Nader Reaches His Nadir in His GM Bankruptcy Essay. Abstract: Ralph Nader comments on the GM bankruptcy and sheds tears and accuses many of inefficiency and worse and suggests that our worthless congress needs to ‘debate’ this issue. He probably would recommend a compleat nationalization of all auto companies in the US—just to be fair and to provide justice. This is the old activist Ralph in action. To start off: “WASHINGTON, June 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Consumer advocate Ralph Nader today issued the following statement on GM's bankruptcy filing: Today's bankruptcy declaration in federal court by General Motors is an avoidable, crude weapon of mass devastation for workers, dealers, auto suppliers, small businesses and their depleted communities. For GM's voiceless owners -- the common shareholders -- it is a wipeout.”[1]-- Nader Statement On GM Bankruptcy. Jun 1 , 2009. [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.] [All quotes are from this link unless specifically noted.] The common stock shareholders are the ones who should be wiped out as they take the risk and get the profits. That is what the stock market is all about in the real world. The notion that greedy unions can somehow milk a corporation like they did with rails, textiles, steel and others and that they can successfully compete in the market place is nonsense. Here is another dose of unreality: “The proximate cause of the bankruptcy was supposed to be the inability of GM and the government's auto task force to reach an accommodation with GM's bondholders. But late last week, the bondholder problem was moving toward rapid resolution, and was clearly resolvable. Why then are GM and its multibillion government financier proceeding with bankruptcy?”—Nader. This was never the case. There was no resolution offered here to bondholders—just take a wipeout and let the unions have your share. By law, bondholders of the secured type are first in line in the settlement—but we have union-bribed politicians here in the crowd in this melee. The Whitehouse, led by O’Bozo, had decided in the Chrysler case, in opposition to established bankruptcy laws, that the unions, stooges but great money pumps for the Democrats, should get the lion’s share of the business as it disintegrates. Bondholders should be last because they are ‘greedy.[2]” “By all rights, the restructuring plan should have been submitted to Congress for deliberative review and decision.” The pinnacle of lunacy. Perhaps the banks and persons who buy T-Bills are just plain ‘greedy’ and ought to not get paid. Our government is a sick joke and Nader, as he approaches his nadir, wants some more debate and perhaps a ‘bailout’ for some wretched car company that cannot compete and loses money on every car. Leftist politicians, C.A.F.E rules, greedy unions and other anti-corporate measures are what sank this company. Michigan will get what it deserves in this second round. Vote Democrat and raise taxes and we can all get back to prosperity! Every union member in Michigan ought to get food stamps and free housing for life! Just raise taxes to pay for that. “The unionized workforce will see the wage and benefit structure slashed -- even though auto manufacturer wages make up less than 10 percent of the cost of a car [??][3]-- so that new jobs at GM will no longer be a ticket to the middle class. This will drag down the wage structure of the entire auto industry -- exactly the wrong direction for the country.” More than wages—and Nader forgot to mention legacy costs and also failed to mention union work rules that ruin efficiency in the interest of greed and feather bedding—the union plants are just not competitive with German and Japanese and Korean plants. The entire union culture is out of date and belongs back in the Bolshevik Era and is now a drag on any economy. Nader talks like he has a seat on the Politburo and knows how to handle these matters like the highly successful Soviets did with their central planning. The entire USSR was ‘unionized’ in many ways. I question his 10% of cost numbers as well. We know this: “On its website GM released the total of both cash compensation and benefits provided to GM hourly workers in 2006 amounted to approximately 73.26 U.S. dollars per active hour worked, including 39.68 dollars in cash compensation and 33.58 dollars in benefit or government required programs, such as pensions, group life insurance, disability benefits, and supplemental unemployment benefits and so on. However, the costs used to make a Toyota car in the U.S. plants were only 48 dollars per hour.”