I cannot imagine GM shutting down the plants in Mexico and opening or re-opening plants here. The playing field needs to be level. Either UAW contracts take a big cut or Toyota and Honda plants need to be Unionized. I have watched big companies dodge the Union elections in Alaska the last 20 years. It is an uphill battle to keep the middle class. We are losing, and the elitist are winning.
Well GM is approaching a no-win situation, because I don't see either happening anytime soon.
The Union would be wise to not give us The Players Association-type stance, and get this ship back on track.
It would be interesting to see how much GM makes per vehicle built in Mexico vs the USA. I think most of those plants are final assembly plants. I am not sure what GM uses for paint on their vehicles. I know the cabinet business was really hurt in CA due to regulations on the kinds of paint that can be used. All the furniture and cabinets with the real good finishes are made out of CA. Many are made in Mexico. That may be why GM moved to Mexico. The auto industry is not the only workers that were displaced by Mexican maquiladoras. Of the thousands of businesses that moved to Mexico only 22% are Automotive. Next to the USA the second largest investor in Mexico is the Japanese.
What will be interesting is all these folks with little or no retirement benefits, moving to Mexico where the living is easy. I believe there are close to 250,000 US retirees in Guadalajara. A wonderful big city with near perfect climate year round. If we send about 12 million retirees to Mexico will that be a fair exchange?
I agree with you on the GM/UAW negotiations. If the UAW plays hard ball they could lose big time. If Toyota holds on to first place for a year, what does GM have to lose? Survival time for both GM and the UAW.
It all depends on what how one defines "middle class." Obvious working for GM as a UAW worker is rapidly becoming non-middleclass. All that talks about housing being so expensive can only mean one thing: a lot of new middle class people are bidding up the prices. Surely the upper class are not interested in buying those one, two or three bedroom condos, or even 2000 sqft houses. Its the middle class that are bidding those properties up.
There was a time when having 40 acres to farm and support a family was American middle class (back in the early to mid 1800's). Today, farming row crop on 40 acres, even with modern crop seeds and all the combines you can get, would only yield a couple hundred dollars per acre . . . or in other words $8000 a year for 40 acres! That's not even one half of the poverty line for a family of 4. People raised half a dozen kids (not 2 kids in a family of 4) on a typical 40-acre homestead back in the early 1800's. 40 acres of row crop today certainly yield more food than 40 acres in the 1800's (corn fields have been yielding 300 bushels per acre in recent years, compared to about 70 bushels back in the 1800's; these numbers are not typos!), the absolute standard of living is not dropping. Yet, why is the relative station of the family dropped from middle-class to abject poverty? The rest of the society and economy has become more productive!
That's why UAW members need to find new lines of work to enable themselves to win bidding wars in the housing market (or any other market). Of course, UAW workers are not exactly helped by Public Employees Union members who are flush with their wad of government printed cash to bid in the housing market, and all other markets . . . or the construction workers' unioin members, who refuse to build new housing supply until they get their wad to bid on the same limited resources in the market place. That's the problem with government redistribution policies: they don't actually create wealth; they only inflict poverty on those who are not on the most recent receiving end of such redistributions.
GM, can make the vehicle's I mentioned at a fairly healthy profit here in the U.S. because they do it at other U.S. and Canadian plants. It's a matter of greed to build em' in Mexico.
rocky, it is always greed to you when a large company makes a decision to do something to reduce cost and make more profit. Making more money to me is not greed. If that was the case pretty much everyone in the world would be considered greedy because they all would take a bit more money if it was offered (except of course all the Catholic priests and nuns). The definition of greed is gluttonous or covetous and if GM was that they would have moved ALL their plants somewhere else.
No GM has hedged their bets by opening a few plants in another country. But what can I say. All companies are doing it and if they do not they will be put out of business by those that do.
And yes they do build where they sell it and Mexico is an up and coming source of automotive sales for GM.
rocky, it is always greed to you when a large company makes a decision to do something to reduce cost and make more profit.
I look at it as greed as on a very profitable product like the Escalade, Avalance, Silverado, GM, is exploiting mexican's simpily because they will work for a couple buck's an hour in a sweat shop. It's not work american's won't do if paid a decent wage. A good portion of profit generated from building car's in mexico, end's up in the executive's pocket in some way, shape, or form. I yes think GM, is building better cars and I hope the trend continues but you will not see myself nor any member of my immediant family buy a car made in a 3rd world country. To us it's legal slavery. I'd wouldn't have such a problem if GM,was building those cars down their and giving the worker's union wages and benefit's but instead if they get injured they throw em'out the door and tell the first line supervisor "get me another or your fired" :mad:
Making more money to me is not greed. If that was the case pretty much everyone in the world would be considered greedy because they all would take a bit more money if it was offered (except of course all the Catholic priests and nuns).
I would never take advantage of a position of power like those at the top of major corporations and displace thousands of good people to make a few extra bucks by committing slavery. :mad: If you want to implement something to make the process faster, safer, cheaper, and improve quality, I'm all for it !!!!. GM, could counter it's displaced worker's by building Holden's here, Saab's here, Silverado, Avalanche, Escalade, all here. They also could export cars from the U.S. and if china, doesn't like it then in 2008, make sure the right people get electedlike the oil company's did in 2000 and 2004.
The definition of greed is gluttonous or covetous and if GM was that they would have moved ALL their plants somewhere else.
Well that appears to be not so far away. Lookat what Chrysler, is doing with it's rebadged Dodge Chin-E class of cars.
No GM has hedged their bets by opening a few plants in another country. But what can I say. All companies are doing it and if they do not they will be put out of business by those that do.
Well that problem can be solved by dropping a $100 million in a politicians cash coffer's. We know GM, still has the finacial means to reverse and rewrite history before it's to late. They and the UAW need to get the best politican money can buy !!!!!
