Recently I've developed the self-masochistic habit of tuning my Sirius towards the right-end of the political dial...most notably "Sirius Patriot" and "Fox." Accordingly, I'll be sharing selected gems of conservative thinking from time to time here on the blog, along with possible responses.
The auto bailout is of course of topic of much conservative discussion. Most con talk show hosts and callers are against it. Almost all heap the most blame upon the unions, and those "untrained welders making $70/hour," etc. "What on earth are we getting for that $70/hour!!!" they bray.
Well of course welders aren't "untrained." More importantly, we seldom hear about those folks at the other end of the salary spectrum. Let's do a little math on GM CEO Rick Wagoner--the lowest-paid of the Big 3 I believe--who last received a base pay of 1.6 million and total compensation of 14.4 million. Divide that by, say, 2500 hours of work (50/hours week x 50 weeks, which may be overly generous), and that's $5760/hour (82 times the "welder rate"). For Ford CEO Alan Mulally's 21.7 total compensation, that's $8680/hour (124 times the "welder rate").
And despite these princely sums, these CEO geniuses still haven't managed to do one simple thing: help create a car that makes it into the top 10 of resale value lists. There are certainly abuses with a union system that could use some fixing, but share that blame equally. Or maybe more accurately, share it 82 times over...
2 comments:
What distorts this thinking even more is that the $70 figure represents an average of all employees salaries AND benefits. An outrageous twisting of fact.
There is an interesting article on the wages of UAW autoworkers in the NYTimes, 12/9/08: "$73 an Hour: Adding It Up" by David Leonhardt -
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/business/economy/10leonhardt.html?em
Tom Friedman's op ed piece today is also worth the read: While Detroit Slept -
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/opinion/10friedman.html?em
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