Although many will chastise me for bringing it up, most public sector employees don't take part in the Social Security system. Not that it's a bad thing but it is the reason for the pensions.
I think even that's starting to change. With the federal government, they started transitioning from CSRS (where you paid into a pension plan but not social security) to FERS (where you paid into social security, but not a pension plan, and they started offering a 401k equivalent) around 1983-84.
If you're under the old CSRS plan, your pension can be as much as 80% of the average of your highest three years. However, you have to work something like 42 years to get that.
I guess it might be different with a lot of state and local workers, though. And there's often as much, if not more, corruption at those lower levels than in the federal gov't!
The Teamsters (and Jesse Carr) pretty much ran Alaska. Why strike when you own the company store?
There is some truth to that. Many of the companies we had labor agreements with leased their buildings from the Teamsters. Jay Hammond pushed us out of that mode and we went to Indian Wells, CA. That was the best thing to happen to our pension fund. We spent $13 million buying up a huge tract of the desert and started building golf courses and resort type homes. Last I heard that netted our pension fund in the area of $400 million.
If you're under the old CSRS plan, your pension can be as much as 80% of the average of your highest three years. However, you have to work something like 42 years to get that.
Yep, that would be a friend of mine. And after ~5 years of COLAs, he's bringing in more now than when he stopped working.
Well, there's driving and there's driving. I like road trips. As much as I like the idea of having a Miata or Z3, I can't see myself tent camping out of one for a month like I just did in my minivan.
Meanwhile, in UAW news, I haven't heard anything much. Fiat/Chrysler seem close, Ford less so.
"GM workers get no raises; profit sharing instead. Could add up to an extra $20,000 over the next four years."
Like the article said, they cost GM $56/hour, paid outrageously for the work they do...but, at least profit sharing means they have to work, not sit and eat donuts in the Jobs Bank...oh, and if the warranty repairs 2-3 years later eats up those profits, it also comes out of the profit checks they received...
if the warranty repairs 2-3 years later eats up those profits, it also comes out of the profit checks they received.
Did you read that somewhere, cause I don't see it in the AutoObserver article.
Oh, guess you mean if the workers don't screw stuff together good and there are no profits, they won't get their profit sharing. Wonder if it would be better to make the quality bonus a bit higher? But in theory better quality will pay off in profits.
Speaking of not seeing stuff, I'm not seeing a whole lot of UAW talk in here.
"Did you read that somewhere, cause I don't see it in the AutoObserver article"
No, that is my addition to the UAW contract which includes profit sharing...when they take the hit on all those (anticipated) warranty repairs I expect the UAW members to rebate to GM a portion of their bonus...
"They are anti anything but UAW built. They would rather have US buy a car with 40% US content assembled by UAW factory, than a Toyota, Honda or BMW with much higher US content. It is that mentality that makes me want to steer clear of anything UAW built."
And it is that mentality that make me steer clear of people like that...:):):)
The new BMW Driving Experience discussion. The link goes to Roadburner's last post from yesterday and continues with today's posts. Or you can go back to page one and relive the whole thread.
Gary - if GM had gone under, where do you think the economy would be now?
Personally, the country would probably be worse off if it went away. Imagine the economic outcome of hundreds of thousands more people losing their jobs as GM and their supplier base - along with all the other people who benefit from the auto industry. It's an end that wouldn't be pretty.
I realize that the other automakers make pick up some but the market for autos would take a beating as well as fewer people could or would by new cars.
That is not my point or that of the cartoon. It has to do with the FACT that GM has not really paid more than a pittance back to the tax payers and the UAW is trying to extort more money. They were over paid before the bankruptcy and they are over paid now. Time for the Feds to tell them enough is enough. Bonuses paid to bankers and UAW workers is immoral in my opinion. When it comes out of our tax dollars.
I was not happy with the bailout of the automakers. I also was not happy with bailing out the banks and insurance companies either. I think that was a huge transfer of wealth to the richest people in the country. Including Buffett who is now feeling guilty about his part in the TARP scam.
