Re: O/T-Auto Bailout - race parable

How about a workhorse parable? Farmer Brown has 8
horses but demand for his crop has slowed and now he needs only 5. 5 of his horses are good workers pull strong in the harness, easy to drive,rarely have a health problem and are a real asset to his farm.The other 3 are huge eaters,do little work,run when they see the harness,kick every chance they get and constantly need the vet for one problem or another.Which horses would you get rid of if you were Farmer Brown?

I have to disagree.

If the Big Three had spent the last 20 to 30 years developing reasonably sized, reasonably priced and fuel efficient vehicles like their competition was doing instead of brainwashing the public into thinking they needed Gawdawful humongous SUV's and oversized pickup trucks for no other reason than the manufacturers made more money off of them, THEN they could complain about conditions beyond their control.

I completely agree with the Congressman who said at the first meeting, "If we give you $25 billion, all you'll do is go back to Detroit and keep making the same stupid mistakes you've made for the last 25 years".

It was the Big Three who didn't have the gonads to stand up to the unions, and wound up with worker compensation packages twice their competetion's. It was Henry Ford III who said thirty years ago the American public would never buy small, fuel efficient vehicles regardless of circumstances, and locked in his company's course accordingly. ETC, ETC. All they did was sit on their collective butts and see who could build the biggest SUV, instead of developing fuel efficient vehicles that were attractive to the public.

The public has to share the blame for letting themselves be conned into buying $40,000 4X4 ego trips. If you ask the typical urban SUV owner why they need 4wd, they'll say "to get around town in bad weather".

That's hogwash. I live on a gravel road a mile and a half from pavement. I own a front wheel drive Olds 88, a front wheel drive Chrysler T&C, and two Chevy 4x4 pickups. And I can't remember the last time I drove one of the pickups on my daily commute because I absolutely needed 4 wheel drive.

I have no sympathy or excuses for a group that has shown no more foresight in their industry then the Big Three automakers.

[b:654c4848f0]"The public has to share the blame for letting themselves be conned into buying $40,000 4X4 ego trips. If you ask the typical urban SUV owner why they need 4wd, they'll say "to get around town in bad weather".

That's hogwash. I live on a gravel road a mile and a half from pavement. I own a front wheel drive Olds 88, a front wheel drive Chrysler T&C, and two Chevy 4x4 pickups. [i:654c4848f0]And I can't remember the last time I drove one of the pickups on my daily commute because I absolutely needed 4 wheel drive.[/i:654c4848f0]" [/b:654c4848f0]

It would appear they built what people like yourself wanted. No body forced you to buy those big cars and four drive pickups, pickups that you don't even use in bad weather.

This whole thing is a 'government interference in the free market' problem and it didn't start yesterday!!!!

I say, let 'em fail, file bankruptcy and start over with a clean sheet of paper. Keep Uncle Sam out of the business sector. Same for congress, we need a clean sheet of paper and it ain't B. Hussien external_link

Holy cow! Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Automakers didn't try to con the public into 4 wheel drive super gas guzzlers. They built what the public wanted- when gas was cheap. They're made small gas saver cars all along. The public mainly looked past them, so the Big 3 built what sold.

I have to add this- listening to Glenn Beck a bit ago he was talking about work ethics and has talked negatively about unions. He tells us "DON'T BE LAZY, GET TO WORK!" My question in this area with a long standing high unemployment ratio is "WHERE"? We don't have much union influence in the local small town. We have a performing arts center. When a well known celebrity came to perform, a host of NON UNION VOLUNTEER workers did all the work of moving truck loads of props etc. No union and zero pay-- from a mulitmillionaire.

Here is a tidbit of info. GM knew how to build it years ago and scraped the project why??? here a link.www.sonyclassics.com/whokilledtheelectriccar/electric.html then click on facts not saying this is the anser to all of the needs but i think it would have changed a lot of outcomes now & in the past.
Kevin

Well, if there's a union involved, you get rid of the 3 with the least seniority- And I'm willing to bet you end up with 2 of the good ones, and the 3 slugs.