And yes they do build where they sell it and Mexico is an up and coming source of automotive sales for GM.
You can't be serious ? :surprise: What are they going to sell them ? Chin-E made Yugo's :confuse:
And yes they do build where they sell it and Mexico is an up and coming source of automotive sales for GM.
You can't be serious ? What are they going to sell them ? Chin-E made Yugo's
[edit] General Motors Mexico (GMM) General Motors is the sales leader in Mexico. From the early 60s to early 90s Chevrolet was the only brand available, even in the 90s when GM sold Buicks and Oldsmobiles under the the Chevrolet brand. The second formal brand to reenter the market was Cadillac in 1991, and several other brands throughout the decade. Now GM sells several brands like Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC, Saab, Pontiac, etc., and Daewoo and Opel under the Chevrolet brand name. The success of the Chevrolet Chevy (C2 redesigned in Mexico) has kept this maker in the top 1 since 1995.
The Catera became a successful model in Mexico during the 90's. Nowadays the Escalade is the top selling of the maker.
Mexico set to pass Canada in vehicle sales Demand growing: Strong argument for carmakers to move investment south
Mexico is poised overtake Canada in annual passenger vehicle sales by 2010, a situation one economist says could make it more difficult for Canada to lure future investments from automakers, including the construction of new assembly plants and manufacturing facilities. In contrast to mature markets in the United States and Canada, demand for new vehicles in Mexico has been growing steadily and has doubled since 1990, according to a report yesterday by a Bank of Nova Scotia economist.
According to the report, productivity at Mexican assembly plants has improved by 21% over three years, more than triple the gains made in Canada and the United States. David Healy, a U.S. analyst with Burnham Securities Inc., agreed that the days when Mexico could only offer up cheap labour have all but disappeared. "I think the Big Three have found that if they closely supervise their production in Mexico that the quality can be as good as in Canada or the U.S.," he said.
So the drug lords like GM, products is what the article is saying ? Come-on 62, you know that what 75+% of the population still lives in what we'd consider poverty. Unless, they are selling those car's really cheap theiris no way some one making $2.00-$3.00 an hour is buying Cadillac's, especially when they have no benefit's or retirement. I know a few folks from Mexico, and they have family that lives there. They are dirt poor like their fellow neighbors next door. It just doesn't add up to me ?
Again, it must be the media is just making up data for us poor unsuspecting folks. Maybe you should meet some folks who are not dirt poor in Mexico and ask them why they do not share their wealth with their poorer neighbors. Greed again. Mexico should redistribute all the wealth so that all are equal. Oh yea, that is socialism. That experiment did not work.
Not everybody is poor in Mexico. Even back in 75 when I wnet to Mexico City it was obvious there was a lot of money there. Not everybody lives in the country in shacks.
For the most part I have to agree with Rock on this one. That article only tells a very, very small part of the story - it is kind of misleading. In far more places than not, Mexican workers are NOT pushing Escalades and the like, and are dirt poor. I deal with 3 Mexican plants on a daily basis and have been to one of them multiple times over the past 3 years. I can tell you I did not see one Caddy down there or any other what we would consider a high end auto. On the last two trips I say a gentleman and his family on mule & buggy :surprise: - I kid you not. One of the plant managers bought a new Silverado and he was king of the town, whereas you cross the border back into Texas and it was just another Silverado. This plant by the way is just across the border, it has a tourism area (a small downtown), a growing industrial area, a Subway sandwich shop but other than that, dirt-floor city.
Now I agree there are some places in Mexico where there may be Caddy's and the like roaming the street and people are doing well, but many more that aren't. The majority of the time the workers can't afford to buy what they are building. Mexico City is nice, but it's really a tourism destination, as well as other places. We pay an ok range, but not something they could live on here.
Hey, my Dad who just retired about four years ago is thinking about moving to Mexico himself! He worked for this company that manufactures commercial ovens and ranges for 24 years. He goes away on vacation to come back to find that he, as well as a lot of the other older guys, are out of work. He was 60 years-old? Now who is going to hire a 60 year-old guy? He then went back to school to get trained in electrical engineering and graduated at the top of his class - pretty amazing for a guy with just a high school education and a brief stint in the Navy. As he's going to school he's working all kinds of odd jobs - a dishwasher at Appleby's, a telemarketer, and a clerk at Lowe's. He finally lands a great job at Quaker Oats. Dad told me that if he had worked at Quaker Oats for the last 30 years, he'd have had an awesome retirement.
Do not think I ever said Mexico was the land of Cadillac Escalades. My point is that Mexico is another land of opportunity for GM in their offensive. GM is the number one seller there. Why would they not build them there also? Why do they build EXT's/pickups there if they do not sell there? Probably because 50% of GM's sales are trucks and there was a pretty good chance of a truck plant being built there. GM has truck plants in Canada, US and Mexico because they sell so many.
Mexicans who work on GM production lines are certainly not slaves. They make a decent living there, simply because everything cost less there. A peso is only 1/10 a dollar, and for daily living items, one or two pesos can buy just as much as we can buy with one dollar here. It's no different than the fact that someone making $40k in Georgeia or Texas can make a much better living in Georgia or Texas than a person making $60k can have in NYC. Money is only a medium of exchange; what it can buy is what decides standard of living. We gotta have our heads out of the abstract one-number comparisons. People in Georgia, Texas and Mexico do not have to convert buy food, clothing and shelter in NYC.
Commercial profit motive and efficiency are not greed. Commercial profit motive and efficiency is what enable productivity increase, ultimately leading to overall prosperity. Sure, both of us can probably afford to eat out every day, but I still buy food at Walmart and Costco, and make dinner at home. Is that greed? Is that gipping the good people in the restaurant kitchen and the waiting staff? or even the unionized meat choppers at the local grocery store? Nope. It's my money; it's my business how to spend it. And the way I spend it promotes efficient food distribution. On the other hand, if the local restaurants and grocers form a big union and threaten to use violence to ensure that all people patronize them instead of shopping at lower priced venues . . . now that is senseless greed.
