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  • Taxpayers are paying for the big three new cars.

  • The reason why we bailed out Detroit because we would've been in danger of losing an additional 1M jobs had we not. And made a horrible Economy even worse. Its really that simple. 

  • How much of the $75 per hour is health care cost, which is borne by the taxpayers in other countries, and, due to the efficiency of single-payer, is about half of what health care costs are here in the USA? I am guessing that it is close to the $25 difference in hourly cost argued in this video.

  • Hi ReasonTV

    I have just been watching your video and I must admit it really is very good.

    I really enjoyed watching it.

    Already looking forward to more of the same in the future.

    Cheers to your success.

    Mark McCulloch

  • just what we need ..kick our nieghbors in the ass and look the other way ,,and open our shores to a bunch of foreigners

    ..i guess most americans wont be happy untill we are working for the japs...if we open our shore to be invaded by japan and think they are so great , then why doesnt the jap government open its shore to the U.S auto makers then?..japan wont let the big3 set foot on japan soil to build cars..so we should inflict a high tax on the japan auto industrie's here on our soil

  • @390merc65 Who told you Japan was not letting U.S. automakers build cars there? Or export our cars there? The WTO shows Japan only putting tariffs on military equipment. The U.S. on the other hand is tariffing trucks and SUV's from Japan. Just because the UAW told you something does not mean you should not look into it.

  • I have had more problems with my Toyota (broken camshafts, warping rotors, sludged engines) and my Honda (2 transmissions, window motors, dvd players) than I ever had with any American car i ever owned. Boy, those Japs and the hillbilly's making those Japanese cars are really doing a great job. My ASS!

  • yeah, no big difference in engineering of my Toyota vs a gm car is clear. My old 2001 Chevy cost me more to buy and more to maintain and only lasted until 2006, my 2000 toyota is running strong, cost me less to buy and hasn't had a major failure since I bought it in 2006. in the 5 years I had that Chevy I put 1k+ into it 4 times to keep it on the road....I say there is a big difference in engineering and quality!

  • I should send MIchael a comb for his birthday.

  • Thankfully, President Obama recently told the Big Three it was time to fix their shit or go bankrupt. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. Without the UAW to cripple them, I'm sure the US could make great cars again. But while they're hamstrung by these obscene wages and benefits packages, they're screwed.

  • Obama stole $750 billions from the poor, to give to the bankers and auto execs.

  • Why, just yesterday, I got a check for 500 hundred dollars in the mail. The fine print explained that it was from the oil money that George Bush hoarded from the American people. Next week I'll get a thousand dollars.

    We're swimming in so much oil money that all of us should all be driving a cadillac. Thank you, President Obama, for wisely spreading around that oil money.

  • Oil money bush hoarded from the American people...wow I am speechless, I would have thought that the shareholders of those companies got some of that cash as well as employees involved in profit sharing.. oh and the Government, Exxon paid 27 billion in taxes in 2007.

    If you are serious about what you say the the blind stupidity of your statement may go unchallenged in my interactions with people for the rest of my life.

  • Oh no, is America's sense of sarcasm the next thing to require a bailout?

    Maybe you should read "DerekChonski"'s post first.

  • It is not available.. sorry if I pegged you wrong..

    Cheers

  • The big three workers made good money. Maybe to much for workers that only worked for two years and where making $23hr. But the reason why the big 3 need a bailout is because of 9/11 and no industry has fully recovered from it.  Everybody loved the big SUVs 97-01 9/11 happens gas starts to go up. They already started making better fuel efficent cars and green cars. Who realy is at fault are these banks and CROOKS on wallstreet

  • What about TOYOTA?

  • screw toyota they aint american

  • The unemployment rate is different (sometimes better sometimes worse) but the number of employed people who live in poverty is greatly reduced where there is a minimum wage in force. A strict minimum wage gives more money to the working poor, and THESE people are the ones that are more likely to put it straight back into the economy by spending it instead of saving, because they do not have the luxury of saving. As a percentage of income, expenses are higher. It is called the multiplier effect.

  • Compared to Europe, Canada and Australia, the minimum wage in the US is a pittance. A kid working in McDonalds in Australia or Britain makes far more per hour than the US minimum wage.

