If the government steps out there will be something called competition....
If you dont make MPG or EPA regulations then companies can implement it themselves and advertise it to appeal to people...
Even vehicle safety.... say Ford focused more on MPGs, Chrysler focused on safety, and GM focused on both.... they would all appeal to people, would have different prices, and it would not hurt a thing as they would all end up wanting to appeal to people with safety, and mpg...
We arn't used to everything being free from government reign, but we will see real competition, and won't be bailing them out as they will actually have to take risks, or be safe and not take risks...
__________________
1990 Lincoln Mark VII LSC
FMS Ceramic Shorties, pacesetter off road h, force mufflers, 3 row radiator, smog eliminator pulley, underdrive pullies, Yukon 3.55 gears, posi diff... Waiting in garage: rebuilt block, Crane 1.7 rr, bare GT40 cast heads, Summit billit distributor, 9mm plug wires, MSD blaster coil, GT40 upper and lower intake, E303 cam 70% of drivers say "oh Sh** when they hit ice, the other 30% are from Michigan and say "Hold my beer and watch this sh**!"
Are you serious when you infer there can not be competition unless there is no Govt regulation in auto industry? Or am I misunderstanding what you are saying.
If the US automakers learned what makes Toyota and many other automakers succesfull and prosperous, they would learn how to compete and still meet mandates. Do you see Nissan, Toyota, BMW, etc with their hands in the pockets of the US taxpayer?
In fact the other automakers are so successful that Southern States are doing everything they can to win their factories and employment opportunities.
The problem is the US auto industry itself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 90markvii
What needs to be regulated?
If the government steps out there will be something called competition....
If you dont make MPG or EPA regulations then companies can implement it themselves and advertise it to appeal to people...
Even vehicle safety.... say Ford focused more on MPGs, Chrysler focused on safety, and GM focused on both.... they would all appeal to people, would have different prices, and it would not hurt a thing as they would all end up wanting to appeal to people with safety, and mpg...
We arn't used to everything being free from government reign, but we will see real competition, and won't be bailing them out as they will actually have to take risks, or be safe and not take risks...
If the government stepped out I believe the CEO's, and business planners for the Auto Industry would take a lot less risks because they would not have the government to fall back on....
Hi again. The CEOs don't need anyone to fall back on. They're doing just fine. They're all still knocking down 9 digit annual compensation packages. If all three of the big three crash and burn tomorrow that will not effect their standard of living at all. Which is exactly why they do need regulation. An industry like that is far too important to the well-being of the entire nation to leave it's fate in the hands of a half-dozen or so people that don't care if the Detroit auto industry survives or not.
Are you serious when you infer there can not be competition unless there is no Govt regulation in auto industry? Or am I misunderstanding what you are saying.
If the US automakers learned what makes Toyota and many other automakers succesfull and prosperous, they would learn how to compete and still meet mandates. Do you see Nissan, Toyota, BMW, etc with their hands in the pockets of the US taxpayer?
In fact the other automakers are so successful that Southern States are doing everything they can to win their factories and employment opportunities.
The problem is the US auto industry itself.
I believe that for a while the government did not force toyota, or honda to meet or mandates.... saftey, or emissions...
Nissan, Toyota, and BMW are not american companies... soooo.... they wouldnt be bailed out by OUR government from tax dollars....
These days a lot of American cars DO meet the same specs as Toyota... the problem is people have sticker shock, and relate Toyota=perfect.
BMW is a status symbol.. nothing more nothing less... it is associated with high class people.... why do they beat out Cadillac? its "BMW" they have reputation on their side, and its a little late for that with the big 3....
Part of the reason foreign auto makers are more successful than us is the difference in the taxes... I dont know the exact figures but I KNOW that every country besides us taxes the crap out of imported cars...
On that note, it is the governments fault that they didnt tax imports to be the same or a little more than our cars.... then people would have a real choice... too many people are "cheap" in america.
We should have never allowed foreign automakers to produce cars here, but we did because we wanted to produce cars there... Everything would have been fine if we produced our cars here, and people could import cars if they really wanted them...
