OT GM bailout

On Nov 19, 6:36 am, Scott Seidman wrote:

One would think that a responsible company would properly endow pension
plans as they went along. Isn't that the only tenable way to do this??

The idea that a society can sustain a paradigm where virtually all of
its adults spend the last 1/3 of their workable adult life on vacation
is untenable.

Jon.

wrote:
Scott Seidman wrote:
One would think that a responsible company would properly endow pension
plans as they went along. Isn't that the only tenable way to do this??

The idea that a society can sustain a paradigm where virtually all of
its adults spend the last 1/3 of their workable adult life on vacation
is untenable.

George Will made a similar comment last Sunday on the ABC Sunday
talking head show. "Why are people retiring before they're eligible
for Medicare anyway ?" is a paraphrase and it was in the context
of the auto industry paying health care costs until age 65 when
Medicare kicks in.

I haven't seen my wife so ****ed off since the time my brother
was whining about his precious tax dollars being used to support
the United Negro College Fund (which takes no tax dollars).

She called George Will some things I can't even put on roff. ;-)

Hardly any of my wife's relatives have college degrees and many
of them went to work at the Chrysler plant in Belvidere straight
out of high school. Working on an auto assembly line is real
work, physical work. Doing it for 40 years, roughly 18 to 58,
leaves you too old to safely do the work and seven years shy of
Medicare. And those folks can't just sit on their ass and write
a book to tide them over.

The idea that a society can toss these folks away like spent
machinery is untenable.

--
Ken Fortenberry

The CEOs of the big three automakers flew to the nation's
capital yesterday in private luxurious jets to make their case
to Washington that the auto industry is running out of cash
and needs $25 billion in taxpayer money to avoid bankruptcy













On Nov 19, 8:13*am, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:
wrote:
Scott Seidman wrote:
One would think that a responsible company would properly endow pension
plans as they went along. *Isn't that the only tenable way to do this??

The idea that a society can sustain a paradigm where virtually all of
its adults spend the last 1/3 of their workable adult life on vacation
is untenable.

George Will made a similar comment last Sunday on the ABC Sunday
talking head show. "Why are people retiring before they're eligible
for Medicare anyway ?" is a paraphrase and it was in the context
of the auto industry paying health care costs until age 65 when
Medicare kicks in.

I haven't seen my wife so ****ed off since the time my brother
was whining about his precious tax dollars being used to support
the United Negro College Fund (which takes no tax dollars).

She called George Will some things I can't even put on roff. ;-)

Hardly any of my wife's relatives have college degrees and many
of them went to work at the Chrysler plant in Belvidere straight
out of high school. Working on an auto assembly line is real
work, physical work. Doing it for 40 years, roughly 18 to 58,
leaves you too old to safely do the work and seven years shy of
Medicare. And those folks can't just sit on their ass and write
a book to tide them over.

The idea that a society can toss these folks away like spent
machinery is untenable.

--
Ken Fortenberry

On Nov 19, 7:13*am, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:
George Will made a similar comment last Sunday on the ABC Sunday
talking head show. "Why are people retiring before they're eligible
for Medicare anyway ?" is a paraphrase and it was in the context
of the auto industry paying health care costs until age 65 when
Medicare kicks in.

Hardly any of my wife's relatives have college degrees and many
of them went to work at the Chrysler plant in Belvidere straight
out of high school. Working on an auto assembly line is real
work, physical work. Doing it for 40 years, roughly 18 to 58,
leaves you too old to safely do the work and seven years shy of
Medicare. And those folks can't just sit on their ass and write
a book to tide them over.

The idea that a society can toss these folks away like spent
machinery is untenable.

So what's the answer? For once I'd like to hear the whiny liberals
actually propose something.

We're going to have the same problem across the country soon
now that the boomers are hitting retirement age. The retirement
ponzai schemes only work when there are more people at the
base of the pyramid. Not enough people working to support
those not working. Boomers weren't smart enough to save
for their retirement.

There are going to be a lot of people getting a harsh reality check
when they go to retire. I'm glad this recession came now instead
of 5-10 years from now when the boomers had already retired.
- Ken

On Nov 19, 8:13 am, Ken Fortenberry
wrote:

Working on an auto assembly line is real
work, physical work. Doing it for 40 years, roughly 18 to 58,
leaves you too old to safely do the work and seven years shy of
Medicare.

