simple American car makers are every man for himself on the other hand Toyota is every Man for the Company…Yes I have a 1980 Toyota pickup and as Top Gear said You can`t kill a Toy!!they are so right…TJBC
My answer is an unequivical “NO”!!! They made the mess that they are in. Let them fix it. This is not the same as when the Government loaned money to Chrysler.
Absolutely NO!
Please do not interrupt the “Natural Selection” process. Let the weak ones die, and strong ones survive. Please do not waste our money!
If you bail out Detroit, this means that you are rewarding the failure. CEO of these big companies are totally responsible of the current situation. While all the data was indicating that oil prices will go up, 3 Detroit companies ignored this, and focused on Truck and SUV production. The reason was that they were more profitable. They failed to see the future! I think they were being arrogant, greedy, and selfish. As an taxpayer, I do not want to pay CEO’s salaries. A bail out might look as good solution, however, in longer term it is not a good idea.
It seems the No Bailouts are leading the Bailouts by quite a margin. The worst thing to do would be for the US goverment to nationalize the industry, like in Britain and France. That would not solve any problems.
The next worst thing would be more money to “tide them over” till when?. At the rate they are burning cash this is equivalent to giving a drunk or addict more money to carry on.
The best thing would be a voluntary restructuring by all three, possibly merge GM and Chrysler, dropping several divisions, such as Pontiac, Hummer, Saturn, and GMC, and all Chrysler brands, except Jeep and Dodge minivans and running a very lean industry.
The alternative is Chapter 11 early next year and forced restructuring with new management, new labor contracts, etc. All alternatives will mean many more plant closures, since there is significant overcapacity, and Japanese companies would be reluctant to buy a US co.'s plant.
Of course, it isn’t up to anyone on this board. The likely results will be guaranteed loans that the car companies can use for almost any purpose they choose. If I were king of the forest, I’d use the money to create loans so that more buyers could purchase cars. Hey, maybe the Feds will stipulate that. And don’t gimme that “they’ll just use it to buy more spa time” stuff. If you believe that, you aren’t in touch with what’s going on.
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=a4893b49-36df-4784-9859-2dfa3a3211bf
interesting article for both sides of the argument
Also, Ford sold part of it’s take in Mazda. It was 33%, now 13%
OUR government should not be in the business of big business. However, the old saying “As GM goes, so goes the country” does hold some truth. The big 3 and their suppliers compromise a huge portion of our economy. As such we are bound to offer assistance to help them survive their current blunder-fed condition. But not without conditions.
First we trim the fat at the top. Executive pay will be based on performance. If the company is failing then compensation is falling. We replace the short term thinking executives with long range planners. Set goals and achieve them. Force the executives that remain to steer their companies toward a greener product line. We should set strict benchmarks that must be met or risk calling in the loans.
Then move to the hourly force. Any money loaned should be tied to renogiating all existing UAW contracts to put the employees more in line with foreign manufacturers that have located in the states. The existing contracts with UAW add twice as much to the price of a new car as does their counterparts in the states. If they don’t like the conditions they can always apply at WalMArt. All of the problems cannot be solely blamed on bad management. The Big 3 has corruption from top to bottom. You can’t remove half of the cancer and expect a full recovery.
This is a Double-mint moment - both management and labor are wrong!
The US auto companies, and the unions, have ridden their “gravy train” off of a cliff. As the foreign companies came in and set up more efficient (lower labor cost and higher quality) factories, the people in Michigan could not be convinced they needed to make changes to the auto industry. We heard nothing but pleas to “Buy American” to suppport the companies as they made poor product decisions and the unions as individuals made high wages for very little “value added” to the product.
The union contracts provided the guy with no education, who put on bumpers (at a pre-designated snail’s pace) to make more money than most teachers or other professionals. No wonder their kids couldn’t be convinced that they needed a good education to get a good job - kids in Michigan grew up thinking they could get a high paying job that required no education.
I live in mid-Michigan, and we have thousands of people who spent up to 15 years in a GM program called the “jobs bank” where they collected 90% of their pay (plus benefits) for sitting in an abandoned storefront, smoking cigarettes and playing cards. They had the option to attend classes (paid for by GM) and learn new skills and a look for new jobs. Some did that, but a large number just sat around. So the pleas to “Buy American” were a plea for you and me to subsidize thousands of people who sat on their butts for 15 years, adding to the cost of every car off the line!
The management also made bad choices, going for the biggest profit with no planning for the fact that gas prices were only going to go up; fuel efficiency and alternate fuel cars were way to go. Prior to a few months ago, did anyone see an add for any US car other than a large SUV or huge truck?
For the US car companies to go down would be VERY painful for Michigan and the country, but those industries will not go away. Despite the sales slow down right now, people WILL buy cars. People will be employed to build cars and car parts, and it will be profitable for those cars to be built in the US. However, those cars will be built by workers whose wages are more in line with the value added to the product, and by management that keeps their eye on the future as well as the bottom line more than the keeping their eye on their own salaries and bonuses.