  • The $75 an hour costs that is bandied about, includes the legacy costs of the every employee that ever worked there. Because they underfunded their healthcare and pension plans back when they were profitable and pocketed the difference, part of the cost of every car and truck GM, Chrysler and Ford made during that time has turned into a liability.

  • The large auto companies are saddled with huge legacy costs because back when they were profitable, they underfunded their health care plans and their pension plans. Had these been properly funded, the legacy costs would be zero. Had they overfunded them, there would be no problem at all. What they did instead, is underfund these schemes and pocket the difference, leaving a huge mess and causing cost cutting which has reduced the desirability of American cars.

  • what a funny situation... Obama was talking all time about helping latin america! and then he says that usa only will buy american cars when the 30% of the cars made in mexico are destinated to be in sale at usa

  • It's the unions. *gets tackled by the KGB union police* Ok! Ok! I'm sorry! I was joking! It's the executives! It's the executives! Uncle! Uncle!

  • I like how you use the word approx. What your statement really shows is the mindset that has lead to America being the richest country with the worst minimum wage. So for you to compare their pay check with other poorly paid American workers is actually showing how you justify low wages.

    The real problem here is unsustainable business models and the first step in costs should be executives salaries. They earn alot and produce a little.

  • you're missing the point. Let's say you have 100 executives whose total compensation packages equal 1,350,000 a year. High, but let's run with it. That covers a total of 10 employees each. So their salaries cover 1,000 UAW workers.

    The UAW represents 73,000 workers in GM alone, having the ability to bring wages down to say $50 an hour or $104,000 a year, would save the company 2.3 billion dollars.

    We could cut 1,000 executives making that 1.35 million to zero and not have the same impact.

  • So the reason American car companies are unprofitable is because the people who actually make the products are paid to highly???

    It seems that maybe the answer it that those companies are top heavy and a few less overpaid executives could help the companies maintain profitability without affecting productivity.

    This video in a disguised attempt to advocate paying people third world wages in a first wold country.

  • So anything less than approx. $135,000/year is "third world" wages? The Japanese are a third world nation? They pay their employees third world wages?! Give me a break. Even if the executives (who are not without fault themselves, but not the root of the problem) took huge pay cuts to distribute to the company's employees, it's a much larger issue than that. The employees are doing manual labor at more than double the amount of wages a normal office worker would make. Pishposh.

  • It cost 100 times more to bailout out Citigroup and Bank of America

  • Awesome video - shows how ridiculous the U.S. auto industry is. To be fair though, the execs that got these companies in this mess don't deserve their paychecks either though. I'm not an expert but it seems to me the best option would be to let these poorly run businesses go out of business.

  • Union labor has nothing to do with GM's losses.

    They for one are just less than they made the year before. Not that they didn't make nothing at all.

    The greed of going from $17 billion profit 2007 to $11 billion profit in 2008.

    That's no loss, just not the smae as the year before. They still show a profit.

  • Oh, I forgot, just another union basher.

  • It's a load, not a give away.

  • It's a load alright...

  • I didn't see in the constitution where it describes how government cab act as a business and a loan officer. Wow. Subsidies does not equal free market. I do not want to buy a huge gas guzzling car; I'd rather buy a small car like everyone has in Europe. What happened to free economic choice?

  • It vanished during the thirties and forties my friend. Been gone ever since.

  • Why reward textile mills for making unprofitable textiles? Why reward steel mills for making unprofitable steel? Why reward electronics companies for making unprofitable TVs? Why reward Detroit for making unprofitable cars?... Despite what they indoctrinate you with in Econ 101, you know where this is all headed, don't you?

  • The Bailing Outs are not going to stop people!And it will not fix what is going on.We all are going to hell and Bush&Obama don't care!!

  • People need to wake up to the fact that it's not one factor that is causing the Demise of Detroit. Fools on the left blame the CEOs and morons on the right blame the Unions. When in fact the meltdown is caused by;

    1. Bad corporate leadership

    2. Corrupt Union leadership

    3. Failure to adapt to the market

  • lol whats that song, its very "fallout-esq"

  • $75 an hour? holy cow. $156k per year.

  • This was supposed to be paradoy, but...IT'S TRUE!!

