UAW -- GM does not have enough problems?

I just thought that I would first show you a favored delicacy in Cambodia. Apparently, during the Pol Pot cultural genocide, the people that left the towns to hide in the hills really had nothing else to eat with any protein in it. So they took to deep frying the above.

From the Londont Times: The last correspondent we sent to try one described it thus: “The legs are the size and colour of a Cadbury chocolate finger, though if your chocolate finger was as hirsute as this, you’d definitely take it back to the shop. They’re cooked whole, which is particularly repellent – eyes, fangs, the lot. Pulling the legs off without squeezing the pus out of the abdomen is tricky.”

"Tastes like -- scrawny chicken wings coated in especially sweet plum sauce. With hairs on. There is some debate as to whether you should eat the abdomen. Some gourmets say it’s the sweetest part, with the texture of a soft goat’s eyeball and tasting just like cold duck." Vegetarianism looks good to me from here.

Oh, yes the UAW. For the first time since 1976, they have called out a full court strike on an auto company. At issue: retirement health benefits, job security, and allocation of vehicles to be produced here in the US. Even after the 30,000 or so lost jobs in the last three years, GM still struggles to make a profit -- they may be at break-even. Only the foreign companies are in the black. Why? Well, GM is a Pension Company that makes cars to fund its pension programs. The others make cars. One cannot blame the workers for trying to get some security, but the sad fact of this matter is that striking only increases the vulnerability of GM ... leading to less job security.

Business Week points out: GM wanted to hand the union responsibility of managing $52 billion in long-term medical liabilities in exchange for cash and assets equaling 50% to 60% of the liability. The UAW doesn't. They want 70% of the assets placed into a trust for the workers. GM pays $3.3 billion a year in union retiree medical costs. JPMorgan (JPM) analyst Himanshu Patel estimates GM would save $1.6 billion in cash expenses with a VEBA deal funded at 60% of the liabilities. The health-care trust would also wipe $52 billion in liabilities from GM's books. Assuming Ford Motor (F) and Chrysler get similar contracts, the UAW would become a huge provider of health-care benefits to some 1.5 million people. GM would like that, but control of the company would be where?

GM of North America loses money for every car produced. The strike loses GM $100 million a day. GM loses any which way. Understandably, the workers want to continue to build cars -- and receive the benefit packages that they have become entitled to. But a global car company looks at the numbers and sees clearly that either: (a) they make the cars in another country not burdened with the packages for labor existing in this country; or (b) they have to alter their packages here to be able to compete with the manufacturers with leaner labor practices. Nobody likes losing the employment package you have signed on for ... so they strike. Nobody wins.