Honestly stingers don't really matter to the US inventory we don't even have an MOS to a job for operating of a man Portable anti-aircraft weapon.and it should be known that the javelin can actually engage the same targets as the stinger. How do I know this, javelin qualified in 2001. Yes it's easier to use a stinger to walk on a fast mover or a helicopter. It is possible with a javelin and if you lock it will hit it.
You realize that Patton's quote about fixed fortifications does not apply to dragon's teeth which are not actually fixed. He was more addressing the Maginot line and other such fixed defensive permanent positions.
In 2008 GM nearly went under. Part of what saved them was the union working quite a bit of reduced compensation mostly for less senior employees. Now that GM is very healthy and profitable the union workers want thier share. Sees reasonable to me.
Health care costs are a key issue. Ford and GM said that they spend more than $1 billion per year on health care for active UAW workers. Government data for all union workers show that the average cost of health care benefits is more than $6 per hour, the Center for Automotive Research reported. But the report showed the UAW Detroit Three's health care cost is roughly 150% of the U.S. average. The average UAW worker pays about 3% of his or her health care costs compared with 28% paid by the average U.S. worker, CAR said. Note: Some of the money for CAR's research comes from automakers including GM, Ford and FCA.
UAW members are protective of their health care benefits because their jobs are physically demanding and they need health care to function and stay healthy to do the jobs.
Automakers also worry about an economic downturn foreseen by some economists as the car companies face high costs to develop electric vehicles required in China and Europe and to prepare to compete in a future with more shared services and autonomous travel.
The unions don't want Medicare for all, their health insurance is even better than Medicare. They actually fought against ACA until the "Cadillac Plan Tax" was put into place. The govt then pushed out the tax for years.
The fuss is part of the product. People overestimate health insurance and health costs generally and assign that high value to the health insurance provided by the employer. If that was suddenly converted to a simple wage without benefits firms would likely end up paying more after it all shakes out.
Think of all the times you have heard "That job only pays $x an hour" and the reply "Yeah but the benefits".
Probably because they're looking for ways to lower costs rather than just move them from insurance to taxes at the same cost, which then becomes much more difficult to renegotiate or improve because a uniform system requires you to have to deal with millions of previously independent stakeholders instead of each party doing what works best for their situation.
They may also need a solution sooner than it would take Congress to do something like that, given the amount of opposition to it from people who prefer the status quo -- or any of a dozen competing alternative solutions to high healthcare costs.
It would lower costs, and it would also put them on an equal playing field with the other domestic manufacturers, rather than having to compete with other companies who have lower costs due to not having such expensive union health care plans.
As for needing a solution sooner... it’s not like this is going to be the end of it. Health care costs were a major point of contention in 2008 as well. I’m pretty sure they were a major problem for GM well before that.
That is consistently the claim, but unless it would also lower outcomes, what thing is it doing to cause that which couldn't be done independently of single payer? It's easy to lower "costs" using price controls, but then you have all the usual problems of price controls. Shortages, rationing, quality reductions necessary to meet the price target, etc. Keep in mind that for people with insurance, the US system has better overall outcomes than most socialized systems.
> and it would also put them on an equal playing field with the other domestic manufacturers, rather than having to compete with other companies who have lower costs due to not having such expensive union health care plans.
That doesn't really matter unless they're competing with those companies, but most of the other auto companies have the same issues with the UAW and US workers, and those companies have the same option to build plants outside of the US as their competitors.
> As for needing a solution sooner... it’s not like this is going to be the end of it. Health care costs were a major point of contention in 2008 as well. I’m pretty sure they were a major problem for GM well before that.
That's the point. 2008 wasn't even the beginning of it, this has been an issue since at least the Clinton administration. GM would likely be bankrupt (again) before Congress does anything meaningful here.
Because the benefits they receive today are far superior to medicare. In fact all of the Democrat candidates in favor of medicare for all have made explicit promises to unions that they can keep their expensive health plans if medicare for all is enacted.
It is a promise that will likely be impossible to keep, but you know politics and all.
