The Conservative Cave
Current Events => The DUmpster => Topic started by: USA4ME on November 17, 2008, 06:15:13 PM
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Atman
I'm tired of hearing that Detroit only built crappy cars that no one bought.
I'm not a defender of GM or Ford. I owned a Ford Windstar which I literally had throw away after a few years because it was such a piece of crap. My GM S-10 truck was rugged, but it was heavy and sucked gas. We did buy our son a 2002 Saturn L200 which seems light years ahead of either the Windstar or the S-10 in terms of quality. We'll see how long it lasts, though. Now that I've made the disclaimers, on to my sub line...
It is disingenuous to say "no one wanted" or "no one bought" Detroit cars. That's crazy talk, often uttered by people whose last American car experience was a Chevy Monza or an AMC Pacer. To see who that "no one" is who isn't buying American cars, all one has to do is look out their car window next time they're out for a drive. You will have Fords, GM's and Chryslers in front of you, behind you, next to you. LOTS of people wanted them and bought them. LOTS of people bought other brands, too. Me among them.
But I think some people are really projecting with the whole "Crappy cars that no one wanted" meme. Even if you hate American cars, the fact is, millions and millions of people didn't hate them, wanted them, and bought them. In addition to millions of GMC trucks and construction equipment. Millions and millions of people bought them. The trouble wasn't the cars, per se, it was the HORRIBLE GM AND FORD MANAGEMENT. Their failure to push true innovation over gee-whiz gadgets like OnStar, which seems more like it was designed to help cash--flow by signing people up for monthly subscriptions, without really offering much to car owners, helped bring them to their knees.
Did GM and Ford really have 80mpg cars in 2000? Probably. And that's what I mean by poor management. The cars they WERE making may not have been you [sic] cup of tea,...which is why you purchased something different. But let's stop saying that "no one bought American cars." Just look around you.
Oh, btw...part of GM's financial trouble has nothing to do with their supposedly crappy cars...they also own DiTech, the cheesy online mortgage huckster of the Bush years. I wonder how that's working out for their bottom line? Again...more bad management, taking the eyes off their core business.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4473430&mesg_id=4473430
Pedro, as far as the "no one wanted" or "no one bought" comments at the DUmp, those are your little nimrod comrades, and no doubt they believe it. As for those who are normal, we fully recognize they're prone to exaggeration.
As to what management was producing at the Big 3, hind-sight is 20/20, at least to those of us who observe, a burden I would never place on you or your fellow idiots at DU. Your statement is essentially saying they intentionally committed suicide by promoting bells an whistles rather than substance, an accusation which is more accurately directed at liberalism as an ideology, but I digress. They evidently were doing something right, or at least enough for some people, otherwise the "millions and millions" of cars you claim "all one has to do is look out their car window" to see wouldn't be there. Given the scenerio you painted, what is occuring now should have happened to all of the Big 3 around 10 or 20 years ago.
Granted, the quality of work compared to foreign auto makers did take a dive around 25 years ago, and as a result they lost market share they never really recovered. Not out of lack of trying, or at least claiming they were trying. The "Quality is Job One" slogan comes to mind.
No, what really took them down are these stupid contracts they made with the unions. When the consumer is paying on average $1500 per new automobile that immediately goes to fund the worker's pension, that's a receipe for disaster. There's no way a company can compete when the other auto makers are only around the $200 level. For the same money, one could get a better product that was generally more reliable. And I'm not the only one who noticed this and felt this way about it, as evidenced by the Big 3 falling upon hard times due to lack of sales.
And your last paragraph; total non-sense. They also own GMAC Financing. Insurance companies take the premiums you pay and invest them in mortgage lending. Should insurance companies not loan money, too? So big companies like GM investing their profits into diverse enterprises in order to create additional income is nothing new.
If GM needed to retrench (get back to "core business"), they should have scaled back to just 3 divisions: Chevrolet could have handled all the small and mid-size autos and sports cars, GMAC could manufacture the trucks and SUV's, and Cadillac could build all the luxury autos. There, everyone's covered. Instead they had Chevy and Pontiac and Buick all building essentially the same cars with a few variations and slapping on their own label. Waste.
Now if you want to blame the current crisis on anyone and be accurate about it, blame your own liberal Dems in Congress who relaxed the lending practices of Fannie and Freddie that created this sub-prime mess, which in turn has caused a world-wide recession. I'm in the financial industry, I know exactly what caused it, as does Wall Street and all the major players, and they know it was the idiots lib Dems, and they're going to invest accordingly and with the proper precautions knowing that the very one's who caused the problem are now the foxes claiming to be guarding the hen house. You and your fellow Dems/libs may get away with your lies to the general public to some degree, but the people who *know* who the culprits are, the overwhelming majority of people with money and who don't believe your lies, aren't going to play along unless the upcoming administration does it according to *our* rules. Live and learn.
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I learned a few years back to only buy German cars.
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Oh my.
I've really got to haul out the boat and row over to Skins's island to see what the primitives, including El Stupido Supremo, are up to.
By the way, a tip: when copying and pasting El Stupido Supremo, if one's so inclined and has the time, one should insert the "[sic]" stuff into his grammatical and spelling errors.
I've been told this drives El Stupido Supremo nuts; into a frothing frenzy.
One of course doesn't have to do it if one doesn't care to, but it's always a great lot of fun to consternate El Stupido Supremo.
