Should Detroit's municipal retirees lose their pensions?

[Soggy in NOLA]

Work 35 years and have your pension pulled

Republican version of the American Dream

Feel free to make up the difference from your personal funds.

In most municipalities it's much less than 35 years.. therein lies the problem.. coupled with mismanagement, corruption, etc. Let the city of Detroit sort it out.. no reason whatsoever the citizens of New Orleans or Omaha should have to pay.

 

[Ame®icano]

And steal the wage the union guys bargained for? yeah, if you're a stinkin SCAB you can do that. And remember this; the assembly-plants (not mfg plants) the japs have here were built with taxpayer dollars, not company money. And the non-union wages there are only good as long as the UAW gets a fair wage from Detroit. UAW goes under, those boys down in Arkansas and Alabama are gonna get cut big time....

You union-haters should remember if Henry Ford hadn't ordered his Pinkertons to shoot at striking auto-workers, the unions wouldn't have had to go to the Italians for protection. That had strings attached...it's the rackets boys who are behind the dirty unions, not the workers.

Are you sure that was Ford? Sounds more like Carnegie Homestead Mill shooting.

 

[Mr Natural]

"A Deal is a Deal".

If the city of Detroit made an employment agreement with these workers that guaranteed a certain pension, then the city should not be allowed to welch on that deal.

The principal that contracts must be honored is a cornerstone of any free enterprise system.

It's incredible that conservatives believe the very principals that make capitalism possible are not applicable to working class people.

Petty scumbags, each and every one of them.

They should all rot in hell if there is such a place.

 

[Edgetho]

Let me first say that I have no remorse, no sad momentary thoughts of how terrible it is that Detroit is bankrupt, both fiscally and morally. Detroit put ITSELF in this position. It has not had a fiscally responsible mayor since 1961. For the past 20 years, those with the knowledge have been warning of this occurrance like an oncoming train, yet the people who were in charge in Detroit did not want to listen, instead being concerned with 'getting their own'. Have you ever listened to some of the audio from Detroit city council meetings? Have you ever heard about how they talk about absolute CRAP (naming a tunnel) over and over and fail to even consider hard decisions? Does the name Kwame Kilpatrick ring a bell? John Conyers?

I heard a clip of a Detroit City Councilwoman talking about how the Federal Government should bail out Detroit. Let me absolutely clear about this: I have already contacted my Senators and Congressmen and advised that I would be VEHEMENTLY AGAINST bailing out Detroit in any fashion. Detroit made the bed it now has to lie in. Detroit, perhaps the State of Michigan, should be responsible for cleaning up the mess.

It was not the Automobile industry or any other business that left Detroit in the position that it finds itself currently facing. It was the lack of responsible leadership that tried to feather its own political bed with sweetheart deals for labor unions that they can now ill afford. It is the retired and union membership that will now pay for earlier collusion with city officials.

If you want to see what unopposed liberalism will get you, look at Detroit. Good job Democrats...

Bullshit. Refurbish and reopen the factories and we'll see who eats crow.

anybody can make cars today.....that's why outsourcing happens in any business.....they can be made easily and cheaper elsewhere....and the Japanese were certainly masters at it...

unless the factories create something brand new it is highly doubtful the auto business will ever go back to its glory days....

Detroit failed to encourage entrepreneurs and other businesses to succeed and therefore contracted just like the auto business instead of expanding new horizons...

I thought we went over this together.

Maybe not.

The problem isn't high wages. Not a big deal.

The problem, the biggest problem is work stoppages. And the commie UAW LOVES work stoppages.

The next biggest problem is fighting corrupt dimocrap scumbags every time you need to update or modernize your Factory.

And that's just in politics.

I worked at Republic Steel in the late 70's. They needed to modernize. The Japanese were KILLING us (with crap steel, too). But they were killing us.

United Steel Workers told us they would shut us down if we tried to modernize our production methods. Even after Republic PROMISED, put it in WRITING that there would be NO LAYOFFS and NO REDUCTIONS in the work force.

That's when I left for Florida. Unions, not all Unions, but most American Unions are stupid beyond belief. Unbelievably stupid.

My buddy's wife was a Chemical Engineer at Diamond Shamrock outside Cleveland. Dennis Kucinich got a hard-on for Diamond Shamrock and started ******* with them.