I have to disagree, with you. The big 3 did'nt "brainwash" anybody. They built and sold vehicles the public wanted. I bought a 4 wheel drive Siverado because I WANTED IT, nobody directed me as to what vehicle I had to buy.When I bought the truck I did'nt really think or care what anybody thought of it, sure was'nt on some kind of "ego trip". You are buying into the government snowjob. I think that it is bullshi# to the extreme that the same no good bastards that have played more than a little part in running us into this hole, sit there like they are above reproach. To see them grilling those execs. like they personally and willfully run the companies into the ground is sickening. Looks like mission accomplished, the socialists have been running down big business and capitalism for years. Every thing from "BigOil" "BigPharma" "BigAuto"(Of course, that"s only AMERICAN BIG AUTO). I see all the mindless jumping on board, wanting big government to ride in on the big white horse and take control of every aspect of their stupid lives, so they won't have to worry about it any more. This is B/S, I don't want the government directing car companies on what kind of car to build. Because I just know that it will be a P.O.S. OK, open fire now. Jack

(quoted from post at 11:06:09 12/08/08) I have to disagree.

If the Big Three had spent the last 20 to 30 years developing reasonably sized, reasonably priced and fuel efficient vehicles like their competition was doing instead of brainwashing the public into thinking they needed Gawdawful humongous SUV's and oversized pickup trucks for no other reason than the manufacturers made more money off of them, THEN they could complain about conditions beyond their control.

I completely agree with the Congressman who said at the first meeting, "If we give you $25 billion, all you'll do is go back to Detroit and keep making the same stupid mistakes you've made for the last 25 years".

It was the Big Three who didn't have the gonads to stand up to the unions, and wound up with worker compensation packages twice their competetion's. It was Henry Ford III who said thirty years ago the American public would never buy small, fuel efficient vehicles regardless of circumstances, and locked in his company's course accordingly. ETC, ETC. All they did was sit on their collective butts and see who could build the biggest SUV, instead of developing fuel efficient vehicles that were attractive to the public.

The public has to share the blame for letting themselves be conned into buying $40,000 4X4 ego trips. If you ask the typical urban SUV owner why they need 4wd, they'll say "to get around town in bad weather".

That's hogwash. I live on a gravel road a mile and a half from pavement. I own a front wheel drive Olds 88, a front wheel drive Chrysler T&C, and two Chevy 4x4 pickups. And I can't remember the last time I drove one of the pickups on my daily commute because I absolutely needed 4 wheel drive.

I have no sympathy or excuses for a group that has shown no more foresight in their industry then the Big Three automakers.

Click to expand...

Hey, the big 3 have always produced the smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles because they are a "full line-up" manufacturer. They just didn't sell as well as their big SUV's and p/u trucks. When gas sky-rocketed, they adjusted their build schedules to produce more of what the public wanted (impala, malibu, fusion, cobalt, etc). but then the credit crunch came and 80% of people who wanted to buy a car COULDN'T, because of the WALL STREET MESS. Plus, with the housing mess and layoffs all across the country, people are afraid to make a large purchase even if they COULD get credit or wanted to pay cash. It's real easy to lay it all on the last 20-30 yrs of product design, but as others have pointed out the car manufacturers produce what buyers want. Mitsubishi and others that produce mainly small cars have not fared well over the years. No question that Toyota and Honda have a great product mix and business plan along with lower cost structure.

Anyway, Goose, you and others have conveniently neglected to place ANY blame on Congress and Wall Street for the crisis that the Big 3 face. If any of the Big 3 failed, unemployment will continue to skyrocket and Honda and Toyota will also become vulnerable.

