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These companies are gonna die and they will become cautionary tail for the future. Ford's situation is particularly interesting because until Tesla, they were

These companies are gonna die and they will become cautionary tail for the future. Ford's situation is particularly interesting because until Tesla, they were the only major US automaker to never go bankrupt. Their taking in massive losses (EV transition) and their balance sheet looks very ugly. Also as an aside, it will also be a early warning signal for all these companies. It will provide an entire cohort of CEOs with the mandate to invest heavily in automation to bridge the gap. You how the saying goes, "be careful what you wish for"

pc_edwin 3y ago
Also btw "die" is a matter of perspective. The shareholders will be wiped out, a huge chunk of the management core will replaced and probably a massive layoffs. Oh and their pensions wiped out (can't have pensions without a company to pay for them). FAFO
louwrentius 3y ago
Ford himself was at least smart enough to understand that if you pay your workers well they buy your own product. If you (any company) automate those people away (yeah right) who can afford their product? Queue the fantasy about UBI but maybe it’s better if companies would pay their workers their fair share of wages. Or dare I say it: we disband the notion of private ownership of the means of production and give that ownership back to the people.
- sgregnt 3y ago
  > Or dare I say it: we disband the notion of private ownership of the means of production and give that ownership back to the people. Lets be explicit about this lunutism kills millions of people, directly and indirectly, collapses on itself and then hopeful is salvaged by hardcore capitalism.
  - louwrentius 3y ago
    Sounds like I should have issued a trigger warning. May I recommend informing yourself as absolutely nothing you wrote is true.
- pc_edwin 3y ago
  AI and automation will end up creating more and better jobs than the industrial revolution that created these peoples livelihood. Humanity always strives for more and better. There are entire fields left untouched. We have an entire galaxy to explore. Dare I say: "Ownership" was never in the hands of "the people". Property rights are not just something important. It is everything. It is the only important thing. Its the fabric of human civilisation. Its impossible to have a functioning society with out and I mean that in the literal sense. Even under your utopia, you will still have property rights, its just dictated by "the proletariat". What this looks like in real life is, you replace a decentralised ledger of human value with a centralised ledger managed by the AOCs and Bernies of the world. In other words, you just replaced our current class of elites who (somewhat) earned their station with a new class of elites that just so happened have the gift of gab. To make it worse, the power of our current elites is scoped and limited whereas this new class of elites will have an order of magnitude more power and there will be no limit. A cautionary tale I remember vividly from a guy I met in Miami: He is from Venuezuala, his dad used have an energy drinks company. They lost it all and know he is a refugee in America. The one thing I remember him telling me is why the people don't rise up against Maduro: You don't bite the hand that feeds you. Maduro took everything from them but they still support him for the rotten food he gives them from AID. In your utopia, those hands will be AOCs (bartender) and Bernies (Hippie whos never worked a real job). Don't you see how the structure is fundamentally unstable? Think of it in computer terms, it will be the equivalent of creating a quantum Artificial Super Intelligence that is capable of calculating the actions needed to be taken by hundreds of millions of Americans to create the most perfect outcome. Now replace quantum ASI with AOC (former bartender) and Bernie Sanders (former & current hippie because he's never had a real job). Even a strongman case like China where there is still quasi private ownership and the central committee selects actual competent people, even there the whole system is full of death star vulnerabilities (ghost cities, population implosion).
  - louwrentius 3y ago
    This long reply, which you put some effort in - which I appreciate - reads a bit unhinged, sorry. We have an entire galaxy to explore. I rather not focus on that at all. I’d like to focus on 1. Preserving the earth 2. Make the world much more equal for people Now, I said unhinged because read so much misunderstanding about capitalism / socialism/ communism that I recommend reading a bit up on the actual material, just so that you won’t be wrong. What I also mostly feel reading this, is that indeed you’ve absorbed exactly everything and then some regarding the virtues of capitalism and the evils of socialism/communism. That’s not in your own interest. You may see yourself as a ‘temporary embarrassed millionaire’ but even as a millionaire you are closer to the unhoused than the rich people who own and run things
