The last Pinto was built 35 years ago. I hope we can agree that all auto manufacturers, Ford included, have come a long way since then.
Yea…They learned NOT document any problems so the can be used against them in court…
I do agree they have come a long ways since then…but I still think they have a ways to go…and yes this includes Toyota and Honda.
people laugh and make jokes
People don’t laugh and make jokes about something they take seriously. They laugh and make jokes about things they think are ridiculous or blown way out of proportion…
The last Pinto was built 35 years ago. I hope we can agree that all auto manufacturers, Ford included, have come a long way since then.
That misses the point. No one is arguing that Ford should be driven out of business now. I’m saying that if the free market drove bad-acting companies out of business, then Ford would have been driven out of business then. It wasn’t, which tells us that relying purely on the free market to regulate safety would be foolish.
Shadow, nobody has ever suggested that the government should drive bad companies out of business.
What has been debated is whether the government should use hundreds of billions of our tax dollars to bail out a company that has gone bankrupt on its own.
IMHO the government should absolutely NOT drive bad companies out of business.
They should also NOT use our tax dollars to bail out bad companies when they go bankrupt on their own. That is NOT the purpose for which we pay taxes. Let the market decide.
TT, even Pinto owners laughed and make jokes about Pintos. I remember seeing one with a bumper sticker that said “WARNING: this vehicle may explode if hit in the rear end”. If THAT doesn’t convince people not to tailgate, nothing will! Whether that was an indication that the driver was accepting something he/she took seriously but could not change or considered the situation overblown is impossible to guess… especially all the many decades later.
Hey, I took the cheeziness of my Vega seriously, but I made jokes about it too. Still do.
It wasn't, which tells us that relying purely on the free market to regulate safety would be foolish.
If it dips into .0000001% of their profit companies will NOT be proactive in doing anything different.
Not just safety…but emissions. GM,Ford, AMC and Chryco all spent MILLIONS in trying to to overturn regulations that made cars cleaner and lead free. If they weren’t forced to There would be these clouds of smoke over the cities just like it was in the 60’s.
IMHO the government should absolutely NOT drive bad companies out of business. They should also NOT use our tax dollars to bail out bad companies when they go bankrupt on their own. That is NOT the purpose for which we pay taxes. Let the market decide.
Well, I agree with the latter point 100% - GM should be dead, and if a company is “too big to fail” then it should be broken up such that it isn’t anymore.
But to the first point, if the bad companies are intentionally hurting/killing people or doing patently illegal things, then there absolutely should be a mechanism whereby they can be forced out of business.
Look, the corporations want to be treated as people when convenient for them, and as legal fictions which are not responsible for their actions when not. I don’t think they should have it both ways.
If the corporations are to be considered people for the purposes of everything from taxation to political campaign donations, and they are to be given the “rights” (freedom of speech, etc) of actual people, then they should face the same responsibilities as actual people.
If I knowingly booby-trapped my car and then sold it to you, and you died as a result of my actions, I’d be up on manslaughter charges at minimum.
If I did it on a mass scale, I’d be in jail for the rest of my life.
Well, if corporations want to be people, then perhaps they should get life sentences when they do things that people get life sentences for. And since you can’t actually jail a corporation, you simply cut off its ability to do business. Corporate jail.
The alternative is to stop considering corporations to be people, and start heavily regulating them as the business entities that they actually are. They don’t get a voice in elections. They don’t get to contribute money to elections. They, like any other endeavor which uses public goods and infrastructure to turn profits, must do so under laws and guidelines set up to ensure that they don’t trample all over everyone in their path in their quest for money.
Point well made, shadow, and I agree. Companies that are knowingly causing harm or allowing harm to be caused by their products should be put out of business by the feds. A primary function of the federal government’s legislative branch is to create laws to protect prey from predators, the executive branch being charged with enforcement of said laws (which they do through regulatory agencies and DOJ). Putting such businesses out of business is a proper and valid function of the feds. Occasionally these branches actually function as designed. Automotive safety is one of those areas where they have.
I should have used the term “poorly run” companies rather than “bad” companies.
In the case of GM we have a company that went bankrupt, got bailed out with our tax dollars, and now is claiming immunity from responsibility from any dangerous product they knowingly put out prior to the bankruptcy. I could not have dreamed up such a profile of callous irresponsibility.
In the case of GM we have a company that went bankrupt, got bailed out with our tax dollars, and now is claiming immunity from responsibility from any dangerous product they knowingly put out prior to the bankruptcy. I could not have dreamed up such a profile of callous irresponsibility.
I think the entire GM saga has been a boondoggle from the bailout on. It should also be a lesson to consumers: Don’t buy GM because if they screw up too badly they’ll reorganize, claim to be a different company, and screw you over on the repairs.
What I find very interesting is that GM gets all the benefits of its history, and none of the downsides. If GM wants to be a separate company from the before-time GM, then that should not only include not being liable for defects Old GM built, but also not being able to sell things like the Corvette and Camaro, or use any of the designs that old GM had, including engines. If you want to be a brand new corporation, then be a brand new corporation and start from the ground up.
It lately seems that every decision you make has both good and bad tradeoffs, unless you’re a corporation in which case you get everything that’s good and can shove all the bad consequences off on the populace - oftentimes the same populace that forked over billions of dollars to enable that decision in the first place.
Note: GM did pay back their gov loans, so they at least aren’t freeloaders.
