While you like the XK8, I am a four-door sdean kind of guy, so the XJ8 appeals to me...I have read that Jag reliability is much improved, esp since 2000 or so, so I am impressed with the XJ8...my only fear is that since I have family (in-laws) in Mississippi, I drive thru rural GA, Alabama and into MS...you know, where those hick rednecks with no teeth live...anyway, my fear is that if a Jag breaks down, is there anyone that can repair it, whereas if I had a Caddy, it is possible that any GM dealer could fix it...heart says Jag, the rational side of me says Caddy...
And that's today...tom'w it could be something else...:):):):):)
Now, imagine a whole COUNTRY where all the manufacturing industry
The housing industry in CA has come to a screeching halt. Yet the malls stay full and the highways are still crowded all day long. The only places that seem to be depressed are Lowes and Home depot. I like not having long lines to check out. Just keep in mind that over 90% of people are still working and paying their mortgage. It is the apartment dwellers that need to be afraid. How would you like to sign a lease you cannot get out of and the owners do not pay the utilities. Coming to a city near you.
There is a point where I honestly wonder, when looking at all the industry that we have lost, how much of it was unionized workers who priced themselves far above what they were worth???...not trying to be antagonistic (altho usually I am) but asking an honest question here...
We lost steelmaking, and steelworkers were unionized...yet, didn't Nucor steel re-open, with (again) nonrestrictive work rules, reasonable pay scales, and continue on??? (I don't know if they still exist or not, tho)...
We lost garment workers, and aren't they unionized???...work went overseas to avoid unions and their ridiculous demands...
It is time for an honest look at this...maybe I am wrong, and there aren't as many unions as I think...but I still wonder if we, as a nation, lost industry because of all the silly work restrictions placed on employers due to unions...
And I remind you that Honda and Toyota have been growing, along with Hyundai and Kia and VW...so, we are NOT losing all of our industrial base, it is simply moving from the (generally) unionized north to the (generally) non-unionized south...
I do not know about televisions, but can't we ask the question, how many industries that we lost had unionized workers, which means, by defintion, featherbedding, "creating" jobs where none exist, and restrictive work rules which means that 1000 workers are "needed" to do the job of 300...that excess labor cost can be a killer to an employer, just ask GM...
I live in a city that lost its entire manufacturing industry. It can be a very scary and violent place.
NYC has lost most of its manufacturing base & yet crime is at a 45-year low.
I don't want to badmouth Philly - I was born there although (thankfully) not raised there - but perhaps the problem is with the way that your city is run.
The American manufacturing industry isn't dead. Today the USA manufactures debt for others to buy. Great future in that. Who would have dreamed 30 years ago that China would be calling the shots for American economic policy. Owned.
The free-trade lovers fear for nothing, even as the socio-economic spectrum continues to devolve. They know religion keeps the poor from killing the rich, and they will not smile until we have a return to a 19th century labor market. They know their souless neocon kin will simply declare martial law if things become too bad.
Not only that, we also lead the world in exportation of a very valuable commodity called jobs. I wouldn't count on religion holding back the poor from killing the rich. Lots of people lost faith in any deity coming to their rescue. Hopes for an eternal salvation or fears of an eternal damnation are illusory and harmful. They must save themselves.
All very good points ,but no matter how you look at it ,GM is important to our country and both GM and the UAW have learned lessons. One of my main concerns are people that feel buying the Asian car assembled in the U.S. is . . . OK. It is not ,and this book proves it,the really sad part is most of the foreign cars you see on American roads are ASSEMBLED OVERSEAS not in the U.S. This DOES NOT help out ANY U.S. citizen ,except maybe at the dealership level. It does matter what you buy and where it is made,,please read the book ,I think you'll enjoy it. I still believe that most people don't care about what they buy or where it is made as long as they have their job. I do respect your comments ,take care.
Obviously, I have not read the book yet, but still, OTOH, this country cannot and should not be held hostage by one company, just because they have grown quite large...they should not be exempt from the market, or allowed to make junk, and then get pat on the back simply because "they are too big to fail"...they became fat and arrogant, more arrogant than fat, and manufactured much junk over the last 30 years...the market simply punished them for being a lousy company...
Imagine what kind of junk we would be buying today, if the junk of the 70s and 80s did not run headlong into Honda and Toyota...for whatever criticism one may have of GM and Ford, their products are much better today than the 70s and 80s, and everybit of gratitude goes to Honda and Toyota...I absolutely believe that if the better-made Japanese cars had never come over here, GM and Ford quality would have deteriorated so bad that we would have been forced back into horse drawn buggies...their engineering mistakes, combined with worthless UAW labor, would have given us junk that we cannot imagine...the Japanese made them, in some small way, sit up and notice...
GM does NOT have a divine right to exist...they can be broken up in pieces, if necessary, and sold to other makers...someone will want the truck division, then Corvette, then Cadillac...the rest are expendable...
Whe $500 was a LOT of money, Alfred Sloan's system worked like magic...so, when a Pontiac was $500 more than Chevy, and Buick $500 more than Pontiac, and Olds $500 more than Buick, and Caddy was $500-1000 more than Olds, it was great...the ladder up worked because it was a major step up to spend another $500 on a car...
But, sometime in the 80s, when the "basic American family sedan", the Impala, broke the $15K mark, all hell broke loose...a decked out Impala could cost more than a "higher status" stripped Oldsmobile, so which was the nicer car to have???...plus, end of year sales, rebates on slow movers, and suddenly you could buy a 98 Olds for $100 more than an Impala and "move up" quicker...
By the time $1000 difference was no longer much money, when average car MSRP broke $20,000, Sloan's model was destined for the trash heap of history, because a $27K 98 or Park Avenue was not a big jump from a $25K Impala...that is why GM must consolidate into low end (Chevrolet), high end (Cadillac), trucks (GMC without Chevy) and a sports car (Corvette)...anything over that is overkill...no Saab, certainly no Saturn (silliest idea this side of Pluto, considering the GM lineup in the 80s, what could Saturn offer that was different...NOTHING), no Hummer...
The company must accept its smaller role in automaking, just like Kmart, the former leader in discount stores, is now a small bit player next to the new big boy, WalMart...nobody saved Kmart (except Chapter11) and they are now much smaller than before...GM should take the same route and just accept a smaller role...GM no longer dominates the market because their products and product quality no longer dominate anything...
Gustavo Arellano is the author of "Orange County: A Personal History"
Twenty years ago, my parents decided to stop living as renters in a bad Anaheim, Calif., neighborhood, scrape together their tomato-canner and truck-driver salaries, and buy a three-bedroom, two-bath, one-pool house in a slightly better Anaheim neighborhood. Soon, other Hispanic immigrants moved onto the same street.
My parents and siblings still live there, but now the Arellanos are one of three families that remain from when we moved in. In the last five years alone, we've seen the next generation of buyers try vainly to keep up with mortgages, only to fail and either lose their homes or bring in family members to help carry the burden.