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  "Back" to the people? The people never owned it.
  - louwrentius 3y ago
    We can make it a word game if you like but as long as the means of production is no longer privatized I’d be happy.
    - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
      That's not a word game. It's a question of whether the (historically) normal state is ownership by the people, and what we have is now abnormal. And the answer is, no, this is normal, and what you propose is historically abnormal - unprecedented, in fact. That doesn't necessarily mean that you're wrong. But it means that you have the burden of proof to show that you're right.
      - louwrentius 3y ago
        Word games it is then. I didn’t make a right or wrong statement, I made a proposal. Up to anyone to choose their own answer.
Animats 3y ago
> Ford's situation is particularly interesting because until Tesla, they were the only major US automaker to never go bankrupt. If Ford goes bankrupt, the two-tier stock structure that keeps the Ford family in control goes away.
- pc_edwin 3y ago
  As it should. Btw thats the worst of their worries, they will get wiped out in bankruptcy and they should. The shareholders who didn't fight of unionisation like their lives depended on it deserves to get wiped out. I'm all for treating workers fairly and with respect but who thought it would be a great idea to give an entity with no skin in the game a massive blank check.
  - sgregnt 3y ago
    This
toomuchtodo 3y ago
> It will provide an entire cohort of CEOs with the mandate to invest heavily in automation to bridge the gap. This is frequently parroted, but never occurs. Invest in automation all you want, robots don’t buy products, the middle class does. If domestic automakers fail, the US government will bail them out. No one has the appetite to allow Elon (who only owns 13% of Tesla and his position continues to decline) and Tesla to take light auto manufacturing hostage and corner the market. We’ll just print dollars to do it, because we can. Pensions can be bailed out by the pension guarantee corp, funded by the general fund and the top 40% of taxpayers who have a federal tax liability. The rules are flexible and can change at anytime. Labor is needed to build and generate productivity, shareholders are just rows in a database. If they get wiped out, meh.
- esarbe 3y ago
  I propose an another strategy. Bail them out and hand over the company to the workers, organized as a equal shareholder corporation. The workers are the ones that have to most to lose when the company goes under. For the shareholders, it's usually just one of many investments, managed by a fund. They are not really stakeholders. The management has golden parachutes, is well connected and will find new employment soon. For the workers, it is the job they have been doing for years and years. It's their livelihood. Whereas a new management or new finance shareholders will just seek new ways to squeeze as much money out of the company until it has to be bailed out again, the workers might actually try to keep it running for long time.
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    I could not agree more, and it makes perfect sense to zero out shareholders and recapitalize with workers having substantial ownership when management destroys value sufficiently to require a reorg of the capital structure.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  The US government can do that. What they can't do is prevent the resulting inflation. That inflation will wipe out the gains the auto workers get from the raises they get from this strike. Those who don't work for auto makers (and so didn't get the raises in the first place) will be far worse off. You can't print your way to prosperity.
autoexec 3y ago
> It will provide an entire cohort of CEOs with the mandate to invest heavily in automation to bridge the gap. Companies are already investing in automation as much as they possibly can. It doesn't matter what human workers do. It doesn't matter if they demand fair wages or allow themselves to be exploited. Companies will toss their human workers aside like trash and replace them with machines as soon as it becomes possible regardless. Companies will always benefit from replacing human workers with machines. Machines don't get sick, they don't get other employees sick, they don't steal, they don't show up late, they don't take vacation, they don't have kids or family emergencies, they don't get your company caught up in sexual harassment lawsuits, they don't join unions, they don't become whistleblowers, they don't sleep, and most importantly they never say "No". Human labor is always going to be worse for a company than automation. You can't scare employees into accepting abuse out of fear of the Bogeyman of automation, because it's coming as fast as it can for them regardless. The best workers can do is fight to put themselves in the best financial position they can today, so that they can better hold out while society figures out what to do after human workers are no longer needed.
- belltaco 3y ago
  > Machines don't get sick Like McDonalds' ice cream machines? Sorry couldn't resist.