Communist? Maybe.... but we wouldnt be facing so many problems now.
I think you are misunderstanding me. The mandates that have recently been DEMANDED by the fed for 2010 have cause an already ailing industry to spend millions more that they don't have on stupid government regulations...
I think it makes perfect sense that there would be more competition if the government wasn't in it... just like health care.
__________________
1990 Lincoln Mark VII LSC
FMS Ceramic Shorties, pacesetter off road h, force mufflers, 3 row radiator, smog eliminator pulley, underdrive pullies, Yukon 3.55 gears, posi diff... Waiting in garage: rebuilt block, Crane 1.7 rr, bare GT40 cast heads, Summit billit distributor, 9mm plug wires, MSD blaster coil, GT40 upper and lower intake, E303 cam 70% of drivers say "oh Sh** when they hit ice, the other 30% are from Michigan and say "Hold my beer and watch this sh**!"
Hi again. The CEOs don't need anyone to fall back on. They're doing just fine. They're all still knocking down 9 digit annual compensation packages. If all three of the big three crash and burn tomorrow that will not effect their standard of living at all. Which is exactly why they do need regulation. An industry like that is far too important to the well-being of the entire nation to leave it's fate in the hands of a half-dozen or so people that don't care if the Detroit auto industry survives or not.
If you were making "9 digit annual compensation packages" would you want that to continue, or just end.... Americans are greedy... Enron is proof, people arn't satisfied with being rich they always want more... therefore, it allows them to make more money to run a company down, knowing that they will get a bailout... and continue to make their money...
If the government had never tried to interfere, the auto companies would not expect to get saved... it was probably an unspoken, or for all we know spoken agreement when the government was telling them to meet all those expectations...
Big Brother: " We want you to do ___, ____, ____, and ____."
Big 3: " That is going to cost us a lot of money what happens if we cannot afford it or get in trouble financially?"
Big Brother: "Don't worry about that, we wont let you fail"
__________________
1990 Lincoln Mark VII LSC
FMS Ceramic Shorties, pacesetter off road h, force mufflers, 3 row radiator, smog eliminator pulley, underdrive pullies, Yukon 3.55 gears, posi diff... Waiting in garage: rebuilt block, Crane 1.7 rr, bare GT40 cast heads, Summit billit distributor, 9mm plug wires, MSD blaster coil, GT40 upper and lower intake, E303 cam 70% of drivers say "oh Sh** when they hit ice, the other 30% are from Michigan and say "Hold my beer and watch this sh**!"
I was listening to a radio talk show yesterday while driving to a gun show. Topic discussed was something about getting paid for doing nothing. One of the callers works at an un-named auto factory in Flint, Michigan. He works 20 minutes a day doing some sort of inspection on engine blocks. The remainder of the day, he rides around in a golf cart visiting his buds (who must also work 20 minutes a day, since they can take time to visit). He was asked "how much are you paid to do this?" Answer "I'll make around $85,000 WITH OVERTIME". This guy is being paid overtime to work 20 minutes a day? No wonder the American car companies are going broke! Why do the companies allow this kind of thing to go on? Answer - they have no choice. It's the UAW's doing.
BTW, still waiting for some pro - UAW folks to post on this thread to defend this kind of waste.
__________________
CW
Craigfield, Tennessee Member Music City Mustang Club '93 LX Mustang '56 Ford Thunderbird convert '06 Harley Street Glide '01 Harley Softail Custom
Ok my 2 cents.
1. CEO pay and benefits, I hate sounding like a broken record here but, that is set by the stockholders. I shake my head when I read posts critical of CEO pay. Those of you on this site who are stockholders in the big 3, you might want to read your stock issues a little closer the next time you vote in a shareholders meeting.
Private jets? So what! GM and Ford have plants and factories around the world. Have you flown commercial lately? Besides most of those jets are also pooled into a corporate jet pool.