I think that was a huge transfer of wealth to the richest people in the country.
Indeed it was. And no accident that the banks were cherry picked as to who would survive. Some folks lost everything while others whose banks were in equally bad shape got out without a scratch. Unfortunately my dad was in the first category. Fortunately at that point he was so close to the end that he really didn't know about it.
Agreed there should have been clauses in those bailouts forbidding any bonuses until every penny was paid back with interest.
2015 Mazda 6 Grand Touring, 2014 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback, 1999 Mazda Miata 2004 Toyota Camry LE, 1999.
Just what I mean. I had a friend who had Lehman bonds. He lost a load of money that he'd carefully invested for years. Same thing happened to my dad with Wachovia. On the other hand if your stock was in Citi or Bank of America you were sitting pretty.
2015 Mazda 6 Grand Touring, 2014 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback, 1999 Mazda Miata 2004 Toyota Camry LE, 1999.
"Sorry - I took it as a overall dig at the GM bailout."
Well, I DO have a problem with the overall GM bailout...they should have let them fail and file Ch 7 and liquidate...for whatever number of cars GM would sell, that would be picked up by other makers...plus, it is also possible that another maker might just buy up GM assets lock, stock and barrel and simply start a new company WITHOUT the UAW hanging as an albatross around its neck, yet all the manufacturing assets would be in place...
The problem with capitalism is that you have to let it work, both on the positive AND the negative...when they make money, we all love capitalism, but when there is trouble, we all think we need the govt to save us...
Let them go under, with ALL of the riple effects...that part of the market would NOT disappear, it would just move to other makers...and, while UAW unemployment would skyrocket, all those jobs would be replaced by whoever picked up GM assets for pennies on the dollar...
Stop using govt to choose winners and losers...let the market work...that is why we didn;t save Packard, Duesenberg, Studebaker, and all those others that died out before it became the Big 3...plus we didn;t save Atari, Osborne, Buggy Whip Makers, Conestoga Wagon makers, etc.
Stop using tax money to keep a loser alive that should have died years ago, and that is why capitalism destroys the losers and creates new winners all the time, I think it is called "Creative Destruction"...
If GM had filed chapter 7 and gone away, it is my opinion that the economy would've have gone into a depression.
All of GM employees and a good chunk of the supplier employees would be out of work. That in turn would affect the consumer goods markets and the housing market leading to even more layoffs. Eventually it would affect the stock market and leading to greater loss of wealth and income.
Although it is possible other automakers would pick up the slack it wouldn't happen overnight. The other automakers just can't turn up the speed of the assembly line. It would take months or possibly years and I'm sure they'd be leery of making huge investments in facilities in the short term since the market demand would drop due to the high unemployment that had resulted.
No other company/automaker could just go into the existing plants and start up the line. They would still have to deal with the unions in those plants at some point. And get new plants up and running in southern states would take years.
As for the other automakers you listed that weren't saved - that was 50-60 years ago and none of them held any major portion of the industry. It was easy to replace them - GM's 25-30% would be much more difficult to replace.
If GM had filed chapter 7 and gone away, it is my opinion that the economy would've have gone into a depression.
We still may.
We've essentially lost the housing market (well it's in a world of hurt anyway) and it dwarfs the auto industry (maybe not anymore). No bail outs there and look where we are. Of course Freddie and Fannie were bailed out, but the actual home owners have been left holding the bag for the most part.
Honestly, I didn't buy all the doom and gloom about GM. The only reason I saw for the bailout was at the time the capital markets were locked up. There wasn't the liquidity available for the market to allow GM to go through a normal bankruptcy, they were heading towards bankruptcy regardless. The financial crisis just made it happen sooner.
We're probably better off having bailed out GM for now. Who knows if that will be the case 20 years from now. Doesn't mean I like it, but we've all had to do things from time to time that we didn't like and wouldn't normally do in a perfect world.