pc_edwin 3y ago

Also btw "die" is a matter of perspective. The shareholders will be wiped out, a huge chunk of the management core will replaced and probably a massive layoffs. Oh and their pensions wiped out (can't have pensions without a company to pay for them). FAFO

louwrentius 3y ago

Ford himself was at least smart enough to understand that if you pay your workers well they buy your own product. If you (any company) automate those people away (yeah right) who can afford their product? Queue the fantasy about UBI but maybe it’s better if companies would pay their workers their fair share of wages. Or dare I say it: we disband the notion of private ownership of the means of production and give that ownership back to the people.

sgregnt 3y ago
> Or dare I say it: we disband the notion of private ownership of the means of production and give that ownership back to the people. Lets be explicit about this lunutism kills millions of people, directly and indirectly, collapses on itself and then hopeful is salvaged by hardcore capitalism.
- louwrentius 3y ago
  Sounds like I should have issued a trigger warning. May I recommend informing yourself as absolutely nothing you wrote is true.
pc_edwin 3y ago
AI and automation will end up creating more and better jobs than the industrial revolution that created these peoples livelihood. Humanity always strives for more and better. There are entire fields left untouched. We have an entire galaxy to explore. Dare I say: "Ownership" was never in the hands of "the people". Property rights are not just something important. It is everything. It is the only important thing. Its the fabric of human civilisation. Its impossible to have a functioning society with out and I mean that in the literal sense. Even under your utopia, you will still have property rights, its just dictated by "the proletariat". What this looks like in real life is, you replace a decentralised ledger of human value with a centralised ledger managed by the AOCs and Bernies of the world. In other words, you just replaced our current class of elites who (somewhat) earned their station with a new class of elites that just so happened have the gift of gab. To make it worse, the power of our current elites is scoped and limited whereas this new class of elites will have an order of magnitude more power and there will be no limit. A cautionary tale I remember vividly from a guy I met in Miami: He is from Venuezuala, his dad used have an energy drinks company. They lost it all and know he is a refugee in America. The one thing I remember him telling me is why the people don't rise up against Maduro: You don't bite the hand that feeds you. Maduro took everything from them but they still support him for the rotten food he gives them from AID. In your utopia, those hands will be AOCs (bartender) and Bernies (Hippie whos never worked a real job). Don't you see how the structure is fundamentally unstable? Think of it in computer terms, it will be the equivalent of creating a quantum Artificial Super Intelligence that is capable of calculating the actions needed to be taken by hundreds of millions of Americans to create the most perfect outcome. Now replace quantum ASI with AOC (former bartender) and Bernie Sanders (former & current hippie because he's never had a real job). Even a strongman case like China where there is still quasi private ownership and the central committee selects actual competent people, even there the whole system is full of death star vulnerabilities (ghost cities, population implosion).
- louwrentius 3y ago
  This long reply, which you put some effort in - which I appreciate - reads a bit unhinged, sorry. We have an entire galaxy to explore. I rather not focus on that at all. I’d like to focus on 1. Preserving the earth 2. Make the world much more equal for people Now, I said unhinged because read so much misunderstanding about capitalism / socialism/ communism that I recommend reading a bit up on the actual material, just so that you won’t be wrong. What I also mostly feel reading this, is that indeed you’ve absorbed exactly everything and then some regarding the virtues of capitalism and the evils of socialism/communism. That’s not in your own interest. You may see yourself as a ‘temporary embarrassed millionaire’ but even as a millionaire you are closer to the unhoused than the rich people who own and run things
AnimalMuppet 3y ago
"Back" to the people? The people never owned it.
- louwrentius 3y ago
  We can make it a word game if you like but as long as the means of production is no longer privatized I’d be happy.
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    That's not a word game. It's a question of whether the (historically) normal state is ownership by the people, and what we have is now abnormal. And the answer is, no, this is normal, and what you propose is historically abnormal - unprecedented, in fact. That doesn't necessarily mean that you're wrong. But it means that you have the burden of proof to show that you're right.
    - louwrentius 3y ago
      Word games it is then. I didn’t make a right or wrong statement, I made a proposal. Up to anyone to choose their own answer.

