The Auto Bailout

I don't start topics often here but this thing has me po'd. I mean its like Godzilla marching into Tokyo harbor begging for a handout and there are many issues the media hasn't addressed here. I'm just tired of the people coming to Washington and putting a gun to ur heads and saying if you don't give us what we want something terrible will happen.

1-This industry has fought the Gov't and resisted every attempt to improve gas mileage and put safety gear into cars since the 1970s. Who knows how many people have died because of defects they wouldn't fix because it was cheaper to pay the occasional lawsuit. Also the union isn't innocent here either. I'm a union guy and support unions to get better working conditions and get good pay and benefits but it's a different story when a union just tries to get what they can and the management caves in with disregard for what the future might bring.

2-They come and really don't talk about themselves. Its all about the economy and their workers. Talk to the people who have worked there for years and you'll see they never gave a rat's a** about their employees.But now they're real humanitarians.

3-So GM goes out of business. So when you go to buy a new car and go to Ford I guess they'll take your order and tell you to wait a year because of the manufacturing shortage. Not. Every other automaker will ramp up production, hire new employees, build new plants, get more suppliers and companies that don't have plants here will build them to meet the demand. In the end most of the economic impact would be a fraction of the dire predictions people present.

4-So the auto makers say its not their fault. Its the Economy. People can't get financing to buy cars. So the last time I looked each automaker has a financing arm. maybe if GMAC didn't require a minimum 700 credit score to finance a car they would sell more cars.But no they won't takes the credit risk to sell more cars when its easier to come to the taxpayer for a handout and force us to take the risk instead.

I would rather they come to Congress with real guns and rob us because thats more honest and you know where you stand. Trying to rob us with computers and calculators and deceit is not right.

Can't say whether or not I agree fully on every issue you brought up, but well said! I am also very tired of these corporations looking to someone else to fix the problems that they started and didn't fix. I would request someone post some literature (links) to good articles about the whole auto bailout so that I can actually find out more, but it doesn't look good.

Let me post some initial thoughts I also had when I first found out about this:

Seems to me that if the auto industry in America is in as much trouble as they make it out to be- then I don't see a bailout at this point as a problem solver. People don't buy US cars now. The manufacturers get some more money. Make somewhat better cars. The trust is STILL lost and not yet regained. I can't see a bailout instilling more trust in the companys. People will continue to buy as they have been. If people can't/won't buy a car now, WHY would they in another couple years if the economy is still down? Just looks like postponing the inevitable to me.

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Originally Posted by thebigspendur

I don't start topics often here but this thing has me po'd. I mean its like Godzilla marching into Tokyo harbor begging for a handout and there are many issues the media hasn't addressed here. I'm just tired of the people coming to Washington and putting a gun to ur heads and saying if you don't give us what we want something terrible will happen.

1-This industry has fought the Gov't and resisted every attempt to improve gas mileage and put safety gear into cars since the 1970s. Who knows how many people have died because of defects they wouldn't fix because it was cheaper to pay the occasional lawsuit. Also the union isn't innocent here either. I'm a union guy and support unions to get better working conditions and get good pay and benefits but it's a different story when a union just tries to get what they can and the management caves in with disregard for what the future might bring.

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Yea, "management just caves" , thats why there are strikes and plant shutdowns every time the contract is renewed because management just gives the workers anything they want.

Every raise in the mileage rate and every safety feature has greater effect upon the domestics than the foreign makers. They playing field is off kilter, and the law is slanted against companies who are based here.

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Originally Posted by thebigspendur

2-They come and really don't talk about themselves. Its all about the economy and their workers. Talk to the people who have worked there for years and you'll see they never gave a rat's a** about their employees.But now they're real humanitarians.

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This is a veiled threat. They are really saying that "fine you don't like the unemployment numbers this month, just wait till we go into receivership."

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Originally Posted by thebigspendur

3-So GM goes out of business. So when you go to buy a new car and go to Ford I guess they'll take your order and tell you to wait a year because of the manufacturing shortage. Not. Every other automaker will ramp up production, hire new employees, build new plants, get more suppliers and companies that don't have plants here will build them to meet the demand. In the end most of the economic impact would be a fraction of the dire predictions people present.

