GM flat broke?

[pdboilermaker]

Toyota’s Princeton plant is slowing its production of minivans and will put more employees through training programs meant to occupy them during the downtime.
The affected employees work in the company’s East plant, where the Sienna minivan is built. Because of falling demand, Toyota’s Princeton plant plans to cut its production of Siennas by around half between December and January, said Kelly Dillon, a company spokeswoman.
Toyota will deal with the slow down much in the same way as it had acted when it suspended the production of the Sequoia sport utility vehicle and ceased making the Tundra pickup truck in Princeton. Workers in the company’s West plant were then put into training programs meant to improve safety, quality and efficiency.
The halt of Sequoia work lasted from August until Nov. 10, while the Tundra line was permanently concentrated in San Antonio, Texas. During the changes, Toyota avoided laying off any of the 4,500 workers it employs in Princeton.
The same will be the case in the Sienna slow down.
“Toyota remains committed to long-term employment stability for team members,” Dillon said.
Sienna workers had already attended the training programs to a small degree and will now spend more time in them, she said.
Until recently, sales of the Sienna had fared better than those of the Tundra and Sequoia. But the economy’s general malaise has begun to depress demand for the minivan as well.
In October, Toyota sold 8,003 Siennas in the United States. That was down from the 9,610 sold in the same month last year.
Beyond the training programs, Toyota is trying other ways of coping with the flagging demand for large vehicles. It has made plans to ship Sequoias and Tundras overseas. About 15,000 Sequoias will go to the Middle East a year. Latin America markets will receive 150 Sequoias and 1,000 Tundras a year.
Meanwhile, Princeton employees will be kept busy over the coming months preparing for the arrival of the Highlander SUV, which is scheduled to be produced there starting in fall 2009.

[pdboilermaker]

MORAINE, Ohio (CNN) -- The folks working at Jamestown Industries' Moraine Plant 2 near Dayton, Ohio, have the weary, haunted look of terminally ill patients, only it's their livelihoods that are about to die.
Tony Murphy says the closing of General Motors' Moraine, Ohio, assembly plant will have widespread effects.
Jamestown Moraine warehouses prepare and deliver parts to the General Motors Moraine Assembly truck plant. When the GM plant closes for good on December 23, so will Jamestown Moraine. Sixty-four people will lose their jobs at the supplier, the last of a workforce that once numbered 200.
GM Moraine Assembly once employed about 5,000 people, churning out Chevrolet Trailblazer, GMC Envoy and even Saab SUVs. About 1,000 will clock out for the last time next month.
Thousands more worked for small suppliers in the Dayton area for whom GM was the only customer.
"I've got the house I've got to pay for. I've got the car payment, I've got clothes and I've got to give the dog a little food -- and you throw in kids? It's bad for everybody," said Tony Murphy, a foreman who operates a forklift at Jamestown Moraine.
Murphy said he knows the pain goes well beyond his own family and even his own hometown.
"It's going to be a big ripple effect on everyone," he said, "because when they first closed the first two shifts down, it was devastating then, but this, right here, will seal the nail on the coffin.
Jobs lost in Dayton