The point is that anyone who owns a car (yourself included) can choose to continue to drive what they have and delay a purchase IF they don't feel secure with making a large purchase. Statistics have shown that people are driving less (i.e. putting less miles on their cars/trucks), keeping their vehicles longer. And if you're part of the 8.5% unemployed, a new car is certainly not at the top of your list.

Bring the auto market back up to 17 million units a year where it was previously and a lot of the Big 3 woes go away. At 10 million units annualy, someone will not have enough market share to survive.

So, please don't just address PART of the problem. And please don't tell me that the buying public was "conned" into buying big SUVs and trucks. That's BS as others have pointed out. No one held a gun to anyone's head when they walked into a dealership and forced them to buy a Tahoe instead of a Cobalt. People buy what works for their lifestyle and what they WANT to buy. I have driven to work with a FWD Grand Prix and never gotten stuck. I also own a 4x4 p/u and an AWD Saturn. You are right. You don't NEED 4x4 in most cases. You also don't NEED Satellite Radio, electric windows, heated, leather seats, Temperature control, Heads-up display, heated mirrors, etc, etc, etc. But people want those options. If they didn't, the automakers wouldn't offer them. Try buying a plain vanilla Work Truck. Chevy was the last to make them and you can't get a 5-speed manual anymore. Why? Because not enough people bought them.

BTW, there was/is no HF III at the helm of Ford. It was HF II ("Hank the Deuce"), then outsiders then William Clay Ford, Jr.

3 choices 1)Sart a business to make money 2)Move to a place that has jobs 3)Stay where you are,starve and whine about it.

What everyone misses is the fact that the unions dont run the company.When the farmer bought those horses it was his responsibility to get good horses and not the horses fault if the farmer was not too good at running the farm.Do you really think that if the unions agreed to work for one dollar per hour the big three would be able to compete. All that would happen is profits and managements pay would go up.The focus should be on recreating new auto companies with progressive ideas on the autos of the future.Let the big three go belly up.

Think of this way
If a team of horses was running wild pulling a freight wagon through a crowd, wouldn't you like to have SOMEONE jump up and take the reins? Bush's administration may not have gotten the horses hitched up and got 'em rollin, but they didn't look to see if anyone was holding the reins as they stepped aside to get out of the wagons way

A front wheel drive car is a lot better on winter roads than a 2wd pickup.

Most people HAVE to get to work. If they fail to show up, the boss is apt to fire them.

The playing field is fot fair for the Big 3. In order to attract foriegn car factories several southern states have have given Honda, BMW Nissan and the others billions in tax relief and low interest loans to locate their factories in those states. Also in Japan, Germany, Korea and Sweden the Governments foot the bill for much of the research and development used by the auto makers, and except for Korea, all the other governments provide health care insurance (with different degrees of competency).

I agree with you on most of your comments. Last winter, however I had to have 4x4 to get around town because the city of Grand Island wouldnt move snow off of residential streets unless we got 6" at one time. Happened to have several snows that were just under 6" that fell within 2 weeks making several of the streets impassible unless you had 4x4 or enough ground clearance on a front wheel drive.

[b:654c4848f0]"I own a front wheel drive Olds 88, a front wheel drive Chrysler T&C, [i:654c4848f0]and two Chevy 4x4 pickups."[/i:654c4848f0][/b:654c4848f0]

Guess you missed the italicized part!

He was saying the big three didn't build what he wanted, I don't see any Chevett's or Ford Focus names in his corral.

I see the bailout in different ways.
1. Gm, Ford, Xsler have treated many suppliers very poorly....as you sow you will also reap....Very true in the business world.

2. The employees of the the big 3 have a very concieted attitude that "my career comes before the good of the company" This attitude is very real and ALL employees have the (in it for me only) idea. I am talking all Executives, managers, salaried, hourly. The bonuses must stop for all too......I am talking about stock options, company cars, health insurance bonuses etc.