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Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. If GM goes under so do many of their suppliers, who also supply Ford so now Ford has a problem getting parts to make any cars. The auto suppliers are all one interconnected web of companies making parts for all of the big three, and even some of the foreign companies too. Its like a circle of dominoes topple any one and they all tip over

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Originally Posted by thebigspendur

4-So the auto makers say its not their fault. Its the Economy. People can't get financing to buy cars. So the last time I looked each automaker has a financing arm. maybe if GMAC didn't require a minimum 700 credit score to finance a car they would sell more cars.But no they won't takes the credit risk to sell more cars when its easier to come to the taxpayer for a handout and force us to take the risk instead.

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You do realize that there was a 30% drop in car sales over the past year. That a third of the business the auto makers were expecting just gone, in one year. That so far off the radar I don't think anyone predicted it. I wonder if any business could survive that.

Here's a question for you: How many Voters/taxpayers work for the Automotive company's and their suppliers? I ask because GM isn't going to close its doors. It will just liquidate enough plants and workers to keep going if it can. The question is how much will that cost the country in lost revenue.

Personally I think that if they were willing to dump 700 billion plus into the financial system with no strings attached they should be willing to loan a mere 35 billion to the manufacturing sector to be returned with interest.

If they bail out one sector of the economy I just can't see how they won't give a leg up to another equally important one. Though I think any bail-outs was a bad idea, but once you have started down that road it doesn't work to try and turn around.

The other hard part is that most of the other country's in the world have already loaned their manufacturing sectors cash, because they are smart enough to realize that there is no way for any business to survive a one year drop in sales of over 30% which is what has happened to ALL of the auto makers this past year both domestic and foreign.

One thing I found very funny was that one of the commission members said

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'you come here, asking for money, yet each of you flew here individually in a private jet. If I ask you if you care enough to sell your plane right now, would you agree?
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Let the record show that none of them responded'

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That was hilarious imo.
But not as hilarious as the fact that they asked for 20 billion without any plan to turn things profitable again. They just ask for money to keep things going as they are. The best thing that could happen imo is that one of them went belly up. The same happens to every other company that cannot compete anymore. And it's not as if they didn't have enough years of opportunity to change things.

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Originally Posted by thebigspendur

I'm just tired of the people coming to Washington and putting a gun to ur heads and saying if you don't give us what we want something terrible will happen.

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In this case it will. But Washington shouldn't give it unconditionally and I don't believe they will.

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2-They come and really don't talk about themselves. Its all about the economy and their workers. Talk to the people who have worked there for years and you'll see they never gave a rat's a** about their employees.But now they're real humanitarians.

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They're the highest paid auto workers in the world right? That's not really the point though. It's the effect on the economy if they're all out on the street. And even more, as above, the ripple effect through the supply industries.

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4-So the auto makers say its not their fault. Its the Economy. People can't get financing to buy cars. So the last time I looked each automaker has a financing arm. maybe if GMAC didn't require a minimum 700 credit score to finance a car they would sell more cars.But no they won't takes the credit risk to sell more cars when its easier to come to the taxpayer for a handout and force us to take the risk instead.

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It was the credit collapse that predicated all of this. If you could fog a mirror you could get a loan. GM could be in the worst shape because of their GMAC arm.

I will be up front that I do not know a ton on this subject, but I think it is important to know that if the auto companies close it is not just the auto plants that close it is all the other plants that make parts for the companies.

I disagreed with the first bail out, but this one seems a little bigger than that. I think if they didnt go with the first bail out things would have happend like Bruno said, but you haev to remember about all the companies other than the big detroit guys that are involved, not to mention what would happen with all the cars already out there.

Do i think the companies need to get thier duck in a row and get back to american inovation and compete wth the other car comanies? YES. I believe that if they start creating the cars to compete with over seas companies then the public would buy them.

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Originally Posted by Quick

They're the highest paid auto workers in the world right? That's not really the point though. It's the effect on the economy if they're all out on the street. And even more, as above, the ripple effect through the supply industries.

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This is from back when Ford first started the assembly line, he had a very high turn over rate because mechanics did not want to just put one part on every day, so he had to pay them more to stop them from quitting.