As for the other automakers you listed that weren't saved - that was 50-60 years ago and none of them held any major portion of the industry. It was easy to replace them
Studebaker was the largest vehicle manufacturer in the World in the late 1800s. They were in the process of merging with several smaller makers like Packard and Nash in an attempt to compete with number one & two GM and Ford. They would have been the 3rd largest automaker. The problem was high UAW labor costs in South Bend Indiana.
Ballooning labor costs (the company had never had an official United Auto Workers [UAW] strike and Studebaker workers and retirees were among the highest paid in the industry)wiki
In the late 1950s and early 1960s Studebaker Packard had a decent run with the Lark. Then sales dropped off when the big boys started building smaller cars. And guess what happened? You guessed it the UAW pretty much put the last nails in the S/P coffin.
However, Lark sales began to drop precipitously after the big three manufacturers introduced their own compact models in 1960, and the situation became critical once the so-called "senior compacts" debuted for 1961. The Lark had provided a temporary reprieve, but nothing proved enough to stop the financial bleeding.
There was a labor strike at the South Bend plant starting on January 1, 1962 and lasting 38 days. The strike came to an end after an agreement was reached between company president Sherwood H. Egbert and Walter P. Reuther, president of the UAW.
By the time S/P called it quits in 1966 they had closed all but their Canadian factories. It happened over nearly a decade. I am sure that is how GM would have crumbled as well. If GM had bailed on the US market they could have stayed solvent without our tax dollars and the UAW millstone put around the necks of the tax payers.
If GM had filed chapter 7 and gone away, it is my opinion that the economy would've have gone into a depression.
In my opinion we are and were in a DEpression anyway. People just like to call it a recession to make themselves feel good about a horribly bad decision in making bailouts.
If GM was allowed to go under I think we momentarily short term may have been slightly worse off, but after a couple years (like where we are now) we'd be MUCH better off, and wouldn't have a crashing economy and stock market like today due to the bailout damage.
Ford would be doing much better today if GM was gone and frankly, they deserve it more.
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
The GM "funny" reconfiguration should not have included a gift to the Unions. I believe GM had to be saved along with C.
GM should have been able to start over on the same footing as tyota and Honda, no unions in the US.
Of course, we all remember the talk about the Administrations' selective cutting of certain Chrysler dealerships based on politics. Did that happen with the pruning of duplicate stores in the GM line?
All politics, all the time, this administration. Other than that, GM has been handled as it should have been handled.
I think GM gave too much to the UAW given their no-strike position and protectyion going in. Don't understand all the inside issues, but perhaps their hads were a bit tied by the gov bailout and Washington?
Obama cut 1100 non contributing dealers from the GM roles.
GM tells 1,100 dealers they will be shut down Bad news arrives one day after Chrysler targeted 789 franchisees
The company did not disclose the dealers it plans to eliminate and left it up to dealerships to reveal if their franchises will not be renewed.
The cuts are part of a larger GM plan to drop 2,600 of its 6,200 dealerships as the automaker tries to restructure to become profitable again. The moves likely will cause the loss of thousands of jobs and governments will lose untold dollars in tax revenue as dealerships are forced to close.
GM should have been able to start over on the same footing as tyota and Honda, no unions in the US.
...and then Ford would be the only one left in the US dealing with the union? Would we then support a bailout of them to allow for equal footing? Could a company that was financially solvent even be able to file for bankruptcy?
>>GM should have been able to start over on the same footing as tyota and Honda, no unions in the US.
>...and then Ford would be the only one left in the US dealing with the union? Would we then support a bailout of them to allow for equal footing?
But let's think a minute. How many times have people with little understanding of economics and bankruptcy excoriated GM for having needed cash to continue and having received government assistance? :sick:
How many times have people said "Ford didn't take money" and put their thumb against their nose and wave their fingers in mockery? :P
So my conclusion is that Ford is perfectly capable of doing things on their own as these folks have reminded us. Apparently Ford had some kind of prescience about the 2008/2009 crash/recession/depression and had planned for it knowing how things would work.