3. The reason congress and Bush are reluctant to give taxpayer money is that waste and inefficiency have run all 3 of the companies for decades. (I am not saying that the US federal gov. is run like a swiss watch either)

4. IF the CEO's want money to stay afloat then front up a salary reduction plan for all employed there and then the US public will be more forgiving.

5. The 3 say "buy American" yet they run over to China to get parts made to save pennies, while getting high salaries.

6. The 3 should be given money to stay a float, as a loan only, or a credit line. I would like to X-sler dropped off and the Jeep line bought up by Gm or Ford. Dodge trucks could stay on board and be sold to AM general or something.

They didn't/don't build what people want??!! Give me a break! Just about every driveway has a 3/4 or 1 ton 4x4 with as much horsepower as a small semi tractor. And most 5 or less years old. They made exactly what people want. And they didn't con anybody's pear a$$ed wife into driving it to Starbuck'every day getting 8-10 mpg. Oh, the greedy union worker? If the workers took $1 /hr it wouldn't help with all the bloated salaried positions. Last I looked the ratio from lowest to highest paid worker was something like 487:1. In Japan its 30:1 and their gov't pays all the insurance. I don't know anyone who wouldn't jump at the chance to make good money at a job. The fact is, when the worker does good it spreads out to everyone. What we're seeing now is the reverse in action. You want the answer look in driveways, every riceburner sent $ overseas. Call it what you want, I call it the Walmart syndrome. Everybody cries "poor Mr so and so's hardware closed" but nobody would shop there. they all ran to sprawlmart. so, yes you reap what you sow. Don't give the big 3 a Loan? Sure, right after you take back the 700 billion from the mafia bankers. And then stop all subsidies to everyone!!

I don't think AM General is still around. AM General, originators of the Hummer, was sold by AMC when Renault bought in, back in the late 1970's, because as a defense contractor, they weren't alowed to have foreign ownership. I believe it was LTV or something like that that got AM General, and it was finally acquired by GM. AMC was bought by Chrysler, and then absorbed, after Renault had basically gutted the company...and only Jeep survived.

I think it'd be smart if International Trucks bought Jeep...but then, what do I know?

After reading the posts below no one mentioned that one of the 3 CEO'S stated to congress that they were "chasing the money". This is just like every other large corporation in the world in a boom time.

Vito

I agree with you goose. Forty years ago when I was first driving I lived 2 miles from the nearest paved road maybe A 4 wheel drive would have been nice as the plow didn't get around to our road untill late afternoon. But today they have plowed, winged and salted the road 6 times before I even get out of bed. I don't know why anybody needs a 4-wheel drive.

I agree with you M Moline Fan. Another thing that people are not thinking about is that the Japanese also got on the big vehicle band wagon. They were building stuff just as big or bigger than the Big 3 were building. They were also going where the demand and money was.

You cite wall street speculators as the cause of high fuel prices and call this statement a ''fact''. As a matter of fact, thats ridiculous. Take an average US daily usage of 80 million bbl, multiply that times $140.00 per barrel and then tell me which group of ''speculators'' could possibly hope to leverage that amount of money.If people believe this type of malarky then we will be right back in the same boom and bust energy cycle that creates the type of market we have seen in 2008. Demand drove the price up against tight supply and it will happen again as soon as the general economy begins to perk up and people forget about high prices and return to their old ways of driving and usage. The USA needs an energy policy based on allowing development of all resources and give the producers tax incentives to do it, graduated against the free market price. There has been no political will to create an energy policy that even half way made sense. external_link may have the political capital to do it in his first couple years but I doubt he would buck the general Democratic party outlook that plentiful energy is good for America so they are against it.

My first introduction or experience with any union was in the mid 60's While going to school I had a summer job with Rockwell Standard. The shift sup came around mid shift and said the plant would work one hour of overtime. Following in his foot steps was the shop stewart. "We get no more done in 9 hours than we will in 8 hours." Sounding strange to me. I was not in production end of plant so still got time and half at 1.60 per hour base pay.
Forty some years later is this still the norm????

