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That would suit some here at Edmund's. At least until they found that toilet paper is in short supply and the only car the US Socialist Republic could build resembles a Yugo. But we own the banks now. Why not all of industry. The Left has wanted that for 80 years. Let them see how they like the Gulag when they speak out of turn. Maybe Putin will show Obama how to set up the secret police.
Don't look for a bailout to help you sell cars no one wants. My friend was a mechanic with 17 years seniority at another large Ford agency. They laid off 8 mechanics him included. The bailout will mean nothing to him.
A drastically slimmed-down GM led by a new management team & with down-to-earth labor costs would thrive. But GM won't become a 21st century company if it's hooked on taxpayer dollars.
A Focus is also an enormous improvement over something like a 1982 Escort! It's bigger, roomier, heavier, more powerful, better-equipped, yet still gets comparable mileage.
I dunno if Ford really has a directly comparable descendant for 1982. The Fairmont was Ford's "compact" car, but that platform was technically midsized, and also served as the basis for their intermediate Granada, and the small LTD that followed. Those would probably be better compared to the Fusion.
Maybe a 1984 Tempo would roughly equate to a Focus? Roughly the same size, and more of a "true" compact car of that time. It was rated 25/34 with the 5-speed, and 25/29 with the automatic, which was only a 3-speed. My stepdad had one of those sorry beasts. 0-60 came up in about 16 seconds. I don't think we really want to go back there. :sick:
Even the Crown Vic has made gains, all things considered. I don't know much about the 1982 model, which was still carbureted, but the 1985 V-8, which had a 4-speed automatic, was fuel injected and rated at 16/23. If you got the performance package (yes, there was such a thing!) that gave you the quicker axle ratio and dual exhaust, you got 0-60 in about 10.5 seconds. The current model was rated something like 17/25 before they went to those revised ratings. Still just has a 4-speed automatic, but has a lot more hp. I don't know what 0-60 would be these days...maybe around 9 seconds? The car's also about 300-400 pounds heavier these days. So, it's heavier, more powerful, and STILL returns slightly better fuel economy.
And saying that current workers don't get those benefits is more than a bit disingenuous. Under the current contract, blue-collar workers are entitled to those benefits when they retire, so the domestics must account for those costs in some way.
The companies can reduce that burden in two ways - renegotiate the contract, or declare bankruptcy.
34 billion. And the thing is, loans also need to be paid back. There is no way this one will be. Garauntee, this time next year, they'll be back looking for more. :sick:
Right now it looks like no one wants any of them regardless of the brand.
For GM and Chrysler, it will be a loan in name only. The plans that both companies unveiled this week will not make them viable over the long haul. They will begging for more money within 1-2 years.
Ford is a different case. It just needs help to continue implementing its turnaround plan, which appears viable, although it carries some risk.
But any "loan" given to GM and Chrysler at this point is as likely to be repaid as the "loan" one gives to the unemployed, alcoholic brother-in-law who hasn't worked at a steady job for the past year....
I haven't looked at the contract talk much but my understanding was that the new hires were "tier 2" and that their pension and retiree health benefits would be less (along with their starting salaries), as compared to the "tier 1" hires.
And Sympathy May Be Rising for Beleaguered Detroit Automakers
There's a summary of the Chrysler plan at AutoObserver today, along with several other bailout stories.
I know, I sound harsh... I really do, but bail em out to keep jobs for us people! But, only for that reason. When GM/Chrysler can focus on quality, rather than money in the bank, then I'll change my opinion. I drive an 08 GM car(not by choice), I'll be leaving GM soon, the first chance I get, Ironically, a service rep via GM dealer said they plan to lose GM and get a Honda product. They feel the same way. lol.
I know some are fans on GM, we all have our favorites, but going from a Honda to a GM, uh WOW! Luckily my car is a lease. Don't get me wrong I am impressed with the features on the car! I do love that, but I certainly don't have the pride I had in the Honda which was an 06 in this GM car. I work in a public place where I meet other people all the time, and many have said they are leaving GM. I hope no one is mad at me for saying all of this. Its just my opinion. Based on experiences with GM versus other cars. I mean nothing personal if you happen to like GM alot. Thats cool with me. Bail em out! save the jobs.