There, Ford is perfectly capable of continuing on their own, forever. They obviously will know in advance how to negotiate with the unions.
I'd much rather our government had spent twice the money to dissolve GM and build a new company from the ashes which would have done 2 things: (1(Erase the stigma of all of those years of mismanagement and UAW greed and (2) support the dependent parts companies under the new subsidized entity.
There, Ford is perfectly capable of continuing on their own, forever. They obviously will know in advance how to negotiate with the unions.
That would include moving as much of their production to UAW-Free Zones! Ford can do that freer than the other 2 because they are not partially owned by the UAW! :P
That would include moving as much of their production to UAW-Free Zones! Ford can do that freer than the other 2 because they are not partially owned by the UAW!
That is precisely correct. They can move to states that are not controlled by Unions. They can move to other countries as they did with the huge automated plant built in Brazil. Ford offered to build it in the USA and was shot down by the UAW on work rules. They may have some agreement to only hire UAW workers in the USA. So as long as that exists I would not expect Ford to expand a lot in the USA. Here is what the UAW lug nuts did not like about the plant:
At Ford Motor Co.'s factory here, a group of Visteon Corp. workers connect the wiring in a dashboard module for a Ford EcoSport. Next to them, Lear Corp. employees are building seats for the same vehicle. A few feet away, Ford's Diede Silva dos Santos applies trim to a Fiesta subcompact. She's mastered seven jobs at the plant and is working on an eighth.
"If you do different jobs, it's more interesting," said Silva dos Santos, 24. "It gives me a chance to expand my knowledge. (It) makes me a more valuable employee, too, so that I will have a future here."
All of them exemplify a different kind of worker in a different kind of plant for a Detroit automaker.
Ford sources said it is the sort of plant the company wants in the United States, were it not for the United Auto Workers, which has historically opposed such extensive supplier integration on the factory floor.
Did Ford get as much as GM has gotten for their Volt project? I would say that Ford has spent what they got more wisely as their hybrids are far superior to anything GM sells. I am skeptical if the Plug-ins will ever amount to many sales. Batteries are too expensive. And only going to get more so. 80% of the lithium comes from Bolivia. A country aligned tightly with Chavez and Venezuela. Don't expect any favors from them. How much will a UAW battery cost to build?? I don't think that Johnson Control battery assembly plant that cost US $300 million is a union shop. JC and UAW have a very volatile relationship.
I, for one, would not want to live in a world without GM! My money would be only so much worthless toilet paper as there would be nothing left worth buying. It wouldn't matter if I had Warren Buffet's fortune if I couldn't buy a new Cadillac or Buick. Being forced to buy a Ford or an import would be akin to be sentenced to eating nothing but brussels sprouts for the rest of my life and I hate brussels sprouts!
I am sure you would have gone into deep depression, knowing you would never own another new Buick or Caddy. :shades:
GM could have gone Ch11 and re-organized without the UAW holding them back. They are very profitable in the rest of the World. It is only here where they are burdened with high labor costs and restrictive work rules. That was the only reason for the bailout. The Dems were protecting the UAW. And they violated the Constitution in the process.
Think of the possibilities. You could have taken a nice vacation to China, bought a new Buick and had it shipped home. Probably saved a ton of money.
PS I hate BS as well as my growing disdain for Government Motors.
The prospect of no more new Buicks or Cadillacs would've put me on a suicide watch. I'd have to gobble down a 55 gallon drum of antidepressants every day to keep me from leaping off the Ben Franklin Bridge. I could care less about the UAW or the Democratic Party. I only want to be sure there's a new AMERICAN MADE Buick or Cadillac in my future.
It's not that I'm dependent on them. I prefer GM far above any other manufacturer. Chrysler is a distant second and Ford is a last-ditch effort. Imports? I'd rather not go there. I'd sooner stick red hot flaming barbecue skewers in my eyes than buy an import. I have a Mercury Grand Marquis, a Ford product, but I'd much rather a Buick Park Avenue. The only reason I bought it was because it was cheap and I was helping my wife's elderly aunt.