The idea that a society can toss these folks away like spent
machinery is untenable.

I agree with all that -- I said nothing about Medicare or tossing
people aside, only that societies can't afford to have 1/3 of the
productive populace not being productive. There's all sorts of ways to
be productive; as a worker ages I see nothing wrong with transitioning
them to a different job that is less physically hard than what they
did when they were young. But unless we're willing to go back to an
extended-family model of having grandma and grandpa come live with us
when they can no longer support themselves (which might be a good
thing) rather than this model of having government or corporations
attempt to keep up their separate house and separate costs and the
lifestyle to which they're accustomed, I see our country continuing
its slide towards bankruptcy.

Jon.
PS: Yes I realize that there are many many retirees who are out there
contributing countless hours to volunteer organizations, communities,
churches, and in general being productive for our society in many
different ways than working for a paycheck. I applaud all of you, and
hope I have the funds that allows me to do the same some day. I don't
consider those types of people "retired", they're just taking
advantage of a pension to contribute to society in different ways.

On Nov 18, 1:12*pm, "Larry L" wrote:
One of the great things about ROFF is that I can spout off about things I
don't know much about *.... and fit right in G

I, personally, don't want to see GM 'bailed out' *via my money. * Let 'em go
BK and restructure. * Their business model is dead ... bury the damn corpse,
don't keep it on a heart lung machine pretending it's still alive

YOMV

The CEO of GM only made 20 million last year. If they had paid more
like some of the investment bankers they could have hired real talent
and wouldn't be in this mess.

wrote:
Ken Fortenberry wrote:
The idea that a society can toss these folks away like spent
machinery is untenable.

So what's the answer? For once I'd like to hear the whiny liberals
actually propose something.

OK, how about this. Single payer health care, Canadian style.
Take the burden of health care off of industry because it makes
us uncompetitive.

We're going to have the same problem across the country soon
now that the boomers are hitting retirement age. The retirement
ponzai schemes only work when there are more people at the
base of the pyramid. Not enough people working to support
those not working. Boomers weren't smart enough to save
for their retirement.

I don't know what retirement plan you're talking about but the
one with which I'm associated, SURS of Illinois, is no scheme.
And it's been working just fine since 1941 and will continue to
work fine unless Illinois adopts a new state constitution because
under the current Illinois constitution the legislature cannot
get their grubby little hands on any SURS monies.

If the GM retirement plan had been as well managed and funded
as SURS there would be no problem at all with it.

There are going to be a lot of people getting a harsh reality check
when they go to retire. I'm glad this recession came now instead
of 5-10 years from now when the boomers had already retired.

Why do you hate America so much ? ;-)

--
Ken Fortenberry

In article ,
Ken Fortenberry wrote:

I don't *want* to see them bailed out either, but I don't think
there's really any choice. Now is not the time to lose one out
of every ten jobs in the country. It's a damn shame and a bitter
pill to swallow but we can't let the Big 3 go belly up no matter
how much they richly deserve it.

However, the moment the government puts one penny of my tax dollar
into that mess I want a clean sweep. That means fire every damn
executive in the company, tear up the union contracts, void all
deals with suppliers, tell the shareholders "tough ****, you got
nothin'", and turn the whole thing over to government receivership
with the intention of making the company viable and once again
publicly owned ASAP.

My two centavos.

Damn you are making a ton of sense. Usually you are just a asshole to
people.

In article
,
wrote:

I agree with all that -- I said nothing about Medicare or tossing
people aside, only that societies can't afford to have 1/3 of the
productive populace not being productive

Where the heck do you people get that any large population of retirees
are spending the last 1/3 of their life on medicare?!?!? Medicare
starts at age 65, the last 1/3rd of their life would have them live to
98.3 years old. The vast majority of people die in their 70's and 80's
(of those that get to age 65). It is a incredibly small number of
people who live till 98 or older

" wrote in news:10451906-c15c-40e5-
:

So what's the answer? For once I'd like to hear the whiny liberals
actually propose something.

The answer is to not have the government ignore problems for eight years.
It puts you between a rock and a hard place.


--
Scott
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