continued...

..."Senators push for closure of loophole

Several proposals have been offered to fix the loophole, at one point, the Senate Finance Committee staff actually proposed raising the weight limit to 14,000 pounds, enough to disqualify even the Hummer. Bills introduced by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Representative Anna Eshoo (D-CA) would take a different approach to closing the SUV tax loophole. In The SUV Business Tax Loophole Closure Act, they propose that SUVs weighing 6,000 pounds or more simply be reclassified as cars under the tax code.

In October 2004, after the House Ways and Means Committee approved a three-year extension of the $100,000 loophole, a House-Senate conference committee negotiated a roll back in the deduction to its original amount of $25,000 as part of the larger Corporate Tax Bill. While tightening this loophole is certainly noteworthy, it is by no means the end of significant tax breaks for gas-guzzling SUVs. According to an analysis in the Detroit News, besides the $25,000 basic equipment deduction, SUVs will still qualify for "bonus depreciation," an added write off of 30 percent of the purchase price above $25,000. Beyond that, additional costs can be deducted according to regular depreciation rules, or 20 percent in the first year. For example, a business owner purchasing a Hummer H1, with a sticker price of $106,185, would be able to deduct $60,722 in the first year under the revised rules: a $25,000 equipment deduction, $24,356 in bonus depreciation, and $11,366 in regular depreciation."...

So basically, even after tightening the loophole somewhat, it was still a mile wide.

I knew before Bush was elected that there was a tax break for farmers vehicles and other vehicles used by businesses, already in place.
I first remember the Bush tax break because it was increased a whole lot and it was talked about a lot on TV. Here is what I remember...

SUV tax loophole widens
http://skeptically.org/oil/id7.html

..."A 1997 provision in the U.S. tax code (Section 179) provided small businesses with a tax write-off of up to $25,000 for a vehicle weighing more than 6,000 pounds- used 50% of the time for work purposes. The original intent behind this provision was to encourage investments in pickup trucks, minivans, and other needed service vehicles. A far smaller incentive was provided for cars—less than $7,000 over two years.

The explosion of SUV, pickup, and minivan sales in America’s passenger vehicle fleet has turned this small business benefit into a massive loophole in the tax law. Currently, 38 different passenger SUVs including the Lincoln Navigator, which nets a combined 15 miles per gallon according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Cadillac Escalade (16 mpg), the BMW X5 (18 mpg), the Mercedes-Benz ML55 (16 mpg), and the notorious Hummer H2 (estimated 11 mpg) all weigh more than 6,000 pounds. This loophole allows some of the least fuel-efficient passenger vehicles on the road today to qualify for a significant tax break.

[In 2003, the Bush administration proposed increasing the tax deduction to $75,000. Lawmakers responded by expanding it to a whopping $100,000 as part of the $350 million tax cut package. Yet Congress did not change the weight-based classification of the vehicles, creating a huge benefit for the largest, least efficient vehicles.]'...

Remind me who the lawmakers were in 2003????

(continued)

The devaluation of the dollar was an attempt to make US manufacturing more competitive with China and the rest of the world. We are not competitive because of our high labor costs, high business taxes and excessive regulation.

The taxes are on profits, sales, payrolls, property, inventories and almost anything a stupid politician can think of.

So like I said the auto companies especially GM and Chrysler were taking on water and starting to list long before the economy tanked and before the run up in gas prices. Will they be better prepared for the next run up that is coming ???

OK, gyro, I give...I bow down to the KING *wink* *wink*

It doesn't matter "why" the fuel prices went up, but it made people quit buying things that they could do without.

The Big 3 were in trouble long before the economy tanked. Most of the run up in fuel prices was due to the devaluation of the dollar.

you all forget that the economy was more responsible than anything for the Big 3 failings. High fuel prices leading the way. When people have money, they will buy automobiles and not worry so much about costs.

Competition lowers prices. The best way to attract competition is to have a large profit margin. Most companies operate with razor thin profit margins some even at a "temporary" loss.

