Automakers

[moostraks]

Plus if they went bankrupt, all the people in the United States who "buy American" would end up with higher quality and cheaper foreign makes. It really is a win for the consumer. The bad thing though, is that we will lose a lot of jobs. But if I made a crappy product, I wouldn't expect to have a high paying job for very long.

A real win for the consumer? Your apathy towards pride in American made products merely looking at the bottem line purchase price is what is wrong with our society. Free trade agreements and national sovereignty be damn! Think you will end up with a better product from a foreign country when they face no competition? I am now sure some here have learned nothing from what Walmart has taught us.

Then the gripping begins because a large tax base goes belly up while your money is used in a foreign nation supporting their manufacturing community. Buy local or everyone suffers. Rooting for foreign companies and cheering the demise of local manufacturing is self abusive.

That said, the big 3 need some real re-organization and accountabilty. I am not for bailouts of any private industry. They caught wind of how banks manipulated the system and they are willing to call governments bluff on allowing them to fail. Pigs at a trough and its shameful. Sadly the american worker is the one screwed here and many communities will be destroyed by this sector of business going under.

Anyone who glories in this deserves the same fate to happen to their chosen (or not so chosen) field of employment. Very few businesses are run nowadays by sound principals of saving and investment towards the future. So anyone here employed could very well find themselves in this position unless they are self-employed and masters of their own fate. Even then when other businesses fail and disposable incomes dry up, everyone suffers.

 

[acptulsa]

Blaming either the UAW or the management alone is a mistake. Blaming either the industry or the government alone is a mistake as well. A GM president allegedly made the comment years ago that 'we're in the business to make money, not cars'. It could be untrue, but the fact that so many people believed it and spread it around indicates the truth of the sentiment, spoken or not.

In the days of Alfred P. Sloan and Walter P. Chrysler car companies would go a long way out of their ways to get serious people. In the days before the Big Three used their Cold War contracts to subsidize their price war and killed the independents (Packard, Hudson and Nash in particular built some very fine cars, and Willys built compacts long before any American ever considered for a second buying a Japanese car) they had no choice but to spend their profits on development and place more value on talent than nepotism. It isn't that they've never had subsidization. It's that they used it for things other than product improvement.

After they killed the independents, they got fat and lazy. Since the Japanese showed up to kick their asses, they haven't been able to get back in shape. And it doesn't look like they ever will. In the meantime, Tesla Motors is proof positive of what American free enterprise can accomplish with enough financing behind it. If our car market weren't so heavily regulated that startups either have to have a whole mint behind them or stick to three wheelers to avoid even being considered a carmaker (as opposed to a motorcycle manufacturer) by the government, we could still be the world's champion carmaking nation today.

 

[jpwilhelm]

I am a devoted Ford owner. The Fusion rides like crap. The Flex is really popular in these parts, and if I were rich I would buy one. I think they're pretty cool, but I am not a gadget kind of woman, and the refrigerated storage compartments make me roll my eyes.

I see you live in metro Detroit, I would bet the bank all of the Flex cars you see got the because they work for Ford or family does. Ford is almost giving them away up here in metro Detroit because the can't sell them to the rest of America.
My brother in law that works at Ford HQ in Dearborn said even the employees don't want them but they are not doing deals on the other cars anymore.

I'd like to see tariffs on imports and even foreign cars manufactured here to compensate.

Why should people be forced to buy junk they don't want? You are very biased being from the Detroit area to say that. There is a lot of people in America that work at Toyota, Nissan, Honda, BMW plants. This is just the backwards Detroit thinking that I deal with every day.
If the big three made a car I liked I would drive it, but they don't. Obviously that is what everyone else thinks too, and is why the big 3 are failing.

 

[seapilot]

Big 3 want 50 billion bailout

Ford, GM and Chrysler want another handout from taxpayers. I drive a ford and like it, but if Ford gets a handout I will be buying a foriegn companies car (made in USA toyota) that is not begging for bailouts. Time to let free markets work, either the big three get inovative or they will become the tiny or non existant 3.

Next on the list for bailouts: Airlines, homeowners, retail stores, Las vegas casinos, insurance companies, santa claus and wal mart.

 

[angelatc]

I see you live in metro Detroit, I would bet the bank all of the Flex cars you see got the because they work for Ford or family does. Ford is almost giving them away up here in metro Detroit because the can't sell them to the rest of America. My brother in law that works at Ford HQ in Dearborn said even the employees don't want them but they are not doing deals on the other cars anymore.

Yes you are probably right. I did not know they were selling so poorly, but I looked up what you wrote earlier.