Ultimately, if a Mexican can build a car for GM just as well and as efficiently as a UAW worker can, there's no real way to keep the UAW worker's living standard above that Mexican without ripping off other people in the US economy. Unless the UAW worker can find a more productive line of work, all talks of using political machinations (i.e. the threat of violence) to ensure that the UAW worker makes a better living than the Mexican that has equal productivity is, well, greed talking. Don't tell me just because the worker makes less immunizes the chage of greed; most muggers don't make much either.
There are lots and lots of great US companies that provide good jobs and benefits. If you work for a company that is profitable they generally will take care of their employees.
Despite what is commonly posted on this thread, most companies want to take care of their employees. If you don't like shareholders, work for a privately held company (still can be shareholder, just not nearly as many). The people I know that work for privately held/family run businesses generally have great work environments. Granted not all are that way, but many are.
Even big bad Walmart (as does most retailers) provides lots of good to high paying jobs. Sure, they have lots of low paying jobs too. But if your in management, marketing, accounting, purchasing etc. you earn good wages and with profit sharing/401k contributions, a 30 year manager will have a great nest egg to retire on. That's how retail has always been. If your clerk level you don't get paid much, if your management level, the compensation is competitive. (But we all know management is bad, so nobody should want to have those positions). I personally know more people making 6 figures in the retail industry than in manufacturing. Are they running a register or stocking shelves no, but many started out that way.
GM is not losing market share because everyone is supposedly getting down sized or squeezed out.
Customers are simply exercising their right to choose, and they aren't choosing GM.
I think GM is on the right path, seems like they have some appealing models in the pipeline. That is the key. You've got to keep your products current. Ford and GM have not been able to do that. Having the old models are great for fire sales, but they end up diluting the brand. The G6 is decent, but the GrandPrix is way over the hill.
Yeah, and if GM and other paid well, at least by Mexican standards, there wouldn't be millions of illegal immigrants pouring across the border seeking better work in the United States. Things must be pretty bad in Mexico for sweat shop labor in the U.S. to look good.
Things must be pretty bad in Mexico for sweat shop labor in the U.S. to look good.
Man I'm glad I don't live where you do. I don't know anyone who works in those conditions.
As a matter of fact, I called an old high school friend last week on his cell phone. We talked for about a 1/2 hour before he said he needed to get back to work. I asked him what he was doing, he replied that he was at work. He was working an O/T shift at US Steel where he has been union iron worker for the past 10 years. I guess I didn't hear him scream from the whips of his foreman. Since he was making double time, he got paid $30 to talk to me. If that qualifies as sweatshop conditions, sign me up.
Is GM exploiting Mexican workers? I don't think so.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the hourly production worker in the U.S. averages $23.65, while those in Brazil work for $4.09, Mexico $2.63, Taiwan $6.38, and Poland $4.54.
If a Mexican could not live on $2.63 per hour he would look elsewhere for work. I am sure the Mexican government forces GM to provide health care. It is much less expensive in Mexico. I have friends that go to Tijuana for all their dental work. Many US citizens go to Mexico for health care.
Tijuana has grown from a sleepy village when I was a kid to a big city. They are building houses and $200k condos everywhere down there. Tijuana is now larger than San Diego. No one is sure as it is such a fluid count. Close to 2 million people is the guesstimate. There are huge areas of factories. Many Mexican residents shop in San Diego to get good prices on products they do not have. They must be making enough to afford our prices. There are still a lot of poor folks. It is not as bad as when we went down there in the 1950s.
GM is a strong presents in Mexico. I never saw so many Suburbans as when I first started visiting Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta in the 1980s.
Until Mexico levels out with the USA we will feel the pinch of losing high paying manufacturing jobs. They are just as capable of building Escalades as we are. My Mexican built 1998 Suburban was a great vehicle. Better fit than my current 2005 GMC built in Indiana.
I am really tired of the whining about manufacturing jobs leaving the U.S. At my company (large high tech software and services)- we have about 55,000 employees and at present, 9,000 (!!!) job openings- good paying jobs too with a future. So our issues are not unemployment but a mis-match in skill sets. And I have traveled to Honduras where the minimum wage is about 65 cents per hour- still kind of high compared to China where it is 25 cents or so- so the only thing these countries have to offer is cheap labor. And we want them to buy our stuff (software, entertainment, pharmaceuticals, aircraft, foodstuffs, etc)- they have to have the ability to sell us things too- that's the whole idea of trade.
I just read that GM's second quarter sales were up slightly due to foreign sales- now 58% of their sales are from outside the U.S.- good for them!!! Now just make some cars that are fuel efficient, dependable, innovative, and exciting in North America and they can do it here too. Remember the old Pontiac tagline, "We Build Excitement"?
"The net effect is that if you stay in your home, your property taxes get proportionately cheaper as the home appreciates. Those who buy new pay the full tax rate their first year.
My in-laws in the LA area have been in their home for 50 years and pay under $1000 for a home worth a bit over $1mill. "
That is a pretty nice perk, no such thing exists here. NJ (next door) has some of the highest property taxes in the nation and yearly increases of several hundred dollars arent uncommon and you will have to pay it unless you are really old and low income- then you might get a rebate. If your house is worth $1Mill in south jersey (which is cheaper than north) your taxes would probably be between $8000-$15,000.
But I digress.....
Has anyone seen the pics of the HHR SS brochure? Looks good-it gets the turbo engine with 260hp, larger wheels, sports seats, etc.
