“It’s just incredibly hard to find a bank that didn’t get money from the fed.”
I disagree. No savings and loan or credit union got loans from the federal government. There are easily two or three orders of magnitude more of them than the banks that got the loans.
“I disagree. No savings and loan or credit union got loans from the federal government. There are easily two or three orders of magnitude more of them than the banks that got the loans.”
Yes, there are definitely a lot of credit unions out there; however, I suspect as a percentage of all mortgages and dollars loaned out, the vast majority are through bailed out banks. It’s definitely a higher percentage than GM/Chrysler market share.
http://money.cnn.com/news/specials/storysupplement/bankbailout/
ccooper, the fact that Ford didn’t need government loans speaks volumes about their ability to forecast and plan. It says nothing about their character. In addition, I don’t believe their ability to forecast and plan well necessarily translates into better cars.
Toyota has not revealed whether the lapse in quality of pedals is their fault or makers. They typically blame the parts maker but back pedaled on that for example with Dana. Toyota trucks are awful in history with rust even to recent years. They were blaming Dana(supplier to millions of Ford trucks also) for poor Tacoma frames and Tundra frames rotting prematurely out. However it goes back to spec supplied and Toyota has cleared Dana.
I personally think that people have so many different reasons to buy a specific new vehicle in the end it should be what feels best to owner and suits their needs. Perceived reliability should a tertiary factor.
The most expensive thing about new car ownership is not maintenance or fuel. It is depreciation and insurance can play a big role too. Dumping a car prematurely if you don’t like it or cannot suit needs(more seats for baby’s etc) is VERY expensive.
is actually “democratic” in part b/c consumers “vote” with their pocketbooks.
That has NOT the definition for being democratic…It is the definition for capitalism though.
Mike - gimme a break and read the context. We live in a place that is presumably democratic. Yet, the most seriously important stuff in the world is economic. But economic organizations are not democratic … unless you say that consumers “vote” with their pocketbooks. This is a classic expression that is often used to say that power rests with common everyday folks - rather than with gigantic corporations - i.e. “businesses just do what “we” the consumers tell them to do.” Did you think the point was to provide some kind of Civics 101 lesson on the definition of democracy?
andrew; I agree that ultimately the parts quality and safety is the car manufacturer’s responsibility. Toyota, in their very fast growth mode, did not pay enough attention to design quality and and the manufacturer of the part did just what he was told to do.
This differs from the poor quality of Lucas electircal parts in Jaguars and other British cars. Those parts met their functional requirements, but had a poor design life. When Ford bought Jaguar, the first thing thsy did was to put pressure on their suppliers to produce better quality parts. This immdiately improved the dismal reliability of Jaguars, but not enough, since the overall design of the cars still left a lot to be desired.
Toyota has to go back to its roots of very conservative design and throttle back on its growth.
My mortgage is held with one of the large companies that got bail-out…NOT BY MY CHOOSING. Most people get their mortgages through a local bank or a mortgage company. Then that mortgage is sold to one of the large companies. In fact I had a mortgage with a small bank that NEVER sold their mortgages…UNTIL last year…They needed the money so they sold a good portion of their mortgages…oh well.
For years, people have been trying to blur the lines between political systems and economic systems. Our free market (or capitalism) is an ECONOMIC system. Socialism is also an ECONOMIC system. There are plenty of socialist democracies in the world. China is a dictatorship that has instituted many free market reforms. Consequently, the debate of political systems is between democracy and other forms of government (like dictatorship). The debate between economic systems should be between capitalism and socialism (or communism).
Equating capitalism with democracy is intellectually dishonest. It is a cynical attempt to try to get people to associate socialism with dictatorship, which is blatantly errant.
Actually, in my own mind it is exactly the opposite. We all profess to live in a democracy when I’d argue that we live in a “plutocracy.” If we wanted to be totally “intellectually honest” AND wanted to truly be a “democracy” then we would all be socialists. If socialism is about economic planning by the state AND that state is based in democracy, then democratic socialism amounts to democratic control of both politics and economics. “Socialists” are some of the strongest supporters of democracy b/c many of them wonder why economic decision making is left in corporate bodies where one has to buy a vote. The real confusions come from assuming that “socialism” means dictatorship.
What I find intellectually dishonest is the use of simplistic, purified, and stale dictionary definitions of things (such as socialism or democracy) rather than looking at how things actually operate. In how things actually operate there is no way maintain any kind of clear distinction between political and economic systems. All systems are systems of “political economy.”
VERY good Whitey…
FoMoCo may not have received any DIRECT bail-out money, but they certainly had the inside track when “Cash for Clunkers” hit the scene…They hit the ground running while other manufactures lost thousands of sales worrying about the red tape while Ford dealers were clearing their lots of excess inventory.
cigroller, whether a country is capitalist or socialist is determined strictly by who owns the resources. If the resources are privately owned, it is a capitalist economy. If the resources are owned by the government, it is a socialist or communist economy. You can try to change the meaning of these words to fit your opinion, but that doesn’t make it so. Perhaps you could benefit from a college level economics course.
Look at it this way. It doesn’t matter which economic system you have, whether it be capitalist or socialist. What determines whether or not it is democratic is whether or not it is selected by a majority or whether a minority forces it on the majority. Whatever economic system you have, if it is chosen by a legitimate majority of the people, it is democratic.
Both socialism and capitalism have features that could be defined as “democratic.” For example, in a free market, anyone can own company stock, which gives them voting privileges for that company’s board of directors. What is more democratic than allowing stockholders to vote for members of the board of directors?