A look at how GM's woes have cost jobs in the Dayton, Ohio, area:
• GM Moraine Assembly: 5,000 jobs lost
• Supplier Jamestown Moraine: 200 jobs lost
• Supplier Moraine L.O.C., 170 jobs lost
• Supplier Delphi, 3,000 jobs lost
• Supplier CEVA, 170 jobs lost
"Not only is it going to affect where I work, it's going to affect retail. It's going to affect the mom-and-pop shops. It's even going to affect people all the way up in Michigan because they bring those parts that are sent over there to GM," he said.
Leaders of GM, as well as Ford and Chrysler, are lobbying Congress for $25 billion in assistance to stave off bankruptcy. Without federal help, they say, the pain of Moraine could be repeated across the country. iReport.com: Should Congress bail out the Big Three?
But even if Congress acts, Moraine is done two days before Christmas. GM announced its closure -- along with plants in Janesville, Wisconsin; Oshawa, Ontario; and Toluca, Mexico -- in June.
Anticipating unemployment, Kevin Howard, Murphy's co-worker, said he's cutting his own hair, skipping dental checkups, brown-bagging leftovers for lunch and wearing $5 T-shirts instead of sturdier work clothes. He said he used to wear a gold earring, but he sold it to raise cash.
Unemployment compensation is about 50 percent less than workers' regular pay, and Howard said COBRA health insurance is beyond his means.
"All it takes is about two weeks falling behind, and I'm in debt. And a month -- I'm really in debt," said Howard, 55, whose children, grandchildren and mother depend on his soon-to-disappear income. "I'm a diabetic. I don't know where I'm going to get my medicine after this."
Moraine is the only GM plant in the United States represented by a union other than the United Auto Workers. Its legacy as a former Frigidaire appliance factory puts its workers, along with its suppliers' workers, in an electrical union, the IUE-CWA.
GM employees received buyouts of as much as $140,000, but suppliers' employees get no compensation when they're cut loose, said Kaine Goodwin, the business manager for IUE Local 755 in Dayton.
"We get no severance pay, and they're not going to bail us out," said Howard, his voice rising and eyes widening. "Somebody should bail us out. We're the ones suffering. ... We don't have a dime. We're gone. Goodbye."
Goodwin sought to discount any suggestions of inter-union rivalry or intrigue.
"It doesn't matter if you're IUE-CWA or not, the economy's going down, jobs are going away, the UAW is losing a lot of jobs as well at this timeframe. So it's bad for all unions as far as jobs in this area right now," he said.
"The jobs are going overseas, they're going to India," Goodwin added. "It used to be Mexico we would talk about losing our jobs to, but we're no longer losing them there. We're losing them to India, we're losing them to China, and by the handfuls. They're going out every day, and every time that [production] leaves, that's just less jobs available here."
Howard was more direct in his assessment.
"We want cars built here in America, built by Americans," he declared.
Minechelle Washington came to Dayton from GM's hometown Detroit, Michigan, eight years ago to work at the Moraine plant.
"We think crime is bad now? It's going to get worse if there's no jobs here, even for younger people," she said. "I can't even say what the future will be for our kids behind this company and any other company that has closed in the last year, and it's getting awful."
Washington's 27-year-old son was laid off from his job in February and still hasn't found work. Her 22-year-old daughter couldn't afford to stay in college and moved back in with Washington.
Washington's eyes became misty when she mentioned that her 9-year-old daughter's birthday is coming up, and the plant is closing during the holidays.
"The cake they gave the people on second shift said, 'Good Luck and Goodbye,'" she said, shaking her head. "We're losing our jobs two days before Christmas. That's bad."
Murphy compared Dayton to Flint, Michigan, the subject of Michael Moore's scathing 1989 film, "Roger and Me."
"Flint was a thriving town before GM pulled out of there, and when GM pulled out, Flint died. Same thing is going to happen to Dayton," Murphy said. "It makes me feel kind of sad, because as I was growing up, Dayton and the surrounding communities were thriving. ... I've been here 53 years, and I never thought I would see this city completely die like it is now, but it's just about there."
"The American dream has backfired on everybody," Murphy said.
For many, the grief over losing a job is short-lived as they try to search for new jobs. Murphy said the job search is really going to be a struggle.
As of September, the unemployment rate in the Dayton area was 7.5 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"It's not going to be easy for anybody. I've put in some applications, but when you've got so many people laid off in Moraine and the city of Dayton [as a whole], there's so many people out there trying to find jobs that it's really going to be hard," Murphy said. "Anybody that's my age or older, anybody that loses their job, especially in this economy right now, should be scared."
Howard is also not optimistic about his job prospects.
"I'll probably end up frying burgers somewhere," he said. "You can't cry about it. You just have to hold your head up until the end."
Mark Smith, Howard's co-worker and Army veteran, said he's applied to work with military contractor KBR in Afghanistan.
"I pray every day that that company will call me and say, 'Come on out of there,'" he said.

