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Comments
Recession's Psychic Impact
I'm getting psyched about the Detroit Auto Show. Never been to a big show (shoot, never been to anything other than a mall show).
Industry Looks for Sales-Pumping Buzz from Detroit Auto Show (AutoObserver)
For the most part, I've recovered from the "great recession". 401k is actually above where it was at the market peak back in late 2007. And I'm still employed, and have gotten a decent raise every single year. The only area where I haven't recovered, I guess, is real estate. I know my home is worth a lot less than it was in 2007, but I also don't plan on moving anytime soon, so I'm not concerned.
But still, despite all that, I'm not exactly itchy to pull the trigger and go buy a car...new or used, domestic or import. While the economy is improving, I just know too many people who have been laid off, had their hours cut back, or fallen on some other financial hardship. I guess it's just a wakeup call that nobody's invincible. If it can happen to them, it can happen to me! And as a result, I'm not really all that gung-ho to get out there and spend a lot of money to, as GM once put it, "Keep America Moving".
Can we ask "Miss Cleo"? We haven't heard from her in years.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
That pretty much describes us. I was able to adjust our investments to protect them from the crash, then I invested as much as could during it. It's paid off so far. Our retirement and nonretirement investments have basically doubled and we have more cash than ever (even though it's worth less than ever too)
We are planning on heading to the Chicago boat show next week, then St. Louis next month. I'm hoping to find an attractive deal on a Cobalt 242 or A25, it's time for an upgrade (where else can you still get a 496 big block with somewhat open exhaust:))). Might wait one more year though and sell our boat this summer, then try to find a used 1-2 year old model as they are seriously expensive new or used. My youngest daughter is 8, so we've basically got 10 years until she's out of HS. So I don't mind spending the money for something we love doing as a family. We can make more money, but I can't get these years back. So spend it we will.....
This recession has been a great time to buy. We bought a new 32' travel trailer last year for nearly the same money I spent on a 1 year old used 25' model in 2007. Plus money is cheap. I was going to pay cash for the trailer, but I was able to get a 2.9% 5 year loan that is tax deductible, so I've kept the difference invested and that has paid off so far.
At the end of the day, you can run but you can't hide forever.....
China Rises over the USA
MIT's Simon Johnson put it more bluntly, saying the damage from the financial crisis and its aftermath have dealt U.S. prominence a permanent blow.
"The age of American predominance is over," he told a panel. "The (Chinese) Yuan will be the world's reserve currency within two decades."
Johnson said he believes the United States has failed to learn its lesson from the financial crisis and continues to implicitly back its largest financial institutions.
"I'm concerned about the excessive power of the largest global banks," he said. "Who are the government-sponsored enterprises now? It's the six biggest bank holding companies."
GM never really went bankrupt in China!
Regards,
OW
Their long-term goal is to convert to a hard currency standard/force international trade to be valued in a new currency backed by it. By forcing the issue, they will devalue the U.S. economy to 4 cents on the dollar. We lose 96% of our printed value and they lose 80%. In the end, they gain a slight economic advantage over us and since most of the world is using them to manufacture goods, they win.
They can do this at any time that they wish, but they may wait 20 or 30 years. The first step will likely be to pressure the world to make the Won the de-facto trade currency. As long as we're printing money, they'll keep buying it as future leverage. Note - our inflation would be double what it is now if China wasn't buying our dollars and keeping them out of circulation.
If we don't go along, they'll 1: dump all of their dollars and hurt our economy . 2: embargo us and take down another 20% of our economy that way. 3: take down another 20% of the dollars' value that's being artificially inflated by being the trade standard for world exchanges. (ie - if it's not, our credit rating drops to a B or lower overnight). Total combined damage would be about 50% to the value of the dollar, which is already at about 75-80% of its value 5 years ago.
We'll play along - we have no choice at this point. The hard currency change happens later, once the U.S. has been economically neutered. We're stuck in the same position England was after WWI - our economic empire is collapsing and the new player (the U.S. at the time, now China) simply takes over. Trade moved from Pounds to Dollars, and now to Won.
The only question should be how do we deal with all of this and survive the coming mess? I think it's possible, but we have to start preparing now, because it might come in as little as two years if Obama doesn't get re-elected. A new (likely) neo-con in power will certainly force the issue. If not, we might get 6 more years before the other shoe drops.
I like to think of it as preparing for an earthquake. You know it'll happen some day in the future. A little hard work and gathering supplies(or in this case getting your finances in order) will save you tons of grief when it happens. It's a bit sad that our leaders think that they can print and weasel their way out of a disaster that they've been creating for the last 40+ years.