Basically they are promising the German model with a baseline public option and allowance for private insurance for those who wish to pay extra for it. It would establish something like Medicare as the baseline and push private options to compete with a low/zero cost accessible plan. I think the end result would be like states where auto insurance is not required where I can insure my new BMW as much as I want but at least the uninsured civic that rear ends me has a lifeline to stay solvent.
That seems more of a technicality than a practicality - GM workers in 2007 got a paycheck with the GM mark on them - in 2019, they also get a paycheck with the GM mark on them - the fact that the actual legal entity changes, matters for shit. Also the fact that GM considers itself the same GM that existed also somewhat dilutes this idea.
>That seems more of a technicality than a practicality [...] the fact that the actual legal entity changes, matters for shit.
If I can go a meta layer above this subthread and explain the 2 different conversations happening:
- the gp (maxerickson) comment was responding to "2008 GM nearly went under", and it's correct (not technicality) that the old_company (with its own assets-liabilities) did go under. Not "nearly", but completely went under. A new_company was created as different legal entity with a clean slate to pick and choose assets-liabilities.[1]
- the other replies (Aloha, wil421) are more philosphical "Ship of Theseus"[2] type of arguments
All 3 (maxerickson, Aloha, wil421) can simultaneously be right because they are all emphasizing different aspects of what "General Motors" means. It can be either "GM the assets&liabilities" or "GM the brand, the public perception".
Yes, I was indeed making a 'Ship of Theseus' argument - specifically, GM's obligations to its current and some obligations to former employees was not extinguished by the bankruptcy.
I was also arguing that the bankruptcy was immaterial to GM's moral obligation to 'share the wealth' when times are good.
Equity in the old GM got wiped out. It's more than a practicality for you if you held shares in the old company -- or your retirement fund held shares.
This is like calling a heart transplant an everyday affair. It's deeply incorrect.
Corporate reorganizations under bankrupcy law do happen, but they are rare, newsworthy, and very disruptive to workers (at a minimum, their pension and health benefits are renegotiated). Shareholders being wiped out is not normal, and retirement funds -- or really, the stock market at all -- would not work if it was.
In 2005 when the company lost $10 billion or in 2007 when they lost $38 billion the union workers didn't get bills in the mail instead of checks. On a personal level, the workers are still making profit regardless of whether or not the company is as well.
In 2008 GM was a $100 billion in debt. The union workers didn't pay that, they didn't take responsibility for that, the taxpayers did.
By this logic, management doesn't share in the losses, either. But they are for damned sure collecting bonuses when times are good. Sounds to me like the union wants a piece of that same "times are good" action.
I assume management gets both annual bonus and equity as a part of their compensation, so I would argue that yes, management is sharing in the loss, in particular with the equity.
Yeah. Management work for the owners just like everybody else. They're workers who happen to not be represented by the union.
Management only takes losses so far as they have equity stakes in the company, which is to say the extent to which they are owners. When GM lost $38 billion in a year the people who own the company took that hit.
That's why employees usually don't value ownership in a company, because it cuts both ways. A salary only deposits into your account.
What's your point? The workers don't run the company - it's not a co-op. Since they don't run the company and don't get a share of the profits, why would they ever be expected to pay losses?
The point is specifically that because they don’t share in the losses[1] they shouldn’t share in the profits. This was a direct response to the parent comment: “Now that GM is very healthy and profitable the union workers want thier share.”
[1] I’m not making a statement about whether this is true or not. Just capturing the context.
> The point is specifically that because they don’t share in the losses[1]
Assuming it's true they had their wages reduced in the crisis, it's absolutely disingenious to claim that a return to higher wages post-crisis would be undeserved profiteering. They did share in the losses.
Did you stop reading when you got to something you wanted to argue against or did you just pick the wrong comment to reply to? I very clearly called out that I am not making a statement about whether the workers shared in the losses.
By sharing in losses I mean losing money in absolute terms, that's what happens to owners. Owners don't just make less money in bad times, they lose money. Workers may lose money relative to what they think they would make otherwise, but they still make money.
