Bailout Observations

[BigRob]

Just yesterday Toyota was in the news. They're not doing "just fine".

They are making money... less than they might like, but in the black nonetheless. Thus, they are doing fine.

 

[Lagboltz]

Yeah, and their economy sucks worse than ours. Well, ok, most of the European countries have horrible economies.

That said, I couldn't find anything on Japanese CEOs pay rates. It's not listed Forbes, nor Wiki, nor any of the translated Japanese pages I looked at.

If you find anything, let me know. I'm curious too.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,975422-2,00.html
"Although General Motors', Ford's and Chrysler's combined losses totaled $7.5 billion last year, their top executives were together paid $5.3 million. Their counterparts at Toyota, Nissan and Honda collectively made $1.8 million."

About a factor of 3 higher for US. But it is not clear if this just the salary without stock options, bonuses, etc.

 

[top gun]

Andy;78098]You don't care alright. You don't understand anything about cost of production at all, and have proven it repeatedly. If you don't care, then stop bothering us with your stupidity.

That's because you're purposly trying to lock in on production costs and not the overall cost of doing business. The simple fact is that any money saved is money that the company is then ahead to use for whatever.

Do I need to get you a dictionary? Labor + material = cost of production. If cost of production is less than the value of the product, does it matter what the CEO pay is? Let's pretend that CEO has a salary of ZERO.

Yes to the overall well being of the company it means a ton.

Just to use some real numbers I'll use the numbers that were posted on TV last night. Rick Wagoner at GM made 16 million dollars last year. GM itself ended up $27 million in the whole last year. Subtract the two numbers. That one move brings the shortfall to 11 million (I'm not saying you can do away with the top position I'm demonstrating the savings to the bottom line).

And actually this is EXACTLY what they are working on from management's side to get back to profitability. GM has agreed to cut all executive pay by 50% and Wagoner is going to work next year for a buck.

Now that's HUGE savings. Bring in the UAW which has already agreed in principle to accept more cuts and GM is back on the right track.

Add to that the new models are starting to get the good reviews they had hoped for... Malibu, G6 etc. And they have the Chevy Volt coming out soon. There are good things on the way in my opinion.

If labor + material > value of product sold... then explain to me how a CEO getting zero is going to help? Show me Top Gun. You show me how that helps. How is that going to get cost of production lower than income?

IT IS NOT! How the heck did you ever were able to run your own business is beyond me. I'd sure never invest in you. Go back to high school and learn some basic economics.

Your 2 year old like tantrum of insults aside you are not being very honest.

I had no problem running two successful businesses because I understood the BALANCE needed to survive. That balance certainly wasn't me saying... Well let's see it cost my business in raw material & labor costs $600 to sand and paint a car. I can charge up to $1200 to sand and paint a car.

So obviously since my salary isn't in the actual production costs of those paint jobs I can pay myself a million dollars per year???????????????????????

My salary had to be in line with the overall profitability of my companies at the time. Not what someone else made. Not what some other Body Shop owner was paying himself. It had to be based on how my company was performing.

Now I'm in agreement that labor costs do have to factor in. I'm just saying there's OVERALL profitability to be made up by cutting at both sides.

Right, you can't prove it's a better car. Thanks for admitting you can't. "seems" is subjective. You made a quantifiable statement, that a subjective word "seems" does not prove.

You can try and word-smith all day if you want but it gets you nowhere. I gave you the fact of what was the top seller in America. I told you of my (and presumably others) personal driving impressions. But the main fact that I believe pushes consumers to imports (besides styling) is this. If you look at reliability ratings for Lexus, Toyota and Honda over the last say 10 years they blow US car makers away. I believe Lexus is generally first followed by others in this category.

In short, liberalism is what caused all the problems we now face.

You're a silly guy... and thankfully the pain eventually got do great that the American people kicked you nut jobs out wholesale.

 

[top gun]

"In short, liberalism is what caused all the problems we now face."

