Posted on 11/06/2008 6:33:07 PM PST by Fred
DETROIT, Nov 6 (Reuters) - United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger on Thursday urged the U.S. government to provide another $25 billion in loans to struggling U.S. automakers so that they can meet their health care obligations to over 780,000 retirees and their dependents.
"The U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve can help immediately by taking steps to provide liquidity to auto manufacturers so they can get through the difficulties caused by an across-the-board decline in auto sales," Gettelfinger said in a statement released by the union.
Gettelfinger joined the chief executives of General Motors Corp (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Ford Motor Co (F.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Chrysler LLC in meetings on Thursday afternoon in Washington with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to plead the case for urgent aid to the embattled auto industry.
Gettelfinger called those meetings "constructive." He said the UAW looked forward to meeting with President-elect Barack Obama "in the near future" to discuss the same issues. (Reporting by Kevin Krolicki; Editing by Phil Berlowitz)
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
I want to scream BS!
“THE ONE” will do it in a heart beat.
$25 Billion to the Big Three - and no reasonable hope of ever collecting much of it back. This is the sub-prime scandal all over again.
Just remember - if you buy a UAW made car, you’re supporting these idiots. And if you bought an UAW car in the last two years, your money went to elect Barack Obama, who will happily sign over MORE of your money to support these idiots.
Aren’t so you proud of what you paid for?
You are reduced to robbery by your thuggish incompetence. But your doctor won't work for threats.
If you want to support the USA without feeding the union beast anymore than you need to, then we should buy Toyota, Honda or Hyundai (those models made in the USA).
Another upside is that any vehicle made by Toyota, Honda or Hyundai is better than every piece of rotting garbage churned out by GM, Ford and Chrysler.
Golly, why don’t other companies that manufacture cars in the US (Honda, Toyota, BMW, Mazda, etc.) go begging for handouts from the taxpayers? (Pssssst ... can you spell UAW?
Sure, so they can outsource our tax dollars thus afford to move more auto manufacturing to Mexico. What is that they say about the chickens and the roost?
They were talking about this on CNBC this morning and said that if one company (GM) goes bankrupt that it would put 1.4 million people out of work. I have no idea what the resultant costs would be.
If Obama and Rat Congress continue in power for more than a couple of years, those facilities will be unionized too.
“Just remember - if you buy a UAW made car, you’re supporting these idiots.”
If they’ll give me 50% off a new Corvette I’m there. Otherwise it’s a foreign-label beater.
Well, now that the Bailout piggy bank is open, everyone is lining up with their hand out.
Hey, UAW: if you know you’re killing the host, why don’t you voluntarily cut some of your benefits? Instead, they run to the Government for a bailout. Thanks to UAW intrasigence and insanely stupid ideas (like the job bank), the once great American auto industry is about dead. Not that the UAW is the only reason, but they’re in the top 3. Nice going, Ron.
Oh, RIGHT............... we need to bail out the Unions because they pad their own pockets and screw hte blue collar workers- I say BS. Let them rot.
They were talking about this on CNBC this morning and said that if one company (GM) goes bankrupt that it would put 1.4 million people out of work.
To paraphrase Sarah:
“Burn baby Burn”
To quote James T. Kirk from STVI:
“Let them die!”
Never again will I buy a car from the big 3.
Judging by how they voted, that would be a loss how?
Also, most of those suppliers won’t fold; they saw the writing on the walls years ago and now supply the “foreign” transplant auto makers as well as the Moribund Three. IMHO, they’re always inflating the number of jobs that would be lost.
I find it hard to believe that 1.4 million people would be out of a job if a company that Apple Computer could buy out of petty cash and still have money left over folded.
It’s going to be a tough winter for lots of businesses.
As long as the UAW is in charge I won’t spend any more money supporting these thugs. I own 2 Jeeps.
Pray for W, Saracuda and Our Troops
I heard 40,000 directly but it will affect the businesses that support the big three.
I am never buying Union made product and will w-mail every union and tell them so.
I wish I could recall the number of companies that are involved in the assembled parts for one car. It’s in the low thousands. The unassembled parts number is in the tens of thousands. It was really surprising to me.
After what has happened to the auto industry, the unions are hoping to destroy more of our economy by expanding under Obama.
I thought the money was to help them “Retool” to build hybrids, not to finance the consumption of retirees.
Hey, life sucks! My family has been hit hard by this economic downturn! My husband is an electrician...and there’s no work here. We have no health insurance and no retirement benefits. I’m sure we’ll bounce back in the future but for god sake don’t ask me to feel sorry enough for these yahoos to pay for things i, myself don’t have!
I used to live in MI. I don’t doubt it. The economic impact will be enormous—and not just MI.
If GM went bankrupt, they might try to invalidate their suffocating Union contracts. Of course, the UAW would immediately go on strike and kill the host for good.