Accepting the risk of losses is why owners have a legitimate claim to the profits. Workers take a guaranteed paycheck which shelters them from losses in bad years and forfeits their claim to profits in good.
> Workers take a guaranteed paycheck which shelters them from losses in bad years
It's just great when workers accept pay-cuts in bad times, just for people like you claiming that this is just normal, no loss, and certainly no reason to restore their paycheck when good times are returning.
When I co-owned a company, we gave employees a share of the profits when we had a good year. Besides seeming like a decent thing to do, the employees were more aligned an incentivize to increase profits to increase potential profit-sharing checks. Also, it's easier to adjust bonuses downward as needed. On the other hand, employees would prefer not have their base-pay cut in down year.
Good point. But let's take it a step further. The workers might not "share" __directly__ in the financial losses, but certainly if the company is struggling they lack opportunity for career growth, and such. To say nothing of the fact that struggling conpanies seem to be fond of cutting corners on safety and other things that comprise the the quality of work life for the workers.
Taxpayers got this bill! Shareholders of GM got billions in profit, and then mismanaged the company (through their appointed officers). In the end the US taxpayers had to pay for their stupidity.
Doesn't matter. Executives (in this case) are workers, not owners. Some of their pay may be in equity in an attempt to align their interests with the owners but their agreement with the owners is the same as a janitor's: they take guaranteed pay in exchange for not being tied to the risks and rewards of the profit/loss cycle.
This seems to be the Crux of the issue. A quick look at the financial statements shows positive net income (though not consistently). The statement of cashflows, which is where companies go bankrupt or not, seems much less positive a story.
My accounting training is limited. Any HN'ers with accounting/finance background care to comment?
I'm no accountant, but I think the bulk of the issues is that profits never last in the auto industry. GM trades at a price to earnings of 1/4 of what the market as a whole gets, because investors expect earnings to be negative as soon as a recession hits. GM has cash on hand of 3X its current profits to weather this storm.
No. You can't really blame GM's financial troubles on worker compensation alone. You can blame the quality and desirability of the products they create however.
Perhaps, but I'm not sure that the fact that the reduction was the proper response to the situation at that time changes the fact that the situation no longer applies.
Having served in the infantry in Afganistan you are dead wrong, and APC ot a technical ( heavy machine gun mounted on a pickup, traditionally a Toyota helix) a Helfire would definatly be fired at one.
Which isn't 100% defined and legal scholars can and do argue the edge cases based on lots of things including very old British common law antecedents. The consensus seems to equal citizen from birth although some disagree.
"No Person except a natural born Citizen ... shall be eligible to the Office of President"
Natural born means "citizen at birth", not "born in the US"> One can also be a citizen at birth (under certain circumstances) by having parent(s) who are U.S. citizens. Ted Cruz unequivocably meets this standard.
I took and passed Algabra in the 6th 7th 8th and 9th grade. I slept in class usually didn't do the home work and got A's on most every test. But the teachers all felt I wasn't ready for harder math as they thought I wasn't mature enough. I didnt realize till years latter that this turned me from a bright excited student to lazy, lethargic and not wanting to challenge myself academically. Ended up graduating with a 1.8 gpa and a 1380 SAT score. Ended up joining the army, Infantryman, paratrooper and a Sergent by 21 years of age. Now I'm 34 and feel in some ways that if teachers had allowed me to progress and encouraged me earlier instead of being punished for not showing work or doing homework that was essentially busy work,I would have applied my self fully then instead of in the Army. As proud of I am of my service and having been a wartime team leader in the infantry at 21, maybe I would have gone to college first and not had to suffer from various medical and metal issues at the age of 34 from my military service. /rant over.
Edited for typos as I'm half blind and proffreding sucks.
It's quite simple. They are collecting everything that might be of use in the future. Since you can't know exactly what you might need from an in-tel stand point then you save every bit of data you can.
Also the ability of Big data to find correlations in data gets exponentially better with the more data you have. This NSA program is the very definition of Big Data at work.
