Gimme NOW, screw tomorrow.

I just saw another opinion piece blaming the automotive industry's financial problems on their high labor costs.

There's a few things they're not telling you here.

One of them is that when they give you a figure like "$73/hour", they including all labor costs. That's wages (before taxes), medical insurance, life insurance, and all costs for retired workers (including their retirement pay, THEIR insurance, etc). Our automotive industry was built back in the days before 401k's, retirement was a benefit, not a savings plan. If they are burdened for those payments (which are the largest for any automotive companies in the world), it's because of their previous obligations for their more halcion days.

Those of us old enough to remember the 70's have seen this before. The gas crunch in those days cause a similar crisis, and we end up wondering how these companies can blame their workers, when they had every warning that such a thing could and would happen again.

So why were they so unprepared?

Well, one reason is that they've been bailed out a few times now. They figure they can just run the business irresponsibly with no concession given to potential disasters or bad times. They don't innovate, they don't plan, they run the company as a big bureacratic behemeth to get the most profit then can immediately. Long term planning is non-existent, because they figure the taxpayers will come rescue their sorry asses when the shit hits the fan.

The people that make these decisions have no incentive to make long range plans either. With CEO and boardroom compensation in the millions, or tens of millions of dollars, it only takes a few years for the people at the top to rake in enough money to last a lifetime. Their focus is all the profit they can squeeze out of the company as fast as possible. That's what best benefits them, and that's what best benefits their biggest stockholders. (Smaller stockholders are of no consequence)

Fifty years ago, the people at the top only earned small percentage of what the rank and file earned at a large company. They were there for the long haul, maybe their entire career. As such they made decisions to keep the company in good shape for their whole working lives, and maybe longer.

These days, only the workers and small investors have such perspectives.

Our corporate culture needs a complete overhaul, and if we can't get it done any other way, then we need to get it done legislatively.