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But not as hilarious as the fact that they asked for 20 billion without any plan to turn things profitable again. They just ask for money to keep things going as they are. The best thing that could happen imo is that one of them went belly up. The same happens to every other company that cannot compete anymore. And it's not as if they didn't have enough years of opportunity to change things.

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That's where the bail out needs to have conditions. They're just too big to let them go belly up. Same with the huge financial firms that are being bailed out. It's not easy though right? If the government just buys all the big industry we have socialism and that might not work.

The whole private airplane thing was just theatrics. Good or not, right or wrong, these guy's time is worth enough that the private jets are a drop in the bucket. If you're going to speak to congress with tens of BILLIONS on the line are you going to book a seat on SouthWest? You don't want guys like these burning a day or two to fly out early and wait in a hotel room to be sure. "Congressman, I won't make the morning hearing and might not be there in time for the evening hearing. They overbooked the flight, I got bumped, and I'm on standby for the afternoon flight". These guys aren't on the same par as the President but maybe in the very next ball park when it comes to their time.

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Originally Posted by Quick

The whole private airplane thing was just theatrics. Good or not, right or wrong, these guy's time is worth enough that the private jets are a drop in the bucket.

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Yes, it was theatrics of course, but I do not agree that these guys' time is so expensive.
The value of a CEO is measured by his visionary skills, and their ability to keep the company healthy and profitable. Apart from those qualities, a CEO is just an expensive ornament.

The US car industry is a rotten corpse that hasn't been able to adapt for the last 3 decades.
These CEOs have shown their utter incapability to anticipate the demand for efficiency and affordable quality, instead striving to sustain the 60s model based on size and horsepower.
They have fought against those things in favor of status quo, and have flushed their companies down the toilet despite decades of warnings and global trends.

The only thing they care about is their pocket, not the companies they represent.

EDIT: And if they really cared about being on time for that hearing, they could have
a) taken the same plane
b) done what I do if I have to be somewhere really on time: leave the evening before and spend the night in a hotel.

first off i worked for one of those parts makers that supplies the big three. i hated it as i can't stand doing the same thing day in day out. i was paid $24 per hour though and i got a lot of brake time. this to me was why our company was so inefficient. i don't think we should have been worked to death but if i was making a torsion bar (a suspension component with a hex head on each end) i literally worked 15 mins and then had a 15 min break all day long. our plant ran at about 65-70% efficiency, which is pathetic considering what we could have done. but our union wanted us to stay on one job so people would get hurt from doing the same things over and over, hence the constant breaks. if we had to rotate between jobs like in a Toyota plant people wouldn't have nearly the same problems. plus toyotas plants pay better and run at between 96-98% efficiency.

am i saying that the whole blame is on the workers? no. the management has been very greedy, but i will get to that. the workers are stuck back in the old days when profits were huge and fuel mileage and efficiency wasn't an issue. there are amaerican plants that are changing but it should have started a long time ago. the japanese manufacturers have an advantage because they are fairly new to the game as far as running a plant in north america so they don't have the old precedents or the old workers to deal with, plus they aren't paying nearly as many pensions. i think that if the workers really want it and the management is on board, then the bailout could be used to make big changes and update the way things work in some major plants, but this probably won't be what happens unfortunately.

as far as management goes why on earth does any one peerson deserve a $25 million bonus? they don't. the profits have been huge for a long time so the bonuses were big. well that to me was disgusting and greedy. how much money do they need? just enough so that if things go down they are set in they rich lifestyles for the rest of their lives. if anyone thinks those guys care about the workers they are kidding themselves. which to me is what is wrong here, things are too big and very removed from reality. things will change because they now have to. there is no other choice.

IMO a big moment was when a representative from GM finally admitted that getting rid of the saturn electric car was their biggest mistake. they had plenty of warning about where things were headed and they ignored it all.

In an interesting twist of ideas:
The retired workers pensions and health care are what is crushing GM. Instead of just giving them money, Government could look at taking over responsibility for that for awhile.

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Originally Posted by Ditch Doc

In an interesting twist of ideas:
The retired workers pensions and health care are what is crushing GM.
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Once a person is retired, doesn't the company stop paying?
When someone gets a paycheck, part of it is deducted by the state and kept in a pension fund, to be payed out as pension when you retire.
So once you retire, the company says goobye, and that's it, no?