[4]-- Huge labor costs blamed for GM's filing for bankruptcy [www.chinaview.cn] 2009-06-02 But we don’t know how many hours are put in per car. I couldn’t find those data. Perhaps Toyota only has about 5% labor cost per vehicle. I think these numbers are ‘sensitive’ and concealed from the public. Nader raves on, incoherently as we would expect from a green activist, populist and someone for which other fringe-loony labels apply[5], and sticks in his little success with the Chevrolet Corvair from the past: “With the company entering bankruptcy, the next challenge will be to ensure that the government exercises its ownership rights to undo and mitigate, to the extent possible, these damages. Among other measures, this should involve revisiting the serious drag-down, concessionary wage terms imposed on the United Auto Workers; demanding a moratorium on GM's outsourcing of production of cars for sale in the United States; and establishing successorship liability for the new GM, so that victims of dangerous and defective GM cars can have their day in court.” ALL small cars are dangerous so the new Twinkie battery-powered[6] plastic shells will also be death traps like the rear-engine Corvair. All this info is in the public domain but is denied by small car activists, drug addicts, EcoNazism[7] and others. The noxious comment that our phony government might “exercises its ownership rights to undo and mitigate, to the extent possible, these damages” is a plea for socialism and government control of business. To think that the government can set up and run a business makes us take a hard look at GAF, Amtrak, the Post Office and that silly armor factory back before world war 1. And Ralph has no concern for the corruption of the bankruptcy laws where the bond holders were summarily tossed into the scrap heap before the judge was assigned to the case. Just try to sell some more bonds [or common shares for that matter] to another government ‘project’ like this one. Stay clear of doing any business with auto companies that are unionized or anything that has strict controls by our worthless government. [1] Nader Statement On GM Bankruptcy Jun 1 , 2009. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=prnw.20090601.DC25338&show_article=1 [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.] [All quotes are from this link unless specifically noted.] [2] “Chrysler filed for bankruptcy two weeks ago, bondholders who opposed the government-brokered reorganization were derided as greedy by President Barack Obama.” http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/steffy/6432422.html [3] I don’t believe this. There are many employee costs here and I don’t see a breakdown. [4] Huge labor costs blamed for GM's filing for bankruptcy www.chinaview.cn 2009-06-02 http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-06/02/content_11472128.htm [5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader#Automobile-safety_activism [6] Hokum, Blow and the Electric Car Follies Exposed http://rycksrationalizations.blogtownhall.com/2009/03/06/hokum,_blow_and_the_electric_car_follies_exposed.thtml [7] The EcoNazis and Reality: Klaus Offers to Debate Al Gore. http://rycksrationalizations.blogtownhall.com/2008/05/29/the_econazis_and_reality_klaus_offers_to_debate_al_gore.thtml
Nader Reaches His Nadir in His GM Bankruptcy Essay.
Abstract: Ralph Nader comments on the GM bankruptcy and sheds tears and accuses many of inefficiency and worse and suggests that our worthless congress needs to ‘debate’ this issue. He probably would recommend a compleat nationalization of all auto companies in the US—just to be fair and to provide justice. This is the old activist Ralph in action.
To start off:
“WASHINGTON, June 1 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Consumer advocate Ralph Nader today issued the following statement on GM's bankruptcy filing:
Today's bankruptcy declaration in federal court by General Motors is an avoidable, crude weapon of mass devastation for workers, dealers, auto suppliers, small businesses and their depleted communities. For GM's voiceless owners -- the common shareholders -- it is a wipeout.”[1]-- Nader Statement On GM Bankruptcy. Jun 1 , 2009. [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.] [All quotes are from this link unless specifically noted.]
The common stock shareholders are the ones who should be wiped out as they take the risk and get the profits. That is what the stock market is all about in the real world. The notion that greedy unions can somehow milk a corporation like they did with rails, textiles, steel and others and that they can successfully compete in the market place is nonsense. Here is another dose of unreality:
“The proximate cause of the bankruptcy was supposed to be the inability of GM and the government's auto task force to reach an accommodation with GM's bondholders. But late last week, the bondholder problem was moving toward rapid resolution, and was clearly resolvable. Why then are GM and its multibillion government financier proceeding with bankruptcy?”—Nader.
This was never the case. There was no resolution offered here to bondholders—just take a wipeout and let the unions have your share. By law, bondholders of the secured type are first in line in the settlement—but we have union-bribed politicians here in the crowd in this melee. The Whitehouse, led by O’Bozo, had decided in the Chrysler case, in opposition to established bankruptcy laws, that the unions, stooges but great money pumps for the Democrats, should get the lion’s share of the business as it disintegrates. Bondholders should be last because they are ‘greedy.[2]”
“By all rights, the restructuring plan should have been submitted to Congress for deliberative review and decision.”
