Comments on: Canadian Feds Discuss GM Bailout

By: improvement_needed

improvement_needed — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 15:00:16 +0000

for those not in the ‘know’ about the oshawa – whitby riding: i don’t think that Jim Flarhety needs any bribes to win his seat in any election…

as for GM Oshawa in general: it’s true that their car and truck plants are at/near the top of GM north america in terms of efficiency…
i wouldn’t be too surprised to see another product move into the truck plant, or to actually see the truck plant keep producing trucks…

By: gsp

gsp — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:23:07 +0000

corporate welfare.

By: ronin

ronin — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:56:28 +0000

Ha ha. Take money from working citizens by force, and transfer it to corporations run by multi-millionaires.

I thought tax money was supposed to be used to run the government, and that’s why people put up with it.

Now it’s supposed to be given freely to businesses. Sort of reverse robin hood.

By: blowfish

blowfish — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 04:27:13 +0000

“I’d rather see the feds place a $250 million ORDER for hybrid trucks built in that facility. They could then create a lottery with the trucks as prizes or put them into service in the public sector”

If we divide by a 50,000 per truck, then we can buy 5,000 trucks or cars.

If our wage is much higher than Mexico how long can we keep buying jobs? When they offer them $2.50 per hr. And we’re more than 10 times than Mexicans make on the assembly line.
No different than goods in Wal Mart, no local manufacturer can compete with them at all.

By: prndlol

prndlol — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:32:55 +0000

Actually i don’t consider Canadian autoworkers to be overpaid and uncompetitive. The march of the Canadian dollar from 85 cents US to on par or higher in value in less than two years is a difficult adjustment to make. But hey, don’t worry about us in Ontario. Fortunately we have one of the most diversified economies in the west, and if American automakers want to take production elsewhere we’ll just contunue building your Asian competitors cars.

By: Kurt B

Kurt B — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 03:08:05 +0000

I’d rather see the feds place a $250 million ORDER for hybrid trucks built in that facility. They could then create a lottery with the trucks as prizes or put them into service in the public sector.

By: gsp

gsp — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 23:50:15 +0000

Buzz Hargrove constantly talks nonsense.. He is the guy saying that there are tariffs on import products going into Japan. News release Buzz: Germans sell lots of cars into Japan, the Japanese don’t want your N.A. crap.

Buzz talks like he is still in the ’80s.

Having said that, GM screwed him here. But what really are they going to tell him??? “Hey Buzz, we are going bankrupt!”

By: wmba

wmba — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 22:30:17 +0000

Apparently nobody listens to what was actually said. The Cdn Federal Environmental fund totals $250 million, spendable at a maximum of $50m per year over 5 years. Any help will be minimal — after all, we do have a conservative government in power federally (contrary to uninformed opinions I read here about Canada being socialist). The fund is for basic resaerch into green technologies, and GM won’t get it to continue running Oshawa.

I heard Buzz being interviwed for 15 minutes today. Here is the nub of his argument about the contract. CAW agreed to a wage freeze for three years; new hires take 3 years to get to full pay; Oshawa is 25 PERCENT more productive than any other GM plant, so it costs less to produce there than in the US plants; from September, workers at Oshawa will be working half shifts because of the downturn in truck sales, which the CAW recognizes; Oshawa won the JD Power award for best IQ (I know, I know); actual truck sales have been steady at 30K for the last 2 months, so they slid BEFORE the contract was signed two weeks ago, coincidentally the day that oil prices peaked at about $135 a barrel. And GM signed on the dotted line to agree to the contract.

So, according to Buzz, sales conditions have not further changed in the last two weeks, so closing Oshawa breaches the contract with the CAW.

I’m just the messenger — that’s what he said. If he’s incorrect on the details, so be it. But it sure is a lot different from what I read here about what people THINK he said. In fact most of what I’ve read here on TTAC in the last couple of days has not squared with what was on the news and in the papers. Folks need to listen, not to parrot pre-held opinions.

By: oldyak

oldyak — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:33:06 +0000

nothing to save……

By: MikeInCanada

MikeInCanada — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:24:09 +0000

Why does this slush fund even exist…?

If by chance a manufacturer/supplier does come up with a environmentally beneficial product there will not be any monies available as its all been spent re-bribing GM.

By: oboylepr

oboylepr — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 20:09:00 +0000

The Feds would be better off investing in Martian real estate! Can you think of a company more fiscally irresponsible than GM. I wouldn’t mind if it succeeded in keeping Oshawa truck open but it won’t. It’s like handing a cookie to the Cookie Monster. He will choke it back then ask, “what for lunch?” I am all for doing whatever one can to save these jobs but handing our tax dollars to this company is obscene.

By: Gardiner Westbound

Gardiner Westbound — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:48:17 +0000

Canadians who will not support GM by buying its ~~lousy~~ cars and trucks will be press ganged into propping it up with their taxes.

By: Perkins

Perkins — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:32:48 +0000

This is NOT new money. The fund was announced some time ago in the Federal budget. It set aside a total of $250-million that ANY auto manufacturer could apply for – to invest in environmentally friendly technology.

Mr. Flaherty is just proposing to use some of the funds to improve the ‘environment’ in his riding, right before an expected fall election call.

By: Jon Paul

Jon Paul — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:29:53 +0000

wow. I don’t wish to dogpile people in a tough spot, but at some point it does seem to be a tough spot of their own choosing. I worked at an airline that finally went bankrupt a couple of months ago. From the day I started that job, I fully understood that failure of the business was possible, even likely at some point. That is why I gained skills that kept me marketable as a worker. Had that not been possible on the job, I would have been going to school nights – which is how I got the skills to get that job to start with, or changed jobs. I sure didn’t expect the government to dump millions into a failing business to save my job.

I had several people around me with very meager skill sets who did little to gain new skills in the 3 years I was there. They were the ones that hoped and prayed that nothing would change. GM has arguably been circling the bowl for a while now, hence the Death Watch series. I’m sympathetic to anyone whose job future is uncertain; but it’s hard to maintain such sympathy when people seem to do little more than pray that the gravy train can continue.

By: jaje

jaje — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:27:18 +0000

So instead of lowering their wages and benefits to competitive levels with the US (let alone Mexico and other lower cost of blue collar labor countries) – they use tax payer dollars to bail them out. That’s efficient right there, eh? Using other’s taxes (may have to raise them) to bail out the greed of the unions.

Look up the South Park Canada On Strike episode. Insert Hargrove’s face on the Canadian PM.

By: blowfish

blowfish — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:24:53 +0000

If its Jimmy’s own riding, how will he not toss more mulla at it anyways? He needs to buy all da vote he can.
We all hope the General can last for little bit more longer, at least after the next Canadian election. Or else Jimmy will meet the same fate as the auto workers trying to find work in the fast food industries.

By: nudave

nudave — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:23:27 +0000

Perhaps the Canadian government should consider purchasing the entire corporation.

Sort of a latter day British Leyland.