"Now, of course, the Big Three can't get any financing. And their suppliers, if they can get it, are paying through the teeth. Lending to the industry is down 70%.
It doesn't take an engineer to figure out why: Wall Street thinks Detroit is dead."
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Wall-Street-Detroits-messy-divorce/story.a- - spx?guid=%7B46D387BC%2D76DC%2D41F9%2DBF20%2D6EDFCD14F0B9%7D
What do you call giving billions of dollars to banks and auto companies, and buying ownership stakes in both?
Still, if there has to be a move like this, I think equity stakes are the best way to do it. Make the taxpayers a shareholder just like any other.
One observation... I saw a car carrier delivering a load to the local Ford dealer yesterday, First one I've seen in a while.
At some point incentives like "buy one get one free" are going to start to pry open our wallets. Changing the mood out there is the real challenge.
One interesting idea I heard from a Senator was to have the banks that got TARP money make the loans to Detroit. Kind of an out-of-the-box idea. Use the same money for two different purposes.
Does that make too much sense to actually work? :surprise:
U.S. senators raised the possibility today of getting bailout loans to the Detroit 3 by having the federal government guarantee loans that would be made by private banks and financial institutions.
Sens. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, and Tom Carper, D-Del., injected the new scenario during hearings this morning in the Senate exploring the need for an automaker bailout. The senators said the proposal would get money to the carmakers quickly while avoiding the need to set up a government oversight board to manage direct federal loans to the Detroit 3.
The proposal could help break a congressional logjam over whether the Detroit 3 should have access to about $700 billion of federal aid to financial institutions.
http://www.autonews.com/article/20081204/ANA02/812049968/1128
Yeah, some cars are selling, but it's still awfully rough out there. I read on either MSN Money or Yahoo News that they're predicting about 10 million vehicles sold this year, down from about 16 million last year. That's an awful huge drop, and at the rate things are going, 2008 will be the bleakest year since 1982. Once you take into account the population of the United States, you actually have to go way back to 1958 to find a worse year.
One thing that's odd about 1982 was that the Chevy Caprice was actually a pretty hot seller. Showrooms were selling every one they got their hands on, and they were going out for sticker price, sometimes more. Now part of that could have been less competition. In 1982, the big Pontiacs were gone. So were the big Mopars. And Ford was on treacherous ground, so people were reluctant to buy Crown Vics and Grand Marquises. Another factor might have been that GM simply cut production, thereby driving up demand for the cars. In 1977-79, they probably sold about 650-700K full-sized Chevies each year. By 1982, I doubt if they moved 250K.
Meanwhile though, GM was having to rely on hefty incentives to move the 1982 Celebrity and Cavalier, new cars that were supposed to be the wave of the future.
Some factors. Cars are much better built and last longer than in earlier years. Therefore cars are more of a want item than a need item for some folks.
Everyone has become uberaware of the lending problems in the economy because of the speculative housing market pushed by politicians years ago to benefit themselves. Then they tried to exploit the economy to the benefit of one of the candidates who was the expert on the economy. I think the overemphasis backfired somewhat when one candidate went back to DC to go to work. But the stimulus bill was meant to scare everyone that a depression was a week away.
Now we're reaping the fruits of that publicity binge. Many people didn't realize we were probably in a recession for much of this year until yesterday when a committee decided we had been in one. People are _scared_ to spend. The usual pattern of layoffs during a strong recession are appearing. Cities, counties, states are talking major cutbacks. People are afraid they will lose their jobs. So they're not spending on anything. But oddly many people went out and spent well on Black Friday which wasn't supposed to be a day of spending. So I conclude that there are people who would have bought a car in the last 30 or next 30 days who are being held off by the constant drumbeats about how bad it is and how the automakers will go out of business.