My parents' generation of Mexicans came to this country with nothing - many of them illegally - and they still live as though they were back on the rancho. Yet all of my uncles, aunts, and their middle-age Mexican immigrant friends own their homes. And they are better positioned to weather this recession than their sons and daughters.
Many of the kids of my generation still live at home or room with friends, and will for the foreseeable future. We don't even have the option anymore, as we used to laughingly threaten, to move back to our ancestral villages. Mexico's hellish narco-war has killed that idea. So we're left with this fact: The immigrants of my parents' generation are better off than their educated American kids.
It's not that my parents' generation is unaffected by the recession. My mother has been working odd jobs since 1997, when she lost her job at the Hunt-Wesson tomato cannery where she worked for 30 years. My father was laid off recently by the trucking company he worked for.
But my parents bought a house when real estate was a lot cheaper, and their mortgage is affordable. The house will be paid off within the decade, free of refinancing or any stupid-human mortgage tricks.
My parents are also better positioned than many people to find work in bad times. My father, with his fourth-grade education, has worked as a carpet cutter, a pool cleaner, a janitor, a gardener, and a pro bono Alcoholics Anonymous counselor. Even now, he's willing to learn another trade - anything to keep him off welfare or the unemployment line. That, he has always said, would be a supreme insult to his pride and his adopted country.
I have a white-collar career, a master's degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, and no debt or children, but I can barely pay the rent on my humble one-bedroom apartment. My mom and dad have long encouraged me to buy, but I see too much volatility, despise the mortgage racket, and - frankly - will not pay three times what my parents did for a similar-quality abode.
My parents came from a generation of nothing, an existence in which the sword of poverty dangled above families daily, teaching them to always prepare for the worst. My peers and I, spoiled on the Reagan-era notion of faith in money, stand at the edge of economic despair with few tools for coping other than constant Internet access. Mom, Dad, and my tios y tias will survive. Me? That bunk bed I shared with my brother for 15 years is looking good.
Nucor steel re-open, with (again) nonrestrictive work rules, reasonable pay scales, and continue on???
Nucor is an interesting company (to me anyway, I have a relation working for them). They're staunchly anti-union. Nucor's senior officers are not provided traditional "perks" such as company cars, executive parking spaces, or executive dining rooms. The did buy a plane a couple of years ago but that saves them money.
Employees get a base salary plus a bonus. Right now they are awash in scrap metal that they paid too much for before the bust, so they'll probably lose money this quarter for the first time in decades. They've never laid off anyone in other slack times (since their second bankruptcy in the 60's anyway), so it'll be interesting to see if they can continue that. And the bonuses are going to be skinny.
I'm not sure why Nucor hates unions so much - maybe because their corporate DNA dates back to Ransom E. Olds.
"Nucor's senior officers are not provided traditional "perks" such as company cars, executive parking spaces, or executive dining rooms"...I believe that Nucor was the steel company that was "reborn"...I may be wrong in the name, but there WAS a company that was a profitable steelmaker while all the others were closing...I can only assume that having no unions would be a large part of ANY company's success...
BTW, Honda's and Toyota's plants here have no reserved parking, the execs wear the same clothes as the lineworkers, there is a distinct lack of "differentiation" between workers and management...so, not only are the workers not inefficiently "job restricted" like UAW, but mgmt does not stand out in a crowd, even tho everyone knows who mgmt is...not the "Glass House" or the "14th Floor" like Ford and GM...face it, the Big 3 model of carmaking is just no longer viable, altho it worked perfectly in the 40s thru the 70s...they need to change and are doing everything they can to maintain what they have but change it at the edges only...first order of business...destroy the flesh-eating fungus of the UAW, so cars will be made better on the line...
Ransom Olds knew what the future with a union would bring, and here it is...
So here is this automaker / UAW situation , say you work for a company that makes a product unrelated to autos,but your boss sees a chance ( in this present economy ) to make a point and save money ,so he goes to you . . . hey Bob ,or plug in your name . . . you know I pay you $12 an hour but the transplant down south is making the same product for $7 an hour . . . and in China they are making them for $2 an hour . . . Bob ,or plug in your name . . . I got to cut your pay to $7 an hour or move to China. How'd you feel ,remember your older then your counter parts down south or in China . . . your plant is located say in New York State . . . you been with your company along time too . . .and you are non-union and always made a good product. How do you feel or is it as so many say here in this thread . . . the new economics . . . it could happen to you too ?
Maybe because so many Unions have run companies into bankruptcy. I am watching the situation with Civil Service Unions. There are cities in CA that Cannot keep up the gravy train for many of the services. If you were lucky enough to retire in CALPERS, you may be safe. So many cities opted out and are on the verge of bankruptcy. Or the Pension funds were used for stupid projects that do not increase tax revenues, such as Sports stadiums.
lemko: Well your beloved transplants are "pimping" (would like to use another word ) out there vehicles also and have lost money!!!!
The other players are losing money because of the downturn in the automotive market.
GM has been losing money on its vehicle manufacturing operations for at least the last five years. It couldn't make money when total annual vehicle sales were at the 17 million level. Now that sales have fallen to around 11 million per year, it is facing bankruptcy.
There is a difference between one unprofitable year and a looming bankruptcy.
rockylee: GM, still is #1 in America and Chevrolet, is still the #1 selling brand!!!
GM has gone bankrupt doing it. GM has been losing money for years. Toyota could drop prices by 50 percent and drive almost everyone else out of business. It would also seriously cripple itself. Market share and sales without profits are worthless. GM has been mindlessly chasing market share for years, and now the futility of that strategy is becoming apparent to everyone.
rockylee: The 2010 Buick LaCROSSE, will likely be the highest quality car in the world made that is under $50,000 and the attention to detail just blows me away!!!! The Lexus ES series use to be the standard of the world but Buick, has raised the bar so high that I believe Buick, will become "The Standard Of The World" for luxury cars!!!! I would love to be selling Buicks, this year because that LaCROSSE, will sell like hot cakes and it won't be to just old people anymore!!!!!
We'll know when it hits the dealer lots. But it won't be the only new vehicle on the market. The 2010 Taurus debuts at the same time.
My first question to you would be. How much have you saved in a 401K? Did your company offer a 401K? If not, did you spend your time off the job getting educated for a better job? I posted my pay stub here from 1965 with Pacific Telephone. I was CWA Union. I grossed $199 for two weeks and put $24 into the AT&T stock option plan. $14 to health care & I was fully supporting myself and my wife who I was putting through College at San Diego State. I was making payments on a 1964 Toyota Land Cruiser. There is never an excuse for not saving for the future. If you have a cell phone, cable TV or an iPod you have more than enough income to save money each week.
The Northeast is not a good place to locate a manufacturing facility. Land prices are very high, congestion is a real problem, and taxes are through the roof. Plus, govermment isn't exactly noted for its efficiency. I recall reading that there are pages of regulations to follow in Philadelphia if one merely wants to erect a sign outside a business.
It makes more sense to locate manufacturing facilities in less dense rural areas that are easily accessible by air, rail and highway. Even if GM and Ford were building new manufacturing facilities, they wouldn't build them in the Northeast.
