Not sure what you’re getting at with the reference to my time at Genie. Care to expand on that thought?

However, I do still take issue with Kary’s assertion that they are making a “more efficient use of resources” there than would be possible without a union.

Well if they aren’t, then that is solely management’s fault.

There Was An Old Saying Among Boeing Employees in the Late 70s

20% of the workers do 80% of the work.

His response was something along the lines of “You do not want to work at Boeing. You want to learn to make coffee, you go work at Boeing. You want to advance your career, you find another job. I can probably find you something at Boeing, but for your own sake, do what you can to find a job somewhere else.”

This is certainly not to say that everyone working at Boeing is lazy. Such a broad generalization would be idiotic. However, I do still take issue with Kary’s assertion that they are making a “more efficient use of resources” there than would be possible without a union.

The “surpise” profit they had for the quarter is mostly attributed to the Cash for Clunker program. Auto sales are already falling off a cliff after the program was stopped. I don’t think Ford will be having many “surpise” quarters in the future unless the gov brings back Cash for Clunkers….Bottom line is Ford needs that money for upcoming liablities. The union betting on the future is sooo bright with green shoots, could be a mistake. Why can’t the union work with what is and not with what could be?

Now that the decision was made, a Charleston affiliate WTMA talk-show had listeners call in to prepare Boeing employees moving into the Lowcountry what to expect.

“The city’s aesthetically pleasing to the eye. We don’t have skyscrapers. Everything’s close in Charleston, you can walk all the way across town in 30 minutes.”

“I think it’s a nice place to live. Maybe some of the down side is people are still narrow-minded in many ways.”

BTW, if I recall correctly from several years ago, that debt might be convertible.

Heh. Thanks for being a real life example of what I suggested in another thread- that current Boeing employees might well be willing to transfer for the lower living costs, different climate, etc. Too few here acknowledge that not everyone has deep roots in Seattle, and many are willing to move in or out of the area as opportunities change. Life isn’t static, and what’s “hot” today may not even be on the map in 10 years.

The comments are pretty telling- it seems even in Seattle the majority see through the arrogance and regionalism Horsey portrays. I especially like the comment about how they manage to build the F-22 in SC despite the stupidity, etc.

1 billion won’t cover the 10.7 billion that is maturing. Wait a minute that would be 4.7 billion in 2011 since they got 6 billion to be extended to 2013. But that’s still 10.7 billion in liablities over the next 3+ years.

from the WSJ

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703932904574511112609119436.html

“After its earnings report, Ford said it aims to raise an additional $3 billion in cash and push back the maturity date of its revolving loan. The company plans to use a convertible-debt offering to generate $2 billion and sell off some of its shares to raise an additional $1 billion, the company said in a statement Monday.

Ford is also seeking to delay the maturity of its $10.7 billion revolving credit to 2013 from 2011, the company said in a statement Monday. Ford has already secured lender agreements to delay about $6 billion.

.The move comes after Ford failed to win more cost-cutting concessions from the United Auto Workers. Rank-and-file members soundly defeated the concessions over the weekend, in part because of Ford’s brightening financial outlook.
”

I hope that future is as bright as the union thinks, for their sake…..

RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 75 – I _REALLY_ didn’t like that comic, it seemed really petty. I usually like what horsey does..

http://www.seattlepi.com/horsey/viewbydate.asp?ID=2008

This year I celebrated 25 years as an engineer with Boeing, mostly in Commercial. I’m looking forward to a chance to transfer to Charleston. Economics are part of it, take a look at the costs of comparable houses. Social issues are the bigger part. This straight white male is tired of left-of-left Socialism. I’m tired of being taxed to death for lefty wet dreams and incompetent local politicians. Charleston held the title of ‘Most Mannerly City’ for some time, perhaps some of the females there are Ladies (of which Seattle has few, if any) and some of the guys have basic manners (which I’ve gave up expecting in SEA).

All things considered, Charleston may or may not be better than Seattle, but I’m ready to give it a try.

Yeah, it’s pretty cheap "chocolate".