Why should people be forced to buy junk they don't want? You are very biased being from the Detroit area to say that. There is a lot of people in America that work at Toyota, Nissan, Honda, BMW plants. This is just the backwards Detroit thinking that I deal with every day.
If the big three made a car I liked I would drive it, but they don't. Obviously that is what everyone else thinks too, and is why the big 3 are failing.

I don't think I am biased by geography. We just moved to Michigan a couple of months ago, so I don't have any friends or family that are directly dependent on the automotive industry.

Again - you guys act like the Japanese automakers aren't subsidizing their auto industry. The bastards killed our steel industry doing almost the same damned thing, and now you're all cheering them on to doing the same thing to the auto manufacturers.Make no mistake, when the cars stop being manufactured here, the engineering careers will go with them.

This is where fair trade fails - driving your opposition out of business by any means possible is always the best strategy.

 

[OKRonPaul]

Tesla Motors is proof positive of what American free enterprise can accomplish with enough financing behind it. If our car market weren't so heavily regulated that startups either have to have a whole mint behind them or stick to three wheelers to avoid even being considered a carmaker (as opposed to a motorcycle manufacturer) by the government, we could still be the world's champion carmaking nation today.

Tesla has lots of it's own problems, I'm not sure they have proven anything just yet. They have recently laid of about 1/3rd of their employees, and nearly ran out of cash after initially failing to raise more. They have really struggled to meet any of their production timelines or numbers and are losing money on every car they sell. In a lot of ways they have more in common with the failed internet startups of the late 90's. They did just get another 50mil in financing, it'll be interesting to see if they can turn a profit before it runs out.

 

[Dr.3D]

I keep hearing the phrase, "it's time to let free markets work" but the people saying it don't seem to understand, free markets have not been in effect for a long long time. The so called free trade has killed that concept. Now it is cheaper to send all of our manufacturing overseas.

Will people remember who was making the bombers and tanks in the last world war? For those who don't remember, it was the U.S. Automobile manufacturers. I suppose those who don't want the U.S. to have any industry would like to see what would happen if we had another world war and couldn't make anything to fight that war. Sure, we can buy all the stuff we need from some country overseas. (probably the enemy)

 

[moostraks]

I keep hearing the phrase, "it's time to let free markets work" but the people saying it don't seem to understand, free markets have not been in effect for a long long time. The so called free trade has killed that concept. Now it is cheaper to send all of our manufacturing overseas.

People want to think that you can just chant this and selectively enforce it and will all work out in the end. The lack of critical thinking on this issue is overwhelming!!!

 

[seapilot]

I keep hearing the phrase, "it's time to let free markets work" but the people saying it don't seem to understand, free markets have not been in effect for a long long time. The so called free trade has killed that concept. Now it is cheaper to send all of our manufacturing overseas.

Will people remember who was making the bombers and tanks in the last world war? For those who don't remember, it was the U.S. Automobile manufacturers. I suppose those who don't want the U.S. to have any industry would like to see what would happen if we had another world war and couldn't make anything to fight that war. Sure, we can buy all the stuff we need from some country overseas. (probably the enemy)

Dont worry about the auto manufactuers needed for making military equipment. We already have puhlenty here...

1. Lockheed Martin Corp.: $17 billion
2. Boeing Co.: $16.6 billion
3. Northrop Grumman Co.: $8.7 billion
4. Raytheon: $7.0 billion
5. General Dynamics Co.: $7.0 billion
6. United Technologies Co.: $3.6 billion
7. Science Applications International: $2.1 billion
8. TRW Inc.: $2.0 billion
9. Health Net, Inc.: $1.7 billion
10. L-3 Communications Holding, Inc.: $1.7 billion

 

[Dr.3D]

Dont worry about the auto manufactuers needed for making military equipment. We already have puhlenty here...

1. Lockheed Martin Corp.: $17 billion
2. Boeing Co.: $16.6 billion
3. Northrop Grumman Co.: $8.7 billion
4. Raytheon: $7.0 billion
5. General Dynamics Co.: $7.0 billion
6. United Technologies Co.: $3.6 billion
7. Science Applications International: $2.1 billion
8. TRW Inc.: $2.0 billion
9. Health Net, Inc.: $1.7 billion
10. L-3 Communications Holding, Inc.: $1.7 billion

All of those places don't have the capacity to build in mass as would be needed in a major war.
In the last major war, the automobile factories were able to be retooled to build the large numbers of equipment needed to support the troops.

If we don't have factories to be retooled, then it would not be possible to suddenly increase production of equipment as was done before.