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How exactly is giving Ford, GM and Chrysler a shitload of money going to change the fact that people aren't buying their vehicles?
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The way American auto manufacturers have to do business due to ever present threats of union "STRIKES" by their suppliers and workers, it's a wonder they've lasted this long. They can't shut down and retool as fast as market conditions and buyers wants change. Now if they could operate like the Japs used to operate, with only a 30 minute supply of auto parts, they might could.
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The Koreans can build cars (and build them in the U.S.) and offer 5 year bumper to bumper and 10 year power train warranties, at a very reasonable price.
The U.S. big three cannot do this.
They got beat in the market, fair and square, and have nobody to blame but themselves.
Exactly and that blame is right at the CBA's they did
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The way American auto manufacturers have to do business due to ever present threats of union "STRIKES" by their suppliers and workers, it's a wonder they've lasted this long. They can't shut down and retool as fast as market conditions and buyers wants change. Now if they could operate like the Japs used to operate, with only a 30 minute supply of auto parts, they might could.
Having paint that literally peals off the car in a few thousand miles and then stiffing your customer with it doesn't help. Reputations are easy to lose and hard if ever possible to get back. The Detroit crew blew it.
We can blame the unions, and they certainly don't help. The automakers didn't have to sign those contracts. The automakers didn't have to design their products to fail to try to increase profits. The Unions won't let them retool.
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I learned a few years back to only buy German cars.
funny...after working on the damn things....I've learned NOT to buy German cars.
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I was a faithful American car buyer until I realized exactly how evil the UAW is.
Let's not forget that one major cause of the destruction of the American Auto industry is the choke hold that the UAW has. There are other reasons as well, but that has to be in the top three.
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I own a Chevrolet Tahoe Z-71 4WD. If GM folds? ****'em. Someone else will step up. We don't need to bail out f'n unions.
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funny...after working on the damn things....I've learned NOT to buy German cars.
My most recent is 8 years old and I've never had a single problem with it. I just do the required maintenance and no problems.
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The Big Three bailout is not about the companies but about keeping the three million UAW and associated unions in graf...business.
BTW my latest GM car, a Cadillac runs great...of course it was made in 1966.
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We can blame the unions, and they certainly don't help. The automakers didn't have to sign those contracts. The automakers didn't have to design their products to fail to try to increase profits. The Unions won't let them retool.
I kind of agree with that, but I do have to say the UAW was pretty successful in ensuring they really DIDN'T have a choice for many, many years. In the heyday of the Big Three, the UAW would target alternate ones of them every three years or so to flex their muscles and shut one of them down until they got everything they wanted in the model contract, and then demand the other Two do the same or face the same crippling strike. The UAW was in a monopoly position, but if the makers consulted each other on how to deal with it, they'd be looking at antitrust or union-busting prosecution/persecution by DOJ. It's easy to say they should have said "Screw you, even if you do break us we're not agreeing with that model contract," but their decision process was constrained by Government oversight, potential shareholder suits (and the union members held shares too), hard-to-recover loss of market share to the other two main players in a three-player game, and overwhelming political and press support for the union (still a problem, since as you can see today, NONE of the Dem politicians are willing to acknowledge any UAW role in creating the mess PERIOD).
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How exactly is giving Ford, GM and Chrysler a shitload of money going to change the fact that people aren't buying their vehicles?
I have checked into this and Michael Savage talked about this on his show yesterday. This is NOT a bailout to help the "Big Three" because of poor care sales. Their finances are in the shitter because they can't make the payments on the pension and health insurance guaranteed their retires. This is a big UNION support load of shit. If they do get the money their baseline will still be shitty because they will not sell more cars of it.
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Yes, there's a $2300 per car build in to every GM Car that the pension/health care program creates. Hell of a "nut" to overcome, when the competition has a cost aT ZERO.
However, the "loan" would do NOTHING to cure this ill. Only chapter 11 would cure it.
Actually, GM/Ford did and does build the cars the Americans want, it is just that we could not AFFORD them at $3.00 plus per gallon gasoline. But we, the public demanded SUV's and large sedans even after the squeeze was on with Gasoline prices. Now, were "gun shy", and want better mileage cars. If we could get a Cheve Sub'n that gets 40 mpg, we'd be in hog hewaven, but, it is not possible with the IC engines we use, even after 120 or so years of development.
Electrics? The Detroit electric of 1917 got up to 120 miles on a charge at 20 mph. The new pure electrics get 60 mph for FORTY MILES, then a 4 hour recharge! WOW, 40 minuites of use every four hours! Swell.
So, were stuck with the IC engine for a while longer.
Natural gas to liquid fuel until we find the answer.
Syntroleum is on the right track.
http://www.syntroleum.com/main.aspx
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I have checked into this and Michael Savage talked about this on his show yesterday. This is NOT a bailout to help the "Big Three" because of poor care sales. Their finances are in the shitter because they can't make the payments on the pension and health insurance guaranteed their retires. This is a big UNION support load of shit. If they do get the money their baseline will still be shitty because they will not sell more cars of it.
And therein lies the problem that nobody in either the Senate or the House will address next year. The unions will cause the Big 3 to go bankrupt, at least in the US--overseas, GM, Ford, and Chrysler are making money. That's where the Big 3 will be making their cars, as the UAW will drive the jobs overseas.
I want some Republican House or Senate member to have the balls to say the four cruelest words in the English language, then:
I told you so.