Animats 3y ago

> Ford's situation is particularly interesting because until Tesla, they were the only major US automaker to never go bankrupt. If Ford goes bankrupt, the two-tier stock structure that keeps the Ford family in control goes away.

pc_edwin 3y ago
As it should. Btw thats the worst of their worries, they will get wiped out in bankruptcy and they should. The shareholders who didn't fight of unionisation like their lives depended on it deserves to get wiped out. I'm all for treating workers fairly and with respect but who thought it would be a great idea to give an entity with no skin in the game a massive blank check.
- sgregnt 3y ago
  This

toomuchtodo 3y ago

> It will provide an entire cohort of CEOs with the mandate to invest heavily in automation to bridge the gap. This is frequently parroted, but never occurs. Invest in automation all you want, robots don’t buy products, the middle class does. If domestic automakers fail, the US government will bail them out. No one has the appetite to allow Elon (who only owns 13% of Tesla and his position continues to decline) and Tesla to take light auto manufacturing hostage and corner the market. We’ll just print dollars to do it, because we can. Pensions can be bailed out by the pension guarantee corp, funded by the general fund and the top 40% of taxpayers who have a federal tax liability. The rules are flexible and can change at anytime. Labor is needed to build and generate productivity, shareholders are just rows in a database. If they get wiped out, meh.

esarbe 3y ago
I propose an another strategy. Bail them out and hand over the company to the workers, organized as a equal shareholder corporation. The workers are the ones that have to most to lose when the company goes under. For the shareholders, it's usually just one of many investments, managed by a fund. They are not really stakeholders. The management has golden parachutes, is well connected and will find new employment soon. For the workers, it is the job they have been doing for years and years. It's their livelihood. Whereas a new management or new finance shareholders will just seek new ways to squeeze as much money out of the company until it has to be bailed out again, the workers might actually try to keep it running for long time.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  I could not agree more, and it makes perfect sense to zero out shareholders and recapitalize with workers having substantial ownership when management destroys value sufficiently to require a reorg of the capital structure.
AnimalMuppet 3y ago
The US government can do that. What they can't do is prevent the resulting inflation. That inflation will wipe out the gains the auto workers get from the raises they get from this strike. Those who don't work for auto makers (and so didn't get the raises in the first place) will be far worse off. You can't print your way to prosperity.

autoexec 3y ago

> It will provide an entire cohort of CEOs with the mandate to invest heavily in automation to bridge the gap. Companies are already investing in automation as much as they possibly can. It doesn't matter what human workers do. It doesn't matter if they demand fair wages or allow themselves to be exploited. Companies will toss their human workers aside like trash and replace them with machines as soon as it becomes possible regardless. Companies will always benefit from replacing human workers with machines. Machines don't get sick, they don't get other employees sick, they don't steal, they don't show up late, they don't take vacation, they don't have kids or family emergencies, they don't get your company caught up in sexual harassment lawsuits, they don't join unions, they don't become whistleblowers, they don't sleep, and most importantly they never say "No". Human labor is always going to be worse for a company than automation. You can't scare employees into accepting abuse out of fear of the Bogeyman of automation, because it's coming as fast as it can for them regardless. The best workers can do is fight to put themselves in the best financial position they can today, so that they can better hold out while society figures out what to do after human workers are no longer needed.

belltaco 3y ago
> Machines don't get sick Like McDonalds' ice cream machines? Sorry couldn't resist.