"No other company/automaker could just go into the existing plants and start up the line. They would still have to deal with the unions in those plants at some point. And get new plants up and running in southern states would take years."
I think I must disagree with you...if GM closed up and sold off assets, any company that bought the assets would have no connection to the UAW...they could hang "Hiring" signs outside and hire whoever they want to at the wage they wanted to...
You can argue what a GM bankruptcy might have done, but the fact, to me, is that the govt should not have stepped in, they should have allowed the market to work...Ch7 or Ch11, let the chips fall where they may...I do not like govt choosing winners and losers, esp when the entire thing was about saving union votes...even w/o union votes, I still say let the market work...if GM is not a viable company then let the legal process do its thing, that is what it is there for...
t's not that I'm dependent on them. I prefer GM far above any other manufacturer. Chrysler is a distant second and Ford is a last-ditch effort. Imports?
Well you said you'd likely jump off a bridge if you Buick and Cadillac were gone. I'd say that's being dependent;)
Nothing wrong with preferring one brand/mfg over another.
I prefer GM far above any other manufacturer. Chrysler is a distant second and Ford is a last-ditch effort.
Funny, my list is basically the opposite. Ford would probably be 1st, Chrysler a close second and GM a distant 3rd. But that would depend on what i was buying.
Granted if I decided to spend much over $40k on a car, I'd probably go German.
But I really like the 300C and the Charger has been growing on me. Big powerful v8 and RWD is hard to beat.
I think I must disagree with you...if GM closed up and sold off assets, any company that bought the assets would have no connection to the UAW...they could hang "Hiring" signs outside and hire whoever they want to at the wage they wanted to...
And I'll counter with the point that no company could easily start a new auto company/plant in Hamtranck, Lordstown or Ingersoll (to name a few) without having to deal with the UAW at some point. They wouldn't have to but IMHO they eventually would as those areas are strong UAW.
Look at Fiskar - they are working with the UAW in Delaware. They didn't have to but they chose to not fight the union.
Actually, it seems to me that the UAW is working to help GM and hurt Ford. They continue to want Ford disadvantaged on the cost side. I believe Ford is going to have to stand up to this. Once the contract expires they need to let the UAW strike, then lock them out and hire replacement workers. Longer term its going to have to be Mexico if the UAW keeps screwing Ford over. Otherwise within the next decade Ford will be the one in financial trouble.
You could have just bought a bunch of brand new Buicks and Caddillacs just as they were going "bye-bye" and stored them in a Vacuum for future use and they'd be as good as "new."
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
I agree, I'd of rather had the gov't spend 2X or even 10X the amount on more worthy companies than GM like some of the suppliers who may have been troubled with GM going under. The thing is, we could have prevented all the collateral damage of GM going under with probably 1/10th the amount that was wasted bailing out GM itself.
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
Comments
I think even that's starting to change. With the federal government, they started transitioning from CSRS (where you paid into a pension plan but not social security) to FERS (where you paid into social security, but not a pension plan, and they started offering a 401k equivalent) around 1983-84.
If you're under the old CSRS plan, your pension can be as much as 80% of the average of your highest three years. However, you have to work something like 42 years to get that.
I guess it might be different with a lot of state and local workers, though. And there's often as much, if not more, corruption at those lower levels than in the federal gov't!
There is some truth to that. Many of the companies we had labor agreements with leased their buildings from the Teamsters. Jay Hammond pushed us out of that mode and we went to Indian Wells, CA. That was the best thing to happen to our pension fund. We spent $13 million buying up a huge tract of the desert and started building golf courses and resort type homes. Last I heard that netted our pension fund in the area of $400 million.
Yep, that would be a friend of mine. And after ~5 years of COLAs, he's bringing in more now than when he stopped working.
Meanwhile, in UAW news, I haven't heard anything much. Fiat/Chrysler seem close, Ford less so.