The neocons opened the Pandora's Box...I don't see them changing anything for the better. Nobody has the guts to take on the greatest social and environmental criminal on the planet. The west shouldn't trade as it does with China at all - it is not fair or free trade, it is simply undeserved gain for a small few. Speaking of "embargo", the fact that the west trades with China as it does and doesn't carry the same "embargo" as those made for other nations proves who is in control. Wealth continues to consolidate and the socio-economic gap grows...second world tinpot kleptocracy here we come. The US will eventually resemble China.
Wouldn't a good move to be to run up dollar debt right before the collapse, then have debt in worthless currency? :shades:
Those old neocons who got the ball rolling should be tried for treason and sentenced to classic punishment, either in reality or absentia.
IMHO this is hopleessly naive. Sort of like saying Cuba shouldn't trade with the US as it is a criminal. What has that done for Cuba's economy?
I read yesterday that the Chinese just completed the world's longest overwater bridge (26 miles if I recall) in only 5 years. Over 5000 concrete pilings. More steel than 65 Eiffel Towers. All designed and built in-country. China has 7 of the world's 10 longest bridges.
Is this a country we want to ignore? Is it going to help us by pretending they are not there? Twenty-five percent of the world's population? Really? :confuse: :surprise:
Cuba not trading with the US isn't about Cuba, but more of the worthless neocons who worked so hard to open China. Greatest criminals in modern history.
Let's see how those bridges hold up in 10 or 20 years...or were they built by foreign companies or stolen intellectual capital?
Naive indeed.
Naive indeed.
Hopefully we are both still on the boards in 10 years and my memory is good enough to call you (or you call me) on this!
To keep it on topic, is a GM Buick built in China an American car? :P
Chinese Buick isn't an American car, but it might be better than a lot of the material concocted by overpaid ivory tower detritus in Detroit over the past 30 years.
Gotta agree with all of that.
Some posters consider the Accord or Camry to be japanese, not american because the "profits go back to Japan. So by that logic, a Chinese Buick IS an American car! :shades:
What if the money goes back to the states only to be spent on Chinese-made goods or "invested" in further foreign production? Then does it become Chinese again? :shades:
So how's that for confusion? :P
What does it say about our 'murican educational system? :confuse: :surprise:
This might happen somewhere down the road, but not anytime soon. For the RMB (the yuan is just one denomination - RMB denotes Chinese currency in general) to become the world's reserve currency, the Chinese government will have to relinquish control of its value & allow it to float freely against other major currencies. As long as it's perceived as a creature of the CCP, non-Chinese will be reluctant to shift their wealth from the dollar & the euro to the RMB. I don't think that the government or the CCP (pretty much the same thing, really) is anywhere close to cutting the apron strings.
China also has enormous structural problems, chief of which is the yawning wealth gap between the coast & rural inland areas. Mao used to warn that if the countryside fell too far behind the coast, civil unrest could break out. Even in the most advanced Western countries, you'll generally find that rural areas are poorer than urban/suburban areas, but you won't see anything like the disparity that you can see in China today. (Why else is NYC chock full of illegal immigrants from the inland provinces?) It's not going too far to say that China today is 2 countries: 1 rich & getting richer & 1 poor & going pretty much nowhere.
We're not without problems - we spend far too much on defense & entitlement programs & we simply must get a handle on our government debt - but China's problems go much deeper. I'm not sure that a one-party state can solve them.
They were able to accomplish that much because their workers were not unionized...if the UAW ran the show, they wouldn't be past "Piling #5" one for each year...I guess the ONE advantage to a dictatorship is that there are no unions to screw up ANYTHING, and unskilled workers are probably paid accordingly...and I doubt that floorsweepers get $35/hour (whatever that is in yuan) plus benefits...
Thanks, lemko, I wish I thought of that...now I know how to change the Employee Manual regarding "pay"...
"The floggings will continue until morale has improved"
I have a t shirt taht says essentially that.
Has that $35/hr gone to $37 yet? You know they ARE entitled to COLA raises. :P :surprise:
Daimler is to blame for the Neon that came out in 1995? I missed that page in my history book?????
I'm 8 years younger then that, but you'd be a fool to believe otherwise at any age if by best you mean "most reliable and dependable and best VALUE."
Daimler is to blame for the Neon that came out in 1995? I missed that page in my history book?????
That is a widely held perception...that Daimler further screwed up Chrysler but in their typically German way of doing things, couldn't possibly admit to any of that.
The Neon came out in '94 BTW.
"A merger of equals". Yeah, right!
Most of the magazines of the time will tell that Daimler quality (reliability) through that period, sucked...although they have the untarnishable rep for some reason...and actually brought Chrysler quality down through the merger years.
