"Bob Eldred" <nsmontassoc@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
news:33858$434bfa47$42a7d082$21160@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
> "Billary/2008" <F#%K_Liberals@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in
> message
> news:ZFR2f.35219$HM1.8379@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>> A car doesn't have to cost $30,000! Not in this global economy.
Unions
>> finally out ****ed themselves! Capitalism works! The inefficient,
>> wasteful, overpriced American car industry has collapsed! It's about
>> time!!!
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Delphi's Miller: At a "Flash Point"
>> He says his company's bankruptcy filing makes clear how global
"economic
> and
>> social forces...are on a collision course"
>>
>>
>> Rare is the chief executive who sees putting his company into
bankruptcy
>> court as a landmark step toward overhauling an entire industry. Robert
>> "Steve" Miller is just that. Named chairman and CEO of auto parts maker
>> Delphi (DPH ) only three months ago, Miller had Delphi file for
>> protection
>> from its creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code on
> Saturday,
>> Oct. 8.
>> Advertisement
>>
>>
>> The cause he cited: the necessity of renegotiating labor contracts
> inherited
>> from General Motors (GM ), Delphi's former owner (see BW Online,
>> 10/08/05,
>> "Time and Patience Run Out at Delphi"). The contracts require Delphi to
> pay
>> too much in wages and retirement benefits -- some $65 an hour in total
--
> to
>> survive, he says. Miller knows cor****ate debt restructurings well,
having
>> been involved with 10 workouts, starting with Chrysler in 1980. He
guided
>> Bethlehem Steel and auto parts maker Federal Mogul in their
bankruptcies.
>>
>> Miller also sits on the board of UAL (UALAQ ), the bankrupt parent of
> United
>> Airlines. On Monday, Oct. 10, he met with BusinessWeek editors in New
>> York
>> to offer prepared remarks and to take questions on Delphi's filing.
>> Edited
>> excerpts of the conversation follow:
>>
>> On becoming the boss of a failing company:
>> I felt that taking this job would put me in a pivotal position to
impact
> the
>> restructuring of America's auto industry.
>>
>> On the impact of Delphi's filing on the auto industry:
>> General Motors is headed down the same Chapter 11 path as Delphi,
unless
>> there is a dramatic change in their staggering legacy labor burden.
>> Things
>> are going to get messy for the Big Three automakers. Current labor
>> agreements expire in 2007, and it will be a historical collision point
>> for
>> all of the social and economic forces at work. [Delphi's lower labor
>> costs
>> forced by the bankruptcy] are going to be sitting right there in front
of
>> them when they go to the bargaining table.
>>
>> On being unable to get the United Auto Workers, Delphi's biggest single
>> source of U.S. labor, and General Motors, Delphi's biggest source of
>> revenues, to agree to sufficient concessions before resorting to
> bankruptcy:
>> We talked about lots of ideas. At the end of the day, we couldn't come
up
>> with anything that was satisfying to everybody.
>>
>> The UAW basically said we can do all of this as long as GM pays
>> everything
>> and makes everybody happy. GM said that sounds too expensive, and we
>> never
>> finished finding common ground.
>>
>> On the jobs of GM Chairman and CEO Richard Wagoner and UAW President
Ron
>> Gettelfinger:
>> Compared with Rick, my problems are more urgent. His are more serious.
I
>> wouldn't want to trade chairs with him.
>>
>> The person I feel sorry for is Ron. He is going to have to help 500,000
>> of
>> his members get through the next several years of dramatic change.
Fifty
>> years of ever-increasing pay and benefits is going to be forced into a
>> retreat.
>>
>> On the right way to file for bankruptcy:
>> I said we would be well-financed, well-organized, and well-planned. I
> meant
>> it. I was not going to run out of gas. We have the biggest
>> debt-in-possession financing in history.
>>
>> This stands in contrast to [competing auto parts supplier] Collins &
> Aikman
>> (CKCRQ ), which tumbled into a chaotic bankruptcy that left customers
on
> the
>> hook for over $100 million in penalties to keep their assembly lines
>> running. I will not allow this company to do that to their customers or
>> their people.
>>
>> On the common thread between the auto, airline, and steel industries:
>> These three industries have in common a social contract, worked out
over
> the
>> past half-century with strong, centralized labor unions, to elevate
their
>> workforces with elaborate defined-benefit retirement programs.
>>
>> Today, defined-benefit programs are an anachronism. These programs have
a
>> way of threatening the existence of traditional large employers. GM is
a
>> junk-bond credit and staggers under a burden of $150 million of
combined
>> pension and health-care retirement programs (see BW Online, 10/11/05,
>> "Delphi's Woes Take GM Down a Notch").
>>
>> On government retirement schemes:
>> The overwhelming voltage in the political third rail of touching Social
>> Security and Medicare will forestall corrective action for years. But
the
>> problem will only grow. I fear something like intergenerational
warfare,
> as
>> young people increasingly resent having their wages reduced and taxed
>> away
>> to sup****t social programs for their grandparents' income and
health-care
>> concerns.
>>
>> I want you to view what is happening at Delphi as a flash point, a test
>> case, for all the economic and social trends that are on a collision
> course
>> in our country and around the globe.
>>
>> --
>> Love Billary
>> Tampa, FL
>
>
> What you say is true, but what you're really talking about is the slow
> destruction of the American middle class and the inevitable spiral
toward
> third world status for America. An America with a wealthy class coupled
> with a poor class and little in the middle. An America that looks more
> like
> Mexico or Brazil than what we have enjoyed for the last 200 years.
>
> One really needs to look deeper and think hard about what type of
society
> we
> are headed towards and what we really want. In addition, we need to
think
> about who is going to buy the cars and goods and services of the future
if
> Americans are driven into poverty. The great middle class arose because
of
> visionaries like Henry Ford who realized that workers have to have a
good
> wage if they are to purchase his products. That philosophy carried this
> country far and made it one of the wealthiest on the planet.
>
> The present course, while it sounds good to the simple minded is a long
> term
> disaster in the making. We must think smarter and work hard to keep
> Americans employed with living wages or the whole system will inevitably
> collapse. The American wage earner and consumer is a very im****tant part
> of
> the equation.
>
>
All you say requires thinking & planning --- something the right & most
certainly ****llary --- cannot do.
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