Kaus reviews hybrid situation
13th August 2007
Read it. I particularly like this giveaway:
A large part of that inability has to do with GM’s dramatically higher labor costs–apparently the total labor cost for a GM hourly worker ( including health, pensions etc.) is about $146,000 per year. They’re competing against Toyota and Honda who pay $96,000 per year–on equally American workers in American factories. Much of this disparity is in health care costs, something that would be fixed if the government took over that burden.
Well, no it wouldn’t — it would merely shift the burden to the taxpayers. This might perhaps “fix” it from GM’s standpoint, but the problem would remain. And it would be subject to political manipulation … well, even more than it is now, anyway. That’s the perennial problem when the government “takes over” something; the people whose problem it would solve are loud proponents, while those who are getting shafted on down the line typically don’t know or don’t understand what’s coming for them.