GM-UAW Contract Boosts Jobs, Bonuses (AutoObserver)
GM workers get no raises; profit sharing instead. Could add up to an extra $20,000 over the next four years.
Like the article said, they cost GM $56/hour, paid outrageously for the work they do...but, at least profit sharing means they have to work, not sit and eat donuts in the Jobs Bank...oh, and if the warranty repairs 2-3 years later eats up those profits, it also comes out of the profit checks they received...
Did you read that somewhere, cause I don't see it in the AutoObserver article.
Oh, guess you mean if the workers don't screw stuff together good and there are no profits, they won't get their profit sharing. Wonder if it would be better to make the quality bonus a bit higher? But in theory better quality will pay off in profits.
Speaking of not seeing stuff, I'm not seeing a whole lot of UAW talk in here.
/hint
No, that is my addition to the UAW contract which includes profit sharing...when they take the hit on all those (anticipated) warranty repairs I expect the UAW members to rebate to GM a portion of their bonus...
Honda was the best as of July 2011 while Toyota took a big hit with all the recall mess a while back. Volkswagen is still way up there.
Warranty Accruals per Vehicle
GM's rate has been falling btw. VW's too. Both big union shops, at least in their home country. As is Ford.
Chrysler has a ways to go still, but they've been making dramatic strides.
And it is that mentality that make me steer clear of people like that...:):):)
Thanks!
Personally, the country would probably be worse off if it went away. Imagine the economic outcome of hundreds of thousands more people losing their jobs as GM and their supplier base - along with all the other people who benefit from the auto industry. It's an end that wouldn't be pretty.
I realize that the other automakers make pick up some but the market for autos would take a beating as well as fewer people could or would by new cars.
Indeed it was. And no accident that the banks were cherry picked as to who would survive. Some folks lost everything while others whose banks were in equally bad shape got out without a scratch. Unfortunately my dad was in the first category. Fortunately at that point he was so close to the end that he really didn't know about it.
Agreed there should have been clauses in those bailouts forbidding any bonuses until every penny was paid back with interest.
Well, I DO have a problem with the overall GM bailout...they should have let them fail and file Ch 7 and liquidate...for whatever number of cars GM would sell, that would be picked up by other makers...plus, it is also possible that another maker might just buy up GM assets lock, stock and barrel and simply start a new company WITHOUT the UAW hanging as an albatross around its neck, yet all the manufacturing assets would be in place...
The problem with capitalism is that you have to let it work, both on the positive AND the negative...when they make money, we all love capitalism, but when there is trouble, we all think we need the govt to save us...
Let them go under, with ALL of the riple effects...that part of the market would NOT disappear, it would just move to other makers...and, while UAW unemployment would skyrocket, all those jobs would be replaced by whoever picked up GM assets for pennies on the dollar...
Stop using govt to choose winners and losers...let the market work...that is why we didn;t save Packard, Duesenberg, Studebaker, and all those others that died out before it became the Big 3...plus we didn;t save Atari, Osborne, Buggy Whip Makers, Conestoga Wagon makers, etc.
Stop using tax money to keep a loser alive that should have died years ago, and that is why capitalism destroys the losers and creates new winners all the time, I think it is called "Creative Destruction"...
If GM had filed chapter 7 and gone away, it is my opinion that the economy would've have gone into a depression.
All of GM employees and a good chunk of the supplier employees would be out of work. That in turn would affect the consumer goods markets and the housing market leading to even more layoffs. Eventually it would affect the stock market and leading to greater loss of wealth and income.
Although it is possible other automakers would pick up the slack it wouldn't happen overnight. The other automakers just can't turn up the speed of the assembly line. It would take months or possibly years and I'm sure they'd be leery of making huge investments in facilities in the short term since the market demand would drop due to the high unemployment that had resulted.
No other company/automaker could just go into the existing plants and start up the line. They would still have to deal with the unions in those plants at some point. And get new plants up and running in southern states would take years.
As for the other automakers you listed that weren't saved - that was 50-60 years ago and none of them held any major portion of the industry. It was easy to replace them - GM's 25-30% would be much more difficult to replace.
