George Will to Rick Wagoner “GM is running a Welfare State.”

[The Whiskey Priest]

Wills seems to think that GM would be doing much better if they do away with employee pension, health and disability benefits.

He pointed out that with Japanese cars you received a satellite phone and with GM cars the consumer paid for a corporate “employee welfare” system.

Anyone know how other countries provide for the old age benefits of the workers…it would seem that the Republicans and their minions would simply consign an aged worker to the garbage pit.

[mikelewis]

1. George Will is a water carrying butt-monkey who should be ignored...

not trotted in front of the sheep as an intellectual.

[European Socialist]

2. George Will blows. I wonder how upset he is with GM spending so much..

money on executive salaries and perks.

[Donkeykick]

18. Oh...

we can't say anything about that now; that had nothing to do with it.:sarcasm: ;-)

Just read this http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/29/AR2005112901099.html">opion by Robert J. Samuelson at the Washington Post. He tells it the way it should be told. Too bad those CEOs know nothing about the price of gasoline or competition! :eyes:

[acmavm]

3. George Will is of the mind that as long as he has his, fuck everybody

else.

[agates]

15. Definition of the Republican Party

"I got mine, fuck you."

[AngryAmish]

4. Big auto is the only way to get nationalized health care

[kayice]

5. Yeah, what an azz for that comment......

I seen George Will make that stupid comment this morning, too. Then they showed Bush yapping as usual, and I thought---well, Bush will be getting 'welfare' when he 'retires'; free meds, healthcare, pension......

I cannot stand George Will anyway, and ole Cokie Roberts isn't far behind him.

[newyawker99]

30. Hi kayice!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[in_cog_ni_to]

6. It's population control. Let the elderly, sick, and poor die.

There's no doubt that's what they want. Just look at their policies. It's quite clear. The STRONG and WEALTHY will survive.....the survival of the fittest.

Soylent Green anyone?

[kenny blankenship]

7. George Will licks the sweat off a dead man's balls

If this country would follow the industrialized west into the 20th century and provide universal health care, the burden on GM would be reduced to only their poor management style.

[xchrom]

8. will is not the only repuke to spout this new

line of crap -- paul gigot{editor at the wsj} among others have been doing the same.

ya gotta wonder -- are they getting paid to say this?

or gotten marching orders from someone?

[Raster]

20. yep, blame the worker for GM's financial woes, it's all their fault...

...as for will, look up ostentatious, arrogant prick in the dictionary.

[xchrom]

22. why! there it is! and there is george will's picture!

ostentatious, arrogant prick -- well, will wonders never cease?!?

[TomClash]

9. Don't the Japanese have a similar system? nt

[phantom power]

10. The growing problem is...

that the GOP doesn't want anybody to pay for things like retirement, medical care, insurance, etc. There's some truth to the "GM welfare state" idea. Corporations used to provide both retirement and health care, if only by proxy. That somewhat made up for the lack of socialized health care in America.

But now the corporations don't want to pay. But the taxpayers don't want to pay either. Or, at least the GOP doesn't want the taxpayers to pay. There's really only three categories of solution: Either the govt (taxpayers) can pay, the corporations can pay directly, or the corporations can pay extra salary and employees manage their own programs.

We're rapidly approaching a situation where Americans have none of these available. No viable retirement or health care/insurance.

[SammyWinstonJack]

13. The republicans in Congress don't mind making us pay for their

pensions and health care insurance, do they? If it's good enough for them, why isn't it good enough for everyone else?

[MindPilot]

24. Aren't most of those pension plans funded by employee "contributions"

If if it's not a direct payroll deduction, the money is still calculated in the cost of an employee that would otherwise be in the paycheck.

So the bottom line is that these companies took money from the employees to pool and invest to build a retirement fund, then they squandered it away, and now the employees who are lining up to collect THEIR MONEY are just looking for a handout. :eyes:

FUCK THESE CORPORATIST ASSHOLE PRICKS!! Every fucking one of them should be sealed in a mine and left to die, or be dismembered in a meat packing plant, lashed to the deck of a scuttled fishing boat, fed through a punch press. They need to experience the workplace slowly and painfully.

[phantom power]

33. Old-style pensions were different.

Paid for by corporate money, not employee contributions. Modern 401-k plans are funded from employee salary, although pre-tax.

[XanaDUer]

11. I saw that.

Very disturbing.

[napi21]

12. I can tell you a little about Italy.

My son lives and works in Sicily. He told me they pay a lot more in taxes there than here in the US, but they receive a pretty nice retirement too! I can't remember the retirement age, but I think he told me it was younger than 65 too.

I know Germany also has a much better retirement program than the US.

ALL European Countries have much higher taxes than we do here too! Some, like the UK are REALLY HIGH!

George Will is right that GM and all legacy Companies would be "better off" if they didn't have defined pension plans. That would reduce theier expenses, so it doesn't take a CPA to figure that out! The problem is, many years ago, these same Companies PROMISED their employees they WOULD have a nice pension to look forward to after their years of dedicated service to the Company. The fact that the Japanese auto makers didn't make that promise is imaterial!

