"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"Joseph Gwinn" wrote in message
...
Holman Jenkins asks a very good question: Why is it that the Big Three
automakers can make cars profitably everywhere in the world but the US?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122765959966358461.html

The Wall Street Journal, 28 November 2008.

Joe Gwinn

An interesting point of view, typical of the WSJ's editorials, but it
skips over some crucial facts. For example, German car manufacturers have
been quite profitable, but their big union (IG Metall) has demanded and
gotten the highest wages in the world -- roughly $6/hour higher than the
wages paid to GM's UAW workers.

But of course Germany has a national health care system that doesn't
directly come out of the car makers' pockets; on the other hand, German
automakers pay more into the safety nets, at least those related to
temporary or permanent unemployment. In the end, German car manufacturers
pay more for labor than car makers do in the US.

So that undermines much of what the editorial says. It doesn't appear
they've found the mark yet.



American automakers wouldn't be paying anything for health care unless they
were PROFITABLE if America had some flavor of the system most other first
world nations have. As it is, health care costs for employees and retirees
are sapping their resources.
To really harmonize costs, the US would have to impose a duty on imported
vehicles as an offset - not something I favor BTW.

JC