True. The “government motors” BS and all the hand wringing from… A certain political spectrum… about how the government got into a terrible deal is bunk. The government didn’t get hurt by this, but it also didn’t do its job. GM should have failed, and if it did get bailed out, it should have been held responsible for its past mistakes rather than (once again) screwing over the little guy in favor of the megacorporation.
Note: GM did pay back their gov loans, so they at least aren't freeloaders.
I guess you can call it a payback. A good portion of the money was in stock which the US government sold at a $10b loss.
Mike’s right. A loss of ten BILLION dollars (according to the final CBO report) is not what I’d call a “payback”. More like a “screwjob”.
Ten billion dollars. And people say they paid us back. It only goes to show how insanely huge the actual bailout was. So gigantic that ten billion dollars is considered as if it were a rounding error.
I want my money back.
The Treasurey Dept could have held stock until the price reached $53 per share, and then we would have broken even. But then they would have had to hold onto the shares for a long time, even today. They aren’t in the investment business. At least not the money investment business. The US government invested in keeping Michigan from falling into a worse depression thatn they experienced. Don’t tell me about how someone would have bought GMs assets and kept the workers on the job. No way. Who would dig themselves into a huge ditch of employing the most expensive workers on the planet if they didn’t have to? No, the rest of the auto industry would have just let them die, just as the US steel business died.
Since GM claims to legally be a new company . . . they should also be legally barred from mentioning any of their history, heritage, or products before the bailout
No history
No heritage
no mention of any automotive innovations, inventions, patents, etc.
No mention of any of the founders of the various divisions
No mention of alfred p sloan
etc.
The workers are not an asset to be sold. Slavery has been abolished.
What would have happened is that other manufacturers would have benefitted from the void in the market supply, selling more of their own cars, and their volume increase would have motivated increased production capacity. GM’s assets would have been bought in liquidation at some small amount on the dollar by other manufacturers and many of the employees might have been hired by the companies that bought the assets, albeit at a reasonable payrate and more realistic benefits. Some of the facilities might have even been reopened. Altruism has nothing to do with it. If my competitor goes bankrupt, I’m going to do everything in my power to capture his market share and to benefit in any way possible from his bankruptcy.
Haven’t you heard? Detroit IS bankrupt. And in a severe depression. And crumbling in ruins. Automotive manufacturing has moved elsewhere. Even Cadillac moved elsewhere. And GM is now building cars in Mexico and Canada. What this administration did was blew an inconceivably enormous pile of our tax dollars to try to secure the union votes.
Assuming you’re right and the administration’s goal was purely altruistic, to save jobs, is that what you think we pay federal income taxes for? You may want to read up on the history of personal income tax. A good place to start is with the Revenue Act of 1861. Bailing out bankrupt private companies is not covered by any income tax law. It is not and never was a function of the federal income tax system. What this administration did was an unauthorized and IMHO illegal use of tax revenues. No Revenue Act throughout the history of taxation has ever authorized the use of tax dollars for this purpose. Find me one that does.
And GM is now building cars in Mexico and Canada. What this administration did was blew an inconceivably enormous pile of our tax dollars to try to secure the union votes.
Don’t blame this mess on the current administration. This mess started LONG before Obama was in charge. Yea…the GM bailout was Obama…but that was miniscule to the bailout the Bush admin bank bailout. GM has had problems for years…and given BILLIONS in federal and state tax breaks since the 80’s. A lot of people in the Syracuse NY area are p*ssed at GM for closing their Fisher Body plant just one year after they were given huge tax breaks. That example is one reason why states don’t give tax breaks without guarantees anymore.
The bank bailout was a different fiasco. I was referring to the GM bailout, that being the subject at hand. Believe me, I have strong feelings about the bank bailout too, as I do about the invasion of Iraq, but those subjects aren’t car subjects. I’m trying to be good and stay car related.
The GM bailout was this administration. As was Cash4Clunkers, another $3 Billion flushed down the hole to buy votes ($4 Billion was actually allocated, but the flushing stopped at $3 Billion).
These are dollars taken from us by taxation, our hard earned income. I stand firm in contending that this is not the purpose of taxation and I seriously question the administration’s authority to do this. The only reason these dollars were allocated without a fight was that the democratic party controlled both the house and senate. And the republican party was (and still is) disorganized at this point I time.
Taxpayers bailed out several savings and loans in the late 1980s and early 1990s and they were never paid back. The Treasure Dept. took over banks during the debacle a few years ago and sold them to more capable banking companies of their own choosing. There was no auction, just a sale to the organization the Treasury thought best capable of handling it.
Slavery? Really? The company would have been there with a ready, willing, and able workforce. But the problem would have been the high cost of labor. Do you think the UAW would have just rolled over and gotten out of the way? No, buying the assets of GM and expecting to get away with nonunion labor was a very long shot at best, and would have taken a long time to sort out. Why would anyone buy that sort of trouble?
The government’s business is helping its citizens. In this case, they helped the people of Michighan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin among others with GM and Chrysler plants. This help runs from natural disasters to business disasters like I advisable banking practices. There is presidence for this action.
The government's business is helping its citizens. In this case, they helped the people of Michighan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Wisconsin among others with GM and Chrysler plants. This help runs from natural disasters to business disasters like I advisable banking practices. There is presidence for this action.
If that’s the way you feel…then ALL big corporations should be owned by the government. The heck with free enterprise.
Methinks this thread is being overpopulated by straw men…
;-]