This system offers consumers goods and services at the lowest possible price. Unreasonable and selfish union demands inhibit companies to compete effectively - these companies often die or require government bail outs, need I say more?

When the first deduction for work vehicles was introduced, SUV's and light trucks were not considered work vehicles. It was Bush that expanced the deductions and made it very attractive for anyone with a small business to want one, just to get the huge tax breaks. Small business covers a whole lot of things and many of them do not need those kinds of vehicles to do their business, so they were not actually "needed".

http://www.jenkinsco.com/detnews_tax_...

JR74...
Cut their pay and the cost goes down.

Not likely. We all know that once a price goes up, it takes more than lower costs to bring them back down. All that will happen is Exec.'s and stockholders increase their share.

The need to start dropping the workers pay. I know plenty of people that would jump at one of those jobs for half of the pay an hour. When they say that the price of cars have gone up due to the cost of making them what they mean is the cost of the people putting them togather are making more so they need to raise the cost of the car to compensate for it. Cut their pay and the cost goes down.

gyro,

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Hybr...

gyro, we've had this discussion before, If you remember. Think back a few years.

Legion,
which is exactly why the Union gave up some too.

In 2008, Mulally(CEO of Ford) earned a total compensation of $13,565,378, which included a base salary of $2,000,000, stock awards of $1,849,241, and option awards of $8,669,747. His total compensation decreased by 37.4% compared to 2007.

rollingstone, the fact remains, the Union gave when it needed to. Fords gains are largely because they started building more smaller and fuel efficient cars and stealing business from the other 2.
Look at GM and the Hummer. Dumbest idea they ever had and catered to a few fatcats, while not worring about cars that the majority of Americans could afford and would actually buy. Large PU, SUV's, and other gas hogs should have been phased down much sooner. Price is set by demand. PU prices have gone down and small car prices have gone up. That could have happened years ago. Did you notice how President Bush gave tax breaks for buying anything with huge motors if they used it in their business (any kind of business), when he first got into office? Then after people so proudly bought those gashogs, the price of gas started going up and they couldn't even trade them in? Remember?? Talk about trickery and how many suckers fell for it.

Oh, BTW I have read that GM is still failing and will require more bail out money, taxpayer money - Chuckle !!!

The company cut costs by getting concessions from the unions on pay for new hires, benefits and work rules. Ford and the other US auto makers made big cars because they couldn't make money on the the smaller models due to their high labor costs. These costs have been reduced because the unions smelled the coffee after the recession hit.

I think Ford did have a shake up of management after the recession hit. Suzy, you want them all fired anyway - that will help a lot, no really, nothing helps a company more than to have management instability. It's easy to see how that will "stimulate" profits and also make the workers very happy.

Below is the compensation paid to the Ford executives. This is for world wide operations. The estimated compensation for the 41,000 state side union employees is some where around $7.0 billion.

Ford can lower their compensation and maybe they should but they will lose some of these highly skilled managers. I'm sure they could find somebody to work for less and achieve "different" results - it's kind of a dice roll like all business decisions are.

People's lives, fortunes, lively hoods are all on the line, but that means nothing to a socialists, they could care less. They know where the easy money is - Washington DC the place is awash with money, our money!!!!

----------------------------------------------

In addition to information about the Annual Meeting, the 2008 proxy provides a detailed review of total 2007 compensation provided, granted to or
received by five named executive officers during the year -- based on the
company's 2007 performance. Details include:

-- Alan Mulally, Ford president and chief executive officer, earned $2,000,000 in salary and received incentive bonus awards of $7 million. Total 2007 compensation was $21,670,674, which includes salary,
bonuses, the Company-recognized expense for stock options and other stock-based awards, as well as all other compensation.

-- Don Leclair, Ford executive vice president and chief financial officer, earned $1,005,633 in salary and received incentive bonus awards of $3 million. His 2007 compensation totaled $11,703,127.

-- Mark Fields, Ford executive vice president and president, The Americas, earned $1,255,634 in salary and received incentive bonus awards of $2,850,000. His 2007 compensation totaled $8,389,898.

