Kevin Earl Dayhoff Art One-half Banana Stems

Kevin Earl Dayhoff Art One-half Banana Stems - www.kevindayhoff.com Address: PO Box 124, Westminster MD 21158 410-259-6403 kevindayhoff@gmail.com Runner, writer, artist, fire & police chaplain Mindless ramblings of a runner, journalist & artist: Travel, art, artists, authors, books, newspapers, media, writers and writing, journalists and journalism, reporters and reporting, technology, music, culture, opera... National & International politics www.kevindayhoff.net For community: www.kevindayhoff.org For art, technology, writing, & travel: www.kevindayhoff.com

Showing posts with label Business Auto Industry Ford. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Business Auto Industry Ford. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 02, 2008

The automakers in your grill for a bailout

The automakers in your grill for a bailout

November 23, 2008 by Kevin Dayhoff

In the 1890s, William (Billy) C. Durant, a high school dropout and grandson of Michigan Governor Henry H. Crapo, manufactured horse drawn wagons in Flint, Michigan.

By September 16, 1908, 100 years ago, he had plowed headfirst into the horseless-carriage business and formed General Motors (GM) as a holding company on for Buick.

He subsequently took on overwhelming debt by purchasing the manufacturers of Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Elmore, and Oakland. Greatly overextended, after a dramatic drop in automobile sales, Mr. Durant lost control of the company in 1910 to one of the many powerful bankers’ trusts of the time.

Undaunted, Mr. Durant, went on to form the automobile manufacturer Chevrolet by forming a partnership with Louis Chevrolet and through a series of events involving intrigue and the force of his will; he regained control of GM - only to lose it again, for good after another downturn in the market.

A quarter of a century later, the United Auto Workers was founded in May 1935, during the depths of the Great Depression. Within two years, it gained recognition and clout by a series of strikes against GM and Chrysler. It would be six difficult years before it gained collective bargaining rights from Ford, in 1941.

A hundred years after the formation of the model of automobile manufacturing began in 1908, the management of the “Detroit Three,” Ford, GM and Chrysler, have essentially lost control of their destinies - and companies to the United Auto Workers (UAW.)

The day after the November 4th, presidential election which swept the Democrat Party’s nominee, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama into office and cemented a firm control over Congress, the Detroit Three and the UAW asked to be rewarded for their support by asking for a $25 billion bailout.

Various estimates run as high as $80 million to be the amount of money that the UAW alone raised for now President-elect Obama.

This comes as our nation’s taxpayers are still reeling from the passage of the $700 billion bank bailout in order to reward august financial leaders and conglomerates who behaved badly.

After decades of being blackmailed with the threat of crippling union strikes, the Detroit Three finds itself with uncompetitive work rules. It manufactures products which continue to languish with the perception that they lack the quality of its competitors. It offers vehicle models of which the American consumer has no interest. It makes these products with enormously uncompetitive salaries and benefits and now, the American taxpayers are being charged to bail them out.

No, I’m not making this up and this is not a script from “Saturday Night Live.” It’s real.

However, if you will recall, this is the same union that went on strike a year ago, in September 2007. According to a CBS news account: “While the strike may look like a test of wills, it is really a portrait of weakness, on both sides, reports CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds.

“GM hasn't had a profit since 2004. It lost $12 billion over the last two years. And while it's making profits this year, they're coming from sales abroad, not here. For the UAW, it's lost 150,000 jobs at GM over the last 10 years amid repeated rounds of concessions, adds Reynolds.”

A year later, the Detroit Three expects the American taxpayer to reward this lunacy by bailing them out. Now that the Democrat Party is relishing being fully in charge of the Oval Office, a majority of the governorships, and both houses of congress, it did not take them long to put the election rhetoric aside.

Recently columnist Charles Krauthammer observed that saving “Detroit means saving it from bankruptcy. As we have seen with the airlines, bankruptcy can allow operations to continue while helping shed fatally unsupportable obligations.