Know what they did? They said "**** YOU" and left. To Texas. His Wife went with them. He didn't. She was a little doll, too. Hot as a firecracker

Republic Steel? Gone. Cleveland lost 300,000 Steel Jobs alone. Mostly to overseas

It's all dimocraps, guys and gals. I'm no "Johnny-Come-Lately" to this shit. I LIVED it. I watched it. I experienced it first hand. I know what I'm talking about

dimocraps would **** up a one car funeral. They are stupid, regressive, and scum.

All of them.

 

[JoeBlam]

[

What do you mean "only?". Blacks are the whole problem in detroit. When a city is 90% blacks who can't read or do third grade arithmetic, collapse is inevitable.

Oh okay....and you know this how? By all the blacks you know in Detroit? STFU ya racist mutt.

You're the racist since you support affirmative action which got detroit into this mess. They handed out all these govt jobs to unqualified blacks who can't even read so naturally the city has collapsed. think

On the contrary, being FROM Detroit, I know several dozen admirable blacks who are good, trustworthy, and look to themselves and their families. All Detroit blacks ask for is a way out of poverty, a way out of living in fear of the gangs you believe them all to be a part of, and back to where they were before LBJ ruined the city with his "urban renewal" that tore down their neighborhoods and closed their stores, and sent them into the projects where they owned nothing and were easy victims for the hoodlums amongst them. This is your problem....you've confused black people with POOR people. It sounds racist...hell, it is racist. Tell us, how are Detroit blacks supposed to rise out of their conditions without a JOB?

 

[JoeBlam]

anybody can make cars today.....that's why outsourcing happens in any business.....they can be made easily and cheaper elsewhere....and the Japanese were certainly masters at it...

unless the factories create something brand new it is highly doubtful the auto business will ever go back to its glory days....

Detroit failed to encourage entrepreneurs and other businesses to succeed and therefore contracted just like the auto business instead of expanding new horizons...

You look at outsourcing like it's an inevitable and necessary way of doing business. Goody for you and the jap car in your driveway....it was built by your ignorance of your responsibility to your fellow Americans and your near-sighted (read stupid) world-view of how business works. ONLY the USA practices cannibalism on it's own kind....sending their jobs away to some asain mutt who might well be chained to his bench. And you sit here all righteous and proud you ain't in their shoes. Well guess what....Detroit WILL be bailed out partially with your tax dollars, if you still have a job that is, because that's how we do things in America....we look out for each other....so piss and moan about it...who cares?

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

anybody can make cars today.....that's why outsourcing happens in any business.....they can be made easily and cheaper elsewhere....and the Japanese were certainly masters at it...

unless the factories create something brand new it is highly doubtful the auto business will ever go back to its glory days....

Detroit failed to encourage entrepreneurs and other businesses to succeed and therefore contracted just like the auto business instead of expanding new horizons...

You look at outsourcing like it's an inevitable and necessary way of doing business. Goody for you and the jap car in your driveway....it was built by your ignorance of your responsibility to your fellow Americans and your near-sighted (read stupid) world-view of how business works. ONLY the USA practices cannibalism on it's own kind....sending their jobs away to some asain mutt who might well be chained to his bench. And you sit here all righteous and proud you ain't in their shoes. Well guess what....Detroit WILL be bailed out partially with your tax dollars, if you still have a job that is, because that's how we do things in America....we look out for each other....so piss and moan about it...who cares?

Unfortunately Detroit may be bailed out... and thus the bad behavior is further encouraged. Bad behavior needs bad consequences. Unfortunately, left wing moonbats such as yourself always demand that you be made whole after you **** things up by promising that which you never can deliver without raping your fellow man's bank accounts and paychecks.

How childish.

 

[Edgetho]

And steal the wage the union guys bargained for? yeah, if you're a stinkin SCAB you can do that. And remember this; the assembly-plants (not mfg plants) the japs have here were built with taxpayer dollars, not company money. And the non-union wages there are only good as long as the UAW gets a fair wage from Detroit. UAW goes under, those boys down in Arkansas and Alabama are gonna get cut big time....

You union-haters should remember if Henry Ford hadn't ordered his Pinkertons to shoot at striking auto-workers, the unions wouldn't have had to go to the Italians for protection. That had strings attached...it's the rackets boys who are behind the dirty unions, not the workers.

Are you sure that was Ford? Sounds more like Carnegie Homestead Mill shooting.

Some people died during a standoff with Ford at some point. I know it depressed Henry Sr for the rest of his life.

