just the kind of "entitlement" sentiment that makes people hate the UAW...
CD:
You're absolutely right: That quote does speak volumes. So loudly, in fact, that the speaker has been deafened by it. Three generations inside the echo chamber called Detroit Auto can to that to a guy.
-- DCH
'So who is doing something to help out their industry?' The UAW, of course
Talk to the regular workers on the shop floor. Yes, some of us are not the entitlement activists that you think UAW workers are. In 2005 we each had given on average $10,000. In 2007 UAW members took a 50 percent cut in pay for new hires and also we gave up another $10,000 COLA and wage freezes. In 2009, $15,000 in givebacks, we gave up our break time and agreed to receive no overtime compensation for working over 8 hours a day, we also agreed to give up our unused vacation time and 2 major holidays and again no COLA.
Ford Motor had put up for collateral the Ford logo, and we the workers, had outright sold our mantra that was the core belief of our institution. We went along with the union leadership to sell out future generations that was bought by our predecessors with blood. Long gone is "Equal Work For Equal Pay" and "The UAW, FIGHTING FOR ALL WORKERS!" and "A Fair Days Wage, For a Fair Days Work."
To "do our part" we stuck it to the next generation of workers: low wages, no cost of living ad,justment, no pension, no health care in retirement. The propaganda wing of the Big Three (Daniel Howes) wants us to feel sorry about their debts, but at the same time want us to take concessions for their mistakes. If you remember in the 90's Ford ask us (UAW) to work harder to stop Toyota from passing them as the #1 USA automaker, so we gave them record profits and investors record profit shares.
In return, they misused the funds and then decided our opinions were no longer popular to what the buying public want. They stop collecting ideas, eliminated moral supported bonus programs, and stop asking for our help. Now they hire lame columnists that are suppose to make us feel sorry about their slow comeback because they are not debt free as GM and Chrysler. Once again you could not ask questions, you could not input your ideas to help nor take notes and reply to what you heard. Ford cried for government help but when they realize the books would be open to the public and the government car czar, they begged us hard working UAW members to take more concessions. They needed a way to continue business without financial exposure. We gave back our hard earned programs such as Education reimbursement, Child Care centers, and fitness centers design to help us reduce stress and injuries on the job. So who is actually doing something to help out their industry? Surely Daniel Howes isn't.
N:
"Hire?" "Propaganda?" Lots of big words, empty charges and predictable complaints there. Only thing missing is reality. As in cold, hard economic fact. The simple reality is that it's not about what UAW members have given -- or not given -- that is the yardstick now, as the Detroit Three drift toward a collective market share of something like 45 percent of the U.S. market. The issue is parity with the competition. A monopoly -- of labor, of production, of whatever -- cannot set prices in a market place, even in Detroit, once it's no longer a monopoly.
The brothers and sisters of UAW-Ford are free to reject the latest round of contract concessions. They're free, even as they decry the demise of "equal pay for equal work," to also rejecting the union's post-war "pattern bargaining" because adhering to the pattern in the post-bankruptcy world would pose a theoretical obstacle against striking. But positions freely taken don't necessarily get a free pass.
Elections -- all elections -- have consequences. It's just a matter of what and when.
-- DCH
Testy vote, strained relations 'should be the end of the Int'l UAW'
The link at the bottom of your blog was harsh, but not essentially wrong. The author did not spend any time excoriating management for facilitating the UAW over the decades, but that is food for another column.
This should be the end of the International UAW. If the locals (many, not all) reject a pact recommended by the International, I cannot think of any reason for the locals to continue to send money to Solidarity House. Especially those locals too far afield to enjoy the union golf course ....
It will not be too long before the International has to sue locals to get their cut of dues income, and that will be that. Cradle to grave in 75 years, just like most people. Pity.
BR:
An institution that cannot adapt to the changing times is an institution that cannot survive in its present form. Union or corporation, university or newspaper, the ability to evolve, respond and reflect core values in contemporary society is what keeps 'em alive ... or sends them to the dustbin of history. We don't know what the repercussions of that vote will be, but there will be some.
-- DCH
Budget mess: 'It is time for her to go, and quickly'
She made a mess and couldn't clean it up in 2007. What makes anyone thinks she knows how to do it now? It is time for her to go, and quickly, because she is only going to hurt the state more by her staying as she has no clue but pick up her paycheck out of my pocket.
W:
Go?Go where? Not before the second term ends sometime on January 1, 2011. This, too, shall pass.
-- DCH
Why we NEED a Pecora
You walk in the door. A terrible stench attacks your sinuses. The sewer has backed up and flooded the place. And the maid is dusting pictures.
I read the analogy many years ago, and, while I forget the author's name and the precise context in which he wrote, the analogy strikes me as appropriate. The regulation of executive pay is equivalent to dusting the pictures.
Nevertheless, it is time to do something. And the something is a complete overhaul. And it will not be done without a political revolution.