Philadelphia is undergoing the transition experienced by New York, Boston and even Pittsburgh. Namely, the service (law, education, financial services), education and medical sectors are moving to the forefront. Meanwhile, many of the people who are moving back to the city don't want manufacturing facilities located in the vicinity. Philadelphia's Center City area and the gentrifying neighborhoods scattered throughout the city look better than they have in years.
If Philadelphia wants to continue its revival, I would suggest its citizens demand a more responsive and efficient local government that views taxpaying citizens and businesses as a resource to be nurtured, instead of a golden goose to be plucked. But the days of large manufacturing facilities locating in Philadelphia (or other Northeastern cities) are over.
Maybe because so many Unions have run companies into bankruptcy.
Maybe - Making steel at Nucor is about the first time the outfit has gotten its act together in 100 years. They failed about just about everything they tried until they took over Vulcraft Steel. They failed at cars, trucks, lawn mowers, and nuclear services, and went bankrupt at least twice.
The guy who changed the company around was a metallurgist who took a field trip to a steel mill in Gary Indiana in 1947, and he wasn't impressed that his class had to step over workers who were falling asleep there. UCLA pdf file
".....It looks like they have tried and failed several times to organize the Honda plants in Ohio. If you cannot get 33% to sign cards secretly for an election."
According to the article posted earlier about the organizing office for Honda just opened up, it says the last office closed in 1994. I would assume that means they haven't tried in 15 years.
GM has been mindlessly chasing market share for years, and now the futility of that strategy is becoming apparent to everyone
They (and Ford and C) did that because they had supply-driven business model. Basicall, because unions, work rules (and perhaps non-labor ralated limitations) made them unable to slow down production of their duds (i.e. lay off people, retool, etc.), they kept pumping the production and infamously "making up for lost profit in volume" and creating "fleet darlings". All originated in their inability to shut down/retool production when needed.
Toyota seems to have schmoozed their followers with the idea that a Camry by any other name is not a Camry. The Avalon was based on the previous Camry chassis. The newer chassis Camry is rebadged as a Lexus with interior pieces that fit and aren't crooked, I hope. I hope they also look like they were meant to be coordinated with each other. I another forum a poster gloated how his Camry V6 was really a Lexus motor and his car was really just a Lexus with Camry name: they're all Camrys. Were that GM could have schmoozed their shoppers with such smoke and mirrors.
Maybe that's because at Toyota, there are Toyotas that are Lexus-quality. At GM, there are Cadillacs that are Buick/Chevy quality. :P
OK, I acknowledge it could happen to me...now what???...we simply have to adapt to this changing world of ours, like it or not...
One thing everyone seems to forget...the Big 3 were never in trouble simply because the Japanese made cars...the Big 3 are in trouble because the Big 3 made cars that would be difficult to qualify as landfill material for DECADES (lemko's vehicle excepted)...if GM cars ran as well as Hondas, if Cadillac had the build quality of Lexus, the Japanese threat would have either evaporated or only grown to a 10-15% market share...
Imagine the Japanese were Mike Tyson in his prime, and the Big 3 were Sonny Liston at 80 years old...that is what the Japanese encountered when they upgraded the quality in their cars by the mid-80s (even the Japanese cars were junk in the 70s, but they learned quickly, just like Hyundai was junk in the 90s, and they also seem to learn quickly...the Big 3 have been mentally handicapped for a generation)...
The Japanese saw cars that were relatively poorly made (lemko the exception, probably the ONLY exception) and saw it did not take much to beat them...
We keep going "woe is me" as though it is someone else's fault...our own carmakers allowed their quality to go down the drain, did not stand up to union demands, and thought they could simply bully Toy/Hon in the marketplace...
Japanese quality improved, they moved upmarket (Lexus, Infiniti, Acura) and STILL the Big 3 had blinders on...it was not until the mid-late 90s that they realized that maybe their quality needed some (major) improvement, but by then it may have been too late...Big 3 established a rep for poor quality that now covered more than one generation and the parents were telling their kids to avoid American cars because they were junk (except lemko's kids, if he ever has any)...now we have two generations of people who feel no sense of loyalty to Big 3, parents who were burned multiple times, and their kids who learned from their parent's mistakes and never owned a Big 3 car...
GM, Ford and Chrysler simply dug their own graves with poor quality vehicles (yeah, lemko) and giving in to union demands that sealed their fate and further caused their quality to take a dive...
Protectionism (import taxes???) would have only assured that we, today, would be buying a car as junky as the 70s, with 12 month/12000 mile warranties, and would cost as much as they do now, but with about 1-2 year longevity...
Thank God for the Japanese...like it or not, without them our cars would have been worse made than ever, as there would be NO reason to improve...don't tell me they would have improved for the sake of improbement, as that is false...they spent 20 years making a deteriorating product, and ONLY the Japanese quality made them change anything at all...
Self examination is often painful, but that is what the Big 3 have NEVER done until the last few months...it's over...the other guys didn't win, we lost by not even showing up...
I would assume that means they haven't tried in 15 years.
I could not find any date on the article that was from UAW. I am basing it on the 22 year statement. Which would put the article in 2001 as Honda started in Ohio in 1979.
When I google it the last reference to the UAW trying to organize Honda was in September of 2007. The UAW has tried and lost NLRB elections at Nissan also.
I consider anyone who is in the UAW as part of the hunted!
That is a fact. They are upper middle class Americans that are the enemy of the poor and downtrodden. UAW workers consider 6 figures just middle class wages. I got news for them. About 75% of US workers do not make what a UAW worker that has been on the job over 5 years makes. They are the enemy to Obama's minions. He has a dilemma as the Unions have given him lots of money. How do you make it look like you are on the side of the Unions when you consider them part of the elitist enemy?
But the days of large manufacturing facilities locating in Philadelphia (or other Northeastern cities) are over.
No argument. My parents moved to Philly from the Midwest in the late 40s, after Dad's discharge from the Army. Even then - over 60 years ago - companies were heading south.
When Dad started his own business in the mid 50s, he rented office space in NYC to be close to his customers but he built his factory in Mississippi.
Obama says our tax money in stimulus bill has to be spent on union wages.
That is the Davis Bacon act. A Republican bill to protect workers wages. It is basically saying any Federal project will pay the local prevailing wage. Most of the time based on the wages of the local Trade Unions.
The Davis-Bacon act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Herbert Hoover on March 3, 1931.
While Davis-Bacon (and associated "Little Davis-Bacon" state laws) do encourage the hiring of skilled local workers, advocates emphasize that they also work to train young people to become skilled tradesmen and tradeswomen. Despite anti-union criticism, union apprenticeship programs (which Davis-Bacon tends to promote) actively recruit and train minorities to this day.
That does not mean they have to give the job to Union Contractors. They just have to pay Union wages and benefits. Most of the time they pay more to the workers to cover Health care and pension. I remember a job in the Arctic that laborers were getting $43 per hour. When the local Laborers Union Scale was $23. Of course we were paying the difference in out taxes.
