HeavyAaron

Well, that certainly seems a reasonable position. I wonder if you've ever met the guy who posted this: I just don't see how you can justify making both statements. They seem irreconcilable to me.

Look, I own a Navigator, a Flex, and well, a convertable Saab. I'm used to Towncars as well as Caddies. I like big cars byself. I wouldn't own a little thing either. I was just pointing out that it seems a little hypocritical to scream brand bias in one direction and at the same time be strict brand loyal yourself at the same time. Honda does build the Pilot, which is not a small car, btw. So, I guess a meanful question would become if Honda introduces a vehicle of the class you drive, would you consider it, or pass it by because of its nameplate?

While I agree that degree of brand loyalty is silly, I'm forced to laugh when it's posted here where most every poster seems to believe buying decisions SHOULD be heavily based on brand (including you.) Seems a rather hypocritical sentiment from someone who would NOT buy something simply because it's a Honda.

Here's some info on the silly dino + people footprint claim: http://www.skepticfiles.org/evolut/fooevo.htm

Getting rid of the word from usage for P.C. reasons is worse then pointless. The euphamistic replacements have problems... I should know. I was "Special Ed." and rode an uncommon bus, as it were. You see, I'm on the opposite tail of human intellect. I'm an actual genius and was a child prodigy. And so, I was seperated out from the mainstream educational system and put into a special education program. Calling the retarded students "special ed." has the perverse effect of lumping the super achivers in with the opposite group as one means to which to refer. We honestly laughed about this at the time, and I still find the notion humorous. law of unintended consequences...

"Slander: a malicious, false, and defamatory statement or report: a slander against his good name." http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/slander Yeah, that's a knee slapper... *scratches head*

I have never belittled you. And I have not retracted anything save the correction on SWA. I respect companies that fight cartels, sure. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. I'm sure they would love to get rid of any of their unionized labor if they could. As a person who works, sure. Surely you aren't claiming that only phyical labor counts as work? (unless you mean Work = Force * displacement... sorry physics joke) NO ONE, myself included, is entited to any degree of living standard. That's socialist nonsense. One's time is compensated at the going market rate, or at least it should be. I don't understand your assertion. I can't parse your sentence for sematic meaning. And I didn't need a list of unionized industries. I'm aware of them. False assertion. Now it's true that I believe that unions should be once again outlawed under the Sherman anti-trust law along with other forms of cartel price fixing as was once the case. And as a consequence any overpaid unionized employees would see a drop in pay, sure. Considering how personal you like to make things, and that you're willing to threaten others on this board with physical violence (say, like in this thread: http://www.blueovalforums.com/forums/index...32121&st=0) I think keeping my anonymity with you is wise. Your Christian virtues are perhaps suspect, so I don't trust you. False assertion. That would be one thing. But you keep slandering instead. That's something else. False assertion. That's a lot of assertions in one post you've made about me that just aren't true. Maybe you have a picture of who I am in your mind? I don't know. But in the future if you're going to assert that I take a particular position cite it or at least try to be accurate. I don't appreciate it when you assert that I state things that I don't. Look, I thought we went through this before. I'll try again. You obviously have a personal problem with me. I've never replied to you unless you first replied to me. And you LOVE to reply to me it seems, and make it personal. I don't know who you are and I don't want to. I don't mind a fair above board debate on issues. I don't try to make things personal. I don't take things personally. Let's try to both do better?

Well, the question was the "cost" not the nature. And like anything the "cost" of a bond is whatever the market says it is. Bonds are traded on the bond markets. As lfeg says, they are debt obligations. So the market evaluates what the obligation is (interest rate, payment schedule, time horizon, etc. that other people above have gone into in detail over), basically the terms of the coupons, and from whom the obligation is from. The greater the obligation the greater the value of the bond. And the greater the credit rating of the obligated party also the greater the value of the bond. Just like in the stock market you can be a day trader in the bond market. Prices fluctuate constantly as interest rates change and coorperate abilities to repay debts change. The WSJ publishes the current bond prices (munies as well as cooperate) in the same section as the stock prices for interested parties. Related to this is the commerical paper market, which is another way large coorperations borrow money. They are basically just IOUs without the legal standing and formality of the bonds and usually over much shorter time horizons.

I mean why care the degree of media coverage. Not the factual basis of the market share. Jeesh. It seemed like you were asking a leading question. Really I was getting to the point of why you were asking a leading question. What did you mean to imply with your question?

I would guess "yes," in that holy cow is the automotive industry getting a lot of media attention right now, every day there's more sources of news then the day before (think blogs), and everyone is sesitive to stories about the economy which drives up ratings about economy based news stories providing incentives for the media outlets to cover them. But exactly how are you planning on measuring that? And why do you care?

