Unions have very little to do with the collapse of the auto-industry. People just plain aren’t buying cars anymore, especially not the big SUVs that the big three heavily invested in. Their market has basically collapsed due to the recession and the spike of high gas prices we were having.

And US workers are legitimately some of the most productive in the entire world, though this is partially due to the benefits of technology. But if you look at the amount of work that a US worker completes in a given interval, it’s comparable or better to most other nations. The reason why companies outsource is because they can pay lower wages and there are less workers rights to run afoul of – basically they can exploit their workforce to greater levels – not because of any sort of productivity gap.

And the US, when viewed as a whole, is actually well below just about every other industrialized country when it comes to healthcare. Our coverage is more expensive and less effective compared to nations with socialized health care. If you’re super rich, you can afford some of the best medical care in the world, sure. But that’s not an option for 90% of the population which get substandard care instead.

You also should study history a little more. Attempting to balance the budget would be a huge mistake right now. Examine what happened when FDR attempted to move toward balancing the budget in 37 and the economy basically started to tank again. In times of severe recession the only solution is massive deficit spending because the private sector will simply not invest and you’ve run out of other options. There’s a strong risk of falling into what’s called a liquidity trap like Japan did during the 80s and 90s where people don’t spend money and you’ve got an excess of capacity that’s just plain not being used. In other words, the economy can be fine in terms of fundamentals and still not recover because people won’t buy things or make large business investments. If you look at what FDR did to pull us out of the Great Depresion, the efficacy of public spending should be obvious; WW2 was the single largest public works program ever, in effect. You got near 100% employment, and as soon as the war ended and the rationing and restrictions on certain things got lifted, that money got spent really quickly.

If you also look at the US between FDR all the way up to Regan, the economy was in the greatest state of prosperity that the country has ever known, with strong GDP and relative economic equality. There were still some problems, and inflation wasn’t understood well enough to deal with it quite right, but things were pretty good. There were also ridiculously high taxes on the super-rich, including an estate tax that pretty much prevented any sort of finacial lineages from developing and unions were at their strongest.

The idea that unions and high taxes on the rich are inherently bad for the economy doesn’t have any merit, as historically, those things went hand in hand with extreme economic prosperty.

One thing you should know about WoWPanda, is that he owns a bot company (for World of Warcraft). He works out of China.

Chinese workers work on average, 72 hours a week (6 days). They are harder working then their American counterparts and that’s why most companies outsource whenever possible to other countries (add in Philippines, Thailand, Mexico, etc.). Now mix in lower wages, and you hit a sweet spot.

Any self employed business owner is used to working at minimum, 60-80 hours or more per week. Self employed workers do not get the benefit of free healthcare. They do not get the benefit or $30 or more per hour. There is much that we (yes, we) do not get the benefit of. I for one would love to see universal healthcare, but to do so, would take us from being the number 1 healthcare country to the average area.

The economy is tanking. We are heading into a depression, and the bailouts are partly to blame. It’s the government which has failed us, but it was bound to happen sooner or later. We were living on a economy which artificially inflated.

It’s easy to blame the Unions, and in part, they are to blame. However Bush’s policies are what has caused the economy to slide. I am not saying that Obama is any better, his socialist views are really starting to show now. Clinton had turned this country in the right direction and had reduced our national debt for the first time in many years.

Overall, unions to contribute to the problem, but to get out of the problem, it would require each auto company, to declare bankruptcy, and only hire non-union members. Alternatively, perhaps it’s time that the unions step up and admit that something is not working, and then work to hammer out deals that SAVE auto manufacturers. Otherwise, I would expect to see Chrysler to close all plants in the USA, and open them in Mexico, where workers work cheaper, harder, and for more hours.

I told some people back in November that the economy was going to collapse, it’s showing all the signs now of it too (http://rpg-exploiters.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=58849). How much longer are you going to sit back and take a watch and see, as we go headfirst into a collapsed economy? Get prepared NOW.

You have to look at both if you on’t want to lose your shirt. It’s quite possible for a company with great fundamentals to be overpriced. While crappy fundamentals will always lose you money in the long run… good fundamentals are not guaranteed to make you money (making money meaning outperforming whatever your favorite indicator is).

Increasingly I find my selection to chose from decreasing as more and more large companies dilute their stock pretty much solely to support stock options for executive compensation. Company growth ends up being great for a time while stock price sits static. That’s more than a poor investment… that’s getting had.

Anyhow, really veered the topic off topic when what I should have stuck to was…

“I feel for anyone losing their job who has difficulty finding further employment in tought times.”

And just yesterday the Vancouver branch of Nexon shut down. Nexon was not in the red and it shut down the studio completely.
All I can say to people who work in games at this moment is be prepared for anything. It took me 6 months to find something here in Vancouver.

And I thought I was th eonly one who argued that usually flamed opinion. As far as I am concerned it is printing cash, and as long as they don’t get greedy they can get away with it. If they get to greedy and tank the stock they end up skipping to the next company after a hefty cash severance package.

That’s backwards, a “for the good of the business decision” would always be cash for bonusses, stock for severance. Printing stock to give someone cash you don’t want to take from earnings so you can pay him richly at the expense of shareholders should be illegal and it has always amazed me the SEC allows it. Any other organization did the equivalent and they would find themselves in jail.

The reason I dislike unions in their current state is, they are against competition (which usually leads to higher productivity). And sometimes some of their rules tend to spill out to others. One of my friends told me during her trade show he was not allowed to carry anything himself, because that is against union rules (or some union law).

What the union should do is, protect basic worker rights, watch the CEOs for possible bad decisions that could doom the company, watch company spending, fire the bad workers. They should realize that their survival is also linked to the company.

I am not sure about the stack options etc. The best way to make a CEO work hard is that if the company goes under, he will starve. Most small companies work that way. Right now we have too many rich investors just hand their money over to some CEO to handle. Almost no one works on others money harder than their own.

I don’t have a problem with people being rich – I have a problem when the standards aren’t applied evenly.

Union guy makes $50 an hour? Good for him. The CEO making 25 mil a year on average make $25000 an hour. Are both of them worth it? That’s the companies decision isn’t it? But don’t try to make me feel bad for a company that pays the CEO so much because they have to pay the little guy too.

And my comment about stock options wasn’t to lower a CEO’s salary – I say if a company wants to pay the CEO $25 mil a year then let them – but don’t tie his salary to the stock so much that gaming the books/system to increase his personal net worth is more important than the health of the company.

Greed is a powerful motivator – dangle millions in front of anyone and even if they don’t take it – they had to consider it.

Morality doesn’t make someone immune from temptation – it just makes them strong enough to resist. History shows us that if the temptation is large enough most will give in – and *that* is where giving huge bonuses through stock options is worthless.

I suppose there is one other way to do it upon reflection of the matter. Tie the stock options together with a 15 year provision – then and only then will you see CEO’s trying to look further ahead than 2-3 years (when they become vested and get the legal ability to sell these days)

Pump and dump – it’s not just for short timers anymore.

As a resident of Chicago, Illinois, I must respectfully disagree.