-- Lewis Booth, Ford executive vice president, Ford of Europe and Premier Automotive Group, earned $868,133 in salary and received incentive bonus awards of $2,250,000. His 2007 compensation totaled $10,264,463.

-- Mike Bannister, Ford executive vice president and CEO, Ford Motor Credit Company earned $708,700 in salary and received incentive bonus awards of $2,150,000. His 2007 compensation totaled $8,677,747

Oh, and Fords $1B dollar profit was the result of cutting costs $1B . So why didn't they do that years ago when they started their huge decline? They weren't watching the market, and acting accordingly. They didn't start downsizing the cars that Americans demanded, due to higher fuel costs, until it was too late. Someone earning over $20 million a year didn't do his job, but still kept his pay where it was.
Until major American auto makers start catering to the average American, instead of the upper class (who buy fewer cars overall), they will never keep up with the foreign automakers, and it has nothing to do with the Unions.

rollingstone, I did not say to regulate anything. Some of you were talking about stockholders owning the companies and I just pointed out that they (owners of the company) were questioning executive pay too.
If Ford wants to bring costs in line with the foreign auto companies, they must also adopt the pay that foreign auto execs make. I think I read where the top 8 execs make $14 million, not the $60+ million that the top 4-5 Ford executives made in 2008.
Union workers would agree to cuts if they thought the upper management was doing the same thing. There is no earthly reason that people who ran a company into the ground deserves that kind of pay. They should be paid by their performance, like they expect the workers to do.
It kind of bites when you agree to pay cuts and then see executives raise their compensation by millions a year.

Legion: One billion dollars divided by 200,000 workers = $5000 per worker ?????

Suzy says there is trouble at the top of Ford because the share holders question executive pay. So what? This looks like a problem for the shareholders. Oh, I get it you want the government to regulate this. Yeah we just need to add another agency and fill it with bureaucrats so they can sit around all day with their feet up on the desk and do a little more regulation.

They could also branch out and regulate the pay and practices of union bosses. He11 why stop there, why not regulate everyone's pay. Gosh (slap head) pay regulators, that's exactly what we need. Boy I really like the sound of that.

I got a big laugh when an audit was done on the "First Time Homeowner Tax Credit." It's an $8000 refundable tax credit. They found many people were taking it illegally - many work in the IRS. Boy, that nearly made me laugh my a$$ off :(

Yeah, Suzy all we need is just more regulations. Got a problem make a law, someones unhappy throw them some money. He11 it's our grand kids who will pay for all this crap, not us - let the good times roll!!!

How about here's a good place to start, and gyro, this is what I mean by the problem is at the top.

Ford shareholders seek executive pay limits
By Kathie Kroll
May 14, 2009, 2:36PM
http://www.cleveland.com/business/ind...

Suzy..."People who will work for less, on average, have absolutely no loyalty to a company, nothing to keep them there through thick and thin."

I dunno...No loyalty, nothing to keep them there through thick and thin, changing companies for more money...sounds more like corporate officers than rank and file employees to me. You know, the executives who get hundreds of thousands of shares of company stock options as bonus payments then go looking for another company to buy them at a premium. It used to be called greenmail -- now, it's business as usual.

Well, instead of Ford paying a 29¢ per share dividend to ITS INVESTORS, you know the people that own the company, they could have gave each of it's roughly 200,000 employees (232,000 in 2008) world wide employees a $49,000 bonus and showed a profit of ZERO.

I didn't know Ford, or any company for that matter, is considered a collective. All profits distributed equally among the workers.

Gee, that sounds familiar... or yeah, Lenin and Stalin s idea of a perfect government. But that's right they just said that, they didn't actually do it. They let 1000's of workers line up to buy 100's of loafs of bread, and if the workers weren't in line early enough.... tough they went hungry.

A perfect way to run a country or a business wasn't it?

Observer, can't you see that the pay is not the problem, but the problem is from the top down?

Realizing that the response will be hopelessly inane, I still must ask how long Ford can hope to survive paying their workers significantly more than GM and Chrysler while having to compete with them for sales in the same marketplace? Also, are Ford stockholders less deserving of dividends than GM and Chrysler stockholders?

