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[McTraveller]

Ford isn't a software company with 25-30% margins:

Ford's last year profit margin was 2.44%, operating margin 4.31%.

But yeah talking about "manufacturing" cost is the type of sleight-of-hand that goes into those kind of statements.  Is that only the marginal cost of the car? Or is it the capital cost of the plants, too?  I see what you mean... but regardless, even if the manufacturing cost of a car is only 50% of its total cost, then the picture still looks tight - that would only be a 50% reduction in profit, not a 100% reduction.

Also sure they would try to pass on the higher cost to consumers, but that would likely reduce demand, which increases the per-vehicle costs, which reduces profit further.

"Nobody knows" the actual impact until after it happens, which makes it fun to armchair quarterback

[Lord Shonus]

Ford isn't a software company with 25-30% margins:

Ford's last year profit margin was 2.44%, operating margin 4.31%.

That's not per-car sales. That's the margin for the entire operation, with a ton more costs (because of extra salaries, office rents, the cost of paper, etc) and not a lot more revenue. It also covers a ton of R&D and infrastructure stuff that won't pay anything for years and might be a dead end entirely.

The hard manufacturing cost of a car (what it actually takes in materials and labor to produce the thing) is far below 50%.  Shipping for the completed car alone can eat up almost as much. Then there's the company's own marketing for that model (which is huge). Probably a lot of other factors I'm not even aware of. Even if your 5% margin figure is right (and I'm seeing per-car margins of everything between 8 and 20 percent), 5 percent of 30 percent is a significantly smaller number.

[Micro102]

I don't know if it even matters to argue over what is considered profit. The CEO got a 40% increase in pay (and what a laugh that would be if that pay was used as part of calculating the profit), and the workers didn't. Seems pretty clear cut. We don't even have to factor in how CEO probably doesn't deserve that wage in the first place.

[Bumber]

Is there any evidence of Biden doing or agreeing to do something in exchange for money? A guy helping pay his father's bills using the money he makes from his business dealings doesn't really implicate either of them.

You mean was he dumb enough to be recorded saying that specifically? No. Just dumb enough to brag on TV about firing a Ukrainian prosecutor in return for US aid money, and then expect everyone to believe he had no idea his son worked for Burisma. Add that to the fact that money earned from Burisma is paying his bills and you have a corrupt action. But of course the standard of proof for a Biden impeachment is different than a Trump one, where you don't even have to tell the Ukrainian you'll withhold any money.

What were they talking about in the "JRB Memo" email thread, also?

You mean besides paying Joe's mortgage with not-Joe's money, obtained in the usual fashion?

Hunter has had his taxes looked at by federal investigators for years. If there was any evidence that the senior Biden was getting kickbacks, they would have found it.

Yeah, sure. The same investigators who slow-walked the investigation and allowed the statute of limitations to expire on Hunter's 2014-2015 tax evasion charges, despite Hunter's lawyers approving of extending it. The same investigators that tipped off Hunter's lawyers that his Virginia storage unit was about to be raided. The same investigators that wouldn't allow Biden's guest house to be raided (despite probable cause) due to "optics", according to a whistleblower. They'd totally have found it.

The Daily Mail is another tabloid. Let’s have a look at some of their headlines…

Oh, look. A distraction from actual screenshots of the e-mails. Yawn. But I guess the e-mails have all been "debunked" by 50 former intel officials, or something?

Apparently Biden's comm director Kate Bedingfield sent a 2015 e-mail to Schwerin that Biden signed off on some talking points about Hunter's role on Burisma's board, so you can deny those too if they get released to the public.

[McTraveller]

Sure but variable cost for a car is irrelevant - the total cost of the company relative to the total revenue is what matters for a company to not go bankrupt.  If you increase the wage cost of 50k people working 2000 hours a year by $10/hour, that’s $1B you’ve got to come up with. If you don’t increase sales, that comes off the top - doesn’t matter what %of manufacturing costs it is. And for Ford, $1B is huge relative to their profits (about 25% of last year's profits).