Unfortunately, a lot of “patriotic” Americans (even here on FR) find glee in the plight of the automakers. Its really a very sad situation. Once that industry is gone, its never coming back (along with a huge part of America’s industrial base).
I’m confident the auto makers have enough assets to pay the health benefits if they have to. The might have to cut back on some jobs to do it. The money is to protect those union jobs, and we’ll probably never see a penny of it back.
The unions should pay for the bailout. These commies spent over 400 million dollars to get Obozo elected and all the lying thieving DIMS. So this DIM majority congress is bought and paid for by the unions.
the big three need to go find their own funding it cannot be from the federal gov’t, they are using their own credit lines at this time TOO FRIGGIN BAD!!! I have to use my own credit line too, suck it up. They need to make it happen on their own, one of these useless banks that were bailout should be lending to them, but they won’t because it would be a bad business move. DUHHH. So the sucker middle class gets stuck with the bill.
I for one and my corporation will not buy another Union made vehicle. They can starve to death for fall I care. Unions supported Obama and Obama can buy their cars.
And having a blue state go belly up is bad how?
The time for playing nice in the hopes that the Blues will become Reds is past. It’s time for smashmouth scorched-earth politics.
The Blues need to learn that elections have consequences as well - and if one of them is “Vote Dem and watch your jobs evaporate,” so be it. Maybe next time they’ll ignore their union bosses and vote Republican or Conservative.
Also, most of America’s industrial base would NOT be lost if GM and Ford folded. It already moved South. Or do you think that all the Texas companies supplying Toyota’s San Antonio plant are a mirage?
Toyota, Nissan, etc will fill the vacuum, if their is a buyer they will build the cars and without unions.
The unions are merely a tool of the DIMS anymore.
It is like death and taxes, you can not avoid the inevitable the big three are heading for history.
Where were all these bailouts and protections when my software engineering job was being outsourced to the tune of at least 65,000 H1Bs a year (and still coming)???? Did I go begging for help and whining for protections, no I sucked it up, stayed competitive and have been preparing myself for the nightmare we now face of NATIONALIZATION AND SOCIALISM.
Do not take this personally, but we cannot stop these things, God has a plan, he wants us to pay close attention while he takes care of all the greedy ones. Just try and get out of the way while He does his thing.
I can imagine them having to restructure and probably downsize considerably, but I don't see them just going away.
This is going to put a serious dent in UAW's membership roles and dues money, but we'll just have to explain to them that not everyone can afford a new car, and until they can it wouldn't be fair for someone else to have one, so there's no point in making them.
Fixed it!
780,000!!!!! Dont'cha just love it. Their obligations are now supposed to be our obligations.
Along with our 401ks, that is next, how else will they pay for it.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
And they'd vote in even greater numbers for the democrat thugs that caused them to go bankrupt.
We are talking about the same thing......excesses. When they run out, it's time for a bail-out.
Vote themselves money from the federal treasury. Who was it that warned, when that time comes, the Republic will end.
I believe it was "de tocqueville"...
They’ve already eliminated health care for salaried retirees over age 65. Why should the union thugs get to keep their health care benefits when they salaried workers lost theirs?
They UAW needs to be demolished for their greed.
Geldelfinger is talking out his @$$ to keep the union apparatchiks pumped.
The money is for plant retooling.
The UAW gets the Retiree Health Care and Pension Liabilities with the VEBA which kicks in in 2010. That is why these "Bridge Loans" (yes that what is it) are critical, Ford burned through 7 billion this last quarter, with burn rates like that, they may not make it to the next product cycle in 2010.
contract lowered total compensation to the Unions to a rate of $48/hr which is what Toyota is at. They are at parity.
FWIW in an off the record conversation an auto engr I know on a high visibility program noted for all intensive purposes in their humble opinion, with the last contract the UAW has been de-balled......
“de tocqueville” -— Yeah he did, but what I wanted was one of our founders, who made a similar statement about the Republic, maybe Ben Franklin? If I get some time today, I will look around, see if I can scare up the quote.
Welcome to the automakers self dealt apocalypse keep the overpriced vehicle coming and pay the exuberant cost to the Union workers and you will die the slow death you have brought on yourself. That is if our politicians pull there heads out of their own tail pipes and quit bailing out these idiots that cant operate a budget.
Tired of the hand out mentality that the big businesses have come to I didn’t know the US offered Welfare to bad business decisions.
GM reports $2.5B 3Q loss, says running out of cash
Associated Press via Yahoo | November 7, 2008 | Tom Krisher and Jeff Karoub
Posted on 11/07/2008 9:04:06 AM PST by NRG1973
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2127942/posts
GM, Ford Post Losses as Liquidity Worsens (Live or Die?)
WSJ | 110708 | MATTHEW DOLAN and JEFF BENNETT
Posted on 11/07/2008 2:18:53 PM PST by Fred
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2128187/posts
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