[jediknight36]

"The public be damned!" A quote attributed to Cornelius Vanderbilt's son, William, in response to popular criticism of his creation of a private monopoly in New York street transit and his subsequent doubling of the fares. Today capitalists have PR firms to make sure that they are never caught saying “the public be damned,” but their policies in most areas continue in that vein. William by the way, was very badly treated by his father until he won dad over by cheating (according to anti-monopoly scholars) Union army cavalry stationed on Staten Island during the Civil War on the price of hay that he was selling them from a farm. Then his father finally respected him and took him into the business.

"I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half." A very famous quote attributed to robber baron Jay Gould, whose fellow big capitalists called him the "Mephistopheles of Wall Street." Actually, the struggle to unite the working class, to fight against all forms of racist and other prejudices, is an attempt to prevent Gould's boast from being carried forward in policy — which capitalists in their use of some workers, immigrants and minorities to break strikes, along with police and militia drawn from the working class, have done many times in the past, especially before the enactment of federal labor laws in the 1930s.

"In a Republican district I was a Republican. In a Democratic district, I was a Democrat. But I was always for Erie." Another quote from Jay Gould explaining his and most capitalists’ approach to politics. The Erie Railroad was a company he both controlled and used in a number of wildly corrupt activities in the 1870s. The quote shows the capitalist class conception of representative government and its approach to non-communist, non-socialist political parties. At one point, Gould and Cornelius Vanderbilt were bribing New York state legislators hand over fist in a battle to obtain railroad franchises. The cost of bribes got so high that they actually held a meeting in Albany to fix the price of bribes (a sort of bribe cap) to protect their interests.

"God gave me my money." A quote attributed to a frustrated John D. Rockefeller in response to critical inquiries about how he had attained his wealth. Rockefeller was a religious man, but the quote gives us insight into the capitalist view of religion, as a justification for inequality and exploitation. Rockefeller endowed religious and secular charities, practicing what Andrew Carnegie, a fellow great capitalist, called the "gospel of wealth," that is, charity from the rich as a substitute for public social programs. Tax reform led by political progressives also led Rockefeller and other like-minded big capitalists to set up foundations which enabled them to spend monies for charitable purposes that otherwise they would in large part have had to turn over to the government, and also provided them with good PR.

"What good is $10 million if you can't have real money." A statement from Jesse Livermore explaining his suicide in the 1930s. Livermore was a famous Wall Street speculator of the 1920s who lost most of his wealth in the Depression. At the time of his suicide, creditors were closing in but he still possessed $10 million. This shows in effect the difference between what capitalists and workers (including those who call themselves middle class) think about money. I don't know what Livermore would have said when he heard that John McCain defined being rich today as having a $5 million annual income — although McCain (who didn't deal with total assets of course) would probably see men like Livermore as the kind of "entrepreneur" on whom American progress and prosperity was based (the way men like Livermore were seen in mass media before the Great Depression). Certainly McCain would do what he could to keep Livermore's taxes as low as possible and to bail him out financially, regardless of what that meant for taxpayers.

"Take the money and run." A term that was the title of a Woody Allen movie which connects many dots over the centuries of the capitalist mode of production. In pursuit of greater markets and cheaper natural resources and labor, capitalists have always taken the money and run, explaining that this was the road to progress and prosperity, whether they called it "free trade" as they did in the 19th century, or "globalization" and "outsourcing" as they do today. It is as much a truism as the Communist Manifesto's call for the workers of the world to unite because they have nothing to lose but their chains.

People's Weekly World - 10 truisms of capitalism from the mouths of robber barons

[grwhitaker]

Originally Posted by vwW12

False.

1. Autoworkers at Toyota make $30/hr vs. union workers who only make $27/hr on average
Toyota Motor Corp. gave workers at its largest U.S. plant bonuses of $6,000 to $8,000, boosting the average pay at the Georgetown, KY, plant to the equivalent of $30 an hour. That compares with a $27 hourly average for UAW workers, most of whom did not receive profit-sharing checks last year.

