"Gunner" wrote in message
While this is an interesting financial story, it has what exactly to
do with the price of tailstock tubes or the price of parts?

Throughout the article, I see constant references to pension plans,
big labor interferance and power structure struggles, but no mention
of parts costings.

Gunner

The point is that the problems with South Bend resulted from high cost of
production, mostly stemming from labor, pension etc., not necessarily
materials costs. South Bend then did an innovative thing in the ESOP, but
failed to make fundamental changes in the lock step mentality of the
workforce. Your typical union guy says " Today I am getting 20.00 per hour
for 8 hours work and by God tomorrow I should be getting at least 21.00 per
hour OR only work 7.5 hours." In other words, as the world economy evolves
and changes, he locks himself rigidly into the system to which he is
accustomed and crys like a baby when his plant finally closes.
So what does this have to do with that 330.00 tailstock ram? Its the
same mentality that is driving these people. How did they arrive at that
price? If its NOS, then the WWII price was probably under 1.00- did they
just multiply the old price by some arbitrary figure like the distance from
Cleveland to Cincinnatti? Do you think any one from Le Blond ever went to
the warehouse and picked up this piece and said to himself " Boy what a
bargain - only 330.00 !!" Do you think the parts guy would gleefully pay
330.00 for a set of spark plugs for his Studebaker Champion just because
they had been sitting on the shelf for 50 years?