Text 1045, 114 rader
Skriven 2004-10-19 20:01:21 av Jack Yates (1:3613/1275)
   Kommentar till text 1022 av TIM RICHARDSON (1:123/140)
Ärende: "Proof" (was: FidoNews 21
=================================

 JY>> We ARE aware that GM has shut down several plants in the past year
 JY>> or so, Ford has done likewise, and that Chrysler is a company that,
 JY>> right now, Daimler-Benz wishes they didn't own.  While yes, the
 JY>> 12,000 layoffs in Eur is news to me, a fact that I regret for I'm a
 JY>> glutton for knowledge, I am painfully aware that a similar number
 JY>> of auto-related jobs have been eliminated, some forever, here in
 JY>> the US.  Were you aware of this?

[...]

 JY>> Sad, isn't it?


 TR> Yeah, well you two probably ain't gonna like this:


 TR> I'm not surprised that major auto companies are starting to shut down
 TR> various operations here and there.


 TR> I don't know how old you two are, but I'm old enough to remember when
 TR> my grandparents bought a new car every three years; a Desoto.


 TR> And the price of that car was well within their means (my grandfather
 TR> worked for Eastman Kodak, and my grandmother worked for Rochester
 TR> Products, a division of General Motors).

At one time and another, my dad worked for both of them.  First Kodak, then
several years later for Rochester Products, where his foreman was upset that he
had bought a two-year-old Ford.

 TR> The car cost less than 35 hundred dollars to buy, including tax and
 TR> license.


 TR> When I grew up and was working myself, I owned a ten year old Buick my
 TR> very first car. It cost me $50. My second car was a 1949 Cadillac,
 TR> which cost me $65. Both cars were good running, well-built
 TR> automobiles, decent on gas, and never gave me a major problem.

Point taken; my '55 Caddy got 21 MPG.

 TR> Now, today, the car my grandfather used to buy new every three years
 TR> would cost in the neighborhood of $40,000, without very many options.

 TR> My youngest son paid $40,000 for his first house! A car costing that
 TR> much is obscene.

I am old enough to say that $40K for a house is an eye-opener!

 TR> And the blame lies in various places; unions, with their constant
 TR> demands for more and more, to a point of pricing themselves right out
 TR> of a job, and their jobs being shipped off to foreign countries;

I can't disagree.  I've said that the time of the union is long past, and even
though jobs are being eliminated almost daily, I still believe it.

[...]

 TR> The unions and their supporters don't see that they priced themselves
 TR> out of a job; they only complain about a president that had nothing to
 TR> do with making the policies that brought their jobs going overseas
 TR> about, and get pissed off at anyone who doesn't belong to a union but
 TR> has a job anyway.

No president caused this and I think that no president can stop it; we now have
a global economy and we will have to learn to live with that.  As example, I am
building a log-splitter and have an 8hp Honda engine on hand, it hasn't run in
several years.  If I can't get it to run again I will probably buy a new 5.5 hp
engine, which will be sufficient to turn the pump. Here are the choices:

Briggs and Stratton 5.5 hp OHV $209
Tecumseh 5.5 hp OHV             259
Tecumseh 5.0 hp OHV             209
Kohler 6.0 hp OHV               399

or the Chinese knock-off of the Honda 5.5 ($409) available from Homier
Distributors for $116.  Where do you think I should put my money?  Where do you
think I WILL put my money?

It's more that a little bit strange that I can buy a 21" lawnmower with a
Tecumseh engine for $169 at the local hardware store but I can't buy a
Tecumeseh engne for less than $200.


 TR> The politicians in Congress don't see that they themselves are greatly
 TR> to blame for not putting their foot down and stopping the unions from
 TR> forcing prices to go up high due to their constant demands of more and
 TR> more.

It's not just the unions, it's also the distribution networks, where everybody
that handles a product takes a cut and passes it on to the next handler; when
the consumer finally gets it, the price is ridiculous.

[...]


 TR> 3. Allowing the oil companies to gouge the American driving public by
 TR> raising and lowering fuel prices at will, holding the American public
 TR> hostage to the whim of a couple of corporations.

Oil prices are now beyond government control and beyond OPEC control, thatnks
to China.  The demand has reached a point where the OPEC countries can't
increase production enough to cause a sufficient decrease in prices.

As for the government taking control of this and the other things you have
mentioned, I'd prefer that Congress stay out of the picture; they woyuld surely
make a bigger mess that we already have.


--- McGuffey's Reader                                 GoldED+/W32
 * Origin:    (1:3613/1275)