My daddy taught me In this county everyone's the same You work hard for your dollar And you never pass the blame When it don't go your way
Now I see all these big shots Whining on my evening news About how their losing billions And it's up to me and you To come running to the rescue
Well pardon me if I don't she'd a tear Cuz they're selling make believe And we don't buy that here
Because in the real world they're Shutting Detroit down While the boss man takes his Bonus pay and jets on outta town
DC's paying out the banker As the farmers auction ground And while their living up on Wall Street In that New York City town Here in the real world they're Shutting Detroit down Here in the real world they're Shutting Detroit down
Well that old mans been working Hard in that plant most all his life And now his pension plans Been cut in half and He can't afford to die And it's a crying shame Cuz he aint the one to blame When I look down and see his Callused hands Well let me tell you friend It gets me fighting mad
Because in the real world they're Shutting Detroit down While the boss man takes his Bonus pay and jets on outta town
DC's paying out the banker As the farmers auction ground And while their living up on Wall Street In that New York City town Here in the real world they're Shutting Detroit down Here in the real world they're Shutting Detroit down
Has Detroit EVER recovered from the Riots in the 1960s. You remember the Great Society that was a TOTAL flop. Very similar to some of the current proposed programs. The only hope for Detroit and the state of Michigan is to get rid of their attitude of being superior to the rest of the USA. It just is not so. I would say a big part of that lame attitude falls directly into the laps of the UAW members. They can hire each other and weave baskets for the tourists to buy.
Good points ,but I'd wish the American people would see what is really happening in my example because it is not in just the auto industry . . . yes most people in this group hate the American auto industry ,that is their right. But in my example this company made a GOOD product ,with non-union people ,the only problem was there was somebody in China making it way cheaper and just as good. What I wish Americans would do is BUY the U.S. made product . . . but no . . . as I said before Americans don't care where things are made . . . as long as they get THE DEAL . . . and as long as THEY have a job. Many Americans do not care about fellow American workers. We are gradually throwing away OUR manufacturing base . . . and having companies like Toyota or Honda building afew of their cars in the U.S. DOES NOT substitute for TRUE AMERICAN manufacturing. But most Americans don't see or care about this , most of the people in this group probably own forgien cars and I'll bet most of these cars were ASSEMBLED overseas. Americans need to care,forget GM and the UAW for a moment ,Americans don't care where things come from ,when they buy . . . they should.
What I wish Americans would do is BUY the U.S. made product . . . but no . . . as I said before Americans don't care where things are made . . . as long as they get THE DEAL . . . and as long as THEY have a job. Many Americans do not care about fellow American workers.
I try my best to buy American. I have watched over the last 50 years our MFG go elsewhere. And many times we do not get as good of a product from other countries. I am currently lamenting the loss of Fiskars and Vise Grips to the Chinese.
Out of the last 5 GM trucks I bought only one was built in the USA. The UAW has systematically run the automotive business out of the country. Now they want US to keep the remnant of their workers and retirees in the upper middle class income bracket. I consider that as criminal as the bonuses Obama's man at AIG is paying to those executives.
By the way my 2007 Sequoia is 85% US content. How many GM vehicles can claim that distinction. NONE as of 2008. Parts from all over and I do not consider Canadian parts US made any more than Mexican parts. In reality Mexico and Canada are America as much as the USA.
Shame he didn't come around 25 years or so later when Kinssinger and his cowardly neocon "free marketeers" had effectively opened China, then he could have just cut out the middleman and reaped an illicit fortune, no matter the negative externalities :shades:
Maybe the factory could have even advanced Chinese manufacturing skill to the point where their cars aren't unethical ripoffs of western designs with the crashworthiness of beer cans. That'll teach the greedy first-worlders.
gagrice: Detroit NEVER recovered from the riots of the 60s...when I was there, 1980-1990, you could drive by certain areas of Detroit and the burned remains were still there...no one ever bothered to do anything to clean anything up...Mayor Coleman Young got a few hundred million from the Reagan gov't to build a 2.3 mile (I think it was 2.3) "people mover" which was an elevated train that took you to the various sites of Detroit, Cobo Hall, the Arena, and Renaissance Center, I think...funny part was, it was about 20-30 feet over some of the worst areas of Detroit, whether slums, crime, or riot burnout...some people just never learn...
Interesting thing about the riots...it was very much influenced by television, moreso than any principles, no surprise there...right on the Detroit border is Dearborn, where Ford is based...while I don't know what it is like now, back then, Dearborn was a really nice "suburb" (literally next door) of Detroit...
Back during the riots, crime and burning, all the news cameras stood on the Dearborn city line, looking INTO Detroit...what they FAILED to show was the situation behind them on the Dearborn side...peace and quiet as a mouse...why, you ask???...because the mayor of Dearborn gave a strict order to Dearborn police to shoot anyone who committed any of those crimes on the Dearborn side...you will always note that rioters know where to avoid any form of retribution...in LA with Rodney King, any Korean shopowner who defended his store with a shotgun seemed to have very little problem with the rioters...same in Dearborn...aside from the smoke that billowed over Dearborn from the burning buildings up the street, the rioters knew that the mayor of Dearborn would not tolerate their racial crap...so, Dearborn was spared completely while Detroit was ruined completely...
okal: you may be missing a point...if American labor wants too much, then the price of the item will reflect that cost of labor...so, an American made shirt might cost $40 where an import might cost $12...consider every shopper at WalMart who buys a shirt...at $40 a shirt, they may only afford 1 or 2, but at $12 they might get 6 or 7, enough for a week...
The sad reality of buying the imported product is that the average American BUYER will get more for his moeny, and if money is tight, he SHOULD try and get more for his money...but, while the BUYER gets more, the American WORKER loses a job due to the cheaper import...if you tariff the import, then you are condemning the buyer to give up food money to buy the 6 or 7 shirts he needs, since they will now cost $280 for 7 shirts (7 x $40)...so, while trying to "protect" an American job, you are forcing my imaginary buyer to steal from his food budget to buy as may shirts as he needs...what gives you the right to do that???...in YOUR mind, you have preserved an American job, but in my mind, you have greatly multipled the cost of clothing to this imaginary buyer...
So while you puff out your chest for America, the buyer's kids go hungry because he must have new clothes for work, and you are the one who raised his cost of living by using tariffs to make the cheap Chinese product cost as much as the American product, all in the name of protecting American jobs...why do you have the right to raise his, or my, cost of living by doing that???
Let's try to remember that this is the United Autoworkers Union topic.
"GM is asking the UAW to cut $20.4 billion in future retiree health-care obligations to $10.2 billion in exchange for equity as part of an agreement to keep $13.4 billion in U.S. loans and as it requests as much as $16.6 billion more."
Every time Wagoner opens his mouth, he wants to have the advantage over all the other automakers. Why should the UAW cut VEBA costs to GM for anymore than they did Ford. GM is not satisfied with an even playing field. They want it tilted all the way in their direction. GM just needs to shut up Wagoner and the doors. They are no longer a viable entity. A worthless shell with NOTHING to offer except a Buick every 20 years to Lemko.