This is just math by the way - I’m not even talking about if the workers should get the revenue instead of it being corporate profit.  But I know I would not want to work for a company that had no profit… it means any drop in sales is going to be really bad (it’s bad enough if companies merely have a smaller profit…)

I mean I understand asking for the same thing the CEO got… but that money’s got to come from somewhere.

[Bumber]

In other news, the CIA is investigating itself to see if it paid off analysts to change their opinions on where COVID likely originated.

[Micro102]

Sure but variable cost for a car is irrelevant - the total cost of the company relative to the total revenue is what matters for a company to not go bankrupt.  If you increase the wage cost of 50k people working 2000 hours a year by $10/hour, that’s $1B you’ve got to come up with. If you don’t increase sales, that comes off the top - doesn’t matter what %of manufacturing costs it is. And for Ford, $1B is huge relative to their profits.

This is just math by the way - I’m not even talking about if the workers should get the revenue instead of it being corporate profit.  But I know I would not want to work for a company that had no profit… it means any drop in sales is going to be really bad (it’s bad enough if companies merely have a smaller profit…)

I mean I understand asking for the same thing the CEO got… but that money’s got to come from somewhere.

I was going to look up Ford's profits and do some math to suggest a reasonable pay increase, because why make it $10? They made more money so the workers deserve the bulk of it, as they do the bulk of the work, and you work out the pay increase everyone gets from the increase in profits. But here, look at this:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/27/business/ford-motor-second-quarter-earnings.html

It seems like they literally just ended up having an extra billion dollars? And estimate another couple extra billion in the future? Suddenly a $10 increase doesn't sound so weird.

[hector13]

Is there any evidence of Biden doing or agreeing to do something in exchange for money? A guy helping pay his father's bills using the money he makes from his business dealings doesn't really implicate either of them.

You mean was he dumb enough to be recorded saying that specifically? No. Just dumb enough to brag on TV about firing a Ukrainian prosecutor in return for US aid money, and then expect everyone to believe he had no idea his son worked for Burisma. Add that to the fact that money earned from Burisma is paying his bills and you have a corrupt action. But of course the standard of proof for a Biden impeachment is different than a Trump one, where you don't even have to tell the Ukrainian you'll withhold any money.

What were they talking about in the "JRB Memo" email thread, also?

You mean besides paying Joe's mortgage with not-Joe's money, obtained in the usual fashion?

Hunter has had his taxes looked at by federal investigators for years. If there was any evidence that the senior Biden was getting kickbacks, they would have found it.

Yeah, sure. The same investigators who slow-walked the investigation and allowed the statute of limitations to expire on Hunter's 2014-2015 tax evasion charges, despite Hunter's lawyers approving of extending it. The same investigators that tipped off Hunter's lawyers that his Virginia storage unit was about to be raided. The same investigators that wouldn't allow Biden's guest house to be raided (despite probable cause) due to "optics", according to a whistleblower. They'd totally have found it.

The Daily Mail is another tabloid. Let’s have a look at some of their headlines…

Oh, look. A distraction from actual screenshots of the e-mails. Yawn. But I guess the e-mails have all been "debunked" by 50 former intel officials, or something?

Apparently Biden's comm director Kate Bedingfield sent a 2015 e-mail to Schwerin that Biden signed off on some talking points about Hunter's role on Burisma's board, so you can deny those too if they get released to the public.

I can say Biden signed off on things too, doesn’t mean anything does it?

If those e-mails - the ones from the outlet that recentlt paid damages and admitted lying - actually said anything they’d have already charged big Joe. They don’t say anything, which is why nothing is happening about them.

The investigators lead by Trump appointed Delaware AG David Weiss, yeah. The same David Weiss who was recently given special counsel status by Biden’s own DoJ.

Now, you mentioned a while back re:VP Biden pressuring Ukrainian authorities re:Hunter’s indiscretions that Biden would just flex for his kid. Why hasn’t he done that to his own administration, like Trump did when Jeff Sessions refused to take the reins of the Mueller investigation?

The rest of it is just nonsense. Money changing hands doesn’t equal corruption, the reason behind it does. Once they find concrete evidence of that, fire away, get Biden out. None of the things you’ve pointed out meet that standard.