Whether you agree or not, here’s a different perspective…



From the UAW

The folks who wouldn’t mind seeing the Big 3 auto-makers go under, such as the Wall Street Journal editorial board, can barely disguise their main motive of sticking it to the UAW. They would have you believe that the non-union auto companies in the U.S. have, in comparison, walked the straight and narrow, when the truth is that the Big 3 were instrumental in building our economy through the 20th Century, helped create the middle class and are now paying a penalty for enlightened treatment of their workers.

Danny Trull, UAW International Representative and a member of the Texas AFL-CIO Executive Board relays a piece that points up that the Big 3 auto-makers have been good citizens in other ways as well.

Brother Trull writes, “As you know, the future of the American auto industry is at stake in the halls of Congress. We would like to request that our friends continue to encourage members of Congress to support the loans that are so desperately needed to ride out this serious downturn in the economy. I thought the following insight may give our friends another good reason to save an American icon.”

He included this attachment:

As you hear all of the news about american automakers and the UAW please keep the following in mind. It is the hard work of the members of UAW that put these companies on top and it the hard work of these people that will put them back on top. But it will take your help. Remember to buy safe, reliable American Made cars and trucks.



Nothing needs to be said...

Ford, Chrysler and GM's contributions after 9/11

An interesting commentary...You might find this of interest:

'CNN Headline News did a short news listing regarding Ford and GM's contributions to the relief and recovery efforts in New York and Washington.

The findings are as follows.....

1. Ford- $10 million to American Red Cross matching employee contributions of the same number plus 10 Excursions to NY Fire Dept. The company also offered ER response team services and office space to displaced government employees.

2. GM- $10 million to American Red Cross matching employee contributions of the sam e number and a fleet of vans, suv's, and trucks.

3. Daimler Chrysler- $10 =2 0 million to support of the children and victims of the Sept. 11 attack.

4. Harley Davidson motorcycles- $1 million and 30 new motorcycles to the New York Police Dept.

5. Volkswagen-Employees and management created a Sept 11 Foundation, funded initially with $2 million, for the assistance of the children and victims of the WTC.

6. Hyundai- $300,000 to the American Red Cross.

7. Audi-Nothing.

8. BMW-Nothing.

9. Daewoo- Nothing.

10. Fiat-Nothing.

11. Honda- Nothing despite boasting of second best sales month ever in August 2001

12. Isuzu- Nothing.

13. Mitsubishi-Nothing.

14. Nissan-Nothing.

15. Porsche-Nothing. Press release with condolences via the Porsche website.

16. Subaru- Nothing.

17. Suzuki- Nothing.

18. Toyota-Nothing despite claims of high sales in July and August 2001. Condolences posted on the website.

Whenever the time may be for you to purchase or lease a new vehicle, keep this information in mind. You might want to give more consideration to a car manufactured by an American-owned and / or American based company. Apart from Hyundai and Volkswagen, the foreign car companies contributed nothing at all to the citizens of the United States ...

It's OK for these companies to take money out of this country, but it is apparently not acceptable to return some in a time of crisis. I believe we should not forget things like this. Say thank you in a way that gets their attention.

(quoted from post at 10:13:41 12/08/08) 3 choices 1)Sart a business to make money 2)Move to a place that has jobs 3)Stay where you are,starve and whine about it.

Click to expand...

[size=18:0d4f362efb][u:0d4f362efb][b:0d4f362efb]YES!![/b:0d4f362efb][/u:0d4f362efb][/size:0d4f362efb]

My wife and I moved 1300 miles away from home after college to get jobs. Many of our fellow graduates were unwilling to move away from their families and now work minimum wage jobs at Wally World or break-neck jobs in the oil field that can be here today and gone tomorrow. AND they complain! We racked up a ton of debt getting moved down here to AZ and getting settled in. I'm proud to say that we have been here four years and had the debt paid off last year.

MOVE WHERE THE WORK IS!