"I am really tired of the whining about manufacturing jobs leaving the U.S. At my company (large high tech software and services)- we have about 55,000 employees and at present, 9,000 (!!!) job openings- good paying jobs too with a future. So our issues are not unemployment but a mis-match in skill sets. "
that is ridiculous. The high tech job sector is only a fraction of what the manufacturing sector used to be. The bottom line is that everyone cant go to college so this nonsense about "just get educated and upgrade your skills" is overly simplistic. Everyone isnt made for that and we are headed for a situation where anyone without a master's or doctorate wont be able to be middle class. That isnt good. What do you think would happen if everyone magically was able to go to college and get CS degrees? the market would be flooded and wages would plummet. See India for reference, they have more engineers and other smart people than they can employ and thus you can be a smart hi-tech professional there and make peanuts. Most of the people working at call centers over there probably have degrees.
"The G6 is decent, but the GrandPrix is way over the hill. "
The platform is old, but the GP is only in its 4th year- not really ancient in the auto industry. GM actually doesnt have too many ancient models right now. The 9-5 is very old and the midsize pickups are in need up updating. The oldest mainstream products are the GMT360s, but they are being phased out so I dont expect any upgrades. They have been around since 2002MY.
"Here in Illiniois my house is worth less than 1/2 that and we pay about $8k in property taxes. Yuck! "
Compared to surrounding areas, Philly has very cheap property taxes- part of that is due to wage tax though. The best deal is that if you buy new construction you get 10 year abatement where you pay for land only. Bottom line is that new townhouses (typically $350k-$700k) will be taxed at less than $1000 for a decade. If you get a condo, your taxes could be a few hundred a year.
I think you are correct. If those in the jobs bank would have sought the re-training they were getting paid for, they could take advantage of these high tech jobs. I get called every couple weeks to go back to work. One of the guys that retired in June is going back in September to work for a month.
One reason GM foreign sales are good is they offer great diesel cars in the rest of the world. Our emissions restrictions are designed to keep diesel cars out. Transition from selling large SUVs & PU trucks in the USA is difficult for GM & Ford.
Consequently, if everybody was educated in the high-tech field, it would mean anybody could do the job. So wouldn't that tend to depress wages in the high-tech sector? Shoot, why should I pay Myron $100K to be a software engineer when Poindexter will do it for $25K?
High tech (and some of the other things I listed) is manufacturing in a way- just manufacturing intellectual property, which is the wave of the future, not making gearshift knobs for GM vehicles. And yes, the transition to what makes sense today may be painful, but no going back. The buggy whip manufacturers and workers made the transition, we have to also.
I'm starting to believe GM may actually pull something off. The product line has never been better, the cars are more up to date than ever. Even Saturn is a real car again. What worries me is, there has been no structural change at GM to give them long term viability - they're still that giant, multi-leveled elephant they always were - they're just building better product - but they're building too many variations on a theme still, and the name change thing is ill-conceived in some cases. Lucerne for Park Avenue, etc. Still, for now, it's looking better for them than it has in a long time.
GM is making lots of progress, but some signs of the old GM are still there. Still too many brands and too much badge engineering.
And GM needs to build a Cobalt with the same level of execution and attention to detail that it shows with the big pickups, SUVs and crossovers. The smaller cars still lag too far behind the competition.
Things must have looked terrible if you told someone 150 years ago that our nation of 80% farmers at the time were about to have farm job roll cut down to less than 2% of total population. Yet that's what happened. And we have more food than ever before. More importantly, we have all the other things in our lives that we take for granted today because we no longer have 80% of our population engaged in back-breakig farm labor.
Elimination of old less productive jobs is the only way there can be enough people to do new more productive ones. Not all new high productivity jobs need degrees. A lot of CAD jobs only require vocational school training; that's equivalent to high school!
The problem with India is too much tax and red tapes. Tax and government interventions to put more young people through schools just means more students selected for school tests. They are not necessarily better adapted to a rapidly changing economy; the high taxes required to fund the schools certainly get in the way of businesses having places open for the graduates of those schools.
or even the unionized meat choppers at the local grocery store? Nope. It's my money; it's my business how to spend it. And the way I spend it promotes efficient food distribution. On the other hand, if the local restaurants and grocers form a big union and threaten to use violence to ensure that all people patronize them instead of shopping at lower priced venues . . . now that is senseless greed.
Trying to stay on topic with GM, it will be interesting how labor historians view union power in last half of 20th century. How was GM (and other domestic mfrs) management so incompetent to agree to a jobs bank procedure as well as other questionable work rules dictated by unions. Was it mainly fear of strikes and loss of sales? Seems like other companies/industries have more staunch management and are able to keep union issues to reasonable/workable levels. There is absolutely no question but that unions have done great things for the working class in our country in the 20th century, but maybe some of them went to far with demands.
There was a butchers' union in our metro area that was very powerful until about early 70's. They controlled sales of meats in all food stores to extent you could not buy cut and packaged meat (steaks, pork chops, etc) after 6 PM on weekdays and never on Sundays. Meat that was cut and already packaged and put in cold cases was covered up with plastic sheets at 6 PM and if you took a package out after 6 PM, the cashier/clerk would not sell it to you. All of that nonsense is long gone.
Maybe the union focused on long term goals for its members (multiyear contracts and pensions) while management was looking at the next quarter's financial results?
philly metro is far cheaper than soCal, that is pretty obvious. I wouldnt go so far as to say you could live lavishly on $56k a year though- that is pushing it big time. Union construction workers here make considerably more than UAW workers based on what I'm seeing here. They can afford to live upper-middle class in Philly with their $70K+ salaries. Still not well off though.
as for the Aura, its not selling- I dont know why you keep asking. Nothing has really changed recently, they are selling 4k-5k cars a month. Maybe the newest ads will change that. The bottom line is that a significant incentive boost is going to be required.