“For Detroit, this means release from ruinous wage deals with their astronomical benefits (the hourly cost of a Big Three worker: $73; of an American worker for Toyota: $48), massive pension obligations, and unworkable work rules such as ‘job banks,’ a euphemism for paying vast numbers of employees not to work.

To revisit what I wrote in another column in “The Tentacle” on November 19, 2008; according to a recent International Herald Tribune news account: “The big U.S. companies employ about 240,000 workers and their suppliers an additional 2.3 million, amounting to nearly 2 percent of the nation's work force.

“The outright failure of General Motors would eliminate the biggest auto employer and more than 100,000 manufacturing jobs. That is about the number of jobs already lost this year at U.S. automakers and their suppliers.

“But many industry experts say the big foreign makers are established enough to take control of the industry and its vast supplier network more quickly than is widely understood.”

Underreported in the last several weeks has been the fact that the auto manufacturers in right-to-work states in the south are not clamoring for a bailout.

According to Mr. Thomas: James Sherk of The Heritage Foundation reports that these Japanese car companies provide their employees with good jobs at good wages: “The typical hourly employee at a Toyota, Honda, or Nissan plant in America makes almost $100,000 a year in wages and benefits, before overtime.”

In the end, the $50 billion corporate welfare, that Congress is asking the American taxpayer to reward the union and corporate leadership for decades of failed leadership, would be better spent on providing support, training and educational benefits to be directed to the American workers affected by the reorganization of the Detroit Three.

Against the backdrop of the Detroit Three threatening the end of the financial and manufacturing world as we know it; the clamor in Washington to reward the bad behavior of the Detroit Three has resulted in the further deterioration of whatever confidence Americans had left in either the government or the corporate captains of finance and industry.

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20081201 The automakers in your grill for a bailout

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

This week in The Tentacle

This week in The Tentacle

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Rewarding Bad Behavior

Kevin E. Dayhoff

Instead of tooling down the highway in the fast lane, two months after General Motors celebrated its 100th Birthday on September 16, it found itself huddled over at an intersection with fate, harassing passers-by with a tin pan in hand.

William C. Durant formed General Motors (GM) as a holding company in 1908 for Buick. He subsequently took on overwhelming debt by purchasing the manufacturers of Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Elmore and Oakland. After a dramatic drop in automobile sales, Mr. Durant lost control of the company two years later to one of the many powerful bankers’ trusts of the time.

A hundred years later, the “Detroit Three,” – Ford, GM and Chrysler – have lost control of their companies to the United Auto Workers (UAW.)

After decades of being blackmailed with the threat of crippling union strikes, the Detroit Three finds themselves with uncompetitive work rules. It manufactures products which continue to languish with the perception that they lack the quality of their competitors. They offer numerous models, in which the American consumer has little or no interest. They make these automobiles with enormously uncompetitive salaries and benefits; and now the American taxpayers are being asked to bail them out.

Read the entire column here: Rewarding Bad Behavior


Fulfilling A Dream
Tom McLaughlin
“What has possessed you, Tom,” many have asked. “Leaving the country for Borneo Island for a year,” they wonder. “And what about your health?”


Baltimore Hippodrome's "Grinch"
Roy Meachum
What a delightful idea! Baltimore's Hippodrome Theatre decided to bring in for the holidays "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas! The Musical."


Tuesday, November 18, 2008
New Terms and Limits in Iraq
Roy Meachum
While George W. Bush's order to invade Iraq made headline news, the several papers I read cast the real outcome somewhere in the back pages.


A Once-A-Year Happening
Farrell Keough


“[A]m I my brother’s keeper?” This was the statement Cain gave to God when questioned about the location of Abel, whom Cain murdered. It has become part of our cultural colloquialisms – generally applied when asking about our responsibility to help others.


Walkersville’s Welcome Wagon
Joe Charlebois
Well, the ugly head of unforeseen consequences has reared its ugly head. The Town of Walkersville, in its determination to keep the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community from building their worship and conference facilities, has ultimately broken the back – if not the pocketbook – of the Banner School family.