The pinnacle of lunacy. Perhaps the banks and persons who buy T-Bills are just plain ‘greedy’ and ought to not get paid. Our government is a sick joke and Nader, as he approaches his nadir, wants some more debate and perhaps a ‘bailout’ for some wretched car company that cannot compete and loses money on every car. Leftist politicians, C.A.F.E rules, greedy unions and other anti-corporate measures are what sank this company. Michigan will get what it deserves in this second round. Vote Democrat and raise taxes and we can all get back to prosperity! Every union member in Michigan ought to get food stamps and free housing for life! Just raise taxes to pay for that.
“The unionized workforce will see the wage and benefit structure slashed -- even though auto manufacturer wages make up less than 10 percent of the cost of a car [??][3]-- so that new jobs at GM will no longer be a ticket to the middle class. This will drag down the wage structure of the entire auto industry -- exactly the wrong direction for the country.”
More than wages—and Nader forgot to mention legacy costs and also failed to mention union work rules that ruin efficiency in the interest of greed and feather bedding—the union plants are just not competitive with German and Japanese and Korean plants. The entire union culture is out of date and belongs back in the Bolshevik Era and is now a drag on any economy. Nader talks like he has a seat on the Politburo and knows how to handle these matters like the highly successful Soviets did with their central planning. The entire USSR was ‘unionized’ in many ways.
I question his 10% of cost numbers as well. We know this:
“On its website GM released the total of both cash compensation and benefits provided to GM hourly workers in 2006 amounted to approximately 73.26 U.S. dollars per active hour worked, including 39.68 dollars in cash compensation and 33.58 dollars in benefit or government required programs, such as pensions, group life insurance, disability benefits, and supplemental unemployment benefits and so on. However, the costs used to make a Toyota car in the U.S. plants were only 48 dollars per hour.”[4]-- Huge labor costs blamed for GM's filing for bankruptcy [www.chinaview.cn] 2009-06-02
But we don’t know how many hours are put in per car. I couldn’t find those data. Perhaps Toyota only has about 5% labor cost per vehicle. I think these numbers are ‘sensitive’ and concealed from the public.
Nader raves on, incoherently as we would expect from a green activist, populist and someone for which other fringe-loony labels apply[5], and sticks in his little success with the Chevrolet Corvair from the past:
“With the company entering bankruptcy, the next challenge will be to ensure that the government exercises its ownership rights to undo and mitigate, to the extent possible, these damages. Among other measures, this should involve revisiting the serious drag-down, concessionary wage terms imposed on the United Auto Workers; demanding a moratorium on GM's outsourcing of production of cars for sale in the United States; and establishing successorship liability for the new GM, so that victims of dangerous and defective GM cars can have their day in court.”
ALL small cars are dangerous so the new Twinkie battery-powered[6] plastic shells will also be death traps like the rear-engine Corvair. All this info is in the public domain but is denied by small car activists, drug addicts, EcoNazism[7] and others.
The noxious comment that our phony government might “exercises its ownership rights to undo and mitigate, to the extent possible, these damages” is a plea for socialism and government control of business. To think that the government can set up and run a business makes us take a hard look at GAF, Amtrak, the Post Office and that silly armor factory back before world war 1.
And Ralph has no concern for the corruption of the bankruptcy laws where the bond holders were summarily tossed into the scrap heap before the judge was assigned to the case. Just try to sell some more bonds [or common shares for that matter] to another government ‘project’ like this one. Stay clear of doing any business with auto companies that are unionized or anything that has strict controls by our worthless government.
[1] Nader Statement On GM Bankruptcy Jun 1 , 2009. http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=prnw.20090601.DC25338&show_article=1 [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.] [All quotes are from this link unless specifically noted.]
[2] “Chrysler filed for bankruptcy two weeks ago, bondholders who opposed the government-brokered reorganization were derided as greedy by President Barack Obama.” http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/steffy/6432422.html
[3] I don’t believe this. There are many employee costs here and I don’t see a breakdown.
[4] Huge labor costs blamed for GM's filing for bankruptcy
www.chinaview.cn 2009-06-02 http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-06/02/content_11472128.htm
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Nader#Automobile-safety_activism
[6] Hokum, Blow and the Electric Car Follies Exposed
http://rycksrationalizations.blogtownhall.com/2009/03/06/hokum,_blow_and_the_electric_car_follies_exposed.thtml
[7] The EcoNazis and Reality: Klaus Offers to Debate Al Gore.
http://rycksrationalizations.blogtownhall.com/2008/05/29/the_econazis_and_reality_klaus_offers_to_debate_al_gore.thtml