Big 3 auto industry: When is enough, enough?

In summary: unions used to be a good thing to defend the workers from the big evil corporations. Now they themselves have become big evil corporations that exploit the workers, businesses, and consumers.

Speak of the devil, Time is running this article about this very topic:

Is General Motors Worth Saving? - TIME

We’ve all been watching it get to this point over the last what, 20 years? I can’t say I’m really surprised. I must admit, over the last years the big 3 have come a long way in improving the quality of their cars, but its way to little way to late, and even know there still not producing the caliber of cars the Japanese have been making over the last 20 years, I can’t say I expected to see them crumble as quickly as they have though, another sign of how bad things really are right now economically.

As a car enthusiast, I almost feel vindicated seeing this finally happen after watching most of the people I know drive around in sub standard American cars that were riddled with problems most of my life, but its happening at a very bad time. Regardless of what happens, even if they Gov steps in this is going to have a significant impact on the US and especially Canada. GM employs a huge number of employee’s in North America, there are city(like Oshawa) in Canada that exist almost sole due to vehicle manufacturing plants. Think of the impact this will have, not only for employee’s of the company, but think of the spiral effect, the manufactures of parts, the distributors, all the other stores and restaurants that exist, if the big 3 where to dissolve completely(this would never happen) the jobless rate in Canada and the US would go up close to nearly 50% from where its at right now.

I can’t say I’m sympathetic for someone who was making close to what a GP doctor makes after over time who bolts doors on to a POS cobalt on an assembly line, but the effects of all these people losing there jobs is bad news for our economies. The Gov make’s a lot of income via taxes of these people, and taxes it makes off the big 3, and these are jobs that are being lost to other countries in some cases, or at the very least to companies that employee less works, who are paid much more reasonable wages(but this means less for the Gov.) and who are sending money to other economies.

You can’t really blame the consumer. I own two Toyota’s, and at this point in time I can’t see any reason to by anything other then a Toyota or a Honda(sports car’s excluded) but it would have certainly been for the best, economically speaking if we were supporting things produced by our own companies.

The Big 3 did this to themselves, and they have nowhere to point the blame, all we can really do is sit back and see what happens, We’ve been living in a broken economic system for close to the last 60 years, hell probably longer.

does anyone know why GM and ford don't simply start selling the European lines of cars here immediately? they need smaller, lighter, better built cars, that are gas efficient, and more diesels.... they already have these exact cars in Europe, no R/D req... yet they continue to spoon feed us the shit they sell here and all there executives are scratching there heads in the boardrooms wondering what they should be doing.

What good is bailing them out if no one is really buying their cars to begin now though. I think consumers are backlashing at them now. There's a lot of people (check out the anandtech forums) that swear Ford and GM are on par or above the quality of Honda and Toyota and I still believe that is bull.

more importantly then resale, find me any unbiased enthusiast/mechanic who will tell you that an America economy car, full size or compact is on par to a Japanese equivalent. You won't find one, the Japanese did, and have been building a better car.

as I said, the last few years the big 3 have pulled up there socks abit in some regards, but they're alot of room that needs to be made, and clearly not enought time and money.

They've have positioned themselves horribly. Sure the Japanese car has always been more expensive, but people now associate them with a better vehicle and better gas mileage, and are willing to pay the premium. If someone wants something new and decent on gas and wants it as cheap as possible they generally go Korean because they are even cheaper, and have decent reliably records over the last few years. So that leaves GM somewhere in the middle, they basically have no target market right now, the only ones that are selling are the used one because of how much the resale value is down(that doesn't exactly help their image either)


GM and Ford's trucks have always been there bread and butter in Canada. They are certainly better built then alot of their cars have been. With that said, its only been very recently that they have any any competition at all in the large truck category from anyone, the Japanese have basically surpassed them in everything else, I don’t know see why they won’t be able to do it with large trucks. The new tundra is a good truck and they’re only going to improve. The 4 runner and Tacoma have been around a good 20 years now and are staples around the world, the Japanese know how to build a solid truck, the land cruiser is world famous as is the Taco/4runner/hilux, the Japanese have just never stepped into the larger truck game.

I’ve got nothing but good to say about my Hilux.

the point(unbiasedly as possible) is to give them money so they can eccentrically hold out long enough to get their shit together and become a profitable company again. its the "to big to fall" argument again. Their stance is that allowing them to fail would have a huge negative effect and spiral effect on our economy's and so they should be given money so that doesn't happen, or can happen as painlessly as possible.

On bill Maher show some one said some thing very interesting. They said that Oil industry should be the one to bail out the Big 3 auto industry. Not the tax payers. To me that seem like a pretty good idea if only GOVT can force Oil industries to cough up few billion $$$.

well like I said, the idea is to give them money so they can continue to operate and employee and contributed to an allready hurting economy well they fix themselves.

its a loosing situation any way you play it.

I don't know that they should be looked at as a tumor on the American economy, that would depict it as if they rest of your economy is sound and the big 3 are dragging it down. We are seeing the fallout of the once Iconic American automotive industry, its a mirror to exactly what is happening to america.

60 years ago "Made in America" was a stamp representing the utmost quality. What does it mean today?

Most of the parts that the big 3 use are from China and India I believe anyways. I talked to my dad's friend who's a mechanic. He says that American cars keep him in business. The amount of issues that American cars have is ridiculous compared to Japanese cars.

Once the American manufacturers start to go out of business won't the Asian and European car makers come in to fill the void? It would be a smart business move to take advantage of the skilled workers and manufacturing sites that exist here.

That was one thing I liked about Mitt even if he wore Mormon pants. He is very business oriented.

Romney is dead on. We need to let them figure this shit out on their own once and for all. The unions have to be broken.

Epic Failure! Big 3 go home empty handed!!!

And they completely deserve it! They fucked themselves over, now let them live with it!

Lawmakers Send Big Three Back Home Empty-Handed - WSJ.com

Who agrees with me?

~Will Courtier~

big 3 starting to get it?

Ford Will Speed Green-Car Launches - WSJ.com

thoughts? i admire that the CEOs will take a massive pay cut and spend more on economy vehicles but only if we bail them out. it's just too little too late in my eyes.