Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: benwood who wrote (91981)	12/24/2008 1:48:28 PM
From: Sunny Jim	4 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

Anyone who has worked on a blue collar job most likely has union stories. I remember when I was in college and got a job working one summer in the copper mines in Arizona which were unionized. Being a college student I was just a laborer so about the only tool that I was allowed to pick up was a shovel. My first day we were scooping up the concentrate in the mill that had overflowed because a ball mill broke down and they dumped the contents out on the floor. One of the wheelbarrows had a lose handle so I picked up a wrench to tighten it, and it was like I had picked up a gun. The foreman chewed my butt real good before he realized that I probably was capable of understanding that only a journeyman could use a wrench under the union rules. A couple weeks later I was assigned to work on the repair crew and one of the jobs was to repair the big electric shovels. Everyday about 2 o'clock we would get a call that a cable broke on one of the shovels, so down into the pit we went to replace it. It took about two plus hours to replace a cable. The shift ended at 4:30 so what the shovel operators would do is make a snap return on a load and a cable would break. What that got them was, off work for the day, and this happened on a pretty regular basis. I assume that management simply planned on this inefficiency when they made the production schedule. About a month into the summer the union went on strike, so I threw my hard hat in the air and headed for Wyoming where I worked for actually higher wages on a non union drilling rig the rest of the summer.

To: benwood who wrote (91981)	12/24/2008 2:25:17 PM
From: rich evans	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116555

This sounds a lot like what I observed in France. But in defense of the auto bailout, I would have to say that the issue is not the cause of the predictament and whether the companies or union deserve a bailout. They certainly don't deserve one. Instead one could argue that the bailout is necessary because the issue is the macroeconomic impact of bankruptcy of the auto companies especially during these hard times. Our economy probably can't take the hit right now of the likely effect on employment,suppliers , other businesses and the costs to our economy and Government from the unemployment, Pension Guarantees, welfare, health etc would still be a taxpayer cost. All this can have differences of opinion as we have read and seen on this board. But if the issue if our economy and not the cause of the problem both management and labor and Mich taxes , then their is justification for giving them the money. An we might not only allow the auto companies to survive but also hopefully reform their ways and the union reform its ways. Rich