We still may.
We've essentially lost the housing market (well it's in a world of hurt anyway) and it dwarfs the auto industry (maybe not anymore). No bail outs there and look where we are. Of course Freddie and Fannie were bailed out, but the actual home owners have been left holding the bag for the most part.
Honestly, I didn't buy all the doom and gloom about GM. The only reason I saw for the bailout was at the time the capital markets were locked up. There wasn't the liquidity available for the market to allow GM to go through a normal bankruptcy, they were heading towards bankruptcy regardless. The financial crisis just made it happen sooner.
We're probably better off having bailed out GM for now. Who knows if that will be the case 20 years from now. Doesn't mean I like it, but we've all had to do things from time to time that we didn't like and wouldn't normally do in a perfect world.
Studebaker was the largest vehicle manufacturer in the World in the late 1800s. They were in the process of merging with several smaller makers like Packard and Nash in an attempt to compete with number one & two GM and Ford. They would have been the 3rd largest automaker. The problem was high UAW labor costs in South Bend Indiana.
Ballooning labor costs (the company had never had an official United Auto Workers [UAW] strike and Studebaker workers and retirees were among the highest paid in the industry)wiki
In the late 1950s and early 1960s Studebaker Packard had a decent run with the Lark. Then sales dropped off when the big boys started building smaller cars. And guess what happened? You guessed it the UAW pretty much put the last nails in the S/P coffin.
However, Lark sales began to drop precipitously after the big three manufacturers introduced their own compact models in 1960, and the situation became critical once the so-called "senior compacts" debuted for 1961. The Lark had provided a temporary reprieve, but nothing proved enough to stop the financial bleeding.
There was a labor strike at the South Bend plant starting on January 1, 1962 and lasting 38 days. The strike came to an end after an agreement was reached between company president Sherwood H. Egbert and Walter P. Reuther, president of the UAW.
By the time S/P called it quits in 1966 they had closed all but their Canadian factories. It happened over nearly a decade. I am sure that is how GM would have crumbled as well. If GM had bailed on the US market they could have stayed solvent without our tax dollars and the UAW millstone put around the necks of the tax payers.
In my opinion we are and were in a DEpression anyway. People just like to call it a recession to make themselves feel good about a horribly bad decision in making bailouts.
If GM was allowed to go under I think we momentarily short term may have been slightly worse off, but after a couple years (like where we are now) we'd be MUCH better off, and wouldn't have a crashing economy and stock market like today due to the bailout damage.
Ford would be doing much better today if GM was gone and frankly, they deserve it more.
GM should have been able to start over on the same footing as tyota and Honda, no unions in the US.
Of course, we all remember the talk about the Administrations' selective cutting of certain Chrysler dealerships based on politics. Did that happen with the pruning of duplicate stores in the GM line?
All politics, all the time, this administration. Other than that, GM has been handled as it should have been handled.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
GM tells 1,100 dealers they will be shut down
Bad news arrives one day after Chrysler targeted 789 franchisees
The company did not disclose the dealers it plans to eliminate and left it up to dealerships to reveal if their franchises will not be renewed.
The cuts are part of a larger GM plan to drop 2,600 of its 6,200 dealerships as the automaker tries to restructure to become profitable again. The moves likely will cause the loss of thousands of jobs and governments will lose untold dollars in tax revenue as dealerships are forced to close.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30761185/ns/business-autos/t/gm-tells-dealers-they-w- ill-be-shut-down/#.TnvfaOyK9I4
...and then Ford would be the only one left in the US dealing with the union? Would we then support a bailout of them to allow for equal footing? Could a company that was financially solvent even be able to file for bankruptcy?
>...and then Ford would be the only one left in the US dealing with the union? Would we then support a bailout of them to allow for equal footing?