RE: softwarengineer @ 69 –

Yesterday in Fred Meyer I walked past an end table that has a gouge in it, exposing the foam underneath the veneer. First time I’ve seen that!

WTF? Did you maybe mean to post that on Twitter? ;-)

The average person is too stupid to know what they want. In California during the energy crisis the average person wanted to pay a few bucks less on their already fairly small electric bill even if that meant paying more in income taxes, assuming they still had a job after their employer was left to pay more for electricity.

Yesterday in Fred Meyer I walked past an end table that has a gouge in it, exposing the foam underneath the veneer. First time I’ve seen that!

I was 9 years old and marveled at the prospect of flying cars by 2000 and 20 hr work weeks with automation.

Those childhood dreams were killed by greed and globalism IMO. If we’d worked to keep world population at 1-2 billion and with everyone on planet earth making like $40K a year, globalism would have helped bring the World’s fair dreams to reality.

Nope we blew it. We traded a chance for a wonderful “short workweek” utopia for cheap junk at Wamart and a lost industrial base in America, so some CEO can chew on fat cigars. We traded the chance to drive flying cars down the drain and now brag about how wonderful our old fashion overpopulation heaps from Asia are, pathetic.

We’ve simply lost the fight in America for a shorter work week to the greedy corruptors, and are told to shutup and be glad 50″ plasma TVs are under a $1000 and laptops are $350. “Welcome to Walmart”…LOL

If Boeing starts to pull out of Puget Sound that will lower property values, which will make Puget Sound more affordable so that new workers can accept lower wages, making Boeing less likely to leave.

By Markor @ 60:

By Kary L. Krismer @ 56:

LOL. Ford just announced a $1,000,000,000 quarter for earnings. How stupid would the union members have had to been to make concessions? Maybe if they owned enough stock it would make sense, but otherwise, no.

Good point!

Is there something fundamentally different about an autoworker who happens to be working for Ford? Why should a Ford employee earn more than a GM employee for doing the exact same job?

Just wondering how the union is justifying this to the ones at GM/Chrysler who DID take the concessions.

Probably because it was necessary to attempt to save their jobs. Even the creditors had to give something up. When a company isn’t healthy things have to be given up.

As to the other comment, I’m not sure why you think people working for different companies should be paid the same. Should the union say to the employer: “Your competitor only pays this, so that’s all we want.”

Is there something fundamentally different about an autoworker who happens to be working for Ford? Why should a Ford employee earn more than a GM employee for doing the exact same job?

Because the two groups negotiated independently. If they all negotiated as one group then maybe they’d have the same wages.

If that argument makes sense to you, then there’s no real point continuing this discussion.

It did.

By grumble @ 61:

Having a union that demands a certain wage “or else we shut you down” is clearly distorting the marketplace.

Is there something wrong with that? I’d like to buy a computer for $100 today, but Best Buy tells me “take our price or leave it.” Clearly they are distorting the marketplace!

If that argument makes sense to you, then there’s no real point continuing this discussion.

By Kary L. Krismer @ 56:

LOL. Ford just announced a $1,000,000,000 quarter for earnings. How stupid would the union members have had to been to make concessions? Maybe if they owned enough stock it would make sense, but otherwise, no.

Good point!

Is there something fundamentally different about an autoworker who happens to be working for Ford? Why should a Ford employee earn more than a GM employee for doing the exact same job?

Just wondering how the union is justifying this to the ones at GM/Chrysler who DID take the concessions.

Having a union that demands a certain wage “or else we shut you down” is clearly distorting the marketplace.

I’d like to buy a computer for $100 today, but Best Buy tells me “take our price or leave it.” Clearly they are distorting the marketplace!

It just looks like a highly successful union to me, assuming they’re abiding by the law.

Name a third world country, and you have a case for companies utilizing cheap labor inefficiently just because it is cheaper.

The way you beat cheap labor is automation. Provided you can justify the expense of the automation.

This hasn’t been my experience. In my job as a design engineer I’ve been to China a few times to visit our suppliers. They are doing all the of same things we do here to utilize labor as efficiently as possible, mainly because they are competing with other low cost suppliers with access to the same workforce.

