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Politics : The Obama - Clinton Disaster -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neeka who wrote (1622)	11/18/2008 5:15:42 AM
From: GROUND ZERO™	3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 103300

GM union leaders said yesterday that they're not going to renegotiate their deal with the company... then I suggest they start packing and get ready for their own funeral, the game is over, they can look for another job... GZ

To: Neeka who wrote (1622)	11/18/2008 10:55:04 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	1 Recommendation Respond to of 103300

Re: "A new day is dawning," I agree. Re: "and Unions either need to stop holding American's hostage to their unreasonable and unsustainable demands, or they're going to disappoint a lot of their members." I thought that the unionized percentage of our national workforce had been on a steady decline since the nineteen fifties.... (Now down to, what? 17 or 19% or something like that? Or is that too high a number still?) Re: "Americans don't buy GM products because they are too expensive." The two LARGEST FACTORS (that add several THOUSAND dollars to the overhead cost of every Big Three vehicle manufactured, compared to their foreign rivals who do not suffer from those costs) are: 1) Pension payments (GM's current workforce, for example, is but a fraction of their former, now retired, worker count). They are paying out to more pensioners than they have current workers. 2) Healthcare costs (to current, and to retired workers). The Big Three's foreign competitors ALL HAVE nationalized healthcare in their home markets (and healthcare costs per capita are lower in every other country in the world than in the US...) so Toyota, BMW, Nissan, Hundai, etc., etc., etc. can ALL manufacture vehicles for thousands less than the US Big Three. We (the American taxpayers) would probably get a FAR BETTER RETURN on any bailout money we are to spend if --- INSTEAD of just giving billions to the auto manufacturers --- we were to put that same number of Billions into a national health insurance plan. It would remove the healthcare burden from the auto companies, but would not single them out for special benefits because it would be removing the burden of healthcare costs from all of our companies equally... and putting them on a more level playing field with all of their foreign competition....