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Originally Posted by Ditch Doc

Instead of just giving them money, Government could look at taking over responsibility for that for awhile.

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That would mitigate the problem 'right now' but unless the big 3 (and their unions) are forced to change their ways and become efficient or die, it won't matter and in another 2 years they need another 20 billion to support a failed business model.

Its bad enough that banks have been allowed to be so cavalier with your money. It is incomprehensible to me that they get bailed out and the totally irresponsible management is left in control and not in prison. But if the banks crash so does everything including "money".

Now motor cars are different. If your industry closes, don't worry there are plenty of other global manufacturers will fill the vacancy. It will cost you nothing and improve your quality of life as well.

Yes I feel sorry for those who work in the industry, but I felt sorry for the English coal miners and steel makers and ship builders and car manufacturers. I felt sorry for myself when my industry was outsourced.
Bail them out now and you are buying time. The industry is unproductive and just doesn't stand up to global competition. You can not stop the inevitable. The managers are not going to give up their planes and the workers are not going to take the sort of pay cut that would allow their products to compete in global markets. It is a credit to the industry that it has survived as long as it has. It's not my money but if it was, I wouldn't put it into the US automotive industry and expect to ever see it again. I'd rather see it put into a fund to retrain those who loose their work and to move onto a more secure way of making a living.

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Originally Posted by Bruno

Once a person is retired, doesn't the company stop paying?
When someone gets a paycheck, part of it is deducted by the state and kept in a pension fund, to be payed out as pension when you retire.
So once you retire, the company says goobye, and that's it, no?



That would mitigate the problem 'right now' but unless the big 3 (and their unions) are forced to change their ways and become efficient or die, it won't matter and in another 2 years they need another 20 billion to support a failed business model.

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Some companies maybe, but GM as a very comprehensive retirement and healthcare plan for retired employees, It is their largest expense.

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Originally Posted by Bruno

EDIT: And if they really cared about being on time for that hearing, they could have
a) taken the same plane
b) done what I do if I have to be somewhere really on time: leave the evening before and spend the night in a hotel.

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Your other points may be valid. but again the airplane thing is not that simple.

a) Last thing you do is put all those guys on the same plane. Companies that size don't even put more than a couple of key executives on the same plane. ...Plane goes down, company is toast or takes a huge hit. Then there is security.

b) Security, and time again. It's not just time shifting the flight. With the private jet you can work up until 15 minutes before you have to leave (and departure time is whenever you're ready). When you get there you go straight from the plane into the meeting.

There is something to it but it's just not that cut and dried.

(haha, not really related but a couple of years ago the President came to talk to John Chambers at Cisco Systems. They didn't even land at at the airforce base 15 minutes away. They landed in the parking lot next to the friggin building where the meeting was at.)

Really important people. Doing such a good job. Yes.

The problem with the auto industry is that everyone from the assembly line to the private offices are being payed way too much. We can thank greed for this. It's insane for me to think that 50 dollars an hour is a fair wage to virtually stand in one place. Also like others have allready said does doing your job like your supposed to warrant bonuses in the millions? Isn't that what their salary is for? The auto industry wants to blame the decline in sales as the problem. Well here's a solution. Instead of loaning them the money and losing it anyway through bad business practices. We should buy their products. Only models that get 30 miles per gal or better. This will give them the money their asking for through sales. What to do with all these cars the government just purchased. I say hold a lottery with eligibility requirements. Those being an annual income of single tax filers making 20,000 a year or less. And married filers making 50,000 a year or less. Will there be enough autos to go around? No but at least taxpayers as a whole would get something for their money. Not just flushing it down the toilet like we are doing on wallstreet.

The problem is, even if Congress bails them out, to which I am opposed, it's like a band aid on a gun shot wound.
It's not going to solve the problem. No one is buying cars. I was looking at the Ford Shelby Cobra. Here in No. Florida they were listing at 60k, that includes a 20k dealer mark up. I looked about a month ago and they were 48k, No one's buying cars. If we bail them out now, they'll come back again. Look at AIG, big mistake. What do they do after we bail them out the first time, Party!

