Open Thread
Can’t Bring Yourself to Type the Word “Ass”?
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!
More importantly, does the light really turn off when you close the door.
Answer me that.
I really wanted the President to work the words “loofah” or “fallafel” into the conversation.
Does the light ever turn on in BillO’s brain?
It’s a hard thing to be honest with myself about this; but, if someone would give me millions of dollars to misinform the public like O’Reilly, I’d probably do it.
His audience would be misinformed, vindictive vipers even without his influence. So, what the hey? Why not?
Maybe the south’s idea about literacy tests was not bad — it just didn’t extend to the white majority.
A ‘prescient’ warning to Boeing on 787 trouble
ROTF
“Door opens, light goes on. Door closes… damnit!”
Heh. All President Obama had to say was:
ANDREA MACKRIS! ANDREA MACKRIS!
Then O’Loofah wouldn’t bother him anymore.
O’Bama should have presented himself as just one of the brethren — a big Thin Lizzy fan, in fact!
# 5: Yep, Boeing execs in Chicago thought they were being so clever, saving a few dollars an hour by having out-sourced & non-union workers build major assemblies. Now they are paying overtime for union machinists in Everett to fix those mistakes utilizing 10-hour shifts, seven days a week.
One fellow on the factory floor told me he was making a dollar a minute doing mandatory work shifts during the Christmas break, all while struggling to correct design/manufacturing defects traced back to the outsourcing.
Even Albough is admitting that they went way, way too far. The way things are going, the 787-8 may be a very popular airplane with the airlines, but it may never post a profit.
And the union workers just shake their heads in disbelief. Managers who “close jobs” get promoted, even if it results in out-of-sequence work which has to be dismantled the next day to do other work which should have been done first. Quality problems with out-sourced work continues. Boeing’s trying to get Q.C. workers in Everett to transfer to Charleston, but few are willing to do so. And there’s a huge credibility gap between what’s visable on the factory floor and what’s being announced in Chicago.
Why do companies outsource work to other states or countries? Because unions and governemnt do their level best to drive out successful companies. Unions through wages and benefits, and government by too many regulations, fees and taxes. Both add to overall costs.
Maybe Boeing should just shut down operations, pay-off creditors and distribute what is left to shareholders.
BTW, defined benefit plans are dying dinosaurs. If you have one, look for it to be terminated and rolled-over into some sort of defined contribution plan. People are just living too long. The only time defined benefit plans really worked was when people died on time.
Wrong, P.I. Unions and governments are just trying to get a fair share of the huge profits that their labor, expertise, infrastucture and sweetheart tax deals enable the coroprations to earn on their products.
You thought your position was unassailably correct didn’t you? In fact you’re an unimaginative blikered doofus.
blinkered, that is…
@10 Yeah, it’s all the unions and the governments fault that Boeing went cheap and is now watching billions swirl down the drain. Management, not mentioned in your rant, obviously shits rose petals.
Didn’t they ever learn that the sweetness of cheap price can turn expensively sour? Well, they should damn well know it by now.
Get real.
“…drive out successful companies…
Nope. Nobody’s lashing them across the back, driving them across the borders as they desperatly plead for mercy and cling to the last vestage of U.S. soil.
What they ARE doing is racing pell-mell across the ocean, lured by total production costs of pennies per unit. They can offer these prices because they are willing to have work performed in sweat-shop conditions by young women locked in factory facilities; non-enforcement of pollution regulations by bribed regulators and officials; free land and facilities provided by communist governments; and no tax enforcement of favored companies; and exchange rates held artifically low.
The U.S. could abandon all regulations and taxes on business, outlaw unions, provide free land to the companies, and give them tax-free status (actually, sounds a lot like Texas and S. Carolina), pay workers less than a dollar a day, and STILL not be able to get costs below those offered in China, Vietnam, etc.
What the U.S. needs to do is recognize that we are attempting to compete in an unfair environment and assert protections against such practices. Otherwise, we are just engaged in a race to the bottom, where the “winner” consists of a handfull of mega-rich while the rest work 18 hour days for scraps of food, live in hovels, and their air, water, and ground is so contaminated that most of our grandchildren ask us what humans used to look like without mutations.
PI @ 11: “…BTW, defined benefit plans are dying dinosaurs. If you have one, look for it to be terminated and rolled-over into some sort of defined contribution plan. People are just living too long. The only time defined benefit plans really worked was when people died on time.”