Ok, ex

Say the factories are built, and everything is paid for, then...what?
They aren't going to produce a penny without workers, good workers. Good workers won't work for less than what they are worth. People who will work for less, on average, have absolutely no loyalty to a company, nothing to keep them there through thick and thin. They come to work drunk, take days off, quit and go for more money elsewhere. The company is constantly trying to train people, accidents happen because of lack of training and a just don't give a #### attitude. Lawsuits abound. It pays off for companies to be able to keep their trained employees who care about safety, maintenance, and actually care if the company makes it or not.

sandwich had this to say...

...Ford is answerable to it's share holders, not the unions. The share holders are owners of the company, the workers work to make profits for the company."...

shareholders wouldn't make a dime without the workers, and workers work to put food on their own tables, not for some person that doesn't lift a finger to earn that money.

Ford made 3.2 cents on every dollar of sales. The return on their market capitalisation was 4.4%. This money goes to pay shareholders - people that own stock, that are trying to save some money for a better future or retirement, people like that.

You know who I mean Suzy those greedy "Some Beaches" that we all love to hate - the pensioners, the people who want to stand on their own two feet, the people that don't want to be dependent on the stinking government, people who love their economic freedom.

Uh, that is what the free market is. Companies making as large a profit as they can. More money, more growth, more jobs, more benefits, etc.. Strange things to socialist and marxist.

It is what makes or made us strong and the non free socialist, marxist, communist countries weak.

Ford is answerable to it's share holders, not the unions. The share holders are owners of the company, the workers work to make profits for the company.

Governments that can make a limit on what a company or exec can make can and will make a limit on how much a worker can make. And how much health care they can get.

I'm glad the Union held out. Ford posted a $1B profit.

7 DEADLY SINS aka Capital Vices or Cardinal Sins:

Lust

Gluttony

Greed

Sloth

Wrath

ENVY

Pride

Some of you posting in here take note of the deadly sin of ENVY.

$29.78 a hour plus benefits, anyway you cut it, that's a sweet job.

UAW assembler earned 91% more in monetary wages than the average worker in the manufacturing sector, and a UAW electrician earned 123% more in wages than the average manufacturing worker.

Is there anything so special about auto assembly manufacturing work that it justifies a 91% premium over the rest of the manufacuring sector? I don't think so.

Maybe we should subsidize all manufacturing jobs in the US so everyone earns as much as a UAW assembler. Isn't that the fair thing to do?

But GM, which negotiated the four-year deal that serves as a template for UAW deals with Chrysler and Ford, says its total hourly labor costs dropped 6 percent this year from pre-contract levels, from $73.26 in 2006 to around $69 per hour. The new cost includes laborers' wages of $29.78 per hour, plus benefits, pensions and the cost of providing health care to more than 432,000 GM retirees, GM spokesman Tony Sapienza said.

http://boingboing.net/2008/12/09/char...

Petroleum companies aren't going tits up & looking for government bailouts. Petroleum companies are turning a profit unlike the automobile industry.

& this does not get your dander up? $40 an hour any way you cut it is a LOT of $$ for what they do. I do hope Ford wakes up & replaces these ingrates with people who actually WANT to work!

$40 hr with benefits is a very low ball offer, about $20 low compared to jobs around here (o/g, petro chem).

it's not $40 and hour and benefits. It's combined.

Well He77, I guess working in a air conditioned factory with machines that do the heavy lifting, even the not so heavy lifting, to place parts on a vehicle assembly line and the workers have to turn a few screws is to hard for $40 a hour and benefits.

I guess they will soon find everyone is replaceable. Fire them & go with non-union workers, there are plenty of trained bodies out there that would love a job.

Evolution is about adapting and changing, other wise the species dies. This is also true for economies and individual businesses. Unions and government prevent change and the result is inevitable - how stupid can they be ????

Now the attack goes on to Ford for not being guvmint motors type.

Stay strong Ford. The last strong American Motors.