I have no problem with unions and helping people get decent wages and benefits. I used to work for the Federal Govt and retired 6 years ago. I have good health insurance but I pay almost $600 every month for it not including all the co pays. I also paid a bunch into my pension plan for over 30 years to get what I do now. The problem with the car companies is in many cases it was easier to give the unions everything they wanted back in the old days thinking when the bills come due 20 years from now it will be someone else's problem and now the bills are coming due. Also in the old days the union basically ran the plants. The slightest work issue and the plant walked off the job for hours until the issue was resolved and the company supervisors knew this and they were held responsible. I had a friend that used to work in a plant that made transmissions. Once they did their quota they went to the locker room and went to sleep. There were guys who jumped the fence at the plant and had other jobs in the afternoon and came back to clock out later in the day. Then people wondered why the trany on their new car burnt out after a year or so.

I guess GM is hanging their hopes on the chevy volt. The only problem is the batteries to power the thing don't exist yet. They are hoping they will exist by production time and are going ahead with the car. Unfortunately the car as it is now has a tendency to seriously over heat leading to fires. Is this what we will be bailing out?

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Originally Posted by Bruno

Once a person is retired, doesn't the company stop paying?
When someone gets a paycheck, part of it is deducted by the state and kept in a pension fund, to be payed out as pension when you retire.
So once you retire, the company says goobye, and that's it, no?

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No. over here the unions have negotiated a pension and health care plan by which the company pays you a stipend and care plan until you die. In other words joining the company is like joining a socialist system where there is hire date to grave coverage, and like the soviet union this financial model only works during a period of perpetual growth. In times of stagnation the system begins to crumble.

Another point to consider. None of those CEO's has been on the job for more than three years. Their predecessors were all sacked for poor performance and these guys have all institued huge restructuring plans, that have already begun to have a positive effect.

I think it will be very interesting to see what happens if they are allowed to go bankrupt. I hope you all have plans to deal with a bankrupt state, one with 25% or more unemployment. I can tell you those of us in Michigan, no matter how remote our jobs seem from the auto industry, are already feeling the pinch of the downturn. There isn't a governmental body from the state on down that hasn't already tightened its belt, and that isn't facing worse in the year to come. This state will be bankrupt without the auto companies, and that WILL be without a doubt a problem for the federal government to solve.

By the way the Volt works. the batteries are made in Japan, but the car runs, in fact GM's CEO drove one to DC.

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Originally Posted by Wildtim

No. over here the unions have negotiated a pension and health care plan by which the company pays you a stipend and care plan until you die. In other words joining the company is like joining a socialist system where there is hire date to grave coverage, and like the soviet union this financial model only works during a period of perpetual growth. In times of stagnation the system begins to crumble.

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I do find this analogy quite a stretch and in any case ideological arguments are worthless in my book. Nobody is forcing anybody to join a particular company,

Actually the history of the private pension system in US is fairly interesting on its own, but the biggest problem is most certainly not the pensions. It is a fairly big problem to be sure, but according to studies even if these payments were to be taken out the US automakers still lag behind their international competitors and have been doing it for quite some time.

And let's not forget the US debt approaching $10 trillion, the thing about it though is that the 'CEOs' who ran it up were democratically elected by those who are supposed to foot the bill...

No matter what we say it looks like in one way or another the automakers will get a bailout just like the bankers did. Anybody care to speculate on who would be the next to ask?

Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I think the whole "too big to fail" concept is ludicrous.

If you suck at running a business, you go out of business. Period. Doesn't matter if you have 10 employees or 10 thousand. Where do we draw the line? Lots of companies go out of business every year and the people who work there lose their jobs. It sucks. I get that. But how big does a company have to be before it's not responsible to keep itself running? If a company can't be competitive in a (somewhat) free market, arbitrarily giving them taxpayer money won't make them more competitive.

In my mind, the American auto industry just can't compete. And if you can't cook, stay out of the kitchen.

I didn't hear anything about automakers petitioning the gov't for billions of dollars until the gov't started giving away billions of dollars to failing banks

I don't know why failing companies can't just go straight to the people. Why not get a bunch of TV ads, run the scare tactics, and ask for private donations? Why does Congress have to take it from us? Because they know voters and taxpayers are just as greedy and unethical as they are and it won't work.