It was during Ford's fight with FDR and his 'Blue Ribbon Commission'.

FDR was trying to get companies to Unionize for which they got a Blue Ribbon. Henry told FDR to go **** his dead Aunt.

They never did get along. Which is why I buy nothing but Fords today. GM makes junk anyway.

Henry and FDR hated each other. In fact, Ford developed a V-12 Aircraft Engine (the GAA) that was superior in every way to the Famous Rolls-Royce Merlin. But because Generic Motors was making the supreme piece of shit Allison Engine, the Army was afraid to adopt or even test the Ford GAA.

It took several years before an enterprising mechanic in Britain took out the Allison Engine of a P-51 Mustang and threw it in the trash heap, where it belonged, and put a Rolls Royce Merlin in it.

The rest is history -- The greatest Fighter in History.

The man I'm named after died in a Fighter over France in WWII. My Uncle. I don't know what kind, all I know is it was a Fighter.

Politics takes many forms of ignorance.

The GAA was eventually used. It was cut down to 8 cylinders and put into a lot of the Sherman tanks of the day.

Boring

 

[JoeBlam]

And steal the wage the union guys bargained for? yeah, if you're a stinkin SCAB you can do that. And remember this; the assembly-plants (not mfg plants) the japs have here were built with taxpayer dollars, not company money. And the non-union wages there are only good as long as the UAW gets a fair wage from Detroit. UAW goes under, those boys down in Arkansas and Alabama are gonna get cut big time....

You union-haters should remember if Henry Ford hadn't ordered his Pinkertons to shoot at striking auto-workers, the unions wouldn't have had to go to the Italians for protection. That had strings attached...it's the rackets boys who are behind the dirty unions, not the workers.

Are you sure that was Ford? Sounds more like Carnegie Homestead Mill shooting.

Yep. Henry was a good man in the beginning....his genius was to build a car his workers could buy. His early investors wanted to build cars for the rich and messed him up to the point he hated investors and swore he'd find some who would see his vision....and he did. But this lead to him being a BILLIONAIRE...one of the few in the world at the time. Edsel pleaded with him to follow the others and let the UAW organize Ford, but Henry grew more hostile by the year until he finally hired a guy named "Harry" somebody or other to crack heads....after they built River Rouge, it was a gestapo atmosphere with Harry's thugs watching for union organizers and beating senseless anybody who listened to them. Finally it led to gunfire. And retaliation. Ford was unionized, Edsel drank himself to death, and Henry went mad.

 

[Ame®icano]

so Marty.....you have worked for a place for 30 years,you are in your 60's and you are ready to hang it up.....then someone says sorry you dont get your pension.....do you just shrug and say.....oh no biggie.....i am 63.....in sure i can find a job....you know what Marty.....you work for a ******* place for 30 ******* years in good faith....10 years in no problems....15 years in no problems.....20 years in no problems......25 years in no problems.....now at 30 years ....oh there is a problem....no pension for ya....sorry.....that is chicken shit.....you work for it you get what was promised to ya if you put in the time asked....

the problem with that is..... people like that were paid every step of the way for the work they preformed.....


pensions are based on having the money to pay for it.... there is no money left.

Syrenn as far as i am concerned when you are 20 years old and you land a great job with a PENSION.....and here it is 30-40 years later and you are thinking about that retirement that you contributed too.....you get it.....i thing i have noticed is ....no one seems to give a flying ****....of course until they are the one whose pension is being pulled.....then all of a sudden,it makes a difference.....maybe everyone should just work until you drop dead on the job,throw your carcass in a pit and grab the next 20 year old to do it again....

Sounds a lot like Social Security.

 

[Vox]

They should not loose ALL of that, but they should not have their Cadillac pension and benefits.
Let them have about 17% of that

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

the problem with that is..... people like that were paid every step of the way for the work they preformed.....


pensions are based on having the money to pay for it.... there is no money left.

Syrenn as far as i am concerned when you are 20 years old and you land a great job with a PENSION.....and here it is 30-40 years later and you are thinking about that retirement that you contributed too.....you get it.....i thing i have noticed is ....no one seems to give a flying ****....of course until they are the one whose pension is being pulled.....then all of a sudden,it makes a difference.....maybe everyone should just work until you drop dead on the job,throw your carcass in a pit and grab the next 20 year old to do it again....

Sounds a lot like Social Security.

With the notable exception that you are forced by law to pay into SS.