Obfuscate all you want. It won’t change the reality.
Whitey - I’m telling you that your understanding is exactly the stale textbook stuff that one would get from a college level economics course. It is developed at the level of “in theory” ideas. When one really wants to do analysis of the actual world of humans and their activities those textbooks notions can help you order some of it, but left as “in theory” ideas they simply produce distortion.
I am an active PhD in Sociology w/ a strong interest in theories of political economy, btw - and have had plenty of economics and political science courses and spend plenty of time around economists and political scientists. And some of my comments here echo lots of the things that I find wrong with the way that these disciplines conceptualize the world.
I would also add that a lot of the better economists and political scientists I know would tell you that if you want a good understanding of economics and politics then one should skip the intro textbook versions that you’d find in a typical college course.
My counter advice to you is to take an advanced level university course in social thought.
cigroller, in other words, you have given us opinion, and I am giving facts. You may be supplying the opinions of learned folks, but it is opinion nonetheless.
I have no intention of arguing about your value judgments. I would prefer to stick to the facts.
Mulally also changed the manufacturing philosophy at Ford from a “push” system to a “demand” system. Ford, like all the other manufacturers, built far more quantitty that the demand, forcing the dealers to accept more than they could sell and connfigurations nobody wanted and then clear the excess with huge discounts and paybacks. The manufacturers did that to cover fixed overhead costs with total revenue, but it was actually costing them far more than scaling back production to meet demand and accepting the closure of facilities. Mulally changed all that, cutting back capacity to meet actual demand and reconfiguring output to what the customers were actually ordering.
“Automotive News”, a “trade magazine” about the business of the automotive industry rather than the cars themselves, has a great article on the subject in this month’s issue.
"in other words, you have given us opinion, and I am giving facts"
Whitey that makes no sense whatsever. I rarely spout “opinions” as they aren’t worth anyone’s breath. So I have no idea what that refers to.
If the assumption on your part is that sociology does “opinions” while - well, whatever basis you’re coming from deals in “fact” then it just tells me that you know very little about the social sciences.
I am plenty grounded in the social sciences and its definitions and the workings of society and politics and economics and it is not a bunch of opinions.
I do, however, come here to talk about cars and was tired of your narrow minded, pseudo-educated ranting about 2 posts ago, so I am over and out of this thread and back to looking at discussions about cars.
Hey guys… I was just reading and I found the part interesting about the six sigma stuff. I used to work for GE and I have spend allot of time reviewing the Kaizen Principles in which separates many US companies from Japanese in our ability to manufacture what people want, and not what we think they want. In fact I just saw a Toyota refresher on the topic last week relating to how their plant in George Town Kentucy works with its Just in Time Manufacturing.
Does anyone know more about what Ford changed specifically? Was it six sigma, or just in time, or was it Kaizen. I am wondering because I work in Systems engineering and for us their is a HUGE difference between the 3 and I am interested in what Ford actually did or what they are calling it, and what kind of trend they are setting for GM and the other US manufactures to follow because from what I understand what Toyota does from a manufacturing efficiency( = product value/price to build) is very high compared to what we have done historically.
And who ever mentioned the Boeing Comment - tips to you. After Boeings last night mare with 787 I am interested to see what the next 737 replacement may be like as aircraft manufacturing process makes car manufacturing look enjoyable(quick estimate of about 300,000 parts of 737 not including nuts/bolts/rivets/wires vs. 15,000-25,000 in a car.
Thanks,
Bob
Ford introduced to some extent
six sigma (statistical process control, or SPC), which focuses on reduced variation by focusing on process capabilities to normal variation rather than "meeting the tolerances),
Kaizan, which is continuous improvement in all company operations,
Design for Manufacturing (DFM) which reduces the opportunity for error by designing to prevent that opportunity (assymetry and such) and, more importantly in my view, reduces error opportunities and procurement and inventory costs by designing mulifunctionality into parts, reducing parts quantity, procurement, and inventory,
Just in Time (JIT) which dramatically reduces inventory cost, allows much better utilization of facilities, and places quality responsibility more in the hands of the suppliers where it belongs,
Lean Manufacturing (a tool to accomplish flow analysis and Kaizan)
as well as programs to much better analyze and monitor process throughput and analyze the impact of any anomolies on production.
Countless other concepts have also been implemented, such as flowing down QA requirements to vendores, CADD programs capable of amazing finite element calculations, thermal mapping, etc. as well as all sort of fancy computer modeling.
Any one of these subjects it worthy of a book. Discussion of them here will be severely lacking.
But everyone has those. The biggest difference with Ford is that they changed the focus from producing to inventory and then forcing the dealers to take the inventory and try to sell it to producing to demand. They also liquidated all nonproductive fixed overhead and built up their cash reserves, even to the point of doing a sale-leaseback on their corporate headquarters. Other manufacturers were producing to inventory to keep their factorys operating and then trying to force the sales, clearing the excss with deep discounting schemes.
I, too, had my mortgage through a local bank(Huntington) that got sold before I even made my first payment. Funny thing is, the bank that bought it, Countrywide, was the bank that refused to give me a loan without money down(Atleast 10%). Now, that bank got bought out by Bank of America, which is pretty much the only bank NOT in Marion, OH
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&source=hp&q=marion+ohio+banks&aq=f&aqi=g1&oq=&fp=79a46ede2c2a175d