I think when the attitude lightens a little, some people will start to buy more cars. I suspect March is what we're looking at.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Good choices! I see a Buick Lucerne followed by a Malibu.
Not just that, but they just don't change the styles that much these days. Back in the day, they had a knack for making a car look old after just a couple years...even if under the skin, it was the SAME CAR! I remember when my grandparents bought a 1982 Malibu Classic wagon, I thought it made my Mom's '80 Malibu coupe look old. Even if all they did was replace the single headlights with quads, change the hubcaps, and swap out the vertical grille for an eggcrate.
Speaking of, well, money perhaps more than greed:
Big Three Spending Millions On Lobbying. (CBS).
Dingell is in GM's coffers up to his neck.
In the 1950s, cars were getting longer, lower and wider, with more glass area and flatter hoods, roofs and trunks. Even people who didn't care about cars understood this.
Park 1953, 1956 and 1959 Fords beside each other, and, 50 years later, even people who don't know much about cars will be able to rank them from oldest to newest.
In the 1960s, the trend was to remove excessive chrome and body sculpturing, and eliminate the "break" between the C pillar and the rear quarter panel. Brand-new cars made even 2-3-year-old models look "old."
In the 1980s, we had the trend to "aero" styling, started by the 1983 Thunderbird/Cougar. Square-cut cars influenced by the 1975 Cadillac Seville and downsized 1977 GM cars looked "old" next to the rounded aero-look cars.
But park a 2008 Accord next to a 2003 model, or a brand-new Malibu next to a 2004 model...most people would be hard-pressed to tell which one is newer. New cars don't necessarily make the old ones look out-of-date anymore, and that has to depress sales to some extent.
CTS 2,902 5,586
DTS 1,287 3,751
STS 630 1,928
XLR 60 97
Escalade 1,870 2,525
Escalade ESV 752 1,202
Escalade EXT 338 507
SRX 976 1,445
The CTS is the only Cadillac that has outsold the smart in the last two months. :surprise: :P
And it might be that we're past that marketing "trick" with the domestics. Back in the day you COULD tell a '61 from a '62, and that new '62 was something that you could be enticed into wanting.
Now it seems that nobody wants to take a risk like that, even if it was just a sheet metal difference. It's more like, "Ooo... loook at what they're buying from THEM. We need one of those too." Get out in front of the sheep and stay there.
Maybe the costs of retooling even just body work from year to year is just too much. Then again, that might lead to people trading too often and the "upside down" problem which is part of the whole mess to begin with.
I got a kick out of Sen Dodd asking Wagoner to verify that he drove a Volt to the hearing. When the answer was yes, he remarked that everyone could go outside and see what the new Volt looked like... which would be interesting if it was going to look like a Volt. It may have been the skeleton of a Volt, but it was wrapped up as a Cruze.
So our tax $ could be spent to lobby for more tax $'s. For those who disagree with the bailouts, we'd be funding the exact thing we don't want.
Does anyone here think that this $34B will be the last "loan"? With this money they can surely higher more lobbyists, spend more per Congressmen, and continue to get more "loans" year after year. :sick: :mad:
The most damaging terrorists in society are economic terrorists, and they are indeed domestic, or at least pretend to be so.
http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Congress-set-save-Christmas-markets/story.- aspx?guid=%7B87410521%2D3825%2D4DB6%2DB437%2D5CA19C3796C5%7D
If the market does go up due to this bailout, I guess it will be some temporary good news, and a good time to bailout the 401K into a cash position.
This downturn is just starting, with thousands of public employees to be laid off in each state, credit card defaults going higher, and commercial real estate going bust, as retail chain after chain closes (Tweeter went out of business today). Hint: if you want to give a Gift Card this year, it better be Walmart; or write a check to the person instead.
For me, the answer is NO. However, someone came up with the idea of a 10% federal tax writeoff for the buyer off the sales price (b4 TTL) for any American manufactured (not badged) vehicle, and I think that's a great idea, although I'd probably buy a Sequoia.
America spends, America works, and America benefits.