But let's think a minute. How many times have people with little understanding of economics and bankruptcy excoriated GM for having needed cash to continue and having received government assistance? :sick:
How many times have people said "Ford didn't take money" and put their thumb against their nose and wave their fingers in mockery? :P
So my conclusion is that Ford is perfectly capable of doing things on their own as these folks have reminded us. Apparently Ford had some kind of prescience about the 2008/2009 crash/recession/depression and had planned for it knowing how things would work.
There, Ford is perfectly capable of continuing on their own, forever. They obviously will know in advance how to negotiate with the unions.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Regards,
OW
That would include moving as much of their production to UAW-Free Zones! Ford can do that freer than the other 2 because they are not partially owned by the UAW! :P
Regards,
OW
Maybe so, but they still took a boatload of money for various projects, especially EV research funds iirc.
That is precisely correct. They can move to states that are not controlled by Unions. They can move to other countries as they did with the huge automated plant built in Brazil. Ford offered to build it in the USA and was shot down by the UAW on work rules. They may have some agreement to only hire UAW workers in the USA. So as long as that exists I would not expect Ford to expand a lot in the USA. Here is what the UAW lug nuts did not like about the plant:
At Ford Motor Co.'s factory here, a group of Visteon Corp. workers connect the wiring in a dashboard module for a Ford EcoSport. Next to them, Lear Corp. employees are building seats for the same vehicle. A few feet away, Ford's Diede Silva dos Santos applies trim to a Fiesta subcompact. She's mastered seven jobs at the plant and is working on an eighth.
"If you do different jobs, it's more interesting," said Silva dos Santos, 24. "It gives me a chance to expand my knowledge. (It) makes me a more valuable employee, too, so that I will have a future here."
All of them exemplify a different kind of worker in a different kind of plant for a Detroit automaker.
Ford sources said it is the sort of plant the company wants in the United States, were it not for the United Auto Workers, which has historically opposed such extensive supplier integration on the factory floor.
http://detnews.com/article/20070822/AUTO01/708220407/FORD-S-TEST-BED--Brazil-s-C- ama%C3%A7ari-plant-is-model-for-the-future
I had forgotten about that.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I bet a lot of UAW members have gotten money from the American Recovery Re-Investment Act. (US Dept. of Labor)
GM could have gone Ch11 and re-organized without the UAW holding them back. They are very profitable in the rest of the World. It is only here where they are burdened with high labor costs and restrictive work rules. That was the only reason for the bailout. The Dems were protecting the UAW. And they violated the Constitution in the process.
Think of the possibilities. You could have taken a nice vacation to China, bought a new Buick and had it shipped home. Probably saved a ton of money.
PS
I hate BS as well as my growing disdain for Government Motors.
I think I must disagree with you...if GM closed up and sold off assets, any company that bought the assets would have no connection to the UAW...they could hang "Hiring" signs outside and hire whoever they want to at the wage they wanted to...
You can argue what a GM bankruptcy might have done, but the fact, to me, is that the govt should not have stepped in, they should have allowed the market to work...Ch7 or Ch11, let the chips fall where they may...I do not like govt choosing winners and losers, esp when the entire thing was about saving union votes...even w/o union votes, I still say let the market work...if GM is not a viable company then let the legal process do its thing, that is what it is there for...
Well you said you'd likely jump off a bridge if you Buick and Cadillac were gone. I'd say that's being dependent;)
Nothing wrong with preferring one brand/mfg over another.
Go Mexico!
Funny, my list is basically the opposite. Ford would probably be 1st, Chrysler a close second and GM a distant 3rd. But that would depend on what i was buying.
Granted if I decided to spend much over $40k on a car, I'd probably go German.
But I really like the 300C and the Charger has been growing on me. Big powerful v8 and RWD is hard to beat.
And I'll counter with the point that no company could easily start a new auto company/plant in Hamtranck, Lordstown or Ingersoll (to name a few) without having to deal with the UAW at some point. They wouldn't have to but IMHO they eventually would as those areas are strong UAW.
Look at Fiskar - they are working with the UAW in Delaware. They didn't have to but they chose to not fight the union.