2. Unions. there lies a large part of the problem. The legacy costs are killing the Big 3. Thats why they should go and file chapter 11 and redo those labor contracts. GM and Fords biggest competitors are not Japan and Korea it's Texas, Alabama, South Carolina etc.!
3. CAFE standards. They are unrealistic. Let the free market determine the gas milage! If company A is making a car that gets 5 miles a gallon and company B makes one that gets 30 mpg who is the dunderhead that buys the 5 mpg??
The govt. mandates that car companies invest millions of dollars into tooling and R&D, then the car does not sell, then what? Who is left holding the note? certainly not the Govt.
This whole thing is a two way street.
Bottom line is that the Govt. especialy the idiots in congress need to butt out. Those Morons like Waxman, Frank, Dodd and others could not run a lemonade stand, let alone a car company!
Let the free market work.
__________________
06' GT Tungsten gray,seq. turn sigs. no spoiler.
XM,
An armed man is called a citizen.A disarmed man is called a subject.
Any passenger vehicle to be sold in the US has to meet federal requirements there are no exceptions. Even a GI bringing a car he buys overseas and brings back to the USA has to meet, or be upgraded to meet the standards.
About Federal assistance. These (quasi US/Foreign) automakers could approach congress for some of this bailout money. They could make a compelling arguement like GM and Ford that closure of plants displaces US workers.
As far as your comment how export/import taxes play an advantage for one side and hurdle for US industry. Thanks for mentioning taxes becuase it will be an issue under Obama. Do you see higher or lower taxes on the auto industry. Is tax relief the next thing the auto industry will ask for?
Let me say this about Govt standards and the DEMANDS as you refer too. If not for them we would still be driving cars getting 14 mpg equipped with metal dashboards, simple lap belts and no airbags. Pollution control is paced primarily by CA air resoruce board if thats one of you complaints. I see no problem in setting the bar high. The CAFE stds set for 1010? (I throught it was 1012?) are OK in my mind. The fact some other manufacturers already meet the standard should give our Big-3 goof-off automakers an incentive to push towards success instead of succeding at failure.
The rest of your reply really tries to avoid why other automakers are more successful in our home turf. Stop for a minute and observe what THEY do and you will see what the US automanufacturers can do to rebound.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 90markvii
I believe that for a while the government did not force toyota, or honda to meet or mandates.... saftey, or emissions...
Nissan, Toyota, and BMW are not american companies... soooo.... they wouldnt be bailed out by OUR government from tax dollars....
These days a lot of American cars DO meet the same specs as Toyota... the problem is people have sticker shock, and relate Toyota=perfect.
BMW is a status symbol.. nothing more nothing less... it is associated with high class people.... why do they beat out Cadillac? its "BMW" they have reputation on their side, and its a little late for that with the big 3....
Part of the reason foreign auto makers are more successful than us is the difference in the taxes... I dont know the exact figures but I KNOW that every country besides us taxes the crap out of imported cars...
On that note, it is the governments fault that they didnt tax imports to be the same or a little more than our cars.... then people would have a real choice... too many people are "cheap" in america.
We should have never allowed foreign automakers to produce cars here, but we did because we wanted to produce cars there... Everything would have been fine if we produced our cars here, and people could import cars if they really wanted them...
Communist? Maybe.... but we wouldnt be facing so many problems now.
I think you are misunderstanding me. The mandates that have recently been DEMANDED by the fed for 2010 have cause an already ailing industry to spend millions more that they don't have on stupid government regulations...
I think it makes perfect sense that there would be more competition if the government wasn't in it... just like health care.
Good morning. First of all, before you ask, I flew commercial. Northwest Airlines. Had a bag of peanuts for breakfast. Of course, that's Northwest, which just merged with Delta, a merger you, our government, approved -- and one which, inevitably, will lead to big bonuses for their executives and higher costs for us. You seem to be OK with that kind of business.
