The Big Three auto makers fought fuel efficiency standards for years and pushed big SUVs and trucks, and now they are going down.

The Associated Press: Bleeding cash, Ford looks to Europe for help

Are you old enough to remember the 70's?

American's - we never learn.

Let's see....an unpopular war, an oil crisis, inflation, rising interest rates..........IT'S 1974 ALL OVER AGAIN!!!

Ahh yes, and Unions demanding 27 dollars an hour for janitors, and Double time Saturdays even when overtime is not needed had nothing to do with it right.

As far as the trucks and SUV's, they were simply making what Americans wanted. Where they failed was in not seeing that Gas was going to sky rocket like it has in the last few years, That I'll give ya.

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Charles_Main

"Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct."
Thomas Jefferson

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition."
Thomas Jefferson

Ask yourself how much more was paid in golden parachutes than in union benefits.

The car companies refused to try to compete..... H3, my butt....

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"Trust none of what you hear And less of what you see" Springsteen

When the Founding Fathers protected our right to free speech, I think that meant we were supposed to use it.

Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was the world's most unhinged lunatic. He's now dead. So that moves Ann Coulter up to first place - David Letterman

O, when she is angry she is keen and shrewd; / She was a vixen when she went to school, / And though she be but little, she is fierce. — Shakespeare

51 days left http://www.backwardsbush.com/

I just read a story in the Detroit Free press which says that for every dollar GM makes it spends 50 cents on paying the pensions and Health care costs of retired workers. Clearly that has some effect on how bad they are doing.

Look I am not saying the Big 3 are not at fault, I am just saying there is plenty of blame to go around.

I get tired of people like Kirk that think things are so simple. He acts like the Big 3 are the only ones to blame in this mess. When I see there is much more to it than that.

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Charles_Main

"Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct."
Thomas Jefferson

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition."
Thomas Jefferson

Ignore him--he's a partisan hack who won't look at the big picture.

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"Some men eventually stumble over the truth but they usually pick themselves up and walk on as if nothing ever happened."
-Winston Churchill

"But though there is no difference in this respect between the best demagogue and the worst, both of them having to present their cases equally in terms of melodrama, there is all the difference in the world between the statesman who is humbugging the people into allowing him to do the will of God, in whatever disguise it may come to him, and one who is humbugging them into furthering his personal ambition and the commercial interests of the plutocrats who own the newspapers and support him on reciprocal terms."
-George Bernard Shaw

The Big 3 realized there was more profit in trucks and SUVs than cars, so they started pushing them in their ads. Then they got their lobbyists in Congress to influence the pols to drop fuel efficiency standards. Toyota, on the other hand, was thinking ahead and developing hybrids and being successful using the same American workers.

Not arguing with that kirk, I am simply saying that there is more to it than that. What I see as out of control unrealistic union demands plays a role to if you ask me. If you can not see that 50 cents of every dollar GM makes going out to pay Pensions and Health care of retired workers is part of their problem as well, I can't help you.

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Charles_Main

"Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct."
Thomas Jefferson

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition."
Thomas Jefferson

The big picture?

You mean how the big oil and auto companies ignored the larger and larger share of our oil that was coming from foreign countries threatening to turn us into a third world nation?

I believe we were discussing the Car companies, not the Oil companies. Do try and keep up.

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Charles_Main

"Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct."
Thomas Jefferson

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition."
Thomas Jefferson

The unions have nothing to do with the rise in the price of oil, and the fact that the Big 3 ignored fuel efficiency while other manufacturers like Toyota and Honda kept developing fuel efficient cars for the American market.

like duh, no shit, but the title of your thread says the Big 3 screwed themselves and us. I was talking about them, how they are screwed, and losing money like mad. That is because of more than just their unwise decisions. IMO

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Charles_Main

"Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct."
Thomas Jefferson

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition."
Thomas Jefferson

No, we were discussing "the big picture."

Read the post I responded to.

These nuts don't want to hear economic facts about union and retiree benefits.....they want to hear about those big old evil CEO's and their benefits....
The leftists have them believing that GM and FORD exist for the benefit of the workers and have no other moral purpose....

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The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.'
"I think that I stand by the statement," Biden (the smartest of the two)