Rumors In the Car Business

Seriously sealy, the absolute best thing for Detroit and the Big three IMHO that coould ever happen would be for them to go Chapter 11. While some in the UAW would likely have a fit over this, what would you rather have? 100% of the people working at 85% of the wage or 50% of the people working at 100% of the wage? The bottom line is that it's not the UAW's fault totally for all this, in the end it's the companies for entering into these agreements year after year with them. In short, it's rather two faced for a company to complain about high labor cost due to Unions when they are the ones approving the wage benefits. However, if the Unions really want to survive all this , then it's not very realistic to keep the view that companies like Toyota and Honda and others are unfair when GM, Ford, and Chrysler do the very same things they do. If I were a Union member and my pension was on the line, I would rather have the government take it over in Chapter 11, and give the company some breathing room in order to secure my job.

They're already buying people out and getting leaner. The new hires aren't getting the same deals as the old timers got.

No, pay my dad his benefits that he was promised.

Or, go take half the CEO's $10 million he made last year away from him. Take $5 million from that one guy.

Why not? Why you gonna take from my dad but not the CEO?

And the Big three could be profitable with better leadership/management.

Are they making a car people want? Are they making a car that's better than Toyota/Honda? Then fire their asses!!!!!

They are not guaranteed a job either you know.

Your argument about 100% at 85% or 50% at whatever is crap! That's what they've been arguing for 8 years now. It is not necessary to lay off all these people. It is not a must that we send jobs overseas. It is only NECESSARY because they say it is.

Pay the old timers what they were promised, do not go bankrupt, do not put that on tax payers.

I can not believe people like you sat by and watched corporations all across America for 8 years renig on their pensions. And you let people like Ken Lay walk with millions. Suckers.

And if new Ford employees can only make $15hr, then good luck America. Good luck economy. That may be ok in the dirty south, but not up north.

I say we kick Toyota and Honda out of our country and end any tax breaks for companies doing business overseas. We'll give you tax breaks for employing Americans, at decent wages.

I think there is so much they aren't telling us or that we haven't figured out yet. Half of what you guys are saying makes sense but half of it is bullshit "the man" is telling us.

Free trade that is unfair doesn't have the be. We can fix it. Yes We Can!
 
They're already buying people out and getting leaner. The new hires aren't getting the same deals as the old timers got.

No, pay my dad his benefits that he was promised.

Or, go take half the CEO's $10 million he made last year away from him. Take $5 million from that one guy.

Oops, sorry that's $28M not $10M, he only recieved about $8M in taxable income BTW.
 
They're already buying people out and getting leaner. The new hires aren't getting the same deals as the old timers got.

No, pay my dad his benefits that he was promised.

Or, go take half the CEO's $10 million he made last year away from him. Take $5 million from that one guy.

Why not? Why you gonna take from my dad but not the CEO?

And the Big three could be profitable with better leadership/management.

Are they making a car people want? Are they making a car that's better than Toyota/Honda? Then fire their asses!!!!!

They are not guaranteed a job either you know.




Your argument about 100% at 85% or 50% at whatever is crap! That's what they've been arguing for 8 years now. It is not necessary to lay off all these people. It is not a must that we send jobs overseas. It is only NECESSARY because they say it is.

Pay the old timers what they were promised, do not go bankrupt, do not put that on tax payers.

I can not believe people like you sat by and watched corporations all across America for 8 years renig on their pensions. And you let people like Ken Lay walk with millions. Suckers.

And if new Ford employees can only make $15hr, then good luck America. Good luck economy. That may be ok in the dirty south, but not up north.

I say we kick Toyota and Honda out of our country and end any tax breaks for companies doing business overseas. We'll give you tax breaks for employing Americans, at decent wages.

I think there is so much they aren't telling us or that we haven't figured out yet. Half of what you guys are saying makes sense but half of it is bullshit "the man" is telling us.