And don’t gimme that “they’ll just use it to buy more spa time” stuff.
Spa time? How about those HUGE CEO salaries? Why are those CEOs making so much money after they have demonstrated incompetence time and time again?
[i]Besides, THE U.S. GOVERNMENT DOESN’T HAVE THE MONEY TO LOAN![/i] They are going to have to borrow it from someone else in order to loan it to the auto industry! How does that make sense? Let Detroit borrow the money directly from the people who are financing our federal deficit.
In 1986 the late David Halberstam published The Reckoning, which contrasted the rise of Ford in the U.S. with the rise of Nissan in Japan. Halberstam’s basic conclusion (although the book is 700+ pages, so I’m generalizing) was that American car companies try to profit from market advantage, while Japanese car companies try to profit from continual innovation. The prime example I remember from the book is American car makers failing to switch to disc brakes years after Japanese cars had them because Detroit made more money by keeping the status quo. Only when disc brakes became a major selling point did they adopt the technology.
I’m really surprised I haven’t heard anyone bring The Reckoning up, because it seems so salient to me now.
Yes, in the '90s the Big Three, after years of getting their butts kicked and losing dangerous levels of market share to Japan, started to pay attention to quality and design and American cars started approaching the quality of Japanese cars. Then came the SUV craze and what happened? The Big Three sat on their butts and watched the profits roll in, investing virtually none of that money in R&D for the cars of the future. GM killed the Volt when? Two years ago? How ridiculously short-sighted is that?
It galls me so much to have these fat-cats who scream about government intervention and regulation any time it costs them a dime scream that they need government intervention to save themselves from their own ineptitude. Hello? I think there’s a call coming in from the Hypocrisy Department.
That said, I do think the automotive industry is so inextricably linked to the health of our economy that I’m not sure letting them fail as they deserve is the right option.
So here’s my solution: Let’s NATIONALIZE the Big Three for a mandated period, say five or ten years. Fire all top management and replace them with career professionals whose hearts and minds are in the right place, but who have been stymied from bringing innovation to market by the idiot profiteers in charge. You know there are hundreds of men and women working for the Big Three now who qualify. And we’ll charge them with a mandate: before the company can return to the private sector, it must achieve certain benchmarks, namely innovating automobile technology that will bolster America’s energy independence and protect our environment. And while we’re at it, the Big Three should probably become the Big Two.
Absolutely NOT !!! The automobile industry is over paid, and the product over priced. If I do anything wrong, I am held responsible and I pay the consequence . I don?t know about anyone else out there, but I?m sick of paying for everyone else to live a lot better than I do. Companies have been living off the people for years and it?s time we take our money back and make everyone truly work for a pay check.
B.M.W.
If the government really wanted a way to bail out the American car companies, they should do what America did during past times of hardship where the foreign prices were cheaper and therefore the other country profited. The American government could simply put a tariff on incoming cars, essentially eliminating their competitors and allowing the car companies to get back on their feet, and this would also help the economy as a whole because Americans would be buying American made goods. And even if the cars are made somewhere else, the American companies are still the one’s making the profit.
I am very reserved about the American auto business willingness to run a business that the shareholder and the public can benefit from. For instance, what happened to caf? standards? Why did Japanese companies manage to make efficient dependable sturdy small cars while Detroit whined that caf? stds would ruin them?
GM bought a majority interest in the battery business of Energy Conversion Devices in the 90’s ECD makes or made nickel hydride batteries. NiMH . GM made the Impact (is that the worst possible name for a car for English speaking people? Not to be outdone by planned failure than to call a vehicle marketed toward Hispanics Nova. For those that took French, Nova in Spanish means doesn?t go . Another sterling move GM… So GM met Stanford Ovshinsky, founder of Ovonics and GM became a majority shareholder. Sounds like the big three car company was on to something cutting edge if not innovative they were at least looking to the future? Comes the Bush era or should I say error; the roads had EV?s rolling cleanly and quietly and people really loved the extraordinary pick up that the EV?s had. But the EVs were all or mostly on lease. I thing the RAV Evs(Toyota) may have been the last or only leaser that renewed the leases. The vehicles were subsequently crushed and shredded. That?s because GM sold their share of Ovonics to Texaco which merged six days later with Chevron. Chevron then went and sued Toyota.
Refer the mpoweruk web article , Who Killed the Electric Car movie available from Amazon and ECD?s web site or Annual Report.
I?ld love to see Stanford Ovshinsky invited to testify and tell his story of 40 years of inventing and working his tail off to be told by GM to keep his mouth shut and not advertise his achievement to the world.
GM?s marketing was abysmal, see the movie for an introduction and then find the old annual reports from the late 90?s before the NiMH was sold off and mothballed.
As for Ford, a friend told me half jokingly 30 years ago that Ford stands for found on the road dead.