If enough customers don't want to support failing companies, how can they stay in business anyway?

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Originally Posted by jockeys

Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I think the whole "too big to fail" concept is ludicrous.

If you suck at running a business, you go out of business. Period. Doesn't matter if you have 10 employees or 10 thousand. Where do we draw the line? Lots of companies go out of business every year and the people who work there lose their jobs. It sucks. I get that. But how big does a company have to be before it's not responsible to keep itself running? If a company can't be competitive in a (somewhat) free market, arbitrarily giving them taxpayer money won't make them more competitive.

In my mind, the American auto industry just can't compete. And if you can't cook, stay out of the kitchen.

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I totally agree. This just reeks of all the other problems in this country- if it doesn't work, throw more money at it until it does. The Big 3 have been rolling in the dough long enough to be able to work out their problems. They could have been more competitive, but they weren't.

Someone mentioned the big engine power 60's cars being in higher demand- I disagree. Yes, there is a demand for them, but there would also be a huge demand for a well performing diesel vehicle, just like the ones the Big 3 sell abroad. It's entirely sad that 20 years later, my stock V8 truck (with a throttle body!) performs just as well as the new ones. If you don't have a major breakthrough in engine development in 20 years, you're just withholding technology from the public.

Let 'em burn. They won't burn long, but it'll hopefully be long enough to bring them back down to earth.

This is really interesting. Bill O'Reilly was on NPR (of all places for him to be) this morning talking about what he called the "rich kid" syndrome. His theory was that folks who grew up wealthy tend to think that things just work out because things seemed to for them growing up (due to throwing money at the problem). I am not endorsing that line of thinking, it is just interesting to hear others voice a similar view point without blaming it on a class of people. O'Reilly actually blamed this "syndrome" on why Bush didn't react faster to some of the problems that were cropping up during the war in Iraq.

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Originally Posted by Quick Orange

I totally agree. This just reeks of all the other problems in this country- if it doesn't work, throw more money at it until it does. The Big 3 have been rolling in the dough long enough to be able to work out their problems. They could have been more competitive, but they weren't.

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On an unrelated note, I was listening to the duties and powers that will come with this "Car Czar" position that is currently trying to be filled on the hill. From what I can tell, it is going to be about the worst job in America, right underneath Assistant Crack Whore. Another case of "Put out this fire with a toothpick and some gas."

-Rob

I don't know about that being a "rich" only thing. Many people in Oklahoma that are solidly middle class believe that many of our woes, including our failing school system, can be solved with more money instead of actually coming up with a solution.

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Originally Posted by sicboater

On an unrelated note, I was listening to the duties and powers that will come with this "Car Czar" position that is currently trying to be filled on the hill. From what I can tell, it is going to be about the worst job in America, right underneath Assistant Crack Whore.

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Anything to link to where we can check this out? I really can't imagine why. If the position pays anywhere near 100k per year, they can move me to Washington and I'll take that terrible job. Hell, I'll take it for a lot less than that.

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Originally Posted by Wildtim

No. over here the unions have negotiated a pension and health care plan by which the company pays you a stipend and care plan until you die. In other words joining the company is like joining a socialist system where there is hire date to grave coverage, and like the soviet union this financial model only works during a period of perpetual growth. In times of stagnation the system begins to crumble.

Another point to consider. None of those CEO's has been on the job for more than three years. Their predecessors were all sacked for poor performance and these guys have all institued huge restructuring plans, that have already begun to have a positive effect.

I think it will be very interesting to see what happens if they are allowed to go bankrupt. I hope you all have plans to deal with a bankrupt state, one with 25% or more unemployment. I can tell you those of us in Michigan, no matter how remote our jobs seem from the auto industry, are already feeling the pinch of the downturn. There isn't a governmental body from the state on down that hasn't already tightened its belt, and that isn't facing worse in the year to come. This state will be bankrupt without the auto companies, and that WILL be without a doubt a problem for the federal government to solve.

By the way the Volt works. the batteries are made in Japan, but the car runs, in fact GM's CEO drove one to DC.

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This is happening in NY as well due to the crisis in the financial industry. The state isn't collecting projected revenues and is starting to cut services. They're raising tuition at state colleges, they'll raise other fees and taxes...so we pay one way or another for all this.