MB was at the top of the world in the early 90s. Things started going downhill fast around 1998 or so. Too much pressure in the NA market from the swoopy sleepy L, and too much distraction with Chrysler, I assume.
That's correct, but it was called a 1995 model :P
I believe the Neon is the single biggest reason Chrysler eventually failed, not Diamler. I find it IMPOSSIBLE to believe quality and/or reliability could drop any further from that model that was pre-Daimler. If anything, it was Chrysler that brought Daimler down, like a Mercer (sp?) staff infection or Pancreatic Cancer (which is what Chrysler is).
Ah, I think you are referring to MRSA (pronounced "mersa"), actually the acronym for Methicilliin Resistant Staphlococcus (staph.) Aureus.
You couldn't be any more wrong. Yes, it's true that the Neon was a fairly unreliable car, BUT it was very popular, along with it's PT Cruiser siblings. Question is, how could Daimler have taken such popular cars and improved on them? By '99 or '00 it would have been time for a refresh, or a full revamp. So, why not share the C class platform and 4 cyl with Chrysler?? Toyota, Honda and Nissan do it with their lineups. Why not??? Because, der Germanz arrr too zuperior to der Americans. Dey Kan't let de AMericanz infekt der German vayz!!! Ve do nacht dezerve der German engineerink in "our" carz. Heil Dr Z!!!
In all seriousness, look at what happened to Chrysler's full sized vans. Redesigned in 1994 (pre merger), were hugely popular, second only to the Ford Econoline (here at Verizon, we bought them by the boatloads). Daimler shut down the line so they could push their Sprinter vans in America (Freightliner wasn't good enough) OK fine, good move, the Sprinter comes w/ a diesel, is heavier duty, only problem was the $28,000 starting price. Not a big deal. BUT...... they sell Chrysler (actually they "gave" it to Cerberus), then pull the Sprinter line out from Cerberus, leaving the company with nothing to compete!! We've been buying Chevy vans for the last 6 years because of Daimler. It's THESE kind of moves that boggle the mind. All Daimler did was rape them of their cash, and leave a rotting corpse.
keep buying those [non-permissible content removed] rice burners. Several Americans bought Toyota and you can ask them how they like them, but you will have to dig them up because they are 6 feet down in the grave as that car defect killed them.
The cars of the far east can't match a corvette or the Dodge Challenger that JD Powers named car of the year in it's class, and the Dodge Charger had a new design years ago that the imports are trying to copy. Yes the invaders have built factories on our land and my son used to work for them but quit because they pay junk for money ( he was a vet- 101st Airborne in Iraq ).
Buy what you want from Japan- Korea - or COMMUNIST China, you will pay for it much later on. I'll stay American and buy only American or do without.
Actually, the 300 (and I believe Charger) does use a lot of components from the old W210 E-class.
keep buying those [non-permissible content removed] rice burners.
This is an exceptionally stupid statement. I don't know how Canadian GMs help our economy better than US built Hondas and Toyotas. And no, there is no "profits going back to the US" because GM did not have any profits for a decade or more prior to the BK.
By this logic, you should not be using a computer at all, since there are parts in it that are made in Japan/China/Singapore/etc. And throw away your iPod, too.
LMAo
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
You're pretty new around here - less than 2 months - so you might be surprised when one of the hosts tells you that certain words, like the words that appear later on in the sentence that I'm quoting here, are just not acceptable. You should be smart enough to figure out how to express your thoughts without resorting to these words. If not, spend some time brushing up on your vocabulary before you post again.
In any case, I can't see what's un-American about buying an Asian nameplate that was built in Ohio, Kentucky or Alabama. Are you saying that people who live in those states shouldn't be allowed to work in the auto industry at all - that they should go back to working the minimum wage jobs that many of them had before the transplants came along? I don't get that thinking.
Do not defend GM's history into C-11...even if one highlights the German failures, which I agree were well apparent, GM has huge quantities of recalls and customer dissatisfaction up until 2008. Enough to fill the entire annals of history as an example of how not to evolve an automobile manufacturer to world-class stature.
Regards,
OW
The M-Class came out in '97 iirc (as a '98 model I guess). Although Wikipedia isn't helpful, I seem to remember that they had so many problems, MB bought some of them back from the owners. (link). I think Edmunds even got their hands on one for a long term road test and the next thing you know, it's like it never was in the garage.
Challenger? How long did that iconic name stay in mothballs? Camaro...ditto.
Corvette and Mustang were the sole development decisions that shine over the last 50 years. Period.
It's not about the cars and the nameplates more than the incompetent business leadership at the respective helms of our auto companies that ALLOWED the competition to force them into bankruptcy.
Love it or leave it. US citizens that buy great cars have the right to buy anything in the world they choose. :shades:
Regards,
OW