Here's the winner of the most absurd, ignorant and deep denial post of the year.

Andy drives an 1982 Buick and thinks Bush was a good President... maybe just not Conservative enough.

Do you really expect any rational flow to come from that dried up lake bed?

If he had his way he'd Herbert Hoover us all the way into another Great Depression and swear it was the other sides fault all the way to the soup line.

 

[Andy]

A most piquant critique of European economies.

The pain being felt in Europe was caused in the States.

Only idiots blame all economic problems on the US. A good economy, can be successful, without blaming everything on the US. That's just ideological stupidity.

Even if you can actually back the claim that the US economy is causing the problems in European economies, that simply points out how pathetic those economies are.

Our growth rate is still estimated to be 2% this quarter. How does this compare with the Europeans and how does that explain their problems?

 

[Andy]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,975422-2,00.html
"Although General Motors', Ford's and Chrysler's combined losses totaled $7.5 billion last year, their top executives were together paid $5.3 million. Their counterparts at Toyota, Nissan and Honda collectively made $1.8 million."

About a factor of 3 higher for US. But it is not clear if this just the salary without stock options, bonuses, etc.

Interesting! I also found this article "Japanese Wrestle With CEO Pay as They Go Global".

Japan's biggest bank by market capitalization, paid a total of $8.1 million for 14 top executives in the fiscal year ended March 31, according to a regulatory filing.

But at Morgan Stanley, in which MUFG acquired a 21% stake in September, John Mack, the chief executive, alone took home five times that amount -- $41.4 million -- in the year ended Nov. 30, 2006.

It would seem that in the past, traditional Japanese companies paid very little, comparatively to western corporations, to their management staff. However, as they invest in overseas corporations, or as overseas corporations invest in them, they are having to deal with the economic realities that talent flows to economic incentives.

In Japan, more companies are trying to hire European executives. As such they are spending more and more on CEO pay. The article I read, explained that Nissan was near bankruptcy when a french company got control, and replaced the traditional system, with a more western pay and bonus system. The result was that unlike other companies that remained flat, Nissan has returned to the black and is competitive again.

Another thing noted was that when Japanese companies take over foreign corporations, the higher management staff tends to vacate, which is exactly what conservatives have been saying about attempts to limit executive pay.

Liberal ideals always sound good in theory, but in practice are a failure.

 

[Dawkinsrocks]

Only idiots disagree with Andy.

 

[BigRob]

Only idiots disagree with Andy.

Calm the personal attacks.

 

[Dawkinsrocks]

Hooray, you let people call me all sorts and then step in and pick on me even though that is not an insult.

Your prejudice as a moderator is a joke

Go and **** yourself

 

[BigRob]

Hooray, you let people call me all sorts and then step in and pick on me even though that is not an insult.

Your prejudice as a moderator is a joke

As you have been told around 100 times now, report something if you think it is a problem, we cannot see everything. The post "Only idiots disagree with Andy" is not going to fly, no matter who it is directed towards. Take it or leave it.

Go and **** yourself

Very becoming of you there.

 

[top gun]

Hooray, you let people call me all sorts and then step in and pick on me even though that is not an insult.

Your prejudice as a moderator is a joke

Go and **** yourself

Come on Dawkins... Rob and I go at it tooth and nail all the time ourselves. He's actually a smart guy (don't tell him I said that).

Different people look at things differently. Not saying he's right because I'm never wrong... but he's certainly not oppressive.

Sometimes things just escalate to insults with really no other text. ADD TEXT! Work it out.

 

[Andy]

Oh I see. I got confused be Dawky's claim. I normally have dawkins on ignore. I see how he could think it was a personal attack to say that "Only idiots blame the US for poor economies all over the world". I stand by that statement although I apologize Dawky, if you have taken that personally.

I do have a solution, I will place you back on my ignore list so that you can know I am not responding to you ever. Thus if you see any offensive statements, know that it is not a response to you... ever.