Jordan

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Originally Posted by Philadelph

Anything to link to where we can check this out? I really can't imagine why. If the position pays anywhere near 100k per year, they can move me to Washington and I'll take that terrible job. Hell, I'll take it for a lot less than that.

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Check this out:
Czar would hold sway over bailed-out car companies - Yahoo! News

and this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/bu...%20czar&st=cse

This position is going to have to mediate between Car Companies, Unions, Creditors, Share Holders, and Suppliers.

The problem as I see it is this individual will have to simultaneously bring the UAW to its knees and create equity among all those creditors. As far as the "Czar's" ability to push the car companies into bankruptcy, I envision a political nightmare if said Czar even tries.

You can have the job Alex. No amount of money would put me in that seat. :(

-Rob

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Originally Posted by sicboater

You can have the job Alex. No amount of money would put me in that seat. :(

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Not even for...






One million dollars?

I'd do it for a couple hundred grand. It'd be a headache, but I think I could deal with that headache for a couple years. No one said it would be a life appointment.

My first act as car czar would be for GM to explain to me just what the hell they were thinking when they built certain models of vehicles...and test a Camaro:rock:

Vote for me! vote for me! I'd charge a few hundred grand, the high life for a year and then resign with "sorry, I tried and failed". ...but I'd buy you ALL fine razors, shaptons and the very best silver tipped brushes! :tu

The idea of bailing out the auto companies is somewhat repugnant. Like the financial bailout it may be a case of what is best for the economy as a whole. If action of this sort will prevent the great depression circa 2009 then it is better then the alternative. I heard the same hue and cry during the savings and loan fiasco and the Chrysler bailout years ago. The government eventually made a profit on those loans and maybe they will on these.

IMO the auto companies made the cars that people wanted to buy. I see a lot of old American cars still putting along after twenty years. I can't say the same for the foreign stuff. I know after seven years of trouble free service I am happy with my Ford. (knocking on wood) :)

I read an article in the NY Times here critical of the US auto companies yesterday. While I don't agree with the conclusions as I stated above but his statistics are interesting and put into perspective the cost of labor in the price of automobiles between the big three and other manufacturers.

The funny thing I see is a North/South thing taking place, I've yet to see any Southern representative say they are for it. I guess they figure they are immune to the consequences.

Here's the truth the US basically manufactures very little anymore, they sold out all of the traditional manufacturing over the last 40 years. The only large manufacturing industries left automotive, defense and an aerospace industry that is a shadow of what it was in it's hay day.

So hey let it fail, then you can buy everything from overseas manufactures. Just for the record I wouldn't expect the transplants to stay in the US if it looses the domestic production, they too will go to cheaper labour markets.

The thing that really took the cakes for me was listening to some big ignorant senator during the hearings say " he had a problem using tax payers money to pay salaries and benefits to workers that have better salaries and benefits than most". He doesn't have a problem taking taxpayers money to fund his salaries and benefits that are better than most.

Got to love this race to the bottom.

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Originally Posted by Hutch

The thing that really took the cakes for me was listening to some big ignorant senator during the hearings say " he had a problem using tax payers money to pay salaries and benefits to workers that have better salaries and benefits than most". He doesn't have a problem taking taxpayers money to fund his salaries and benefits that are better than most.

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Another case of someone waxing idealistic in an effort to strengthen the support of their constituents. Hardly a new tactic!

I'd like too see the Uk government turn around to the banks and say "We bailed you out, you were supposed to have helped people out by lowering the mortgage interest rate, you didn't pass the cut on, so FU!!, the borrowers now own their homes, give them their deeds(title) pronto!"
I'd have £700to £800 a month extra to spend on UK made goods, end of slump:D
BTW I know nothing of economics! What would be the resulting carnage?
M:shrug:

I just heard the second bailout proposal got shot down in the senate.
Who knows. Maybe they will close the money fountain after all?

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Originally Posted by Bruno

I just heard the second bailout proposal got shot down in the senate.
Who knows. Maybe they will close the money fountain after all?

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Now the bills' supporters want to ask the President to use some of the unused but already approved bank bailout $ to bailout the auto industry. we shall see