Actually, defined benefit plans worked fine, except for one thing: when the stock market was good, companies would raid the fund arguing that the fund was “overcompensated”, but then when the market dropped the companies told the pensioners that they would have to accept reduced benefits or the company would file Chapter 11 and discharge it’s obligations under the pension plan.
But defined pension plans are dissapearing, except in those unions where skilled workers frequently go from one company to another. The construction trades are a great example – since projects start and end frequently, workers could never count on the company providing them with a retirement program, so under the union contracts the company must pay a defined amount into the plan for each hour the employee works. The Teamsters are the same way.
But companies have been trying to get away from that for a long time, since the 1980’s at least. It’s being phased out for Boeing workers, although new workers still get a very small pension amount, but that’s probably not going to survive the next contract. The majority of their retirement funds will have to come from contributions they make into a 401(k) plan. But Boeing has recently said it wants to give it’s own share of the contributions into the plan in the form of Boeing stock, with limited transferability, instead of cash. They want to make sure that the Boeing workers fully bear the entire cost of management mistakes before they can turn the stocks into cash.
Boeing provides a visible example of what’s going on all over. Several years ago I had a chat with a machinist from Sulzer pumps in Portland. He described how the company had outsourced much of it’s machinist work outside the USA, and the result was a loss of precision that had given Sulzer their competitive advantage. I’m tired of seeing wet-behind-the-ears MBAs make decisions that have helped to kill manufacturing in this Country.
@16
easy to fix that: put large tariffs on foreign goods.
oh…wait…we cant do that anymore because we need to borrow money from the Chinese.
USA…pwn3d.
re 10: “Why do companies outsource work to other states or countries?”
Because they are trying to drive the cost of labor down to 6 cents an hour. The U.S. is still the biggest consumer country on the planet.
Do you see a collision with reality in the offing for these penny wise pound foolish transnational corporate behemoths?
Message to conservatives: Reality and science don’t care if you believe in them.
re 17: “oh…wait…we cant do that anymore because we need to borrow money from the Chinese.”
Because President Cheney and George ‘Charlie McCarthy” Bush started several fake wars.
Q- President Bush: This is 2008. Where is Osama bin Laden.
A – I don’t know. I really don’t think about it much.
<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>:)
Such is the Bush/Cheney legacy.
@5 & 9
I hate to say this- but in fairness to Boeing some of that outsourcing to Japan and other countries was to allow them to have a better selling relationship to the airline companies in those countries. It wasn’t ALL about dodging unions.
That said, I remember working at the Renton plant as a contractor in the late 90s and seeing a hell of a lot of crates from Japan lying around. I’m pretty sure they were having problems back then too.
# 21: It’s true that some outsourcing was pretty much required in order to get the governments there to approve purchases of Boeing jets. Portions of the horizontal stabs, rudders, etc. being manufactured by Alenia in Italy, portions of flaps or leading edges being manufactured in Japan, other parts manufactured in Australia, etc. I used to have a “Make-Buy” plan from Boeing for the 777 which showed about half the plane being built overseas.
But there’s a lot less governmental insistence on local jobs in return for orders, because most “flag carriers” around the world privatized in the 1990’s, and the government has less control over their purchases. China, of course, being a curious exception – they’ve got lots of regional “private” airlines now, but the government still has to approve the orders.
But the 777 out-sourcing than the out-sourcing being done on the 787. For the first time, Boeing gave critical wing design and manufacturing work to overseas contractors, I think it was MHI (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries). In essence, Boeing was teaching Mitsubishi how to build the most critical structures in carbon-composite airplanes.
Don’t forget, however, that Mitsubishi is now the builder of the MRJ (Mitsubishi Regional Jet), which is expected to roll out sometime next year. While not a direct competitor to the A320 and the Boeing 737, it does cut into the lower seat count of the 737-700, and it gives Mitsubishi valuable experience in building commercial jets. But while Bombardier, DeHaviland, Embrauer, Sukhoi, a new Chinese entry, and the MRJ all compete in the regional get market (up to 100 passenger count), Mitsubishi is getting ready to build a direct competitor to the 737-800, and it will be joined by other competitors from China and Russia. From there, it’s just one more jump to building wide-bodies to compete with the 767 and 777 within the next ten years.