GM said last week that it wouldn’t need $2 billion originally requested by the end of March because of accelerated cost cutting. Wagoner said today GM is further reviewing cash flow and hasn’t commented on its cash position for April.
“I can’t really tell you when we’ll need the money,” he said.
Hey, if all they have to do is make ONE Buick every 20 years for lemko, that can be hand-made and near perfect, esp if we get Lexus assemblers to do the work...:):):):):)
That is kind of what I was thinking. Pick up the old body molds in an antique shop and have Lexus put their running gear under a Buick body. Problem solved and Lemko has a real car for the next 20 years.
Back to the UAW. Did Wagoner make a deal with Gettlefinger? He sounds like Citi and BofA. We don't need the money now. We will get back to you. I think they all just see an opportunity for free money from a President & Congress that are clueless.
Maybe Rocky sold all their extra inventory. If anyone could do it. I believe he could. He could sell popsicles to an Eskimo. Now if he could just convince the degenerates in the UAW they are on very thin ice.
He does not yet understand that the UAW is full of degenerates, so the concept of thin ice is quite foreign...:):):):):)...he still thinks that floorsweepers are worth $35/hour because of the "training" required to do the job... :P
But, I do believe that he might be selling down ALL of GM's inventory, even without 0% financing...that would leave GM with nothing to sell..
Imagine this: GM calls rocky, no, they post it here for all to see..."rocky, please, slow down your selling, we can't make 'em as fast as you sell them, we'll have to re-open to shuttered plants just to keep up with your sales volume"...
How does rocky do it, you ask???...he tells the buyers that GM cars are now made by Honda workers... :shades:
Have some thinking on the subject. I watch the continual downgrading and demeaning of GM and US products in general over the last few year while the foreign products have problems surface with their vehicles and those problems are accepted and the product changed after a few years (maybe not in terms of Honda transmissions) and everyone just loves them. There's a scapegoating going on. There's a bashing.
Then I've watched the same thing done in terms of overstatement ridicule of the UAW. Note I also feel the real pay for older, highest paid UAW workers is a problem for the companies along with executive compensation that makes Japanese executives look like hometown stage players compared to the Hollywood elite pay for executives at the US auto companies. But there's also an overstatement of ridicule of the UAW people. I'm sure there are many, and likely most, of the now unemployed UAW folks who are out of a job and a future.
Then I watched a similar scapegoating and attitude show on CNN yesterday afternoon when they were at Georgia State University doing their show live in front of college students. How those students were selected to be there I don't know. But when Cheney's name was mentioned there were laughs, giggles, taunts, by the students and the "host" looked around with a smirk more suitable of MSNBC hosts to show his pleasure at the besmirching of an ex-vice president. And I thought how this is the same as the constant ridicule of GM and the UAW by some.
I spent 30 minutes composing that essay. Each paragraph is themed on UAW. Steve has gotta be proud. The point is that the sheeples are easily swayed in their mindset by the media and by their peers. :shades:
Comments
And that's today...tom'w it could be something else...:):):):):)
The housing industry in CA has come to a screeching halt. Yet the malls stay full and the highways are still crowded all day long. The only places that seem to be depressed are Lowes and Home depot. I like not having long lines to check out. Just keep in mind that over 90% of people are still working and paying their mortgage. It is the apartment dwellers that need to be afraid. How would you like to sign a lease you cannot get out of and the owners do not pay the utilities. Coming to a city near you.
http://www.abc15.com/content/financialsurvival/azstories/story/Tempers-flare-as-- Phoenix-apartment-renters-beg/6cBhEHJbgUSGeRYtnxyQOQ.cspx
We lost steelmaking, and steelworkers were unionized...yet, didn't Nucor steel re-open, with (again) nonrestrictive work rules, reasonable pay scales, and continue on??? (I don't know if they still exist or not, tho)...
We lost garment workers, and aren't they unionized???...work went overseas to avoid unions and their ridiculous demands...
It is time for an honest look at this...maybe I am wrong, and there aren't as many unions as I think...but I still wonder if we, as a nation, lost industry because of all the silly work restrictions placed on employers due to unions...
And I remind you that Honda and Toyota have been growing, along with Hyundai and Kia and VW...so, we are NOT losing all of our industrial base, it is simply moving from the (generally) unionized north to the (generally) non-unionized south...
I do not know about televisions, but can't we ask the question, how many industries that we lost had unionized workers, which means, by defintion, featherbedding, "creating" jobs where none exist, and restrictive work rules which means that 1000 workers are "needed" to do the job of 300...that excess labor cost can be a killer to an employer, just ask GM...
NYC has lost most of its manufacturing base & yet crime is at a 45-year low.
I don't want to badmouth Philly - I was born there although (thankfully) not raised there - but perhaps the problem is with the way that your city is run.
The free-trade lovers fear for nothing, even as the socio-economic spectrum continues to devolve. They know religion keeps the poor from killing the rich, and they will not smile until we have a return to a 19th century labor market. They know their souless neocon kin will simply declare martial law if things become too bad.
One of my main concerns are people that feel buying the Asian car assembled in the U.S. is . . . OK.
It is not ,and this book proves it,the really sad part is most of the foreign cars you see on American roads are ASSEMBLED OVERSEAS not in the U.S.
This DOES NOT help out ANY U.S. citizen ,except maybe at the dealership level.
It does matter what you buy and where it is made,,please read the book ,I think you'll enjoy it.
I still believe that most people don't care about what they buy or where it is made as long as they have their job.
I do respect your comments ,take care.
Imagine what kind of junk we would be buying today, if the junk of the 70s and 80s did not run headlong into Honda and Toyota...for whatever criticism one may have of GM and Ford, their products are much better today than the 70s and 80s, and everybit of gratitude goes to Honda and Toyota...I absolutely believe that if the better-made Japanese cars had never come over here, GM and Ford quality would have deteriorated so bad that we would have been forced back into horse drawn buggies...their engineering mistakes, combined with worthless UAW labor, would have given us junk that we cannot imagine...the Japanese made them, in some small way, sit up and notice...
GM does NOT have a divine right to exist...they can be broken up in pieces, if necessary, and sold to other makers...someone will want the truck division, then Corvette, then Cadillac...the rest are expendable...
Whe $500 was a LOT of money, Alfred Sloan's system worked like magic...so, when a Pontiac was $500 more than Chevy, and Buick $500 more than Pontiac, and Olds $500 more than Buick, and Caddy was $500-1000 more than Olds, it was great...the ladder up worked because it was a major step up to spend another $500 on a car...
But, sometime in the 80s, when the "basic American family sedan", the Impala, broke the $15K mark, all hell broke loose...a decked out Impala could cost more than a "higher status" stripped Oldsmobile, so which was the nicer car to have???...plus, end of year sales, rebates on slow movers, and suddenly you could buy a 98 Olds for $100 more than an Impala and "move up" quicker...
