Joined: Jan 30, 2008 Posts: 55 Location: St. Louis
Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 11:24 am Post subject: Re: Let the layoffs begin
Nothing new but more job cuts at Ford.
8,000 jobs to be cut at Ford
Total of hourly reductions since '05 may hit 44%
February 8, 2008
By SARAH A. WEBSTER
FREE PRESS BUSINESS WRITER
About 8,000 autoworkers still must go at Ford Motor Co.
That is the internal target for Ford's latest job-reduction program for hourly workers, according to people familiar with the objective.
If Ford reaches its goal, the automaker will have cut 44% of its North American hourly jobs in three years. That dramatic decline, combined with job cuts at General Motors Corp. and other auto firms, has been a punch to Michigan's housing market and mood about the future.
With news like this, it makes me wanna go somewhere else. Oh, yeah, it sucks there, too.
Why, come to Canada...We suck less. Aren't those stirring patriotic words?
They're not bedroom words! _________________ Just look at us. Everything is backwards; everything is upside down. Doctors destory health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy information and religions destroy spirituality.
Posted: Sat Feb 09, 2008 1:18 pm Post subject: Re: Let the layoffs begin
patience wrote:
Threadbear,
I spent some time in southern Ontario about 20 years ago on business, and loved the people there! At the time the Loonie was goin for about .70 US$, which made business with the US a one way deal. Gas and liquor were expensive, and cars were outrageous for Canadians then.
Hopefully, you folks are getting some of yours back now! Fine, generous-minded people that I'll always remember.
What's your take on the future of CAN/US exchange rate? Has a huge effect on employment.
Oh thanks. I actually feel the same way about the majority of Americans. But others? ohmyf'ggod!!
The Canadian dollar will probably strengthen against the American, regardless of how much we lower our interest rates. It may be bought as a safe haven by foreigners.
Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 11:30 am Post subject: Re: Let the layoffs begin
Indiana continues it's slide:
"It was unclear how many GM jobs might be lost, and not replaced, as a result of the new buyouts. GM now employs fewer than 10,000 Indiana workers, compared with about 40,000 two decades ago. Today, the state’s largest employer is Wal-Mart, with about 36,000 workers in the state."
The Bedford plant mentioned is the one where I used to work. Louisville, KY is just south of us, and is affected by the Ford layoffs. I guess we are dependent on WalMart, huh? Good bye to the Rust Belt.
Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 2:14 am Post subject: Re: Let the layoffs begin
patience, I am a Boilermaker from Purdue! Looks like we got ourselves a divided house here on PO? ; - ) _________________ The organized state is a wonderful invention whereby everyone can live at someone else's expense.
Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 2:46 am Post subject: Re: Let the layoffs begin
God I am glad I don't need to be in the corridors with people looking at each other wondering who amonst them will be laid off next. When the O&G industry was enjoying 6-15 dollar/bbl ocillating price that's how it was in the work place.
Bummer, lots of stress at work and home. _________________ Men argue, nature acts !
Voltaire
"...In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation."
Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 5:14 am Post subject: Re: Let the layoffs begin
MrBill,
Nope, Boilermaker here, too. Industrial Arts, 1967, back before Mech. Eng. Tech. existed. Back then it still included "hands-on" machine shop classes and foundry work in Michael Golden Labs beside the steam plant. Me and a buddy finished 7th in the Purdue Grand Prix go kart race in 1964, representing State Street Courts residence hall. I made parts and repairs, and he drove. Worked for the Indiana State Highway Dept at their R& D facility in West Lafayette my first year out of school, then on to GM at Delco in Kokomo, IN. Still have the 2" long castiron anvil I poured in the last run of the reverb furnace at Purdue, before the safety gods shut it down.
Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 7:49 am Post subject: Re: Let the layoffs begin
patience wrote:
MrBill,
Nope, Boilermaker here, too. Industrial Arts, 1967, back before Mech. Eng. Tech. existed. Back then it still included "hands-on" machine shop classes and foundry work in Michael Golden Labs beside the steam plant. Me and a buddy finished 7th in the Purdue Grand Prix go kart race in 1964, representing State Street Courts residence hall. I made parts and repairs, and he drove. Worked for the Indiana State Highway Dept at their R& D facility in West Lafayette my first year out of school, then on to GM at Delco in Kokomo, IN. Still have the 2" long castiron anvil I poured in the last run of the reverb furnace at Purdue, before the safety gods shut it down.
I am an Aggie from U of Alberta. I did my MSc at Purdue. Do you know Harry's Chocolate Shop? GO UGLY EARLY! I did not do very well in my one and only mechanical engineering course. I am more of a carpenter than a mechanic/welder. By default I ended-up in agriculture and forestry economics. Started trading futures and options on the CBOT, and was a floor trader on the WCE as well as cash trading grain for Cargill after graduation. But I did work for one prominent Indiana company prior to that. Elanco, the ag chemical division of Eli Lilly! ; - ) _________________ The organized state is a wonderful invention whereby everyone can live at someone else's expense.
Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 9:01 am Post subject: Re: Let the layoffs begin
Heard of Harry's, but never been there. Hung out at the Gold and Black Grill, by the Armory.
Only did Econ 101 in school, but was schooled a bit by a friend who traded commodities in the 1970's. The boys at GM told him he was nuts to quit GM in 1974 and go to Idaho to work for an obscure electronics firm called Hewlett-Packard.... He taught me enough to make money when I bought and sold houses, and to save/spend inversely to the going interest rates, etc. And he introduced me to The Mother Earth News and Organic Gardening Magazines. I owe him a LOT.
Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2008 7:21 pm Post subject: Re: Let the layoffs begin
Auto industry cutbacks are trickling down to our town where a parts supplier is getting hit. Last year they cut from 300+ labor jobs back about 10% to about 270. Last week they cut 60 more, and this week, 20 more. Next week another 20 get the axe, which takes them to about 55% capacity. These are permanent layoffs.
These were the primo labor jobs in a town of 5,000 population. Two woodworking plants closed in the past 2 years, due to flood damage, idling around 40 in one and 125 to 200 (varied seasonally) in the other.
Some of the latest people laid off will get retraining benefits from a Federal program, based upon "impact by foreign competition". But the result is eventually taking lesser paying jobs, if they can find one, and probably commuting a long way to get it.
All that is left in manufacturing are a small rubber extrusion company, and a lawn mower parts plant. These two total maybe 150 jobs. The other options are farm jobs (few), logging, (slowed to a crawl), and burger flippers. We have quite a few burger flippers who have college degrees and can't find anything better.
Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 3:47 am Post subject: Re: Let the layoffs begin
What is your assessment of the future? What is going to stop the dry rot in mid-western States like Indiana? Indiana has good schools like Indiana U, Notre Dame, Purdue, Indiana State. You have good farmland. Access to the Great Lakes and the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico via the Ohio River. Rail links. Companies like Eli Lilly. Wage and land prices cannot be high compared to the coastal metropoles. What exactly is the problem? Can the decline be reversed? _________________ The organized state is a wonderful invention whereby everyone can live at someone else's expense.
Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 8:46 am Post subject: Re: Let the layoffs begin
MrBill,
Indiana has had growth along with the national economy since the 1960's, fueled by mostly expansion in manufacture of consumer goods. Mobile homes/modular homes and RV's in Elkhart, cars and trucks and their parts in Indy, Bedford, Kokomo. That was based on easy consumer credit, which is imploding. Health care, drugs, and nursing homes played a part and are being priced out of reach. Forestry/logging and furniture mfrg are dependent on the consumer economy, and contracting. Carpenter-built homes and commercial real estate have contributed the last dose of rocket fuel to growth, and is falling apart with the finance and credit markets that begat it.
As I see it, the big corporate business model is broken. Without rampant consumerism, there is no need for the past scale of manufacture done on 100% borrowed capital and operating expenses. Without real capital in a war chest, these businesses can't survive a long downturn, since commercial credit is drying up.
