"Your initial statement on vacations is nothing more than a straw man."

- i'll explain straw man to you again: if i replied to your assertion that american labour costs more by saying that your assertion was based on your hatred of the working middle class american, that would be a distortion of what YOU said...if i say that germans get more vacations and are paid a higher wage, it's not a distortion of anything you said


"Now, how does that prove that GM has drastically reduced labor input costs?"

- the link didn't work so you didn't see the entire article...the 16,000 workers who are on the new low pay are the ones who are currently working at GM and are immediately eligible...65% of unionized employes at GM are eligible for retirement now, and 75% will be eligible by 2011...GM will be handing out incentives to encourage retirement, and significantly reduce it's average labour cost over the next few years:
Financial > 2007 GM ΓΆβ?¬β?? UAW Labor Agreement - The Automotive Lyceum





"What that illustrates is that GM would have not been able to survive another 6 months unless UAW contracts were renegotiated."

- the contracts were renegotiated and gm might not survive another six months anyway



"You went right on to build a straw man by replying:
Quote:
if unions are the underlying problem of the US auto industry, then why are germany's automakers so successful? they have stronger unions, higher wages, longer vacations, and funny accents! "

- that's not a straw man at all because it doesn't distort your assertion...you say unions are the underlying problem of the auto industry but unions don't make decisions about what cars to build...the underlying problem with the US auto industry is bad management