I live on Long Island and never made what would pass for alot of money here so watching for a value was and is imortant to me. I’ve owned a number of used Japanese cars. My current vehicle is a 1998 Camry 4 sp stick that got 27.5 mpg between August and October. It’s got 122000 miles and I’m buying new Cooper 195’s. From the state of the stock market, I may have to get 70k out of those new shoes
Per website mpoweruk-
Nickel-metal-hydride batteries are related to sealed nickel-cadmium batteries and only differ from them in that instead of cadmium, hydrogen is used as the active element at a hydrogen-absorbing negative electrode (anode). This electrode is made from a metal hydride usually alloys of lanthanum and rare earths that serve as a solid source of reduced hydrogen that can be oxidized to form protons. The electrolyte is alkaline potassium hydroxide. Cell voltage is 1.2 Volts
The NiMH battery was patented in 1986 by Stanford Ovshinsky, founder of Ovonics.
The basic concept of the nickel-metal hydride cell negative electrode emanated from research on the storage of hydrogen for use as an alternative energy source in the 1970s. Certain metallic alloys were observed to form hydrides that could capture (and release) hydrogen in volumes up to nearly a thousand times their own volume. By careful selection of the alloy constituents and proportions, the thermodynamics
In a word, NO! For years Detroit has built overpriced cars, paid their employees entirely too much, built cars few people like (although I will say quality on some models has improved). I hear people say the Big 3 employs 10% of the American workforce through manufacturing, suppliers, sales, etc and if Detroit goes, so will the economy. The economy is already in the tank and will get worse whether we help Detroit or not. If we bailout the Big 3 they still have to sell the cars they make. What good is it to give them the money when in a couple months they will be in the same boat they are now. I say to hell with the 10% and have the government take care of the 90% that is the real backbone of this country.What I would like to see from the new administration is implement a stimulus package like never imagined.
Similar to what FDR did back in the 30’s. Construction projects nationwide.
1). Our Power Grid is ancient and falling apart. Upgrade the nation’s power grid to better handle the energy need. Especially if we move in the direction of electric powered vehicles .
2). Upgrade our interstate and road systems. This will include bridges. New and replacement.
3). Water supply. There are many areas in our country where water is becoming scarce. Build new canals and waterways to allow water to drought prone areas. We can build huge water refinement facilities and process ocean water for irrigation and even dringing water.
There are so many possibilities for improving our nation’s infastructure it’s mind boggling. Imagine all the new jobs and tax revenues that can be created. The more people who have good steady jobs, the more cars they will be able to buy.
While all this is going on Detroit can be changing directions and build cars of the future.
Hell no! Trim the fat! (executives). Our company at one time had 20 v.p.'s for only
a total of 2100 employees. Their attitude when you took your car in for service or
repairs sucked and they wouldn’t help you with a problem with their poor quality parts.
Warped rotors for one example!
I don’t want to sound to libertarian here (because I’m not) but we can’t keep throwing money at problems and hope they will go away. It is the people of this good country who made these poor spending decisions. It is the people of this good country who voted this outgoing administration into the white house (twice). And it should be the people of this good country who take the heat when it comes back to bite them in the A**. I don’t like it any more than the rest of you. I think bailing out AIG was a mistake, and everyone knows that two wrongs don’t make a right. Though I think Barney Frank is generally a good guy, he’s wrong on this one.
You are correct. Back when Chrysler was the only one in big trouble, there was credit available from banks. There isn’t any now. The only realistic way for them to get money, whether they are in bankruptcy protection or not, is from the federal government. Any bankruptcy declaration is essentially the end of the line; there can’t be any reorgaization unless the feds fund them after bankruptcy. Do you really want 2,000,000 more people unemployed by the end of the year - plus - the auto company’s unmet pension obligations on the federal government’s expenditures? I doubt that is what you want, but it is what you will get. And let’s not forget what that will do to the investment markets. You won’t like the furhter damage to your pension, whoever you work for.
If they want a bailout, then it should be on condition that the entire management be fired, and some actual ENGINEERS (you know, people who actually know how to build things) be promoted into those positions.
WE SHOULD bail out the workers and underwrite their health insurance and retirement accounts directly (not incl. salary management personnel). If the companies see this as a bridge, provide it now but NOT directly to them.
Remember…they are NOT American companies, but multinationals and we are “saving” only the No. American branch. When they come through and start producing “green” cars, expect them still to be made anywhere, incl. Mexico and Canada.
Ultimately, get with it…the cars of tomorrow will not require the parts or service of todays, making the car industry unprofitable as it exist today.
Electrics need very little service, there by eliminating a huge part of the automobile industries profits. It’s an industry that is going through a huge transformation, and re education has to be a vital part of any “bail out program”.
By the way…why should we be afraid of loosing the auto industry. How many electronics (used in everything from cars to lawn mowers) are manufactured here ? We have quietly lost most of out manufacturing base.
Expect your kids to graduate from college and move to another country in droves for employment opportunities, like the used to leave some states. It’s happening already.