Monday, November 17, 2008
Avoiding The Temptation
Richard B. Weldon Jr.
I supported John McCain throughout the recent presidential election. Having written an entire column about why, there's no reason to re-plow that field.


Befuddled in Frederick
Steven R. Berryman
What strange days we are living in. My sympathy goes out to those whose intellectual process it is to attempt to make sense of the world around them.


Landfill & Waste-to-Energy Q & A
Joan McIntyre
My last column (from November 6) generated many questions. Trash in Frederick County certainly seems to be the hot topic. Trash is a given and we need to get out of our holding pattern. So, here I've done my best to address many of your questions.


Friday, November 14, 2008
Newly "Dis-Organized" Party
Roy Meachum
Three months after Franklin Delano Roosevelt was sworn in as the first Democratic president since Woodrow Wilson, Oklahoma-born comedian Will Rogers said on his weekly radio show: "You've got to be optimist to be a Democrat and you've got to be a humorist to stay one." Mr. Rogers was also quoted: "I belong to no organized political party – I’m a Democrat."


Thursday, November 13, 2008
Onward and Upward, Not Backwards
Tony Soltero
Now that the election is behind us, there's no shortage of analyses being offered by pundits left, right, and center about “What It All Means.” So here are a few bullet points of my own as a contribution to the discussion.


My President
Patricia A. Kelly
I’ve lived a pretty long time. I was alive and conscious during the civil rights movement. In fact, during that time, my mom drove my brother and me through the South every summer to visit my grandparents.


Wednesday, November 12, 2008
The Incredibly Shrinking Republican Party
Kevin E. Dayhoff
The ink is hardly dry on the “historic” election of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and already those with 20/20 hindsight are dissecting and revising the two-year ordeal, known as the 2008 presidential election, with the conviction of someone who has just seen a flying saucer land in the backyard.


Just Bustin’ Out All Over
Tom McLaughlin
It was as if a massive salt water wave swept over the country and washed away all of the hate and intolerance. I felt cleansed, jubilant and am still high from the November 4 election results. No more African-Americans, or Chinese-Americans, or Native Americans. We are all Americans.


Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Please, Jennifer, Not Again
Roy Meachum
Jennifer Dougherty's loss record for elections stands four-to-one after Tuesday's drubbing by Rep. Roscoe Bartlett. The only time she won, incumbent Mayor Jim Grimes shot himself in the foot. Repeatedly. When she tried for a second term, her own party dumped her; the first mayor in modern times to be defeated in a primary.


“It’s Good To Be A Teacher…”
Nick Diaz
Work-to-rule, teachers’ contract, planning time, Board of Education, FCTA, negotiated agreement – these topics, and more, have surfaced recently in Frederick concerning local education issues.

Monday, November 10, 2008
Election Post Mortem
Steven R. Berryman
Election 2008 is over. America now has a new president-elect, and an opportunity to evaluate just what Barack Obama’s victory means. Here are some lessons learned along with some 20/20 hindsight.

20081119 This week in The Tentacle

Friday, June 06, 2008

20080606 A lesson to be learned from Ford versus Toyota

A lesson to be learned from Ford versus Toyota

Hat Tip: Grammy June 6, 2008

I received this allegory in an email. It was simply too true to not pass on and post…

A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (Ford) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person rowing.

Feeling a deeper study was in order, Ford management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion.

They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing.

Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to Toyota, the Ford rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering superintendents, and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1 person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the' Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners, and free pens for the rower. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes, and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for po or performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India.

Sadly, The End

Here's something else to think about:

Ford has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US , claiming they can't make money paying American wages.

TOYOTA has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US The last quarter's results for 2007:

TOYOTA makes 4 billion in profits while Ford racked up 9 billion in losses.

Ford folks are still scratching their heads.

IF THIS WEREN'T TRUE, IT MIGHT BE FUNNY

(I drive a Prius.)

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20080606 A lesson to be learned from Ford versus Toyota