It also wouldn't be a BIG problem now, if OUR GOV'T hadn't allowed those Companies to use their pension funds, and underfund their plans. Now it's caught up to them, and they can't find the $$ to pay back what they used! It's not right that the employee should have to suffer because of the mistakes in judgement by the Company!

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. Oh, my God. The man's brain has been consumed. George

Will is nutzoid if he doesn't realize that the only thing left that the US has to offer is its consumerism. Take away our salaries and we've lost everything. India and China will be self-sustaining, manufacturing companies AND the consumer base they need to sustain themselves. While we fight amongst ourselves along racial and religious lines.

And let's not forget, that Japanese CEOs get paid far, far less than US CEOs.

[MindPilot]

16. George Will probably wouldn't know work if it bit him in the ass

I don't know the guy's bio--and I don't care enough to look it up--but I'm going to guess he's another who has never worked a day in his life.

So a paycheck is now "welfare"? FUCK YOU YOU PRETENTIOUS FUCKING ASSHOLE! Get a fucking real job, you parasitic piece of shit!

[niallmac]

17. I think the REAL reason repugs find universal health care a problem

is that without it the worker has no freedom to change jobs. The worker becomes unpredictable and has freedom. our workers are corporate slaves who live in fear of losing their corporate rights to health care. Big important agenda of the Third Reich was forbidding anyone to change jobs without permission from the employer.

[KeepItReal]

19. Like a *REAL* auto analyst said GM's problem is their VEHICLES

If they had a product like the Honda Accord or the old Ford Taurus that masses of people would buy, they would not be in such bad shape financially.

They bet the farm on SUV's and low gas prices.

Hits like the Cadillac division and the Corvette just ain't enough to support this whole company.

GM, y'all need to hire/steal/kidnap designers from Daimler/Chrysler, Honda, Toyota, BMW (just not the Chris Bangle guy - he killed the 7 series design), etc. and make products real people and not just rental car fleet buyers want. On second thought, GM probably already has kick-ass designers in house, and just need to use them better. Maybe they need to change the managers that make the build/don't-build decisions on new designs.

George Will is a freakin joke, IMHO.

[newswolf56]

21. The U.S. is the worst -- that is, the most deliberately savage --

nation in the industrial world. It is ranked at or near the bottom on all vital counts: social services, health care, treatment of the elderly and disabled, public transportation, education, literacy, infant mortality -- in every one of these areas the U.S. fails abysmally. As to why, here is what I consider the most important piece of social journalism written in the U.S. since the civil war -- and maybe ever:

http://www.pkarchive.org/column/091905.html

And yes, it is absolutely true -- just as you say -- that "the Republicans and their minions would simply consign an aged worker to the garbage pit."

Fact is (and despite the humanitarian facade some Republicans try to hide behind even now) every Republican is in effect the sworn enemy of every American worker. Republicans want all workers reduced to the abject slavery characteristic of the 19th Century and the years before capitalism was terrified into pretend-humanitarianism by Communist revolutions, and they want all the rest of us -- the poor, the elderly, the disabled -- dead. Republicans value a human by two criteria and two criteria only: is he or she already wealthy, and can he or she be exploited for profit. Analyze Republican policies and you will see undeniable proof that these also are "self-evident" truths.

Nevertheless, Republicans are merely expressing the values of their corporate masters, which in turn expresses another increasingly self-evident truth -- the ultimate evil of capitalism (a truth to which too many of us have unfortunately been blinded by years of brainwashing both in corporate-run public schools and by corporate-owned mass media).

The failure of the Democratic Party to recognize the reality of class-struggle -- the failure of Democratic leadership to acknowledge that all Republicans are fascists at heart and therefore by definition the enemy of not only every man, woman and child in the working class but of American liberty itself -- is why George Bush is in the White House, why American troops are dying needlessly in Iraq, and why now fully 40 percent of all U.S. households are functionally poor: that is, unable to make ends meet (never mind the propagandistic lie implicit in the official federal "poverty line").

[Coastie for Truth]

23. George is talking out of both sides of his mouth

1. In Japan they have mandatory health insurance and a government run retirement savings plan.

2. These expenses are taken off of the employers and distributed across the taxpayers.

3. In Canada, where the Big Three now assemble most of their cars, they have single payer, universal health insurance.

And, not withstanding what derogators of Canadian Health Care say - most of the savings come from eliminating fraud, waste, abuse, defensive medicine, bureaucracy, 1-800 call centers, etc. - and not the oft mentioned rationing.

ABSTRACT

Background A decade ago, the administrative costs of health care in the United States greatly exceeded those in Canada. We investigated whether the ascendancy of computerization, managed care, and the adoption of more businesslike approaches to health care have decreased administrative costs.

Methods For the United States and Canada, we calculated the administrative costs of health insurers, employers' health benefit programs, hospitals, practitioners' offices, nursing homes, and home care agencies in 1999. We analyzed published data, surveys of physicians, employment data, and detailed cost reports filed by hospitals, nursing homes, and home care agencies. In calculating the administrative share of health care spending, we excluded retail pharmacy sales and a few other categories for which data on administrative costs were unavailable. We used census surveys to explore trends over time in administrative employment in health care settings. Costs are reported in U.S. dollars.