I've tried to put together the data required to perform the regression analysis. However, I cannot find a comprehensive database of comparitive unionization rates of the automotive firms. I don't want to use data from disparit sources since if they differed in their methods it would effect the results. If anyone has a suggested source, I would appreciate it. I'm always happy to put a hypothesis to the test.

Now I see exactly where you're getting your data. You're using "Net Profit Margin". Well, that's a very silly measure of "profitability". That's profit as a portion of revenue. Of course Walmart is going to be very, VERY, SUPER low by that measure. Their whole business plan is to operate on very low margins. What you want to look at instead is profit as a return on assets. I had assumed that you had cherry picked your end point as I knew that in over the past couple of years Walmart showed a positive where the S&P was negative. And over the past couple of decades, well, Walmart was a superstar. Well... looking at the proper data in your own citation, even for the 5 year period you chose (which is still the worse posible time frame for comparison for Walmart) Walmart still beats the S&P and slaughters the industry. It is a super profitable firm. I stand by my assertion.

I stand corrected. They are unionized. Thanks for the information. Their history looks to be a little different and the pilot's union is seperate from the other airlines, so I'll look into this further. I appreciate being corrected on this. I made no claims about percentages or situation post bankruptcy, only that K-Mart had unions prior to the bankruptcy, which is so. You've chery picked your end point... severely... using a shorter OR longer period Walmart beats the S&P (at least in the way I think you are comparing). That's academically dishonest. To wildly differing degrees, which I'm willing to wager correlate with current profitability (i.e. lower unionization = higher current profitability / lower net losses). Or do you doubt that?

*sigh* I didn't want to continue on this thread, but then you had to slander me with a false assertion. I can't let that stand lest someone believe it to be true. No, I don't just have a distain for domestic unions, or even unions in general. I very much dislike all cartels and monopolies because of the inherent inefficiencies they entail. That includes things like OPEC, DeBeers, domestic AND foreign unions, and even things like patents and copyrights. Domestic unions are actually a very minor piece to a much larger problem. Now patents and copyrights I understand we presently need. But it's my lifelong ambition to invent an efficient replacement incentive for innovation for the patent and copyright system that does not include the odious inefficiencies of cartels and monopolies. So perhaps you can see why I am pationate on the topic? And I'm not in the least bit centered on domestic unions. Nor am I biased against US auto manufactures as a customer or in any other manner. I'm not even sure how you'd arrive at such a notion. I tend to purchase Ford products, not because I'm biased TOWARDS Ford, either, but that I happen to like their products.

The fact that I command a sizable wage indicates that yes, in fact there is a great demand for my skill set, thank you. You can, after all have a higher wage by having in demand skills instead of using cartel union strong arm tactics. I know you have trouble believing that. And I understand "the real world" just fine. Thank you for your concern, but it is unwarrented. I've provided evidence... you've provided ramblings. I don't know what else you want. Not that it's any of your business... but no, my parents could not afford to send me to school. In fact I'm the first in the family line to earn degrees. My parents charged me rent as a teenager, actually, while I was attending high school. I saved up and bought a house at the age of 19 and paid my way through the first year of school until I got a better job that paid for the rest of my education. I did have a small physics scholarship as well. Now that you know that, what difference does it make? Again, not that it's any of your business, but I haven't yet been blessed with children. And why would I be worried that they are not moving back in? Had they existed wouldn't I be concerned if they needed to move back in? This will be my last reply on this tangent. I only bothered posting in this thread in that all of the companies listed as having gone into bankruptcy or not in their respective industries were unionized when bankrupt and not unionized when solvent. As an economist I consider that an eventuality. The free market acts like biological evolution with profit as the fitness function. And unions add a cost to operations lowering the fitness function. Thus those companies will eventually be selected for extention. But that's less obvious to some people so if the oppertunity presents itself pointing it out becomes a possible learning oppertunity. Of course some folks will never learn. For those I hold no hope.

*eye roll* Yeah, because unions are the only things keeping wages from "bare minimum." While employees underbid each other to compete for a position companies bid up wages to compete for employees. Where the bids match is the market clearing rate for wages. Or did you think that all of we non-union employees worked for minimum wage? Have you not noticed that over the past two generations that real wages (incomes adjusted for inflation) have soared while union membership has plummetted? Or that Right-to-Work states have had greater economic growth year over year with lower unemployment http://www.mackinac.org/article.aspx?ID=8951? Please... keep the melodramatic disutopian imaginations to yourself.

Which is the equivalent of saying "any unionized airline". The unionized airlines have all declared bankruptcy at one time or another, but SWA, non-unionized, even managed a profit fourth quarter 2001 (hard to believe, but true... rest of the airlines had to beg for a Federal bailout... sound familiar?). K-Mart, bankrupt - unionized. Walmart, super profitable - non-unionized. Crysler - unionized, bankrupt.... profitable auto manufactures - non-unionized. Hmmm... is there a disernable pattern?