By the time $1000 difference was no longer much money, when average car MSRP broke $20,000, Sloan's model was destined for the trash heap of history, because a $27K 98 or Park Avenue was not a big jump from a $25K Impala...that is why GM must consolidate into low end (Chevrolet), high end (Cadillac), trucks (GMC without Chevy) and a sports car (Corvette)...anything over that is overkill...no Saab, certainly no Saturn (silliest idea this side of Pluto, considering the GM lineup in the 80s, what could Saturn offer that was different...NOTHING), no Hummer...
The company must accept its smaller role in automaking, just like Kmart, the former leader in discount stores, is now a small bit player next to the new big boy, WalMart...nobody saved Kmart (except Chapter11) and they are now much smaller than before...GM should take the same route and just accept a smaller role...GM no longer dominates the market because their products and product quality no longer dominate anything...
I wil read the book, however...
is the author of "Orange County: A Personal History"
Twenty years ago, my parents decided to stop living as renters in a bad Anaheim, Calif., neighborhood, scrape together their tomato-canner and truck-driver salaries, and buy a three-bedroom, two-bath, one-pool house in a slightly better Anaheim neighborhood. Soon, other Hispanic immigrants moved onto the same street.
My parents and siblings still live there, but now the Arellanos are one of three families that remain from when we moved in. In the last five years alone, we've seen the next generation of buyers try vainly to keep up with mortgages, only to fail and either lose their homes or bring in family members to help carry the burden.
My parents' generation of Mexicans came to this country with nothing - many of them illegally - and they still live as though they were back on the rancho. Yet all of my uncles, aunts, and their middle-age Mexican immigrant friends own their homes. And they are better positioned to weather this recession than their sons and daughters.
Many of the kids of my generation still live at home or room with friends, and will for the foreseeable future. We don't even have the option anymore, as we used to laughingly threaten, to move back to our ancestral villages. Mexico's hellish narco-war has killed that idea. So we're left with this fact: The immigrants of my parents' generation are better off than their educated American kids.
It's not that my parents' generation is unaffected by the recession. My mother has been working odd jobs since 1997, when she lost her job at the Hunt-Wesson tomato cannery where she worked for 30 years. My father was laid off recently by the trucking company he worked for.
But my parents bought a house when real estate was a lot cheaper, and their mortgage is affordable. The house will be paid off within the decade, free of refinancing or any stupid-human mortgage tricks.
My parents are also better positioned than many people to find work in bad times. My father, with his fourth-grade education, has worked as a carpet cutter, a pool cleaner, a janitor, a gardener, and a pro bono Alcoholics Anonymous counselor. Even now, he's willing to learn another trade - anything to keep him off welfare or the unemployment line. That, he has always said, would be a supreme insult to his pride and his adopted country.
I have a white-collar career, a master's degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, and no debt or children, but I can barely pay the rent on my humble one-bedroom apartment. My mom and dad have long encouraged me to buy, but I see too much volatility, despise the mortgage racket, and - frankly - will not pay three times what my parents did for a similar-quality abode.
My parents came from a generation of nothing, an existence in which the sword of poverty dangled above families daily, teaching them to always prepare for the worst. My peers and I, spoiled on the Reagan-era notion of faith in money, stand at the edge of economic despair with few tools for coping other than constant Internet access. Mom, Dad, and my tios y tias will survive. Me? That bunk bed I shared with my brother for 15 years is looking good.
Nucor is an interesting company (to me anyway, I have a relation working for them). They're staunchly anti-union. Nucor's senior officers are not provided traditional "perks" such as company cars, executive parking spaces, or executive dining rooms. The did buy a plane a couple of years ago but that saves them money.
Employees get a base salary plus a bonus. Right now they are awash in scrap metal that they paid too much for before the bust, so they'll probably lose money this quarter for the first time in decades. They've never laid off anyone in other slack times (since their second bankruptcy in the 60's anyway), so it'll be interesting to see if they can continue that. And the bonuses are going to be skinny.
I'm not sure why Nucor hates unions so much - maybe because their corporate DNA dates back to Ransom E. Olds.
BTW, Honda's and Toyota's plants here have no reserved parking, the execs wear the same clothes as the lineworkers, there is a distinct lack of "differentiation" between workers and management...so, not only are the workers not inefficiently "job restricted" like UAW, but mgmt does not stand out in a crowd, even tho everyone knows who mgmt is...not the "Glass House" or the "14th Floor" like Ford and GM...face it, the Big 3 model of carmaking is just no longer viable, altho it worked perfectly in the 40s thru the 70s...they need to change and are doing everything they can to maintain what they have but change it at the edges only...first order of business...destroy the flesh-eating fungus of the UAW, so cars will be made better on the line...
Ransom Olds knew what the future with a union would bring, and here it is...
How'd you feel ,remember your older then your counter parts down south or in China . . . your plant is located say in New York State . . . you been with your company along time too . . .and you are non-union and always made a good product.
How do you feel or is it as so many say here in this thread . . . the new economics . . . it could happen to you too ?
Maybe because so many Unions have run companies into bankruptcy. I am watching the situation with Civil Service Unions. There are cities in CA that Cannot keep up the gravy train for many of the services. If you were lucky enough to retire in CALPERS, you may be safe. So many cities opted out and are on the verge of bankruptcy. Or the Pension funds were used for stupid projects that do not increase tax revenues, such as Sports stadiums.
The other players are losing money because of the downturn in the automotive market.
GM has been losing money on its vehicle manufacturing operations for at least the last five years. It couldn't make money when total annual vehicle sales were at the 17 million level. Now that sales have fallen to around 11 million per year, it is facing bankruptcy.
There is a difference between one unprofitable year and a looming bankruptcy.
rockylee: GM, still is #1 in America and Chevrolet, is still the #1 selling brand!!!
GM has gone bankrupt doing it. GM has been losing money for years. Toyota could drop prices by 50 percent and drive almost everyone else out of business. It would also seriously cripple itself. Market share and sales without profits are worthless. GM has been mindlessly chasing market share for years, and now the futility of that strategy is becoming apparent to everyone.
rockylee: The 2010 Buick LaCROSSE, will likely be the highest quality car in the world made that is under $50,000 and the attention to detail just blows me away!!!! The Lexus ES series use to be the standard of the world but Buick, has raised the bar so high that I believe Buick, will become "The Standard Of The World" for luxury cars!!!! I would love to be selling Buicks, this year because that LaCROSSE, will sell like hot cakes and it won't be to just old people anymore!!!!!
We'll know when it hits the dealer lots. But it won't be the only new vehicle on the market. The 2010 Taurus debuts at the same time.
It makes more sense to locate manufacturing facilities in less dense rural areas that are easily accessible by air, rail and highway. Even if GM and Ford were building new manufacturing facilities, they wouldn't build them in the Northeast.