Free trade that is unfair doesn't have the be. We can fix it. Yes We Can!

sealy, Toyota and Honda I'm sorry to inform you as well as Kia and others employ tens of thousands of people in this country and do so with benefits and labor costs well below the Big three. You may as well get used to Toyota and Honda and others , as they are building a LOT more plants in this country recently than the Big three are. So to call for Toyota and Honda to leave the country is not going to employ one more person in the UAW nor is going to address the issue of high health care and labor costs at the Big three or the shoddy product they produce. How many times has the management changed hands recently at Chrysler? and how much of a change have you seen there? The fact is the only American car company that comes anywhere near building a product that can compete with Toyota and Honda is Ford and even then the Ford Product line is to vast and not focused to compete due to costs the market simply not liking the product. I think it's a good thing that new hires don't get the same deal as the old timers , but what you don't seem to understand is that if these companies go Chapter 11 it's not the end of the world nor is it even the end of the old timers pensions. The other thing here you need to understand here is that Americans build Toyotas, Hondas , Kia's and guess what GM's are built in Mexico , Brazil etc etc. So to simply equaite one company as an overseas product and another as not is simply not true. You want the big three to survive it's very simple. Trim the product line to focus on products that meet market demand, lower labor costs, and focus on new technology. So how do you trim product lines., thats easy dump the massive number of offered cars and trucks you build and focus on a few. Trim labor cost, means to sit down with labor and come up with a new contract, barring that move your operations to "right to work states" or offshore, barring that Chapter 11, Focusing on new technology means just that , plug-in hybrids, electrics , FCV'c etc. which all of the BIG three are way behind on.
 
sealy, Toyota and Honda I'm sorry to inform you as well as Kia and others employ tens of thousands of people in this country and do so with benefits and labor costs well below the Big three. You may as well get used to Toyota and Honda and others , as they are building a LOT more plants in this country recently than the Big three are. So to call for Toyota and Honda to leave the country is not going to employ one more person in the UAW nor is going to address the issue of high health care and labor costs at the Big three or the shoddy product they produce. How many times has the management changed hands recently at Chrysler? and how much of a change have you seen there? The fact is the only American car company that comes anywhere near building a product that can compete with Toyota and Honda is Ford and even then the Ford Product line is to vast and not focused to compete due to costs the market simply not liking the product. I think it's a good thing that new hires don't get the same deal as the old timers , but what you don't seem to understand is that if these companies go Chapter 11 it's not the end of the world nor is it even the end of the old timers pensions. The other thing here you need to understand here is that Americans build Toyotas, Hondas , Kia's and guess what GM's are built in Mexico , Brazil etc etc. So to simply equaite one company as an overseas product and another as not is simply not true. You want the big three to survive it's very simple. Trim the product line to focus on products that meet market demand, lower labor costs, and focus on new technology. So how do you trim product lines., thats easy dump the massive number of offered cars and trucks you build and focus on a few. Trim labor cost, means to sit down with labor and come up with a new contract, barring that move your operations to "right to work states" or offshore, barring that Chapter 11, Focusing on new technology means just that , plug-in hybrids, electrics , FCV'c etc. which all of the BIG three are way behind on.

Then they better get used to taking more of our exports. And they may hire $15 line workers, but their engineers and CEO's are all overseas.

And I do understand that Toyota's are built down south and Ford are built in Mexico. That's all lowering our wages. What do you do and what state do you live in?
 
Then they better get used to taking more of our exports. And they may hire $15 line workers, but their engineers and CEO's are all overseas.

And I do understand that Toyota's are built down south and Ford are built in Mexico. That's all lowering our wages. What do you do and what state do you live in?

Most of Toyota and Honda’s design and engineering group is based out of California because most of the cars they produce here are US only products. Exporting cars is tricky because one needs to design cars that will fit the importer’s taste and because the US market is so large and unique it’s hard to build a “world car”. Example, how many Ford Contours are available at your local Ford dealership? Or just drive a Honda Accord in Japan, it’s a very different car than that manufactured and sold in the US.

America would need to produce a car that other people would want to buy, we can’t force our Focuses down their throats (yes there are focuses in Europe, but they are built off a different platform). We do export “niche” vehicles, but not a lot of Swedes (for example) want to buy Ford Taurus’s with Automatic Transmissions (manuals are a must for the Export market) that have 260+ HP and only get 21 MPG when gas costs $8.00 per gallon. Over and over the big three have found that they can make cars that Americans like or Foreigners like, but not both.
 
So is it true that foreign label cars made in the US are done without Union labor that saddles GM and Ford? Is it possible that the unions could be responsible for the lack of profitability?
 
Then they better get used to taking more of our exports. And they may hire $15 line workers, but their engineers and CEO's are all overseas.

And I do understand that Toyota's are built down south and Ford are built in Mexico. That's all lowering our wages. What do you do and what state do you live in?