Which makes me wonder why you're so against our kind of business? The kind we do in Detroit. The kind that gets your fingernails dirty. The kind where people use hammers and drills, not keystrokes. The kind where you get paid for making something, not moving money around a board and skimming a percentage. You've already given hundreds of billions to banking and finance companies -- and hardly demanded anything. Yet you balk at the very idea of giving $25 billion to the Detroit Three. Heck, you shoveled that exact amount to Citigroup -- $25 billion -- just weeks ago, and that place is about to crumble anyhow. Does the word "hypocrisy" ring a bell? Protecting the home turf?
Sen. Shelby. Yes. You. From Alabama. You've been awfully vocal. You called the Detroit Three's leaders "failures." You said loans to them would be "wasted money." You said they should go bankrupt and "let the market work." Why weren't you equally vocal when your state handed out hundreds of millions in tax breaks to Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Honda and others to open plants there? Why not "let the market work"? Or is it better for Alabama if the Detroit Three fold so that the foreign companies -- in your state -- can produce more? Way to think of the nation first, senator.
And you, Sen. Kyl of Arizona. You told reporters: "There's no reason to throw money at a problem that's not going to get solved."
That's funny, coming from such an avid supporter of the Iraq war. You've been gung ho on that for years. So how could you just sit there when, according to the New York Times, an Iraqi former chief investigator told Congress that $13 billion in U.S. reconstruction funds "had been lost to fraud, embezzlement, theft and waste" by the Iraqi government?
That's 13 billion, senator. More than half of what the auto industry is asking for. Thirteen billion? Gone? Wasted?
Where was your "throwing money at a problem that's not going to get solved" speech then? Watching over the bankers?
And the rest of you lawmakers. The ones who insist the auto companies show you a plan before you help them. You've already handed over $150 billion of our tax money to AIG. How come you never demanded a plan from it? How come when AIG blew through its first $85 billion, you quickly gave it more? The car companies may be losing money, but they can explain it: They're paying workers too much and selling cars for too little.
AIG lost hundred of billions in credit default swaps -- which no one can explain and which make nothing, produce nothing, employ no one and are essentially bets on failure.
And you don't demand a paragraph from it?
Look. Nobody is saying the auto business is healthy. Its unions need to adjust more. Its models and dealerships need to shrink. Its top executives have to downsize their own importance.
But this is a business that has been around for more than a century. And some of its problems are because of that, because people get used to certain wages, manufacturers get used to certain business models. It's easy to point to foreign carmakers with tax breaks, no union costs and a cleaner slate -- not to mention help from their home countries -- and say "be more like them."
But if you let us die, you let our national spine collapse. America can't be a country of lawyers and financial analysts. We have to manufacture. We need that infrastructure. We need those jobs. We need that security. Have you forgotten who built equipment during the world wars?
Besides, let's be honest. When it comes to blowing budgets, being grossly inefficient and wallowing in debt, who's better than Congress?
So who are you to lecture anyone on how to run a business?
Ask fair questions. Demand accountability. But knock it off with the holier than thou crap, OK? You got us into this mess with greed, a bad Fed policy and too little regulation. Don't kick our tires to make yourselves look better.
__________________
2006 GT Tungsten Grey 5 spd, Xcal2/Pipeline CAI, Powerhouse tune. Spoiler delete. Front Speakers:Infinity 6812CF;Blaupunkt GTc652. Rear:Infinity Kappa 682.7CF. H/U:Alpine CDA-9885. Alpine MRP-F250 amp. Sequentials. President of the Splash guard registry. On Deck: Motoblue UDP's.
It is a very good article. However, in chronically highlighting all of the past bad bailout decisions made by the Govt it ironically underscores the reason for not bailing out the Big-3.
Remember, this is masked as a loan. From a simple business perspective there is valid reason to doubt the auto industry, who decries they are a foot step away from chapter 11, would ever repay a loan.
One more thing about the article. It tries to make a comparison between needing to bail out the auto industry like the financial system by saying its hypocretical if the Big 3 are left out. I tend to agree with that analogy but there is a difference. When automakers go under it causes unemployment. As bad as that is it is not the same as when the financial system falls apart and we lose the whole economy.