Also, at least in the two fields I’ve worked in, automation hasn’t been the answer. Automation only seems to help if what you make either has a very high volume. And it turns out you can automate in low cost regions too…

By grumble @ 57:

I guess 500k is too low a salary for you, but I think the vast majority of people who could do that work would jump at the opportunity.

Yes, $500K is a great salary for a stagehand if you can get it. What am I supposed to be learning? Let the CEOs be in a 90% tax bracket and we should see more highly paid stagehands.

This was related to the above discussion about unions. If you think 500k is a reasonable salary for stagehands, then you would have no problem with the unions. However, if you think having all 5 fulltime stagehands at a theater earn 400-500k+ is an unreasonable amount, then that would be an argument that unions are promoting an inefficiency in the marketplace, that could be filled by equally skilled workers earning a “fair” wage.

Having a union that demands a certain wage “or else we shut you down” is clearly distorting the marketplace.

This has nothing to do with CEOs (who I also agree are too highly paid).

LOL. Ford just announced a $1,000,000,000 quarter for earnings. How stupid would the union members have had to been to make concessions? Maybe if they owned enough stock it would make sense, but otherwise, no.

Good point!

I guess 500k is too low a salary for you, but I think the vast majority of people who could do that work would jump at the opportunity.

Yes, $500K is a great salary for a stagehand if you can get it. What am I supposed to be learning? Let the CEOs be in a 90% tax bracket and we should see more highly paid stagehands.

That’s about all I go there for because the Renton store is a mess. But I did once need a part for a gas grill, and they had better inventory than HD or Lowes. But I wouldn’t call either of those great retailers. I still miss Eagle.

RE: grumble @ 52 –

So a stagehand earns $500K while CEOs of corporations bailed out by taxpayers earn $10 million+? What am I supposed to be learning again?

I guess 500k is too low a salary for you, but I think the vast majority of people who could do that work would jump at the opportunity.

Much harder to become a CEO than a stagehand…

RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 13 –

“What it reminds me of though is that unions actually result in a more efficient use of resources”

No argument there- Boeing is moving out, becoming more efficient, while the unions- having served their economic purpose, are self destructing. Here’s another example of union death-wish behavior. Clearly, they are the sharpest tools in the shed: /sarc

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Ford-workers-reject-contract-apf-763992348.html?x=0

LOL. Ford just announced a $1,000,000,000 quarter for earnings. How stupid would the union members have had to been to make concessions? Maybe if they owned enough stock it would make sense, but otherwise, no.

The only stupid employees are the ones at Boeing in SC who voted out the union in a right to work state. That is just about as stupid as you can get, since you get the benefits of the union without having to join or pay for it. That’s IQ way under 100 type of stupid.

By Kary L. Krismer @ 13:

What it reminds me of though is that unions actually result in a more efficient use of resources.

Yeah, definitely. In fact, that’s probably how Boeing earned the nickname “The Lazy B.”

Bad management. Unions do not mean less work unless management allows that.

So a stagehand earns $500K while CEOs of corporations bailed out by taxpayers earn $10 million+? What am I supposed to be learning again?

Ford said “My ambition is to employ still more men, to spread the benefits of this industrial system to the greatest possible number, to help them build up their lives and their homes. To do this we are putting the greatest share of our profits back in the business.” Dodge disagreed with that strategy and sued. The court sided with Dodge and Ford had to pay an extra dividend.

Arguably Ford was doing what was best for the company in the long run. Nowadays companies seek to optimize the cannibalization of their customer base. Where that leads is clear: a third-world country and all that entails. It’s not the companies’ fault so much as the voters’, however.

RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 13 –

“What it reminds me of though is that unions actually result in a more efficient use of resources”

No argument there- Boeing is moving out, becoming more efficient, while the unions- having served their economic purpose, are self destructing. Here’s another example of union death-wish behavior. Clearly, they are the sharpest tools in the shed: /sarc

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Ford-workers-reject-contract-apf-763992348.html?x=0

Hey Unions are great! – if you’re in the Union. You can be a stagehand and literally, earn 400-500k+ per year. More than most wall street bankers out there, even with their bonuses.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=acb2_wcYGOUE

Well he was the majority shareholder then, so couldn’t have been removed against his will. Ford realized that higher (than what market would bear) wages would be a good thing for the company in the long run. Seems that most major shareholders nowadays disagree.