"I've lived in 5 different states, they all tax differently and usually end up about the same in the end. Pretty much pick your poison "
contrary to what people believe we arent taxed that much lower than "socialist" European countries. Sure our federal rates are lower, but if you factor in local taxes, state taxes, medicare, social security, sales tax, etc. plus out of pocket expenses for education and health car I bet the gap is pretty small. Here its just death by a thousand taxes.
"GM is making lots of progress, but some signs of the old GM are still there. Still too many brands and too much badge engineering. ":
We have been over this stuff a thousand times, GM cannot easily drop brands. Its pointless to keep bringing it up or using it as an example of how clueless GM's management is these days. It just cant be done without incurring huge costs and lawsuits.
As for badge, engineering- there really isnt much if you remove the Chevy/GMC trucks/SUVS from the equation. I dont understand the point of GMC, but in the end I dont think they are hurting GM or Chevy.
Yeah, and if GM and other paid well, at least by Mexican standards, there wouldn't be millions of illegal immigrants pouring across the border seeking better work in the United States.
I would not know for sure but I bet if there were more manufacturing plants in Mexico that they cost for labor would rise and sthey would stop coming to the US. Guess the answer is to open more plants in Mexico and actually raise the standard of living and it will balloon into a good place to live.
"Yet that's what happened. And we have more food than ever before. More importantly, we have all the other things in our lives that we take for granted today because we no longer have 80% of our population engaged in back-breakig farm labor. "
mechanising farm tasks allows people to have larger farms with far less labor. We also import a lot of food. We have things that we take for granted here thanks to cheap labor in Asia and other places. It has nothing to do with people not working on farms anymore.
"A lot of CAD jobs only require vocational school training; that's equivalent to high school! "
CAD operators do not make family supporting wages. If your company cant fill thousands of CAD jobs than perhaps they need to relocate or something. Back in he early 2000s we lived through all the tech company histeria and heard of mass people shortages and what not. All that has faded after the dot com bust. America may not produce enough of its own engineers and doctors but those fields are just a small portion of the overall workforce. The masses still need to have decent jobs, everyone cant be a computer guy or engineer. If service jobs ever get moved overseas like manufacturing jobs have been in the last 50 years we are in trouble.
How was GM (and other domestic mfrs) management so incompetent to agree to a jobs bank procedure as well as other questionable work rules dictated by unions.
Unrealistic hopes and expectations. The jobs bank makes sense IF the reduction in labor needs from declining market share, outsourcing, and automation is temporary, and will soon be taken up by increased market share and production. However, it turns out that GM's labor needs kept shrinking unabated, and the "temporary" pool kept getting bigger and not so temporary.
Didn't say you did, but at the same time you can't state that Mexico is not as dirt poor as people say simply because the small area you went to wasn't like that or an article doesn't mention the real. Just like I can't say (and didn't) that all of Mexico is dirt poor. The point is, I'm down in many parts of Mexico many times a year and I can tell you it's not all peaches and cream there. I've been to good parts, been to bad parts, and places in between.
I have seen first hand what GM, Ford & Chrysler plants are like, what the pay is and such, as well as other industries. Am well aware of the GM plants (you're not the only one that has ties to GM), where they're located and what's built. Yes, Chevy was #1 GM seller because that's all that was sent over there, so what was your point? :confuse:
Just because you have a plant in a location doesn't mean you sell in that location. Again, how many people buy those Escalades, EXTs/XYZs that are built in Mexico, or any other product in any other plant in any other part of the world? Just as with any other plant, in any part of the world.
Any and every land can be an opportunity for GM, as well as others, but not at the expense of one group of workers for another just to pad their pockets. I say stop joining the "cheap labor" bandwagon and at least try to work things out here at home. Develop real solutions to real labor problems / issues, not just the flavor of the month think tank. Then and only then if that doesn't work, try other lands. I'm sure you remember the Brazil fiasco some years back, how South America was the land of flowing milk and honey. Didn't work out now did it?
Well the Aura is GM's new car. Kinda a gauge for the new products selling or not. It needs to sell. So you are saying an incentive boost is needed. Then this Saturn car was indeed wrong priced. The concept of one price for all, and it being the fair price as stickered was off. Sell the Aura XR for $21,999 and dump the XE with the plastic hub caps and old drive-train, as it eats into the image of Aura being more upscale.
Any new CARS from GM for 2007 or 2008 to boost the sales numbers? Loren
Comments
Looks like Delphi, will soon pull out of bankruptcy. :surprise:
-Rocky
Well GM is approaching a no-win situation, because I don't see either happening anytime soon.
The Union would be wise to not give us The Players Association-type stance, and get this ship back on track.
DrFill
What will be interesting is all these folks with little or no retirement benefits, moving to Mexico where the living is easy. I believe there are close to 250,000 US retirees in Guadalajara. A wonderful big city with near perfect climate year round. If we send about 12 million retirees to Mexico will that be a fair exchange?
There was a time when having 40 acres to farm and support a family was American middle class (back in the early to mid 1800's). Today, farming row crop on 40 acres, even with modern crop seeds and all the combines you can get, would only yield a couple hundred dollars per acre . . . or in other words $8000 a year for 40 acres! That's not even one half of the poverty line for a family of 4. People raised half a dozen kids (not 2 kids in a family of 4) on a typical 40-acre homestead back in the early 1800's. 40 acres of row crop today certainly yield more food than 40 acres in the 1800's (corn fields have been yielding 300 bushels per acre in recent years, compared to about 70 bushels back in the 1800's; these numbers are not typos!), the absolute standard of living is not dropping. Yet, why is the relative station of the family dropped from middle-class to abject poverty? The rest of the society and economy has become more productive!
