(December 10, 2010 at 5:35 pm)TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote:

(December 10, 2010 at 4:07 pm)Mishka Wrote: Ford did what they needed to do to stay solvent. GM and Chrysler didn't. A few years ago, a new CEO took over of Ford and said he thought he was there to run a car company, not a health plan.

Then that CEO is an idiot.

The CEO was speaking truthfully. Over fifteen hundred dollars of each vehicle is slated just for pension and helath care benefits.

(December 10, 2010 at 9:53 pm)Mishka Wrote: The CEO was speaking truthfully. Over fifteen hundred dollars of each vehicle is slated just for pension and helath care benefits.

That's bullshit.

(December 10, 2010 at 10:54 pm)TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote:

(December 10, 2010 at 9:53 pm)Mishka Wrote: The CEO was speaking truthfully. Over fifteen hundred dollars of each vehicle is slated just for pension and helath care benefits.

That's bullshit.

That shows you don't know what you're talking about. This is from 2005. With rising health care costs and pension costs, guess what it is now.
http://uspolitics.about.com/b/2005/06/08/as-goes-gm.htm

"The company says that the cost of every new car includes $1,500 for employee and retiree health care costs; no mention of the cost per vehicle for pensions. Look to GM to be the next company to abdicate its pension plan to the feds."

(December 11, 2010 at 2:55 pm)Mishka Wrote:

(December 10, 2010 at 10:54 pm)TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote:

(December 10, 2010 at 9:53 pm)Mishka Wrote: The CEO was speaking truthfully. Over fifteen hundred dollars of each vehicle is slated just for pension and helath care benefits.

That's bullshit.

That shows you don't know what you're talking about. This is from 2005. With rising health care costs and pension costs, guess what it is now.
http://uspolitics.about.com/b/2005/06/08/as-goes-gm.htm

"The company says that the cost of every new car includes $1,500 for employee and retiree health care costs; no mention of the cost per vehicle for pensions. Look to GM to be the next company to abdicate its pension plan to the feds."

Kathy Gill is taking GM's word for it without any research. In fact one of the support articles link to the Detroit Free Press and the link no longer works. It takes no talent to cut and paste or copy a link which is all she appears to have done. I just completed some research on Kathy Gill, she teaches a course at the UW on digital journalism, however, as she does nothing to substantiate her post to about.com, I would certainly hesitate to take her course. Let's hope she's better prepped as she also teaches people to ride cycles.

Do you have any studies?

I don't know about Obama being the Republicans' Fifth Column, but I am very disappointed in his capitulation to Repub demands for tax breaks for the wealthiest in this country. If the goal is to decrease the deficit, then why are they even talking about tax breaks for million/billionaires? And why were the Repubs allowed to toss in the reduction/elimination of the Inheritance Tax?

I hope there is no resolution on the estate tax... If there is no agreement, then on January 1st, the tax rate on estates worth over 1 million dollars will revert back to 55%. That probably won't happen, of course, but to allow estates like the one bequeathed to the family of George Steinbrenner ($1.1 bn) to transfer without a tax is ludicrous.

In any case, America got screwed again. When is Obama going to get it through his head that the Repubs talk bipartisan, but actually view it as a sign of weakness to be exploited?

(December 11, 2010 at 2:55 pm)Mishka Wrote: That shows you don't know what you're talking about. This is from 2005. With rising health care costs and pension costs, guess what it is now.
http://uspolitics.about.com/b/2005/06/08/as-goes-gm.htm

"The company says that the cost of every new car includes $1,500 for employee and retiree health care costs; no mention of the cost per vehicle for pensions. Look to GM to be the next company to abdicate its pension plan to the feds."

You don't understand. It's not bullshit because I think you were wrong on your numbers.
It's bullshit because it's irrelevant. Welcome to the wonderful world of the cost of doing business.

All you've done is provide good evidence as to why there should be universal healthcare to drive down the overly inflated costs of healthcare in this country.
I also don't give a damn about the 1500$/car cost of maintaining the health and integrity of the company's employees when they can still sell cars at a healthy profit margin. What put GM, Ford, and other companies in the tank was their adamant refusal to sell good cars.

Compare this to several foreign companies that not only pay more per employee for benefits but can also make a quality product. Those people got into the business to sell good cars and not shitty cars. They have CEOs that know how to run a fucking business so I don't give a damn when some CEO crys to some idiot about having to pay 1/10th or significantly less of the market value of a car per car they sell.

He is an idiot and that kind of bitching is bullshit and when his company bothers to make a car that doesn't break down in half the time with half the effort as its competitors, then maybe I might care about his plight. The plight of having to pay worker pensions and healthcare.

The defiicit commission just confirmed that the purported cost savings of ObamaCare are bogus. That it will cost more while providing less. Yeah! That's the ticket!

(December 11, 2010 at 5:33 pm)Mishka Wrote: The defiicit commission just confirmed that the purported cost savings of ObamaCare are bogus. That it will cost more while providing less. Yeah! That's the ticket!

Ahh. More FOX News Koolaid. How entertaining.

(December 11, 2010 at 5:42 pm)TheDarkestOfAngels Wrote:

(December 11, 2010 at 5:33 pm)Mishka Wrote: The defiicit commission just confirmed that the purported cost savings of ObamaCare are bogus. That it will cost more while providing less. Yeah! That's the ticket!

Ahh. More FOX News Koolaid. How entertaining.

I thought Obama hired them. Not Fox.
http://www.hyscience.com/archives/2010/1...ommiss.php

(December 11, 2010 at 7:52 pm)Mishka Wrote: I thought Obama hired them. Not Fox.
http://www.hyscience.com/archives/2010/1...ommiss.php

Yeah, you know what doesn't say that "that the purported cost savings of ObamaCare are bogus?"
The goddamn Draft Proposal from the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform that discusses pesky things like what should be done to reverse the United States' financial situation.

Here's a little gem from the proposal that I thought was particularly interesting:

Draft Proposal from the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform Wrote:Add a robust public option and/or all-payer system in the exchange

So... yeah. The actual deficit commission paper that discusses the future healtcare situation for the United States entirely on the purpose of proposing cost-cutting measures actually says that the system should add a public option or switch from the currently forming system to wholly single-payer to cut costs. That quote was from page 36 of that leaked report, among other proposals.

So... yeah.
I'll believe what the government deficit commission (and all the googled news organisations from actual news sources that I didn't bother to link here) over your conservative blog with its ridiculous koolaid.