Philadelphia is undergoing the transition experienced by New York, Boston and even Pittsburgh. Namely, the service (law, education, financial services), education and medical sectors are moving to the forefront. Meanwhile, many of the people who are moving back to the city don't want manufacturing facilities located in the vicinity. Philadelphia's Center City area and the gentrifying neighborhoods scattered throughout the city look better than they have in years.
If Philadelphia wants to continue its revival, I would suggest its citizens demand a more responsive and efficient local government that views taxpaying citizens and businesses as a resource to be nurtured, instead of a golden goose to be plucked. But the days of large manufacturing facilities locating in Philadelphia (or other Northeastern cities) are over.
Maybe - Making steel at Nucor is about the first time the outfit has gotten its act together in 100 years. They failed about just about everything they tried until they took over Vulcraft Steel. They failed at cars, trucks, lawn mowers, and nuclear services, and went bankrupt at least twice.
The guy who changed the company around was a metallurgist who took a field trip to a steel mill in Gary Indiana in 1947, and he wasn't impressed that his class had to step over workers who were falling asleep there. UCLA pdf file
In other news, Blue Cross offers buyouts to UAW workers (Detroit Free Press).
Bail Out AIG’s Workers, But Not GM’s? (Fox)
According to the article posted earlier about the organizing office for Honda just opened up, it says the last office closed in 1994. I would assume that means they haven't tried in 15 years.
They (and Ford and C) did that because they had supply-driven business model. Basicall, because unions, work rules (and perhaps non-labor ralated limitations) made them unable to slow down production of their duds (i.e. lay off people, retool, etc.), they kept pumping the production and infamously "making up for lost profit in volume" and creating "fleet darlings". All originated in their inability to shut down/retool production when needed.
2018 430i Gran Coupe
Maybe that's because at Toyota, there are Toyotas that are Lexus-quality. At GM, there are Cadillacs that are Buick/Chevy quality. :P
One thing everyone seems to forget...the Big 3 were never in trouble simply because the Japanese made cars...the Big 3 are in trouble because the Big 3 made cars that would be difficult to qualify as landfill material for DECADES (lemko's vehicle excepted)...if GM cars ran as well as Hondas, if Cadillac had the build quality of Lexus, the Japanese threat would have either evaporated or only grown to a 10-15% market share...
Imagine the Japanese were Mike Tyson in his prime, and the Big 3 were Sonny Liston at 80 years old...that is what the Japanese encountered when they upgraded the quality in their cars by the mid-80s (even the Japanese cars were junk in the 70s, but they learned quickly, just like Hyundai was junk in the 90s, and they also seem to learn quickly...the Big 3 have been mentally handicapped for a generation)...
The Japanese saw cars that were relatively poorly made (lemko the exception, probably the ONLY exception) and saw it did not take much to beat them...
We keep going "woe is me" as though it is someone else's fault...our own carmakers allowed their quality to go down the drain, did not stand up to union demands, and thought they could simply bully Toy/Hon in the marketplace...
Japanese quality improved, they moved upmarket (Lexus, Infiniti, Acura) and STILL the Big 3 had blinders on...it was not until the mid-late 90s that they realized that maybe their quality needed some (major) improvement, but by then it may have been too late...Big 3 established a rep for poor quality that now covered more than one generation and the parents were telling their kids to avoid American cars because they were junk (except lemko's kids, if he ever has any)...now we have two generations of people who feel no sense of loyalty to Big 3, parents who were burned multiple times, and their kids who learned from their parent's mistakes and never owned a Big 3 car...
GM, Ford and Chrysler simply dug their own graves with poor quality vehicles (yeah, lemko) and giving in to union demands that sealed their fate and further caused their quality to take a dive...
Protectionism (import taxes???) would have only assured that we, today, would be buying a car as junky as the 70s, with 12 month/12000 mile warranties, and would cost as much as they do now, but with about 1-2 year longevity...
Thank God for the Japanese...like it or not, without them our cars would have been worse made than ever, as there would be NO reason to improve...don't tell me they would have improved for the sake of improbement, as that is false...they spent 20 years making a deteriorating product, and ONLY the Japanese quality made them change anything at all...
Self examination is often painful, but that is what the Big 3 have NEVER done until the last few months...it's over...the other guys didn't win, we lost by not even showing up...
I could not find any date on the article that was from UAW. I am basing it on the 22 year statement. Which would put the article in 2001 as Honda started in Ohio in 1979.
When I google it the last reference to the UAW trying to organize Honda was in September of 2007. The UAW has tried and lost NLRB elections at Nissan also.
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-168634292.html
Oh sure. :P
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Hey, that's only 1% of the population...what are they going to do when they're done killing them in 2 weeks? Why, turn on themselves, of course!
I consider anyone who is in the UAW as part of the hunted!
Regards,
OW
Regards,
OW
The piper is calling...
Regards,
OW
That is a fact. They are upper middle class Americans that are the enemy of the poor and downtrodden. UAW workers consider 6 figures just middle class wages. I got news for them. About 75% of US workers do not make what a UAW worker that has been on the job over 5 years makes. They are the enemy to Obama's minions. He has a dilemma as the Unions have given him lots of money. How do you make it look like you are on the side of the Unions when you consider them part of the elitist enemy?
No argument. My parents moved to Philly from the Midwest in the late 40s, after Dad's discharge from the Army. Even then - over 60 years ago - companies were heading south.
When Dad started his own business in the mid 50s, he rented office space in NYC to be close to his customers but he built his factory in Mississippi.
Obama says our tax money in stimulus bill has to be spent on union wage rates for the work done.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
That is the Davis Bacon act. A Republican bill to protect workers wages. It is basically saying any Federal project will pay the local prevailing wage. Most of the time based on the wages of the local Trade Unions.
The Davis-Bacon act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Herbert Hoover on March 3, 1931.
While Davis-Bacon (and associated "Little Davis-Bacon" state laws) do encourage the hiring of skilled local workers, advocates emphasize that they also work to train young people to become skilled tradesmen and tradeswomen. Despite anti-union criticism, union apprenticeship programs (which Davis-Bacon tends to promote) actively recruit and train minorities to this day.
That does not mean they have to give the job to Union Contractors. They just have to pay Union wages and benefits. Most of the time they pay more to the workers to cover Health care and pension. I remember a job in the Arctic that laborers were getting $43 per hour. When the local Laborers Union Scale was $23. Of course we were paying the difference in out taxes.
In this county everyone's the same
You work hard for your dollar
And you never pass the blame
When it don't go your way
Now I see all these big shots
Whining on my evening news
About how their losing billions
And it's up to me and you
To come running to the rescue
Well pardon me if I don't she'd a tear
Cuz they're selling make believe
And we don't buy that here
Because in the real world they're
Shutting Detroit down
While the boss man takes his
Bonus pay and jets on outta town
DC's paying out the banker
As the farmers auction ground
And while their living up on Wall Street
In that New York City town
Here in the real world they're
Shutting Detroit down
Here in the real world they're
Shutting Detroit down
Well that old mans been working
Hard in that plant most all his life
And now his pension plans
Been cut in half and
He can't afford to die
And it's a crying shame
Cuz he aint the one to blame
When I look down and see his
Callused hands Well let me tell you friend
It gets me fighting mad
Because in the real world they're
Shutting Detroit down
While the boss man takes his
Bonus pay and jets on outta town
DC's paying out the banker
As the farmers auction ground
And while their living up on Wall Street
In that New York City town
Here in the real world they're
Shutting Detroit down
Here in the real world they're
Shutting Detroit down
Cuz he aint the one to blame"
The song may be cute, but if he is the UAW, he IS the one to blame...