Results In 1999, health administration costs totaled at least $294.3 billion in the United States, or $1,059 per capita, as compared with $307 per capita in Canada. After exclusions, administration accounted for 31.0 percent of health care expenditures in the United States and 16.7 percent of health care expenditures in Canada. Canada's national health insurance program had overhead of 1.3 percent; the overhead among Canada's private insurers was higher than that in the United States (13.2 percent vs. 11.7 percent). Providers' administrative costs were far lower in Canada.

Between 1969 and 1999, the share of the U.S. health care labor force accounted for by administrative workers grew from 18.2 percent to 27.3 percent. In Canada, it grew from 16.0 percent in 1971 to 19.1 percent in 1996. (Both nations' figures exclude insurance-industry personnel.)

Conclusions The gap between U.S. and Canadian spending on health care administration has grown to $752 per capita. A large sum might be saved in the United States if administrative costs could be trimmed by implementing a Canadian-style health care system.

Correction:

To the Editor: There is little doubt that per capita health care administrative costs are lower in Canada than in the United States, as Woolhandler et al. report (Aug. 21 issue),1 even though the precise magnitude of the gap is open to debate, a point that Aaron makes in his accompanying editorial.2 However, the Canadian single-payer system results in chronic shortages of medical services because of underfunding. The underfunding problem is usually considered to be a separate issue from the single-payer system itself,2 but the very structure of the single-payer system may cause the problem.

In the United States, persons who wish to spend more on health care than the norm have a simple way of doing so: they can purchase premium private medical insurance. Notwithstanding the Medicare prescription-drug plans currently being discussed, it is generally not an option in the United States to increase medical expenditures through the taxation system, given contemporary political and fiscal constraints. In Canada, however, increases in medical expenditures are possible largely only through the taxation system. And even if, as some surveys suggest, most Canadians are willing to spend more on health care,3 taxpayers cannot be sure that any given tax increase will actually go to health care expenditures. Therefore, Canadian taxpayers generally resist tax increases, and underfunding and chronic shortages result.


Jasjeet S. Sekhon, Ph.D.
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138

4. Will is a GM shill. I remember when the Prius first came out, Georgie said that hybrids would actually increase gasoline consumption.

*Based it on studies by Carnegie Mellon's GM Professor of Economics lester Lave and Penn States ExxonMobile Professor of Energy Economics Andy Kliet.

*They published a bunch of papers based on condidential GM marketing stuies predicted that as gas mileage improved, people would drive so much more that they would actually use more gasoline.

*Georgie printed this.

[phoebe]

25. Will is promoting the corporate line - corporations now WANT

employees to know that they should not expect pensions, health and disability and this is a theme that will be brought up over and over again in the next couple of years.

Partly this is because the corporations/government have already spent the funds on these benefits and have absolutely no way in which to "refill" these coffers let alone add interest due. One only has to look at the corporate underfunding of these plans that have been going on in the past several years. Why do you think the corporations/government has been pushing 401K's and "medical savings accounts"? Because they bloody well knew that this scenario was coming back to bite them in the ass..

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

26. Japan has mandatory universal health care.

And, is rated number one in health care. At less cost than what we expend while rated 19th.

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloadIndex?lc=en&cc=us&os=228&dest_page=product&dlc=en&product=217392&softwareitem=33669

[patdem]

27. Who is George Will's employer and what are HIS benefits?

Is HE living off the welfare of his corporate employer? What will HE reveive when he retires? A golden parachute AND a pension for life?

On Edit..thinking GE not GM..sorry and thinking about Jack Welch and all his benies?

[1932]

28. Solution: a Marshall Plan for the US which redistributes wealth and power

down from a few rich families to the rest of the country, and investment in infrastructure, education and public health, JUST LIKE JAPAN HAD AFTER WW2!

[OnionPatch]

29. Next thing they'll be saying

our paychecks are welfare payments!

[sandnsea]

31. Republican values

This is good good good. Oh I hope they keep going down this line. For so long workers have been told marketplace and competition will protect their benefits and wages. Let them start hearing their work being called "welfare state". Oh goodie goodie. I hope this is a new strategy because this will finally get those voters against their own interests off their fannies.

[leftofthedial]

32. he's as ignorant as all other repukes

In Japan, EVERYONE has health care. EVERYONE has a pension. EVERYONE gets an education.

[LizW]

34. It's all those damn sick people's fault

George Will was talking about how many prescriptions GM fills every minute, and I swear I though he was going to keel over from the horror of sick people getting their medicines.

:sarcasm:

[Rex]

35. George Will can say that because he is rich and doesn't have to work

for a living. It amazes me that people will pay good cash money to trained political monkeys like Will. Other countries don't suffer 'corporate welfare' like Americans do. It's a continual 24/7 screw-job here.

[Nikki Stone 1]

36. GM is just making piss poor decisions

That's not the fault of the unions.

[Deja Q]

37. I hope george will has the same done unto him.

Will is old enough at this point.