[McTraveller]

It's not the base wage increase that is the sticking point for the OEMs from what I understand. I think the bigger issues are the 4 day work week, return to defined pensions, and paying more into the US health care system morass.  That 4 day work week, defined pensions, and health care are the things that cost way more than the base wage increase.

Oh and the vague "make an equitable transition to EV manufacturing" - what does that even mean? If it literally requires less work to make an EV, and the public isn't going to consume more cars that cost more... is it just a complaint that the EV supply chain has a lot of non-union joint ventures, and the union wants them to be union with higher pay (which would further reduce demand for EVs by making them cost more...)?

[Frumple]

It's not the base wage increase that is the sticking point for the OEMs from what I understand. I think the bigger issues are the 4 day work week, return to defined pensions, and paying more into the US health care system morass.  That 4 day work week, defined pensions, and health care are the things that cost way more than the base wage increase.

Are you, like... sure about that? Last I was hearing anything about 4 day work weeks, they've been tending to make companies more profitable, not less. Healthcare's also usually a fraction of the compensation (companies the size of ford and co can negotiate for much better rates than basically any of their workers can), so it'd probably be pretty easy for an increase in that to be smaller than an overall wage increase would be.

Less sure about pensions (I don't expect to live to retirement age given my general health, so frankly I haven't paid much attention to retirement; mine's likely either heart attack, stroke, or lead, not a 401k or whatev'), but those other two either probably don't actually cost more than a base wage increase worth note, or is decently likely to outright make the company money.

[hector13]

4-day work weeks being beneficial to a company depends on the industry. Things like manufacturing probably won’t benefit that much as they’ll need to hire more people to keep the machines working the same amount of time.

[Lord Shonus]

Oh and the vague "make an equitable transition to EV manufacturing" - what does that even mean? If it literally requires less work to make an EV, and the public isn't going to consume more cars that cost more... is it just a complaint that the EV supply chain has a lot of non-union joint ventures, and the union wants them to be union with higher pay (which would further reduce demand for EVs by making them cost more...)?

The Big Three have been deliberately closing down union facilities making gas cars and starting EV factories thousands of miles away, in places they have no current presences, blatantly so that they can dodge having the union at those shiny new factories. The union wants to contractually require automakers to convert existing factories OR build new ones in union areas. There's concerns about EVs resulting in workforce redundancies, but that's a much more controllable issue that can be worked with via hiring pauses and such.

[Schmaven]

A 40% raise on top of $56k a year is amazing.  I mean sure, why not?  Might as well demand a free car too since they make them there.  That wouldn't cost much more than the $9 billion a year they are already collectively asking for in wages alone.  For context, if the average CEO makes $30 million, and there are 10 CEOs, and all of them gave 100% of their salary to the UAW workers, that would be about a 2% raise.  While I do support the idea of everyone doing great in life, I find it hard to be sympathetic to the UAW cause when they're already doing significanfly better than I am, and are throwing a fit to do hugely way more better.  But with inflation being so high, I suppose 40% isn't really that big once it's all said and done.  If they succeed, they will be among the winners in life for sure.

[Duuvian]

Big 3 jobs used to be a great option. After the recession that became less so for new workers as the union made concessions that made it less of a sure path to the middle class. In addition their negotiating position will be higher due to inflation matching. However I think that there are other factors such as the expansion of the temp service industry that the union will be responding to.

Here is something interesting I read recently that may be of assistance in lowering production costs if it's effective and adopted widely.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/gigacasting-20-tesla-reinvents-carmaking-with-quiet-breakthrough-2023-09-14/

f I understood it correctly, it's basically a mold on a larger scale using a technique that reduces prototype or design costs for fixing problems with the cast, which can be expensive even for minor issues.

As to the production costs vs total costs, from the posts above I would think it would suggest that things like advertising or transport are costing too much rather than wage costs, however I haven't looked at any sort of balance sheet to say that with certainty.

[Lord Shonus]

As with most of Musk's great innovations, that one is total nonsense. There are many reasons why punching out the underbody of a car in one operation isn't done, and the cost of the molds is only one of them.