Had it not worked out, the prudent move would have been for the shareholders to remove him. Lucky for him, it did at the time. Not to mention, there were not that many shareholders in those days. Stopped his employee turnover problem cold.

Henry Ford was acting in the interests of his shareholders. The fact that his employees benefitted from that was a side effect.

I doubt most other shareholders agreed with his decision re wages at the time, or afterwards for that matter.

OR the people can, via their gov’t, change the boundaries so that they are not so much at the mercy of capitalism.

You just supported my point. Henry Ford was acting in the interests of his shareholders. The fact that his employees benefitted from that was a side effect.

On the Walmart topic…. Walmart only exists because there is a demand for its “service”. The American Consumer wants lots of stuff. They want it cheap. Walmart meets this need. The side effect of this is that it is putting us in a race to the bottom.

If folks made a choice to have less, but of higher quality (yes, it is a choice), then Walmart would either start selling higher cost and better quality goods, or they would go out of business.

Don’t fault Walmart for seeing a demand and meeting it.

You want cheap goods, then expect to be paid in cheap wages to produce them.

To me it’s like bill Gates Sr. or Warren Buffett complaing that taxes on the rich are too low while their accountants look for every deduction and break they can find. If they really feel that way why don’t they just send a big fat check to .gov and be done with it? Why do they want to take from someone else what they themselves won’t give up?

I see no contradiction with a rich person wanting to minimize their own taxes while thinking that the taxes on the rich are too low. That rich person alone paying extra is unfair, whereas every rich person paying extra is fair. Presumably Buffett would give up more if the law required it.

This line of reasoning is why middle America is in a wholesale state of decline.

Henry Ford stated “I will build a car for the great multitude.” In October 1908, he did so, offering the Model T for $950. In the Model T’s nineteen years of production, its price dipped as low as $280. Nearly 15,500,000 were sold in the United States alone.

In 1914, Ford began paying his employees five dollars a day, nearly doubling the wages offered by other manufacturers. He cut the workday from nine to eight hours in order to convert the factory to a three-shift workday. Ford’s mass-production techniques would eventually allow for the manufacture of a Model T every 24 seconds.

Ford believed if you paid workers well enough, they would buy the products they made. Now that’s sustainability. Too bad we don’t think that way today. Ironically Ford’s the only major American car company left today.

Simple lesson to learn:

Public companies are in business to service the needs of their shareholders.
Public companies are NOT in business to provide jobs. Labor is a means to an end.

Once you accept that, and learn how to play within those boundaries, you will be successful.

RE: Kary L. Krismer @ 9 –

It’s a bit of a reach to say that companies won’t utilize labor efficiently just because it’s cheaper. It’s a marginal move, not a reinvention of the whole- companies are still constrained by competition, resource availability, legal structures, etc. and must make the best of whatever situation they find themselves in. And the facts suggest that right to work states are blowing the union states away in this new world order. From Wiki:

“A March 3, 2008 editorial in The Wall Street Journal compared Ohio to Texas and examined why “Texas is prospering while Ohio lags”. According to the editorial, during the previous decade, while Ohio lost 10,400 jobs, Texas created 1,615,000 new jobs. The article cites several reasons for the economic expansion in Texas, including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the absence of a state income tax, and right-to-work laws”

Name a third world country, and you have a case for companies utilizing cheap labor inefficiently just because it is cheaper.

The way you beat cheap labor is automation. Provided you can justify the expense of the automation.

Higher defect rates are not necessarily a bad thing, provided that the expense of the repair/destruction is balanced out. This is an equation that businesses must deal with.

Sometimes the costs of making everything correctly the first time are significantly higher than making 75 of them right, and then either repairing or chucking the 25 that are not.