You know sealy, in some states as a starting wage 15.00 dollars and hour is a good wage based on the cost of living in the surrounding area. You ask the person in Alabama if they happen to like making 15.00 an hour and have full employment and can pay their bills and have health care if they think it's decent or not? Perhaps for someone that is used to making 32.00 an hour for working on the line that wage is not a good one, but consider what your choices are? The UAW adjusts it's thinking to allow American companies to compete or those very same 32.00 and hour line workers will be working at McDonalds for 6.00 and hour a few years later and 15.00 will be looking pretty good.

sealy, I was in the Navy for 24 years as an A-6 Driver and after I retired, I started my own business here in Arizona that does worldwide research for the Aerospace industry. I have many friends that live in the Detroit area and visit there often and have said this many times, it has some of the hardest working people I know. However, IMHO the auto industry has insulated that area of the country from the reality of the market place. Take a trip to San Antonio if you get the chance and look at the new Toyota billion dollar truck plant, or car alley in Alabama where many car companies now build cars, or an even shorter trip to Ohio where Honda's are built and ask them if those car's and trucks are any less American. The fact is sealy, that I don't want to see Ford, GM, or Chrysler go down, but it's time for them to realize that to compete they need to stop counting on past glory and make some new one's.
 
The cost per hour for an auto worker for the Big Three in North America is about $70 per hour. The cost per hour for an auto worker for Toyota in North America is about $45 per hour.

That is one reason why Detroit will go bankrupt.
 
The cost per hour for an auto worker for the Big Three in North America is about $70 per hour. The cost per hour for an auto worker for Toyota in North America is about $45 per hour.

That is one reason why Detroit will go bankrupt.

You are talking all costs right, not just salary?

The big 3 need a clean slate.
 
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Now this may seem like a somewhat simplistic idea, but I will call this the old Aviators bailout plan for the big three. Can we not all agree that the very nature of credit is risk and to mitigate that risk in some fashion or another? Those that are willing to stick their collective necks out get bigger rewards or get it chopped off quicker but one nver knows. So with this in mind let's just call this GM 550, rather than ask for billions from the taxpayers, begin an advertising campaign where you will finance any car with a credit score of 550 and above, with verification of a job, and a residence. Further, as a part of this GM or any company will pledge a portion of the income to the development of higher technology vechicles within a time frame designated as long as these car loans are backed much like FHA loans are by the Federal govt. !! Call it throwing an idea on the table.
 
Now this may seem like a somewhat simplistic idea, but I will call this the old Aviators bailout plan for the big three. Can we not all agree that the very nature of credit is risk and to mitigate that risk in some fashion or another? Those that are willing to stick their collective necks out get bigger rewards or get it chopped off quicker but one nver knows. So with this in mind let's just call this GM 550, rather than ask for billions from the taxpayers, begin an advertising campaign where you will finance any car with a credit score of 550 and above, with verification of a job, and a residence. Further, as a part of this GM or any company will pledge a portion of the income to the development of higher technology vechicles within a time frame designated as long as these car loans are backed much like FHA loans are by the Federal govt. !! Call it throwing an idea on the table.

That's kind of what got Ford into this mess, the bad debts that Ford Motor Credit was forced to write off in 06 & 07 (and prospectivly 08) Ford Credit holds the bulk of FoMoCo's debt because of it.
 
As opposed to the private run car industry that's costing tax payers billions of dollars?

You think a government run industry won't?
Starting with the billions it takes to pull it up?

You apparently live in a different world than I do if you think so.
 
That's kind of what got Ford into this mess, the bad debts that Ford Motor Credit was forced to write off in 06 & 07 (and prospectivly 08) Ford Credit holds the bulk of FoMoCo's debt because of it.

In a way it did with the leases that Ford offered, but what I am suggesting that these be conventional loans and that they be backed like an FHA loan in exchange for concessions from the auto companies for offereing a more effective products and streamlinging it's operations. One can even place time restraints on this much like a performance based contract. I suggest Turbo in the end this would have to be a much less expensive route to go than handing over billions and hoping it works. In fact, on a local level the influx of buyers would help business and boost the economy.
 
I think in the coming weeks and months, the definition of capitalism will need to be redefined. The government will not let the U.S. car industry fail.

Billions would only delay the inevitable, by months, that's it. They are hemorrhaging money.
 
So get the unions to bail out the auto industry. Or better yet, ban the unions because they fucked it up.

It wasn't just the unions. Management was more than happy to agree to future benefits rather than deal with the issues at the time. It is those future benefits - pensions and medical care - that are bankrupting the company.

Management of the Big Three has historically been quite poor. They have as much of a hand in this as labor.
 

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