Even by the late 1950s, most marques sold one type of car. The exceptions were AMC (Rambler American and standard Rambler), Ford (Thunderbird and standard Ford), Chevrolet (Corvette and standard Chevrolet) and Studebaker (Hawk and Lark).
Various models were distinguished primarily through interior and exterior trim levels.
When the compacts first appeared on the scene, GM, Ford and Chrysler still only restyled their big cars annually. The compacts were usually left unchanged for 2-3 years.
Now, the mainstream marques usually sell three types of family sedan (Focus, Fusion and Taurus, for example), maybe a sporty car, plus two pickups (small and full size), two or three sizes of SUVs and at least two crossovers. All of those models have to be kept reasonably fresh.
But customers expect more than sheetmetal surgery to get them excited - which is more difficult to perform on today's more aerodynamic vehicles anyway.
Plus, the lack of chrome trim and other ornamentation along the sides means that car makers can't change the appearance by revising the trim.
So, when a vehicle changes, it really does have to be a pretty major revamp to attract press and customer attention in today's crowded market. But this costs money, and, at this point, even Toyota probably couldn't afford to revamp even a big seller like the Camry every year.
There's also been a change in attitudes regarding car ownership. Among my friends, I've noticed that most people subtly brag about how LONG they've kept their car, and how many miles were on the odometer when they traded it. When I was a kid in the 1970s, those who could afford to trade the most often were the most envied.
This sends two messages. One, they are thrifty with their money. Two, they were smart enough to buy a quality product and got their money's worth.
Trading a car with less than 100,000 miles on the odometer is almost looked down upon, unless there was an external factor (you are driving a Mustang and your wife is expecting a baby, and you need a more practical car).
"#70 of 75 The Big Three by tired_old_dave Nov 20, 2008 (7:28 am)
As much as I believe society has gone down the wrong path with suburbia and sprawl, and while it is not nice to threaten congress or anybody, maybe the big little three should shut their doors at 8 am tomorrow, send employees home, send supplier trucks back, take an extended holiday season. No payroll, no paper pushing, just wish the employees and America a very Happy long holiday season until New Year's or later if the feel good feeling still lingers."
If that many want the new world order, fascism, well like he said "bring it on".
Car Audio & Electronics Center
But nobody's been a bigger advocate for Motor City interests than Dingell. And for him, the stakes aren't just political, they're personal.
"There's an actual conflict," said Ryan Alexander of the nonprofit group Taxpayers for Common Sense. "His personal financial health, you know, the wealth of his family is tied up in the car industry."
Dingell's wife Debbie once worked as a lobbyist for GM.
When she married the congressman, she became a senior GM executive at an undisclosed salary. And we found the couple has extensive GM assets.
Dingell's current financial disclosure filed in May lists GM stock worth up to $350,000, options worth up to $1 million more, and a GM pension fund. In 2000, among the Dingells' GM assets were stock options worth up to $5 million.
And in 1998, the congressman reported selling GM stock options worth up to $1 million dollars.
Dingell wouldn't agree to an interview.
Will Dingell's wife take a big cut along with Wagnoer. Bet not..
http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2008-12-04-auto-hearing_N.htm
So how does $34B get them thru next year, and many of the cost savings don't kick in until 2011?
Also why is Chrysler trying to get taxpayer money? They have parents with money.
"Look, you guys are in asking us for public money today," he told Nardelli. Corker said Cerberus "has lots of cash" but appears "unwilling to invest that money in your company...I have a little trouble with that."
Maybe because Cerberus, already suing Daimler because of buyer's remorse, knows they will lose more money by putting it in Chrysler. What does that say if Cerberus has $20B in cash, and they have Chrysler playing a handout-or-die game? To me it says they have already written off the viability of flipping Chrysler like they had planned. Cerberus has analyzed that Chrysler will never make any profit. To Cerberus, Chrysler is like a used-car that they didn't check out and overpaid for - it needs more in repairs and maintenance then they paid, and they can't sell it as everyone sees the engine and transmission have fallen out.