That's why UAW members need to find new lines of work to enable themselves to win bidding wars in the housing market (or any other market). Of course, UAW workers are not exactly helped by Public Employees Union members who are flush with their wad of government printed cash to bid in the housing market, and all other markets . . . or the construction workers' unioin members, who refuse to build new housing supply until they get their wad to bid on the same limited resources in the market place. That's the problem with government redistribution policies: they don't actually create wealth; they only inflict poverty on those who are not on the most recent receiving end of such redistributions.
rocky, it is always greed to you when a large company makes a decision to do something to reduce cost and make more profit. Making more money to me is not greed. If that was the case pretty much everyone in the world would be considered greedy because they all would take a bit more money if it was offered (except of course all the Catholic priests and nuns). The definition of greed is gluttonous or covetous and if GM was that they would have moved ALL their plants somewhere else.
No GM has hedged their bets by opening a few plants in another country. But what can I say. All companies are doing it and if they do not they will be put out of business by those that do.
And yes they do build where they sell it and Mexico is an up and coming source of automotive sales for GM.
I look at it as greed as on a very profitable product like the Escalade, Avalance, Silverado, GM, is exploiting mexican's simpily because they will work for a couple buck's an hour in a sweat shop. It's not work american's won't do if paid a decent wage. A good portion of profit generated from building car's in mexico, end's up in the executive's pocket in some way, shape, or form. I yes think GM, is building better cars and I hope the trend continues but you will not see myself nor any member of my immediant family buy a car made in a 3rd world country. To us it's legal slavery. I'd wouldn't have such a problem if GM,was building those cars down their and giving the worker's union wages and benefit's but instead if they get injured they throw em'out the door and tell the first line supervisor "get me another or your fired" :mad:
Making more money to me is not greed. If that was the case pretty much everyone in the world would be considered greedy because they all would take a bit more money if it was offered (except of course all the Catholic priests and nuns).
I would never take advantage of a position of power like those at the top of major corporations and displace thousands of good people to make a few extra bucks by committing slavery. :mad: If you want to implement something to make the process faster, safer, cheaper, and improve quality, I'm all for it !!!!. GM, could counter it's displaced worker's by building Holden's here, Saab's here, Silverado, Avalanche, Escalade, all here. They also could export cars from the U.S. and if china, doesn't like it then in 2008, make sure the right people get electedlike the oil company's did in 2000 and 2004.
The definition of greed is gluttonous or covetous and if GM was that they would have moved ALL their plants somewhere else.
Well that appears to be not so far away. Lookat what Chrysler, is doing with it's rebadged Dodge Chin-E class of cars.
No GM has hedged their bets by opening a few plants in another country. But what can I say. All companies are doing it and if they do not they will be put out of business by those that do.
Well that problem can be solved by dropping a $100 million in a politicians cash coffer's. We know GM, still has the finacial means to reverse and rewrite history before it's to late. They and the UAW need to get the best politican money can buy !!!!!
And yes they do build where they sell it and Mexico is an up and coming source of automotive sales for GM.
You can't be serious ? :surprise: What are they going to sell them ? Chin-E made Yugo's :confuse:
-Rocky
You can't be serious ? What are they going to sell them ? Chin-E made Yugo's
[edit] General Motors Mexico (GMM)
General Motors is the sales leader in Mexico. From the early 60s to early 90s Chevrolet was the only brand available, even in the 90s when GM sold Buicks and Oldsmobiles under the the Chevrolet brand. The second formal brand to reenter the market was Cadillac in 1991, and several other brands throughout the decade. Now GM sells several brands like Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC, Saab, Pontiac, etc., and Daewoo and Opel under the Chevrolet brand name. The success of the Chevrolet Chevy (C2 redesigned in Mexico) has kept this maker in the top 1 since 1995.
The Catera became a successful model in Mexico during the 90's. Nowadays the Escalade is the top selling of the maker.
Kinda old but:
http://www.econ.ubc.ca/lemche/academic%20_f06/webf_f06/mexico.pdf
Mexico set to pass Canada in vehicle sales
Demand growing: Strong argument for carmakers to
move investment south
Mexico is poised overtake Canada in annual passenger vehicle sales by 2010, a situation one economist says could
make it more difficult for Canada to lure future investments
from automakers, including the construction of new assembly plants and manufacturing facilities. In contrast to mature
markets in the United States and Canada, demand for new vehicles in Mexico has been growing steadily and has doubled since 1990, according to a report yesterday by a Bank of Nova Scotia
economist.
According to the report, productivity at Mexican assembly plants has
improved by 21% over three years, more than triple the gains made in
Canada and the United States.
David Healy, a U.S. analyst with Burnham Securities Inc., agreed that the
days when Mexico could only offer up cheap labour have all but
disappeared.
"I think the Big Three have found that if they closely supervise their
production in Mexico that the quality can be as good as in Canada or the
U.S.," he said.
-Rocky
Again, it must be the media is just making up data for us poor unsuspecting folks. Maybe you should meet some folks who are not dirt poor in Mexico and ask them why they do not share their wealth with their poorer neighbors. Greed again. Mexico should redistribute all the wealth so that all are equal. Oh yea, that is socialism. That experiment did not work.
Not everybody is poor in Mexico. Even back in 75 when I wnet to Mexico City it was obvious there was a lot of money there. Not everybody lives in the country in shacks.
For the most part I have to agree with Rock on this one. That article only tells a very, very small part of the story - it is kind of misleading. In far more places than not, Mexican workers are NOT pushing Escalades and the like, and are dirt poor. I deal with 3 Mexican plants on a daily basis and have been to one of them multiple times over the past 3 years. I can tell you I did not see one Caddy down there or any other what we would consider a high end auto. On the last two trips I say a gentleman and his family on mule & buggy :surprise: - I kid you not. One of the plant managers bought a new Silverado and he was king of the town, whereas you cross the border back into Texas and it was just another Silverado. This plant by the way is just across the border, it has a tourism area (a small downtown), a growing industrial area, a Subway sandwich shop but other than that, dirt-floor city.