 

[JoeBlam]

I'm a native Detroiter yet I can't fight that hard for my hometown because I got the hell out of there in 1973 to live out my dream to be a cowboy out in Arizona. Whipped Larry Mahan in an arm-wrestling contest during Rodeo Days in Prescott and he was King of the Cowboys so there ya go...mission accomplished.

The way it stands now is the retirees have 6 months of continuing benefits coming as fair warning there will be cuts. These aren't "affirmative action" hires....most of these guys are former cops and firemen....cutting their pensions is a shit-bird trick and I'm opposed to it. Other retirees will have to face the music if it comes to that. A good idea I heard is for metro-Detroit proper to start selling off land on the cheap to raise money and reduce the need for far-ranging services.......it's a HUGE city landwise.....so sell as much land as you can to surrounding suburbs and everybody comes out ahead.

Some times ago there was proposal from group of rich libertarians buy the Detroit park Belle Isle for $1 billion and turn it into a lightly-regulated capitalist wonderland. Macau of Michigan. Since 60% of city parks are closed anyways due to lack of funds, this wouldn't be bad idea, at least it would close budget holes for couple of years.

Sounds good to me...the canucks would flock to it.....their money is worth more than ours now....imagine that. The casinos are what's financing the city these days, so your idea is already acceptable to the area. What's remarkable about the city parks is that local residents are out mowing and weeding them for free. Even the old Tiger Stadium site is being looked after by local purists who don't believe it should have ever been torn down. It was a dump when I was a kid back in the late 50's, early 60's....smelled like piss and cigars BEFORE the games. I loved that city then....it was a boss place to live...plenty of money around for an enterprising young man.....Hell, even the hippies were making money hand over fist down on Plum Street. We all cruised Woodward and we all drove DEtroit iron....we thought it would never end.

 

[Katzndogz]

Lots of talk about doing that and i say go for it. These were all affirmative action hires and didn't deserve the job in the first place.

The question is, who is going to pay them? I certainly don't feel obligated to make good on the promises sleazy Detroit politicians made.

No one is going to pay them. Did anyone pay the creditors in the Enron collapse? No. The creditors in Detroit's collapse is the same kind of creditor.

 

[Edgetho]

And steal the wage the union guys bargained for? yeah, if you're a stinkin SCAB you can do that. And remember this; the assembly-plants (not mfg plants) the japs have here were built with taxpayer dollars, not company money. And the non-union wages there are only good as long as the UAW gets a fair wage from Detroit. UAW goes under, those boys down in Arkansas and Alabama are gonna get cut big time....

You union-haters should remember if Henry Ford hadn't ordered his Pinkertons to shoot at striking auto-workers, the unions wouldn't have had to go to the Italians for protection. That had strings attached...it's the rackets boys who are behind the dirty unions, not the workers.

Are you sure that was Ford? Sounds more like Carnegie Homestead Mill shooting.

Yep. Henry was a good man in the beginning....his genius was to build a car his workers could buy. His early investors wanted to build cars for the rich and messed him up to the point he hated investors and swore he'd find some who would see his vision....and he did. But this lead to him being a BILLIONAIRE...one of the few in the world at the time. Edsel pleaded with him to follow the others and let the UAW organize Ford, but Henry grew more hostile by the year until he finally hired a guy named "Harry" somebody or other to crack heads....after they built River Rouge, it was a gestapo atmosphere with Harry's thugs watching for union organizers and beating senseless anybody who listened to them. Finally it led to gunfire. And retaliation. Ford was unionized, Edsel drank himself to death, and Henry went mad.

And that was the beginning of the end for the American Auto Industry.

It took Volkswagen's Beetle an additional 30 years on the Market to out-sell Henry's Model T.

Henry was a genius. He was the very first to question why his own workers couldn't buy one of his cars, so he paid them enough to make sure they could.

The first $5 Day in History.

The greatest Industrialist of all time. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, even gets close.

The world owes him a debt that can never be repayed. Our entire way of living, our lifestyle, our opulence, our prosperity, our modernity... All of it is thanks to Henry Ford.

A true Genius.

FDR? Just another punk-assed politician. Every minute of ever day of every year that man was in office, this Country was in misery. Every minute.

Yet he is revered while true Genius like Henry Ford is reviled.

What a fucked up world we live in

 

[JoeBlam]

anybody can make cars today.....that's why outsourcing happens in any business.....they can be made easily and cheaper elsewhere....and the Japanese were certainly masters at it...

unless the factories create something brand new it is highly doubtful the auto business will ever go back to its glory days....