Most of the manufacturers here were inefficient and top-heavy, and unable to meet foreign competition's low wage costs. The only advantage they had was automation to mitigate high labor costs, which was capital intensive. As the cost of borrowed capital goes up, that advantage goes away and foreign sources take over. Any downturn kills off the struggling remainder. An example is Kimball, who makes high end furniture for offices and hotels. Local plants are being cut back and the production farmed out to Maylasia at lower cost.
What is left? We have coal, agriculture, and forests, representing 3 of the only sources of REAL new wealth: Mining, farming, forests and fishing. All else is just changing something--value-added enterprise. So our future will depend on those basics, and there is not enough to support anything close to the prosperity we have known lately.
To meet world competition, wages will have to drop precipitously. That started 20 years ago, as labor unions power began to erode, and is stairstepping down faster, as high paying jobs in manufacturing are being replaced with service sector jobs at much lower rates.
Higher education, the foundation of upward mobility, has become less of an advantage as jobs are outsourced, so world competition is levering down pay scales for those people, too.I think we must prepare for the transition to lower wage lifestyles that is in progress.
With the demand for food, agriculture will boom, subject to the usual bloodletting by govt, finance, traders, speculators, processors, and low margin retailers. Farmers will probably never have the kind of market clout that Japanese mfgrs do, controlling everything from the mines to the retailers. But, demand is there, so farmers will plow and plant everything up to their doorsteps, and do fairly well. They cannot, however, pay at the rates that GM did for labor, nor are there many jobs in farming.
Some of the present service sector will remain, downsized of course. Lots of restaurants will fail, along with tanning salons, nail parlors and auto nonsense stores selling 200 horsepower stereos, and wheels that cost more than the car did.
I expect Indiana to look a lot more like it did in 1950. My Amish friends believe that. They helped build a lot of overpriced houses and made money at it. But they used the money to pay off their farms.
Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 9:53 am Post subject: Re: Let the layoffs begin
It sounds depressing if we reach the conclusion that the only way to compete with Chindia is to pay Chindia wages to our workers. Free trade without fair trade just does not seem to be worth it?
I would have hoped that an equilibrium would be reached where skilled workers are entering the workforce to help build the products that America and the world needs.
Otherwise it would appear that the post-war economic expansion was really just a one-off deal? Build the infrastructure and then its over.
My own pet theory is that post-peak oil decline may make places like the Rust Belt and mid-West more attractive again as trains replace the flyover nation America has become - Canada too for that matter - and that access to rail, waterways and ports would once again become a source of competitive advantage.
Therefore, investing in places that were booming around the turn of the last century may be the best investments for the future as well? I dunno that is a very far horizon, and I am sure that Duluth, Toledo and Thunder Bay are nice places, but fifty years is a long-time to wait as well! ; - ) _________________ The organized state is a wonderful invention whereby everyone can live at someone else's expense.
Posted: Wed Feb 20, 2008 10:28 am Post subject: Re: Let the layoffs begin
MrBill,
Our skilled workers around here are mostly retirement age. The younger ones are very dependent on the big corp automation thing, and many are just button pushers. Skilled carpentry has given way to modular homes, prehung doors and pre-fab cabinets. Machinists are now replaced with programmers of CNC machines, who depend on older heads to plan the work and assess feasibility. The semi-skilled jobs are going to Chindia.
We won't lack for skilled help for a while, though, since most of the older skilled workers did not save for retirement and will have to continue working for a long time. Too many, though, will be retail clerks and WalMart greeters.
The rail system is in disarray, except for the coal train routes. The river barge traffic is grain and scrap steel going to China to build the Three Rivers Dam. Steel scrap is back up to US$190/ton, and as fast as it gets through the yard in Louisville, they put an oceangoing lid on it for shipment to Asia.
Where's the growth prospects in this? Until we get to wage parity, I don't see any remedy.
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