Huh? Are you saying Hyundai's are more recall prone based on a single instance? That's a pretty silly extrapolation, wouldn't you say? What then would you extrapolate from the whole Ford / Firestone rollover mess (which was obviously far more serious) from a few years back? Or do you unneccessarily extrapolate only when it suits your personal biases?

Why the blanky-blank blank-blank on trying to figure out a scheme for "appropriate pay?" The US is, theoretically, a free-market. And as such, the labor market already has a mechanism for that. It's called the "pricing" system, for which in the labor market is called the "wage rate." For you folks you apparently skipped day 2 of high school micro economics it works like this: If the employer can't fill all of its open reqs it's not paying enough and needs to raise the offers. Conversely if it is getting too many qualified applicants for each open position it's over paying for the positions and needs to lower the pay. From the employee's perspective they need to consider the value of their time and desirability of different employment oppertunities. Which ever offers the highest return of utils (this is a fuzzy concept, but think about what makes you the most content or happy overall) on time investment is the one to take. We call this "supply and demand" (in the order I described them it's actually demand and supply) for labor. Of course unions screw this up as a form of cartel (like OPEC or DeBeers) as a monopoly for the firm's labor input and try to selfishly minipulate the market to get more then the market otherwise entitles them and this entails lots of inefficiencies. But we'll leave that lesson for day 4 of high school micro. Point being we already have a system for determining efficient compensation levels for labor. It's the market clearing level for the labor market. You need not spin your wheels trying to devise some elaborate system for that. (That's what the Polit-Bureau does in a communist system, after all.) We here know that the market figures that out all by itself.

If it makes you feel better on that particular degree I graduated with a 4.0 (for full disclosure, I do feel the grading scale was easier then in my other scientific degrees.) What scared me more is how low the bar was set on the tests for my pilot's license. :o (I aced those too... but certainly didn't have to.)

Gosh, I was specifically trying to avoid an economic discussion, but this one is too hard to get away from. Markets of fixed supply are most susceptable to bubbles. Real estate is the text book example, because, as you point out, it's so virtually fixed. In a bubble, by definition, prices start to climb because people assume that they'll be yet higher shortly (in a rate increasing faster than inflation.) This feeds on itself. That's all demand side stuff. But that's only half of any market. If prices are spiraling ever higher the market will yield increased supply. This suppresses the potential for exponiential price increases. But in a market like real estate, that's hard to do. Of course there's some things, like increased development both through sprawl and density. And of course such things were happening like mad. But construction takes time. On the converse, there could never be a bubble in say, the tennis shoe market... too easy to just make more if prices climb. Bubbles in the gold market?, sure, stocks?, yes... but harder, a subset of stocks?, easier. See? That's the short short version. The short, short, short version is that the fact that there's a fixed amount of land shouldn't make you more comfortable investing as an asset with regards to bubbles at least, but actually far more weary. Okay, I'll stop... or at least I'll try...

Yeah, obviously the whole situation was caused by economists... It had nothing to do with public policies running contrary to the advise of economists or "clever" accountants creating end-runs to muck up the modeling of economists (accounting and economics are VERY different disiplines, though often confused; so I'll give you a pass if that was your mistake), or agency problems (which is a core problem originally IDENTIFIED by economists decades ago), or a negative savings rate that we economists have been railing about... nope, none of that. It was our fault. Nice try at being insulting, but it didn't work. Don't you think it's a wee bit arrogant to think you'd understand a science better then some of the brightest minds studying it for the last couple hundred years? Seriously, what is your beef with me?

Please point to "a lot of posts" I've made that I've indicated that I would find a nationalistic ploy insulting. I'm fairly certainly I haven't made any such posts at all, and since I haven't made a lot of posts total, I think your statement is, well, nonsense. This isn't the place for a debate on economics, but if you'd like one I'm sure you'd find they aren't "my" ideas. I'm a degreed economist, well versed in modeling trade. Your assertions are simply false. I don't tell you how to build cars; so, unless you're prepared to actually debate the topic in an appropriate thread don't make false assertions telling me how to model economies. Thanks. Good grief... You seem to have an axe to grind. I'm not sure what you have against desk jobs, me, international trade, or whatever it is, but I'm not going let you make something personal out of something that isn't.

I agree whole heartedly. To sell things when communicating on your customers focus on your customer's needs/wants/perspective. Only bring up competitor products when needed, and really, just ignore their competitive position. (This does not apply if your customers happen to be executives of firms, but Ford's customers are by and large people off the street.) Here I disagree. Maybe that would work with some segment. But I think it'd primarily be the segment that would likely have Ford on their short list any way. Being a non-brand loyal car constumer (the catagory of person advertizing theoretically is geared to), I find such a nationalistic ploy quaint if not down right insulting; and if I'm typical of such non-brand loyal car custumers, that wouldn't play well.

Maybe he meant those that are on the sides of the road would be quickly striped of their parts since parts would be harder to come by, thus answering both of your objections.