OK. Stop paying people to not work!
Many of the Flint jobs bankers worked in a plant that no longer exists, the sprawling Buick City complex that closed in 1999.
General Motors Corp. has paid them between $70,000 and $85,000 annually.
They also received health care, which ups the total significantly. I’ve blogged extensively about collective bargaining, work rules, and the so-called jobs bank.
Adding insult to injury is the fact that worldwide capacity to produce automobiles is something like 90 million units, whereas global demand is in the neighborhood of 60 million units. This is a disequilibrium of epic proportions. There’s not much more that I can say about the fate of American manufacturing – it needs a complete overhaul, and paying people for a job they haven’t done in 10 years is nothing short of retarded.
Wow. $70-85k. I have a 4 year degree in a high demand field working a high demand, high skill job and I don’t make $70k.
If somebody had been waving $70k in my face when I got out of high school, what possible incentive would I have had to go to college and get in a field that actually has unmet demand?
The reality is that practically nobody in the world makes more than $85,000 – even in the richest nation in the world, 85K is probably the 90th %.