Now I agree there are some places in Mexico where there may be Caddy's and the like roaming the street and people are doing well, but many more that aren't. The majority of the time the workers can't afford to buy what they are building. Mexico City is nice, but it's really a tourism destination, as well as other places. We pay an ok range, but not something they could live on here.
interesting very old article before it all started
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3165/is_v23/ai_5074185
Commercial profit motive and efficiency are not greed. Commercial profit motive and efficiency is what enable productivity increase, ultimately leading to overall prosperity. Sure, both of us can probably afford to eat out every day, but I still buy food at Walmart and Costco, and make dinner at home. Is that greed? Is that gipping the good people in the restaurant kitchen and the waiting staff? or even the unionized meat choppers at the local grocery store? Nope. It's my money; it's my business how to spend it. And the way I spend it promotes efficient food distribution. On the other hand, if the local restaurants and grocers form a big union and threaten to use violence to ensure that all people patronize them instead of shopping at lower priced venues . . . now that is senseless greed.
Ultimately, if a Mexican can build a car for GM just as well and as efficiently as a UAW worker can, there's no real way to keep the UAW worker's living standard above that Mexican without ripping off other people in the US economy. Unless the UAW worker can find a more productive line of work, all talks of using political machinations (i.e. the threat of violence) to ensure that the UAW worker makes a better living than the Mexican that has equal productivity is, well, greed talking. Don't tell me just because the worker makes less immunizes the chage of greed; most muggers don't make much either.
Despite what is commonly posted on this thread, most companies want to take care of their employees. If you don't like shareholders, work for a privately held company (still can be shareholder, just not nearly as many). The people I know that work for privately held/family run businesses generally have great work environments. Granted not all are that way, but many are.
Even big bad Walmart (as does most retailers) provides lots of good to high paying jobs. Sure, they have lots of low paying jobs too. But if your in management, marketing, accounting, purchasing etc. you earn good wages and with profit sharing/401k contributions, a 30 year manager will have a great nest egg to retire on. That's how retail has always been. If your clerk level you don't get paid much, if your management level, the compensation is competitive. (But we all know management is bad, so nobody should want to have those positions). I personally know more people making 6 figures in the retail industry than in manufacturing. Are they running a register or stocking shelves no, but many started out that way.
GM is not losing market share because everyone is supposedly getting down sized or squeezed out.
Customers are simply exercising their right to choose, and they aren't choosing GM.
I think GM is on the right path, seems like they have some appealing models in the pipeline. That is the key. You've got to keep your products current. Ford and GM have not been able to do that. Having the old models are great for fire sales, but they end up diluting the brand. The G6 is decent, but the GrandPrix is way over the hill.
Man I'm glad I don't live where you do. I don't know anyone who works in those conditions.
As a matter of fact, I called an old high school friend last week on his cell phone. We talked for about a 1/2 hour before he said he needed to get back to work. I asked him what he was doing, he replied that he was at work. He was working an O/T shift at US Steel where he has been union iron worker for the past 10 years. I guess I didn't hear him scream from the whips of his foreman. Since he was making double time, he got paid $30 to talk to me. If that qualifies as sweatshop conditions, sign me up.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the hourly production worker in the U.S. averages $23.65, while those in Brazil work for $4.09, Mexico $2.63, Taiwan $6.38, and Poland $4.54.
If a Mexican could not live on $2.63 per hour he would look elsewhere for work. I am sure the Mexican government forces GM to provide health care. It is much less expensive in Mexico. I have friends that go to Tijuana for all their dental work. Many US citizens go to Mexico for health care.
Tijuana has grown from a sleepy village when I was a kid to a big city. They are building houses and $200k condos everywhere down there. Tijuana is now larger than San Diego. No one is sure as it is such a fluid count. Close to 2 million people is the guesstimate. There are huge areas of factories. Many Mexican residents shop in San Diego to get good prices on products they do not have. They must be making enough to afford our prices. There are still a lot of poor folks. It is not as bad as when we went down there in the 1950s.
GM is a strong presents in Mexico. I never saw so many Suburbans as when I first started visiting Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta in the 1980s.
Until Mexico levels out with the USA we will feel the pinch of losing high paying manufacturing jobs. They are just as capable of building Escalades as we are. My Mexican built 1998 Suburban was a great vehicle. Better fit than my current 2005 GMC built in Indiana.
I just read that GM's second quarter sales were up slightly due to foreign sales- now 58% of their sales are from outside the U.S.- good for them!!! Now just make some cars that are fuel efficient, dependable, innovative, and exciting in North America and they can do it here too. Remember the old Pontiac tagline, "We Build Excitement"?
My in-laws in the LA area have been in their home for 50 years and pay under $1000 for a home worth a bit over $1mill. "
That is a pretty nice perk, no such thing exists here. NJ (next door) has some of the highest property taxes in the nation and yearly increases of several hundred dollars arent uncommon and you will have to pay it unless you are really old and low income- then you might get a rebate. If your house is worth $1Mill in south jersey (which is cheaper than north) your taxes would probably be between $8000-$15,000.
But I digress.....
Has anyone seen the pics of the HHR SS brochure? Looks good-it gets the turbo engine with 260hp, larger wheels, sports seats, etc.
Here in Illiniois my house is worth less than 1/2 that and we pay about $8k in property taxes. Yuck!
that is ridiculous. The high tech job sector is only a fraction of what the manufacturing sector used to be. The bottom line is that everyone cant go to college so this nonsense about "just get educated and upgrade your skills" is overly simplistic. Everyone isnt made for that and we are headed for a situation where anyone without a master's or doctorate wont be able to be middle class. That isnt good. What do you think would happen if everyone magically was able to go to college and get CS degrees? the market would be flooded and wages would plummet. See India for reference, they have more engineers and other smart people than they can employ and thus you can be a smart hi-tech professional there and make peanuts. Most of the people working at call centers over there probably have degrees.