    As of 18 February, they're back again for another pot of swill! Is anyone surprised by this?

    The billions we provided in September were just the first installment of course. And if you want to believe the liars, they're going to need steady govt cash infusions until about 2012 (but...as Waggoner said...MAYBE until 2015). If you believe him.

    And the govt will provide every penny because the unions OWN the Dems. Socialism here we come!

  • Trying to make a profit isn't wrong. Stealing on the other hand is.

  • And now they're asking for even more money...

    Feb 17th, GM wants 30 billion more, Chrysler wants 5 billion more.

  • Remove the law that prohibits firing union workers on strike, problem solved. Of course that will not happen in the next 2 year.

    It is not the "Big 3" bailout..............it is the "UAW Bailout".

  • how would that help......! that would most likely bring more problem.

  • Did you listen to the video? It makes 0 since to pay someone nearing $75 dollars per hour to do a job someone will happily do for $20. You cannot be competitive as a company if your labor costs double or triple your competition's labor.

    Repeal the law.

    Force a strike or cut costs.

    Replace with realistic labor force.

    There is a GM factory 10 miles from where I live, it becomes obvious a trained monkey can do the job most of them do.

    Union = Parasitic organized laziness

  • why would you fire the workers is the company that make car that people dont find appealing to there taste  most likly they should replace the boss in this matter that understand what they customs like in a car vans whatever.

  • Nice video. Very well done.

  • It's not the cars, it's the UAW.

  • Shhhh - you're not allowed to blame the unions.

  • Quality of cars built under Japanese management are FAR superior to the American "big 3" vehicles. This is not opinion but a well proven fact easily found in hard statistics.

    Few people know that the same big investors in the U.S. auto industry also are owners of the fossil fuel industries. DUH!

    Americans did not "prefer" huge gas guzzlers. They were SOLD on those monsters through massive advertising.

    ("COOL!")

    Many high quality full sized passenger cars in Europe get 60 MPG! Why?

  • @t4705mb6 "Quality of cars built under Japanese management are FAR superior to the American "big 3" vehicles. This is not opinion but a well proven fact easily found in hard statistics."

    Please qualify 'FAR superior'. I'm not saying I disbelieve you, but if these facts are easily found you should back up your statement.

  • CONSUMER REPORTS magazine, April 2008.

    Experts in product testing, accepts no advertising, totally independant, nonprofit, purchases vehicles same as consumers and collects data on autos from owners through questionaires.

    There, now I did YOUR homework.

    I told you it was easy.

    CONSUMER REPORTS is even available online, where you are now sitting.

  • In the test you specified, the lowest of Japanese cars maker was Nissan which scored 71%, while the top US company Ford garnered 64%. A 7% spread does not qualify as 'FAR superior'. Better, yes, but don't go overboard.

  • I did not specify a test. All through the issue there are graphs and tables. Every one shows that Japanese cars are far superior than U.S. models. I don't know why you are grinding an axe. I have no agenda here, just telling what is going on in car manufacturing.

    Buy what you want. Its your money.

  • Even if the Big 3 do fail, we've still got dozens of foreign car manufacturers working inside this country and selling automobiles. They'll pick up the slack.

    And why should we be proud that we only have 3 big auto companies? Japan has almost a dozen successful ones working inside this country. Europe has quite a few, too. Germany has Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, and many more.

  • "They'll pick up the slack. " That's the problem, there is no slack. There is huge over production. Only Subaru and Kia posted a profit last quarter.

  • I don't see why the automakers should get preferential treatment. If we're gonna bail out automakers cuz they fail, why not just bail out every other major failing industry TOO?? If these statist Democrats and liberals are so concerned with "protecting jobs" and ke eping manufacturing here at home, why didn't they bitch and complain when the American textfile industry stopped employing mostly Americans and shipped all the jobs overseas? It's so rare to find clothing made in America now.

  • Noone wants to pay the American minimum wage for clothing. If you want textiles back, you have to get rid of the minimum wage.

  • I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

    - Thomas Jefferson

  • What GM should do is sell Buick and keep Saturn, file for Ch. 11 and reorganize WITHOUT the input of the UAW breathing down their necks.

  • it doesnt take much to see that all this bailout is just fundamentally wrong.

  • agreed great video

  • well done!

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