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cannon_fodder
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« Reply #30 on: April 28, 2009, 08:21:42 pm » |
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FOTD,
When a high school kid putting bolts on a truck rim makes $75,000 a year with a full pension, the company will fail. When a company sells a $30,000 car for $26,000 with 0% financing, they will fail. Very easy to figure these things out.
Do you know why high school graduates don't make $75,000 anywhere else? Because most aren't worth it. You can't get $75,000 worth of product out of most low-skill laborers. The Union did all they could to inflate wages without regard for the vitality of the company. Eventually they killed the golden goose. If they really wanted to they could have forced changes, traded short term wages for long term commitments, hell - with 500,000+ members they could easily have bailed out the company themselves. Union funds could have buttressed debt loads for major changes. But that would be risking THEIR money into the company they are milking to death.
And you know what else? The suit making $10,000,000+ a year? He's apparently wasn't worth it either. yay Wharton school - another drone to sit at the drivers seat and watch the company fall. We've had about 4 now who should have done SOMETHING and did nothing. Just as the Union was milking GM for all the short term benefits they could get out of it, so were the managers. The very people who were getting paid to take care of the company treated it like a piggy bank. "Holy crap, we only lost $16,000,000,000.00 this year! Bonuses for everyone! Lets go to the jet, take my limo!" Worthless bastards.
So who's to blame? Managers? The Unoin? The Japanese?
Nope. Lazy owners. Stock holders: managers, union guys, you with your 401K, super mega bank. All of 'em. All the owners sat back and watch members of the club assume the helm and keep the ship steady as she sank. And they have been doing it with a ton of other firms too. Contracts with built in multi-million dollar bonuses for not running the company into the ground within a year - YAY!. Why vote YES on that package?
Look at management packages before you buy stock. Vote in your proxies. We own these damn companies and they should be run for US. Owners first, then labor, managers, and creditors somewhere not-first. As it stands labor got to milk their cash and will walk away with their pensions, managers bilked millions, and the creditors are secured... the people who actually own the damn company walk away with nothing.
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And an FTT would have done nothing to precent the auto industry crash or any of the financial transaction issues we faced. It's a red hearing. .25% is still .25% no matter the scale. What would cost Joe Blow $500 to liquidate his 401K would cost Super Mega Bank $5,000,000,000 to liquidate an entire portfolio. So what? It's all in scale. The really bad news is Joe Blow would pay the $500 AND his share of the $5bil... unless you think Wallstreet is too stupid to either figure a way around it or pass the buck (closing fees go up, mortgage rates go up .25%, whatever . . .).
It also inherently discourages investment in capital markets.
More transparency is needed. Not more taxation.
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