The management, however, is ultimately responsible to the shareholders who actually own the company. Workers don't make decisions on cars to produce or how marketing will work.

I don't see any straws.  I am not defending management.  If you would actually look at the first parts of almost all these posts I admit they screwed up!  You're not listening.  Just as complicit as mangement has been, so is the union.  It's a bed that both made and will now wallow in.  Stop focusing on management for one whole second, well maybe a few more.  For a human being to believe they are entitled to receive compensation for not working is backwards and scores at the basic misunderstanding of how business works.  Management accepting these demands are even dumber.  I don't dodge that, but seriously as a person you can't expect something for nothing.  That's all I'm trying to say.

While you may wish this to be so, reality points out that most individuals know far too little about investing to make the amount of money they need in their investment portfolios to get them through retirement. This is a well known fact. This, however, isn't what we're discussing.

So what.  Why don't people take the time to give a shit about how they're going to live 50 years from now and stop bitching that they don't get it.  It's not that hard.  if people put their flippin machine down and step away from the box, they might have the time to care about their future.  The US doesn't save any money anyway, so what money are they going to fund ANY retirement with anyway?  Oh yeah that refi money will work.

Laughable. So, when workers make a good deal for themselves its called 'laziness' but when corporate exectuives get golden parachutes and immense pay packages unrelated to performance that's called 'the market'. How very Orwellian.

I never said a word about executive pay or "the market". If I did, please point it out since I'm not in that camp. Since you brought it up though, I'll speak on it.  For one I don't disagree with you here.  I'm a reasonable person and I enjoy playing moderator.  I negotiate for a living.  I'm not on the executive side per se, but I tend to look for discrepancies or anything that doesn't fit in an argument.  

Strictly speaking from an ECON POV....there is an upside to this fat pay packages and that is it increases competition beneath them for the job.  Corporate boards are the only ones who will change that and since they are populated by former execs, current ones, and generally those in power - the small shareholders have little say.  I suppose the gov't could step in, but check out this article from Tim Harford as to WHY they make so much more than you and I.

http://www.forbes.com/2006/05/20/executive-compensation-tournament_cx_th_06work_0523pay.html

I still blame management more than the unions. My father-in-law retired as a VP of CONOCO many years ago and we've discussed this several times. He worked in the coal side and came up with Consol (Consolidated Coal, which got bought out back then by CONOCO which then got bought out by Dupont - all of which is now ancient history from the early 1980s). Anyway, he pointed out that the coal companies bargained hard but he felt fairly with coal unions and the unions got good contracts but reasonable ones as well. In his opinion, the automotive companies just rolled over and gave the unions whatever they demanded and never said no. So I laugh when I see people trying to play the pity card for GM and Ford management. It doesn't wash. They could have stood fast against unreasonable demands but instead they gave into them so they wouldn't have to confront the unions and force the unions to really think about what was good for themselves and the company for whom they worked. And the net result is the pension/medical care mess we see today that is eating away at GM and Ford. GM's management took the easy way out in the 1960s and 1970s and figured someone else could deal with the subsequent problems. Well, those birds have come home to roost. And they are still management's birds.