Big 3 auto industry: When is enough, enough?

both GM and Chrysler need to die. Ford isn't the greatest but they put out half-way decent vehicles.

Man, I totally also found this today and was coming to this thread to post it

heh, ya that was on digg today

Thank goodness. Let's hope it can be fended off long enough for the bankruptcies to begin. Once that happens the union's stranglehold days will be numbered.

looks like alot of people agree with you on this, North American markets all actaully closed up today.

I was listening to the radio at midnight yesterday when he said that quote, made my nervous for work today

I think your right though, in the end something or other will be pushed through for assistance.

It's funny how the people most against the bailout for domestic companies are the ones in the south with foreign auto plants in their states...

I think all the domestics have gotten a whole lot better in the past three to five years.

That being said I think the bailout is pretty fucking retarded, but necessary. The unions def. need to be toned down. There's no way that a guy working an assembly line has earned $72/hr worth of benefits.

PS- American trucks are top of the line. At least Ford's are. My 1990 Ranger has been going strong for 18 years now.

Where does it end? The end of capitalism is upon us.

If Chrysler, GM, and Ford are not able to compete with Toyota, Honda etc..... they should not get a check and a pat on the back. They should go bankrupt, bought out buy another company and that company will in turn revamp the quality. This is gonna be the same shit that doesn't work. I think GM has expanded it's empire way to far. How many companies do they really need? Ford does the same shit. They take the same car and patch a Mercury badge on it. GM does the same thing with Pontiac, the G6 and the Cobalt are the same damn thing. I just don't get it.

I never thought I'd see the day where I would defend the US car manufactures (anyone remember all my long winded rants in the "IMPORTS VS DOMESTICS !!!111" days of GG?) but to be fair, rebadging isn't something that just the America’s do. Honda does it to, the Acura CSX (don't think you guys get that one on the states) is simply just a highly optioned out honda civic.

Toyota does it with Lexus, the RX470(I think thats the model) is just a fancy land cruiser, Nissan does it alot with infinity.

It’s the North American way. The upper-class in North America are so snobbish and materialistic that they can’t be seen in the same “brand” as the rest of the us, even if that means driving the same car under a different name. In the rest of the world brands like Lexus don’t exist, in Japan everything is simply sold under Nissan, Honda and Toyota. Lexus and acura exist in the UK I’m pretty sure, but I believe infinity didn’t until recently.

Also, the bailout is not about giving money to them so that they can continue to produce shitty cars. Could that happen if they are given money? Maybe, but not likely, because its finally bit them in the ass,badly. Even the CEO’s of these companies are no readily admitting there failures and inability to keep up with there foreign counterparts. The idea of the bailout is to stabilize the economy and allow some of the largest contributors of both America an Canada’s GDP to stay American companies. producing better cars isn't really an option, its what they need to do if they want to continue operating.

Understand that the Gov makes income via taxes. The more money you make, the more they get to tax you and therefore they more they make. You can’t tax a robot who manufactures something because it doesn’t get paid. Sure they Gov still makes income off the company itself, but there’s a lot more to these decisions then the vaste majority of people realize or will probably ever understand.

On a related note, I think ford is taking steps in the right direction there “one ford” plan or whatever they call it should have been done 20 years ago. They are finally going to start producing ONE version of most of there cars for the entire world. Instead of have 10 different ford focuses that are being produced for different areas of the world, they will only build one.

In Europe ford is pretty well regarded, they have a much better image then they do over here, GM aswell, and they do sell far superior vehicles there, I can’t understand why they didn’t do this sooner.

But none of that changes that fact that in almost every category and price point there are better vehicles offered by other companies. Heavy trucks and SUVs are the only areas in which they are still competitive, and a lot of that has to do with the cost of shipping such heavy vehicles from overseas. And those are environmentally irresponsible to be used as commuter vehicles anyway. Bailing them out now will simply result in some cosmetic changes but ultimately keep these inefficient corrupt juggernauts lumbering along business as usual. This same thing happened in the late 70s / early 80s - the oil embargo put them into a tailspin and the government bailed them out. Here we go again. The antibiotics aren't working any more, time to amputate the rotten limb and be done with it.

I'm not necessarily saying that's wrong.

I like to try and stay optimistic since the potential for change really isn't that difficult, they have exactly what we need across the pond and I would love to see some of those vehicles come over, the unions have no options, they are just being stubborn and I think that will sort itself out in the near future..... but opinions are opinions and we are all entitled to have them, just make sure you understand exactly what the repercussions of that action would be.

The saying “be carful what you wish for” comes to mind for me when I read these threads.

Again, the wages are pretty similar between all the auto makers. The big difference is in legacy costs. The difference in average base wages is like $3 between foreign and domestic plant workers. And they are both below $30 an hour.

But that figure doesn't include benefits. Add in the benefit costs and you're soon approaching $70 an hour. Not counting all the overtime, or the union fat cats being paid to sit at home, etc. Romney had it right - $2,000 extra cost per every US vehicle related to the crooked unions.

That's a pretty cool graph. But in ever single category (not just legacy) the UAW slobs are making a significant amount more than their Japanese counterparts. In my opinion they should be paid based on the quality of their product, so even the new-and-improved Ford numbers don't go far enough.

UAW Members pay Taxes too!!!!

Bailout


ARE YOU LISTENING CONGRESS?
OH! Now I understand!!!
You think the Auto Industry is costing us too much?

Read this:
I hope the following 14 reasons are forwarded over and over again until they are read so many times that the reader gets sick of reading them. I also have included the URL's for verification of all the following facts.

Are we THAT stupid?
If this doesn't bother you then just delete the message. If, on the other hand, it does raise the hair on the back of your neck, I hope you forward it to every legal resident in the country including every elected representative in Washington , D.C. - five times a week for as long as it takes to restore some semblance of intelligence in our policies and enforcement thereof.

1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments.
Verify at: FAIR: Immigration and Welfare

2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.
Verify at: Center for Immigration Studies

3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.
Verify at: Center for Immigration Studies

4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English!
Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.html

5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.
Verify at CNN.com - Transcripts

6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.
Verify at: CNN.com - Transcripts

7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.
Verify at: CNN.com - Transcripts

8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers.
Verify at: http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html

9. $200 Billion dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens.
Verify at: CNN.com - Transcripts

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children, are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US .
Verify at: CNN.com - Transcripts

11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions o f pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border. < FONT face="Times New
Verify at: Homeland Security Report: http://tinyurl.com/t9sht

12. The National policy Institute, estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.'
Verify at: http://www.national policyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf</ A>
Wooldridge - How Much Further Into This Nightmare?

13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances to their countries of origin.
Verify at: >

14. 'The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One million sex crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States .'
Verify at: http: // www.drdsk.com/articleshtml

The total cost is a whopping $ 338.3 BILLION
SO 25 BILLION TO THE AUTO INDUSTRY TO KEEP LEGAL PEOPLE WORKING IS TOO MUCH??????

hmmm this is interesting

Why Asian automakers want a federal bailout of U.S. industry - Dec. 15, 2008

That is interesting. I liken it to a beauty queen wanting the ugly girls to stay in the pageant.

What I don't understand is how did such a huge industry get in so much trouble overnight? Shouldn't they have seen this comming and started to change their business model years ago?

YES.

None of this has happened overnight. The american auto industry has been spiraling towards this for the last three decades.

That is my point. If the management at these companies saw it comming how could they be so irresponsible to let it happen?

What a shit storm. Talk about a rock and a hard place. No bail out and unemployment could reach 12-15%. Bail out and the US nationalizes a big chunk of a major industry.