It took a Pecora report to make the Securities Act of 1933 possible to put past the Senate of the time, and it will take something like it to get anything worthwhile past the Senate we have now, one wholly owned by the banks. The real breakdown in the Senate is not Republicans versus Democrats, but is bank-owned or not bank-owned. Who remembers alleged liberals Daschle and Biden assisting the 2005 Bankruptcy Reform and Consumer Protection (snort!) Act because the credit card issuers were in S. Dak and Delaware?
The real problem with executive pay is not that gaudy compensation offends little people. Little people really don't matter any more, as they have been shown to be easily manipulated (why else would an Alabama working stiff vote for a Shelby, or a Macomb-St. Clair area working stiff for a Miller?)
What is important is that the chase of Xanadu pay nearly led to the collapse of the economy as the so-called smart people kept selling soup (mortgage securities) into which they were simultaneously urinating (NINJA loans), and other so-called smart people kept buying it until the stench got too bad.
The chase had multiple bad consequences. First, the notion that the mortgages made highly desirable and marketable securities diverted credit from productive use to making a real estate bubble which briefly enriched real estate speculators and salespeople. Second, the collapse made the lenders into Twain's cat who sat on a hot stove.
So homeowners found their primary asset became much less valuable, or even valueless. But there was worse to come. There are Michigan businesses which have been destroyed because credit was made unavailable to them. Small companies had contracts with D3 companies, but couldn't get loans to be able to do the work until they got paid (the D3's slow pay practices didn't help much either). The workers they laid off, of course, stopped buying things, and, eventually, stopped making loan payments. The avalanche started, and as it continues downhill, it picks up more and more snow, whose mass increases not arithmetically, but geometrically ( a cube function).
The Keynesian solution is that the government has to provide demand when the private sector does not. And it must do that by taking (taxing) from the hoarded and getting it to those who will circulate it. This can be by direct payments, or by building roads, bridges, and weapons, or other government actions, including creating employment as soldiers, police, firefighters, teachers, and even bureaucrats. The hoarders, naturally, do not like this idea very much, and will fight to keep what they have. And they fight by buying portions of the government. The cheapest effective things to buy are Senators from small states, especially ones who don't even know they've been bought, bacause they actually think what they do are good things. Thus the Senate is full of Hatches, Conrads, Baucuses, Shelbys, and the like.
While I have digressed a bit (well, OK, a lot), I return to the point that a Pecora is necessary to provide the necessary explosion to break loose the resistance of the Senators who belong to the banks, just as dynamite was essential to make possible tunneling through rock, and, thereby, such things as transcontinental railways and the Panama and Suez canals. America's threatened middle class needs a new Pecora to counter the upper class's Becks and Limbaughs.
Actually, attacks on executive pay are just the battles the owners of America want to fight, because on these they can make arguments which appear attractive to the working stiffs who are, still, the majority of the voters. They can argue that such is the first step on the slippery slope away from freedom. What they don't want to talk about is the freedom the owners take from others by the erection of barriers to entry. They also do not want to start debates about the constraints on ruthless capitalism that such icons of conservatism as Adam Smith and Edmund Burke called required by Natural Law.
The history of the 20s and 30s is important not only to read of the FDRs and Pecoras, but also of what daily life was like for working stiffs. It was not a time of suburban homes, two or more SUVs in the driveway, cable TV and internet. It was a time when having one's own washing machine was a rare thing, and when electricity was not available in much of rural America. The unions of which you now write so disparagingly were necessary to the creation of a middle class. Unfortunately, they, too, have become perverted versions of what they once were. Gettlefinger is to Reuther as Clinton is to FDR, or, even, as Dubya is to Eisenhower.
Dan, you are too smart to think that Wall Street is not predatory. The country needs to be protected from it. But one needs to be smart about it. We do not want to create the equivalent of Robert Sheckley's fictional "Watchbirds" (http://www.mastersofscifi.com/site/masters_of_science_fiction/episodes/watchbird.html)(The short story is well worth reading, if you haven't yet)
'Pile another embarrassment:' Uninformed voters beget 'dumbest' elected officials
You are on target as usual. Only problem with this column: Most of the people it's directed at can't read. It's a perfect example of the Detroitification of America. More and more illiterate people are simply pulling a lever based on slogans and zero reading or thought about the candidates or their background, there by giving us the dumbest possible people elected to serve.
BC:
Spot-on. The problem isn't information. It's an appalling lack of critical thinking and what voters do -- or don't do -- with the information as we speed down the slippery slope. In Detroit, in the 'burbs, in Michigan, in the nation -- doesn't matter. The willing suspension of common sense, of recognition that government money (with the exception of Treasury printing dollars) actually comes from one place, and one place only: private-sector jobs.
Voters are free to be ignorant. They're free to elect pols who will demagogue business. They're free to elect pols who'll pursue policies that will pull more dollars into public coffers and aggregate government power at the same time. They're free to elect pols who show they don't understand, by their actions, how incentives work in a market economy or how business people make decisions on hiring and firing, investment and expansion. But voters also are free to pay the price, as the nation did in the 1930s. Business held its dollars, reduced investment and delayed hiring. They called it the Depression.
-- DCH
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