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Old June 14th 05, 04:11 PM
Ad absurdum per aspera
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> It's a fact that GM has higher costs per unit than
> their foreign competition due to pension,
> healthcare etc.


All I know about pension obligations and corporate management or
mismanagement of them is that even attempting to get at the truth of
what's in there amounts to a full employment program and an artesian
well of frequent-flyer miles for bored MBAs looking for a consulting
gig on the side, so I'll let that one alone.

I suspect that GM's much talked about healthcare costs are

(a) true of other large American manufacturers similarly affected by
demographics; and
(b) a symptom of an approach to healthcare that is pretty
comprehensively broken.

That latter aspect is interesting because it makes comparison to
foreign competition complicated if not outright absurd.

You have to look at all the holdings of all the foreign and
multinational competitors and figure out which parts have more or less
full-ride socialized healthcare systems (most of the First World ones
beyond the US, for sure), and which offer next to nothing except on a
fee-for-service basis to the wealthy, and which are somewhere in
between; and what if anything the competitor does to supplement this in
each case.

Then to be fair you have to do the same thing for the foreign plants,
joint ventures, and offshored vendors of the American corporation.

Then, after a great deal of legwork maybe you're *only* comparing
apples to oranges.

Oh, yes, and start with getting both sides and a third-party analysis
on every number provided by anybody with a vested interest.

Cheers,
--Joe

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