Detroit failed to encourage entrepreneurs and other businesses to succeed and therefore contracted just like the auto business instead of expanding new horizons...

You look at outsourcing like it's an inevitable and necessary way of doing business. Goody for you and the jap car in your driveway....it was built by your ignorance of your responsibility to your fellow Americans and your near-sighted (read stupid) world-view of how business works. ONLY the USA practices cannibalism on it's own kind....sending their jobs away to some asain mutt who might well be chained to his bench. And you sit here all righteous and proud you ain't in their shoes. Well guess what....Detroit WILL be bailed out partially with your tax dollars, if you still have a job that is, because that's how we do things in America....we look out for each other....so piss and moan about it...who cares?

Unfortunately Detroit may be bailed out... and thus the bad behavior is further encouraged. Bad behavior needs bad consequences. Unfortunately, left wing moonbats such as yourself always demand that you be made whole after you **** things up by promising that which you never can deliver without raping your fellow man's bank accounts and paychecks.

How childish.

Last democrat I voted for was Peanut Man you stupid ****. It's either that or they'll go hunting whites out in the burbs and believe me, a lot of them are ex-GIs and will go through your silly-ass "home-defense shotgun" like shit through a goose, boy. Sit there and pontificate and look down your beak at folks who can easily live in your world knowing you could never survive in theirs. Take a break and wise up.

 

[Darkwind]

"A Deal is a Deal".

If the city of Detroit made an employment agreement with these workers that guaranteed a certain pension, then the city should not be allowed to welch on that deal.

The principal that contracts must be honored is a cornerstone of any free enterprise system.

It's incredible that conservatives believe the very principals that make capitalism possible are not applicable to working class people.

A contract is between the principles, as long as you understand that.

Detroit and the DNC made these bargains. They are responsible for paying off their debts.

Not anyone else.

 

[hjmick]

No.

They worked for it, they earned it, it was part of the deal.

Sadly, the chances are very good that they will lose it all...

 

[JoeBlam]

Are you sure that was Ford? Sounds more like Carnegie Homestead Mill shooting.

Yep. Henry was a good man in the beginning....his genius was to build a car his workers could buy. His early investors wanted to build cars for the rich and messed him up to the point he hated investors and swore he'd find some who would see his vision....and he did. But this lead to him being a BILLIONAIRE...one of the few in the world at the time. Edsel pleaded with him to follow the others and let the UAW organize Ford, but Henry grew more hostile by the year until he finally hired a guy named "Harry" somebody or other to crack heads....after they built River Rouge, it was a gestapo atmosphere with Harry's thugs watching for union organizers and beating senseless anybody who listened to them. Finally it led to gunfire. And retaliation. Ford was unionized, Edsel drank himself to death, and Henry went mad.

And that was the beginning of the end for the American Auto Industry.

It took Volkswagen's Beetle an additional 30 years on the Market to out-sell Henry's Model T.

Henry was a genius. He was the very first to question why his own workers couldn't buy one of his cars, so he paid them enough to make sure they could.

The first $5 Day in History.

The greatest Industrialist of all time. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, even gets close.

The world owes him a debt that can never be repayed. Our entire way of living, our lifestyle, our opulence, our prosperity, our modernity... All of it is thanks to Henry Ford.

A true Genius.

FDR? Just another punk-assed politician. Every minute of ever day of every year that man was in office, this Country was in misery. Every minute.

Yet he is revered while true Genius like Henry Ford is reviled.

What a fucked up world we live in

Henry built a car with a plastic body and chassis made of SOY BEANS. He'd started farming around his home and decided the soy bean could reduce the weight and expense of steel for the future. They often found him sitting out in a field of soy beans with a weed in his teeth, just staring at the sky, thinking. Some thought he'd started losing his mind then but like all visionaries, he wasn't looking at the sky, he was looking at the clouds and dreaming of new body styles. He built Greenfield Village (which is one of the coolest museums in the world) to replicate the home and life he'd walked 20 miles into Detroit from to make his fortune. Probably the finest machinist in the city in a year or two and that served him well because he built his first prototypes by himself. What happened toward the end should not sully what he was in the beginning, a true American legend.

 

[Katzndogz]

No.

They worked for it, they earned it, it was part of the deal.

Sadly, the chances are very good that they will lose it all...

Just like any other investor.