2. Honda auto workers made $26.20/hr in 2006 on average across all its U.S. plants that make over 1 million U.S. cars per year.

3. Nissan workers are paid $24 an hour in Mississippi and $26 an hour in Tennessee.

Dude, $26/hr in Tennessee? Compare to a measly $27/hr for unionized workers in Michigan, and the poor Michigan guys still have to pay union dues!

Guess which U.S. autoworker is better off! And these autoworkers are not needing to pick your taxpayer pockets at all.

All of these states still subsidize these plants and labor rates as welfare states of the Federal Government [receiving more than they pay in], and through state subsidies and employment credits.

Face it...we are never going to agree about this.

[jwight]

Face it...we are never going to agree about this.

So, has this about run its course and time to close it?

[jediknight36]

Well, the answer to my OP was answer long ago. I think the topic is still relevant, but defiantly do not want this to turn ugly.

[vwW12]

Originally Posted by pdboilermaker

MORAINE, Ohio (CNN) -- The folks working at Jamestown Industries' Moraine Plant 2 near Dayton, Ohio, have the weary, haunted look of terminally ill patients, only it's their livelihoods that are about to die.

An interesting story.

Alas, this story has nothing with picking the taxpayer pocket via a "bailout."

The plant was scheduled to close and will close definitively in December regardless of whether there is a bailout or not.

A $1 trillion giveaway can be given to GM, yet the people mentioned in the article will still be scheduled to lose their jobs.

Therefore, the story is irrelevant to what's being discussed here.

[grwhitaker]

Originally Posted by Smartdavis

That's the one. He's got a democratically controlled legislature in one of the most liberal states in the country, and like Washington they didn't save a dime for a rainy day. He's been trying for years to get the State on a financial diet but he's only one guy, even though he's kind of scarey with those sunglasses.

If we were not paying out more in Federal Taxes than we receive back each year, the CA state government would not be in the world of hurt is is in. The shortfall of tax payments to money received have amounted to about $120 Billion since 2000. How exactly are we supposed to save for a rainy day? $64 Billion of that has been paid to the state of Alaska alone [that represents $107,000 per person]... for a state that has 100,000 people more than the city I live in.
I will not say that California's fiscal problems are not real, but the proposition happy electorate here have reduced the options of the Legislature and Governor to fiscal choices that represent a very small portion of the budget. Our budget cannot be passed without a 2/3 majority of the legislature, per the State Constitution, but that same constitution can be amended with a 50%+1 vote. The fiscal budget is held hostage by a neanderthal minority every year. The Republican governor cannot even get his party to back up his budget negotiations with votes in the legislature.

That said, I still would not live anywhere else...

[jediknight36]

Originally Posted by vwW12

An interesting story.

Alas, this story has nothing with picking the taxpayer pocket via a "bailout."

The plant was scheduled to close and will close definitively in December regardless of whether there is a bailout or not.

A $1 trillion giveaway can be given to GM, yet the people mentioned in the article will still be scheduled to lose their jobs.

Therefore, the story is irrelevant to what's being discussed here.

No its not. The workers are the reason the gov. would give them $25B. No one wants the companies to loos jobs, no matter how macho you think it is to fend for yourself. But on the other hand, and this was something that was not only brought up here but in the hearing yesterday, in 6 months the money would be gone. Thats the problem with just giving them money. The Gov wants to see them make more hybrids and electric cars. The committee said so. Problem is, the companies would go broke before the change would occur. They dont have the cash to do it.

Why did they not do it when times were better? The consumer didn't care enough to stop buying the suvs and trucks. Their products are behind the times, their business plan is very flawed. Should they get a bailout when all they will do is take the money and run? No way. Should we leave the workers out on the curb? No way. There is another way...

[grwhitaker]

Originally Posted by jwight

So, has this about run its course and time to close it?

+ one here