Non Sequitur by Wiley Miller for December 15, 2008

Sadly true.

Sign of the times, unfortunely.

actually, this is rather timeless, and all the sadder for it.

top management just don’t see the problem with themselves.. since they wouldn’t fire themselves, what’s a better than blaming the little guys down there.

the heli pad is a nice touch.. i wonder if companies like the big 3 have a few next to their jets..

Anyone heard of the “Peter Principle”? It is working well at the Big 3 and a lot of other companies.

Yeah, the CEOs of the Big 3 have plenty to be sorry about, and this comic surely gets a lot of things right … but I’m dissapointed that UAW wouldn’t negotiate with Congress in the interest of the bailout loan – this was labor’s opportunity to show that extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, and it failed. Miserably.

What cracks me up is Bob Nardelli almost bankrupted Home Depot and still Chrysler hired him!

Funny how most of the Republicans against the LOANS (not a bailout) come from states that have foreign car makers in their states.

okzack says: Sign of the times, unfortunely The word should be “unfortunately” correctly. :-)

“You Are So Right, Mr. Wiley!”

The perfect head shot, Wiley.

more truth then realized!

remember the golden rule: he who has the gold makes the rules

BirishB: “(…)I’m dissapointed that UAW wouldn’t negotiate with Congress in the interest of the bailout loan(…)”

The U.A.W. has already made huge concessions, and they’ve said that they’re willing to make more – so long as their current contracts are honored and their members are paid a living wage. It isn’t *THEIR* fault that the Big Three kept insisting that they build SUVs and other gas-guzzlers that no one would buy eventually. (Believe me, I have absolutely **NO** sympathy for the auto execs! They should all be fired and investigated by Congress [for incompetence] and the Justice Department. [For stock fraud.]) The only thing that those Southern Rethuglicans are interested in is busting the U.A.W. for the Japanese and German automakers, and they’re more than willing to sacrifice the U.S. auto industry (and the million-plus jobs that they provide) in order to do so.

Reynard – Suppose I ought to clarify: I STRONGLY support union labor; I abhor corporate/CEO greed. However, I feel that UAW ineptly handled the negotiations, and now the GOP and UAW are now in a pissing contest over who deserves blame, but that only detracts from the fact that nothing got done. I also think that UAW should have looked a little harder at the unpalatable solution it was faced with rather than ducking the conversation.

TOO many Chiefs not enough Indians:D

Bingo!!!

I agree with you, lalas.

danae hasn’t appeared in weeks!

LameRandomName: “Southern Rethuglicans forcing the poor, downtrodden masses to produce SUVs and other gas guzzlers to bankrupt the big three on behalf of the japanese car makers?”

No. That’s NOT what I said. To clarify: The Big Three’s Marketing suits kept telling their CEOs that the “Public” wanted SUVs, pick-ups and large cars – usually to the near-exclusion of smaller, gas-efficient models. The CEOs then decided which models went from the drawing boards to the assembly lines. No one “force”ed the assembly-line workers to build them, but they had no decision-making power as to what models went to the assembly lines.

“And here I thought that they were building SUVs and other large cars because that’s what their customers wanted to BUY.”

I strongly suspect that it’s more a case of what they think “the customer wants” (i.e. what they can make that will make the average male driver feel like a Chick Magnet) and through slick advertising turning it into a self-fulfilling prophesy.

“Shows how little I know. Hey, you guys keep fighting for that ‘Living Wage’!”

Would you rather see (possibly) a million-plus people homeless and/or swelling the welfare and food-stamp rolls because they can’t afford their mortgage payments and/or their next meal?

According to Time magazine, GM’s union workers make $71/hr plus benefits. That’s approximately $147K in “living wages.” Many other Americans would like to earn that amount and still be disgruntled.

That “$71/hour” figure is accurate if you’re looking at “total labor cost”, but it’s not what the workers are making. It’s what you get if you take all the labor cost, including the pensions and benefits being paid to current retirees and divide that by the number of current workers. Nobody on the assembly line is making $71/hour. Oh, and before you get bent out of shape about “why are they paying such lavish benefits to retireees?”, here’s why: they promised those benefits to them when they were workers in exchange for taking lower salaries at the time. If GM had fully funded the pension plan as they accrued the liabilities, there wouldn’t *be* a pension problem. But for some reason, it’s become attractive to blame the union for expecting GM to hold up their end of a deal that both sides agreed to.

okzack says: Sign of the times, unfortunely The word should be “unfortunately” correctly. :-) No, I think okzack had it right.

“…the poor, downtrodden masses … fighting for that “Living Wage”… bankrupt the big three … Shows how little I know. ”

I can’t argue with that.

“Are there no food stamps? Are there no homeless shelters? If the laid-off be like to die, then let them do it and decrease the surplus population.” – Ebenezer “Lame Random Comment” Scrooge

Yes, sadly true.