But in my example this company made a GOOD product ,with non-union people ,the only problem was there was somebody in China making it way cheaper and just as good.
What I wish Americans would do is BUY the U.S. made product . . . but no . . . as I said before Americans don't care where things are made . . . as long as they get THE DEAL . . . and as long as THEY have a job.
Many Americans do not care about fellow American workers.
We are gradually throwing away OUR manufacturing base . . . and having companies like Toyota or Honda building afew of their cars in the U.S. DOES NOT substitute for TRUE AMERICAN manufacturing.
But most Americans don't see or care about this , most of the people in this group probably own forgien cars and I'll bet most of these cars were ASSEMBLED overseas.
Americans need to care,forget GM and the UAW for a moment ,Americans don't care where things come from ,when they buy . . . they should.
Many Americans do not care about fellow American workers.
I try my best to buy American. I have watched over the last 50 years our MFG go elsewhere. And many times we do not get as good of a product from other countries. I am currently lamenting the loss of Fiskars and Vise Grips to the Chinese.
Out of the last 5 GM trucks I bought only one was built in the USA. The UAW has systematically run the automotive business out of the country. Now they want US to keep the remnant of their workers and retirees in the upper middle class income bracket. I consider that as criminal as the bonuses Obama's man at AIG is paying to those executives.
By the way my 2007 Sequoia is 85% US content. How many GM vehicles can claim that distinction. NONE as of 2008. Parts from all over and I do not consider Canadian parts US made any more than Mexican parts. In reality Mexico and Canada are America as much as the USA.
Maybe the factory could have even advanced Chinese manufacturing skill to the point where their cars aren't unethical ripoffs of western designs with the crashworthiness of beer cans. That'll teach the greedy first-worlders.
Interesting thing about the riots...it was very much influenced by television, moreso than any principles, no surprise there...right on the Detroit border is Dearborn, where Ford is based...while I don't know what it is like now, back then, Dearborn was a really nice "suburb" (literally next door) of Detroit...
Back during the riots, crime and burning, all the news cameras stood on the Dearborn city line, looking INTO Detroit...what they FAILED to show was the situation behind them on the Dearborn side...peace and quiet as a mouse...why, you ask???...because the mayor of Dearborn gave a strict order to Dearborn police to shoot anyone who committed any of those crimes on the Dearborn side...you will always note that rioters know where to avoid any form of retribution...in LA with Rodney King, any Korean shopowner who defended his store with a shotgun seemed to have very little problem with the rioters...same in Dearborn...aside from the smoke that billowed over Dearborn from the burning buildings up the street, the rioters knew that the mayor of Dearborn would not tolerate their racial crap...so, Dearborn was spared completely while Detroit was ruined completely...
okal: you may be missing a point...if American labor wants too much, then the price of the item will reflect that cost of labor...so, an American made shirt might cost $40 where an import might cost $12...consider every shopper at WalMart who buys a shirt...at $40 a shirt, they may only afford 1 or 2, but at $12 they might get 6 or 7, enough for a week...
The sad reality of buying the imported product is that the average American BUYER will get more for his moeny, and if money is tight, he SHOULD try and get more for his money...but, while the BUYER gets more, the American WORKER loses a job due to the cheaper import...if you tariff the import, then you are condemning the buyer to give up food money to buy the 6 or 7 shirts he needs, since they will now cost $280 for 7 shirts (7 x $40)...so, while trying to "protect" an American job, you are forcing my imaginary buyer to steal from his food budget to buy as may shirts as he needs...what gives you the right to do that???...in YOUR mind, you have preserved an American job, but in my mind, you have greatly multipled the cost of clothing to this imaginary buyer...
So while you puff out your chest for America, the buyer's kids go hungry because he must have new clothes for work, and you are the one who raised his cost of living by using tariffs to make the cheap Chinese product cost as much as the American product, all in the name of protecting American jobs...why do you have the right to raise his, or my, cost of living by doing that???
"GM is asking the UAW to cut $20.4 billion in future retiree health-care obligations to $10.2 billion in exchange for equity as part of an agreement to keep $13.4 billion in U.S. loans and as it requests as much as $16.6 billion more."
Wagoner Says Ford’s UAW Trust Accord Won’t Work at GM (Bloomberg)
Take a look at this!!
GM said last week that it wouldn’t need $2 billion originally requested by the end of March because of accelerated cost cutting. Wagoner said today GM is further reviewing cash flow and hasn’t commented on its cash position for April.
“I can’t really tell you when we’ll need the money,” he said.
PRICELESS, I SAY!
Regards,
OW
Back to the UAW. Did Wagoner make a deal with Gettlefinger? He sounds like Citi and BofA. We don't need the money now. We will get back to you. I think they all just see an opportunity for free money from a President & Congress that are clueless.
Maybe Rocky sold all their extra inventory. If anyone could do it. I believe he could. He could sell popsicles to an Eskimo. Now if he could just convince the degenerates in the UAW they are on very thin ice.
But, I do believe that he might be selling down ALL of GM's inventory, even without 0% financing...that would leave GM with nothing to sell..
Imagine this: GM calls rocky, no, they post it here for all to see..."rocky, please, slow down your selling, we can't make 'em as fast as you sell them, we'll have to re-open to shuttered plants just to keep up with your sales volume"...
How does rocky do it, you ask???...he tells the buyers that GM cars are now made by Honda workers... :shades:
Gee, I'm having a good time tonite...
I wouldn't want a Camry made into a Buick. I'd want a real Buick.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Then I've watched the same thing done in terms of overstatement ridicule of the UAW. Note I also feel the real pay for older, highest paid UAW workers is a problem for the companies along with executive compensation that makes Japanese executives look like hometown stage players compared to the Hollywood elite pay for executives at the US auto companies. But there's also an overstatement of ridicule of the UAW people. I'm sure there are many, and likely most, of the now unemployed UAW folks who are out of a job and a future.
Then I watched a similar scapegoating and attitude show on CNN yesterday afternoon when they were at Georgia State University doing their show live in front of college students. How those students were selected to be there I don't know. But when Cheney's name was mentioned there were laughs, giggles, taunts, by the students and the "host" looked around with a smirk more suitable of MSNBC hosts to show his pleasure at the besmirching of an ex-vice president. And I thought how this is the same as the constant ridicule of GM and the UAW by some.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I spent 30 minutes composing that essay. Each paragraph is themed on UAW. Steve has gotta be proud. The point is that the sheeples are easily swayed in their mindset by the media and by their peers. :shades:
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
And I'd rather have a real Camry.