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Originally Posted by GenuineRisk
I would be a bit suspicious of an article that only quotes the Heritage Foundation. Even within the article itself there are things that don't make its argument:
What about Chrysler's bailout 30 years ago? It was a loan. Didn't Chrysler pay back the government? Wasn't it worth the risk to save jobs? According to the Heritage Foundation, the $1.2 billion in loan guarantees made by the Carter administration still resulted in a partial bankruptcy for Chrysler. "Most of the company's creditors were forced to accept losses just as they would if Chrysler had gone through Chapter 11, and the company ended up firing almost half its workforce, including 20,000 white-collar workers and 42,600 hourly wage earners. The only people who benefited from the bailout were Chrysler shareholders."
The shareholders would be the investor class, not the union workers. Looks like a lot of employees got fired, and I imagine many of those were union members.
Health care costs are crippling industries, no question, but that's not the union's "fault." There's plenty wrong with the current state of unions, but their job is to negotiate the best possible deal for their members. Just like a business' is to get the most profits for its shareholders. The article listed the average hourly wages including health care costs- I would be curious to know what the hourly wage was with that amount for health care deducted, but the article didn't say.
In all the screaming about how expensive a national health care system would be for this country, no one ever brings up what to me, is an important point- it would make manufacturing jobs in America attractive again to international companies, because they wouldn't have to factor health care in their costs. The thing about the insurance industry is that they only make money by not providing service. In cases like flood or fire or theft insurance it makes perfect sense- you pay a relatively little amount of money over time so that in the unlikely event something bad happens, you will get more than what you are paying in to cover catastrophic damages. Odds are, you'll never need it, and the insurance company makes money and you pay a little money for peace of mind and everyone's happy. In the case of health care, it's not a case of a rare instance where you might need care- we all need health care at one point or another. And so we, or an employer, pay a pretty big chunk of money to a company that is going to have to pay out at some point, but doesn't make a profit if it pays out more than it gets in, so it refuses to pay whenever possible. It doesn't make sense. Could you imagine paying money to a restaurant that then says, "Sorry; no food for you."
I'm not saying Europe or Canada have it figured out, but they do pay less per citizen than we do AND they have lower infant mortality rates and a higher life expectancy than we do, so they must be doing something right, as they're getting more for less.
As for the auto companies- I blame some of their problems on them putting all their eggs in the SUV basket, because the profit on them was so great, compared to small cars. They could have been improving gas mileage (and Congress could have required it), but preferred to pay money to lobbyists so that they could continue business as usual. Do any of these people ever think the ride will ever end? I swear, it seems like America is one big grasshopper, and we sure could stand to embrace the ant sometimes.
It's easy to bash the unions, but it's also worth remembering the labor movement are the folks who brought us the weekend. "Not Automatic" is a very dry read, but the accounts of conditions in the GM plants prior to the Sit-Down Strike of 1936 are pretty upsetting.
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