The platform is old, but the GP is only in its 4th year- not really ancient in the auto industry. GM actually doesnt have too many ancient models right now. The 9-5 is very old and the midsize pickups are in need up updating. The oldest mainstream products are the GMT360s, but they are being phased out so I dont expect any upgrades. They have been around since 2002MY.
Compared to surrounding areas, Philly has very cheap property taxes- part of that is due to wage tax though. The best deal is that if you buy new construction you get 10 year abatement where you pay for land only. Bottom line is that new townhouses (typically $350k-$700k) will be taxed at less than $1000 for a decade. If you get a condo, your taxes could be a few hundred a year.
One reason GM foreign sales are good is they offer great diesel cars in the rest of the world. Our emissions restrictions are designed to keep diesel cars out. Transition from selling large SUVs & PU trucks in the USA is difficult for GM & Ford.
And GM needs to build a Cobalt with the same level of execution and attention to detail that it shows with the big pickups, SUVs and crossovers. The smaller cars still lag too far behind the competition.
Elimination of old less productive jobs is the only way there can be enough people to do new more productive ones. Not all new high productivity jobs need degrees. A lot of CAD jobs only require vocational school training; that's equivalent to high school!
The problem with India is too much tax and red tapes. Tax and government interventions to put more young people through schools just means more students selected for school tests. They are not necessarily better adapted to a rapidly changing economy; the high taxes required to fund the schools certainly get in the way of businesses having places open for the graduates of those schools.
Like Ford should do with Mercury, Chevy should bump off GMC. Make the Silverado the #1 truck in America.
Anybody see GMC bringing in any new traffic? Any original designs going to GMC exclusively?
GM needs to get leaner.
DrFill
Trying to stay on topic with GM, it will be interesting how labor historians view union power in last half of 20th century. How was GM (and other domestic mfrs) management so incompetent to agree to a jobs bank procedure as well as other questionable work rules dictated by unions. Was it mainly fear of strikes and loss of sales? Seems like other companies/industries have more staunch management and are able to keep union issues to reasonable/workable levels. There is absolutely no question but that unions have done great things for the working class in our country in the 20th century, but maybe some of them went to far with demands.
There was a butchers' union in our metro area that was very powerful until about early 70's. They controlled sales of meats in all food stores to extent you could not buy cut and packaged meat (steaks, pork chops, etc) after 6 PM on weekdays and never on Sundays. Meat that was cut and already packaged and put in cold cases was covered up with plastic sheets at 6 PM and if you took a package out after 6 PM, the cashier/clerk would not sell it to you. All of that nonsense is long gone.
as for the Aura, its not selling- I dont know why you keep asking. Nothing has really changed recently, they are selling 4k-5k cars a month. Maybe the newest ads will change that. The bottom line is that a significant incentive boost is going to be required.
contrary to what people believe we arent taxed that much lower than "socialist" European countries. Sure our federal rates are lower, but if you factor in local taxes, state taxes, medicare, social security, sales tax, etc. plus out of pocket expenses for education and health car I bet the gap is pretty small. Here its just death by a thousand taxes.
We have been over this stuff a thousand times, GM cannot easily drop brands. Its pointless to keep bringing it up or using it as an example of how clueless GM's management is these days. It just cant be done without incurring huge costs and lawsuits.
As for badge, engineering- there really isnt much if you remove the Chevy/GMC trucks/SUVS from the equation. I dont understand the point of GMC, but in the end I dont think they are hurting GM or Chevy.
I would not know for sure but I bet if there were more manufacturing plants in Mexico that they cost for labor would rise and sthey would stop coming to the US. Guess the answer is to open more plants in Mexico and actually raise the standard of living and it will balloon into a good place to live.
What, 8 models?
Cobalt/G5
Torrent/Equinox
pickup
large suv
mechanising farm tasks allows people to have larger farms with far less labor. We also import a lot of food. We have things that we take for granted here thanks to cheap labor in Asia and other places. It has nothing to do with people not working on farms anymore.
"A lot of CAD jobs only require vocational school training; that's equivalent to high school! "
CAD operators do not make family supporting wages. If your company cant fill thousands of CAD jobs than perhaps they need to relocate or something. Back in he early 2000s we lived through all the tech company histeria and heard of mass people shortages and what not. All that has faded after the dot com bust. America may not produce enough of its own engineers and doctors but those fields are just a small portion of the overall workforce. The masses still need to have decent jobs, everyone cant be a computer guy or engineer. If service jobs ever get moved overseas like manufacturing jobs have been in the last 50 years we are in trouble.
Unrealistic hopes and expectations. The jobs bank makes sense IF the reduction in labor needs from declining market share, outsourcing, and automation is temporary, and will soon be taken up by increased market share and production. However, it turns out that GM's labor needs kept shrinking unabated, and the "temporary" pool kept getting bigger and not so temporary.
I have seen first hand what GM, Ford & Chrysler plants are like, what the pay is and such, as well as other industries. Am well aware of the GM plants (you're not the only one that has ties to GM), where they're located and what's built. Yes, Chevy was #1 GM seller because that's all that was sent over there, so what was your point? :confuse:
Just because you have a plant in a location doesn't mean you sell in that location. Again, how many people buy those Escalades, EXTs/XYZs that are built in Mexico, or any other product in any other plant in any other part of the world? Just as with any other plant, in any part of the world.
Any and every land can be an opportunity for GM, as well as others, but not at the expense of one group of workers for another just to pad their pockets. I say stop joining the "cheap labor" bandwagon and at least try to work things out here at home. Develop real solutions to real labor problems / issues, not just the flavor of the month think tank. Then and only then if that doesn't work, try other lands. I'm sure you remember the Brazil fiasco some years back, how South America was the land of flowing milk and honey. Didn't work out now did it?
Sorry for being off-topic 62.
Any new CARS from GM for 2007 or 2008 to boost the sales numbers?
Loren