I did not support the multi-billion dollar bailout, and I am dead set against bailing/loaning the Big-3 nitwit corporations any taxpayer money. If the host states of the Big-3 wish to place bond measures in front of state voters and have them fork over the loan thats OK with me.
Any passenger vehicle to be sold in the US has to meet federal requirements there are no exceptions. Even a GI bringing a car he buys overseas and brings back to the USA has to meet, or be upgraded to meet the standards.
About Federal assistance. These (quasi US/Foreign) automakers could approach congress for some of this bailout money. They could make a compelling arguement like GM and Ford that closure of plants displaces US workers.
As far as your comment how export/import taxes play an advantage for one side and hurdle for US industry. Thanks for mentioning taxes becuase it will be an issue under Obama. Do you see higher or lower taxes on the auto industry. Is tax relief the next thing the auto industry will ask for?
Let me say this about Govt standards and the DEMANDS as you refer too. If not for them we would still be driving cars getting 14 mpg equipped with metal dashboards, simple lap belts and no airbags. Pollution control is paced primarily by CA air resoruce board if thats one of you complaints. I see no problem in setting the bar high. The CAFE stds set for 1010? (I throught it was 1012?) are OK in my mind. The fact some other manufacturers already meet the standard should give our Big-3 goof-off automakers an incentive to push towards success instead of succeding at failure.
The rest of your reply really tries to avoid why other automakers are more successful in our home turf. Stop for a minute and observe what THEY do and you will see what the US automanufacturers can do to rebound.
I do not refer to taxes in the form that you are thinking... I am talking about import tariffs that are hardly nothing for cars to America from Asia, compared to how much they charge us in tariffs.
The government didnt need to set regulations, as the dangers were being realized the American people would have wanted a safer, or more fuel efficient vehicle. This would cause at least 1 of the auto companies to make it so they could appeal to that audience... free market isnt BAD. Competition is a wonderful thing.
I was not dodging anything... those seem like valid arguments to me...
__________________
1990 Lincoln Mark VII LSC
FMS Ceramic Shorties, pacesetter off road h, force mufflers, 3 row radiator, smog eliminator pulley, underdrive pullies, Yukon 3.55 gears, posi diff... Waiting in garage: rebuilt block, Crane 1.7 rr, bare GT40 cast heads, Summit billit distributor, 9mm plug wires, MSD blaster coil, GT40 upper and lower intake, E303 cam 70% of drivers say "oh Sh** when they hit ice, the other 30% are from Michigan and say "Hold my beer and watch this sh**!"
The way the first couple of posts went, I thought I was going to be alone in my answer but thankfully, some level headed members responded.
I am completely against the bailout of the Big 3. It was poor management decisions and UAW that got them in this mess, let them file for Bankruptcy, re-organize and get rid of the UAW and they will be better off.
People on the assembly line making $78/hr + benefits. People having their healthcare paid for them who no longer work there, corporates flying around in G4 jets making millions is absolutely ridiculous. When will it end? Who's next? I didn't see any handouts when I filed Bankruptcy? No one was standing there helping me out? I made the mistakes with my finances and paid the price on my own, so should they.
Maybe after Obama get's in we can all just quit our jobs and sit around and wait for him to spread the wealth.
I found an article on the NYTimes that illustrates how this average hourly wage was calculated. this isn't the average pay per UAW worker, but the average the Big 3 pays for each UAW worker. it is an average of wages, overtime, vacation, pensions, healthcare, and retirement benefits.
read on.
************************************
The math:
That figure — repeated on television and in newspapers as the average pay of a Big Three autoworker — has become a big symbol in the fight over what should happen to Detroit. To critics, it is a neat encapsulation of everything that’s wrong with bloated car companies and their entitled workers.
To the Big Three’s defenders, meanwhile, the number has become proof positive that autoworkers are being unfairly blamed for Detroit’s decline. “We’ve heard this garbage about 73 bucks an hour,” Senator Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said last week. “It’s a total lie. I think some people have perpetrated that deliberately, in a calculated way, to mislead the American people about what we’re doing here.”
So what is the reality behind the number? Detroit’s defenders are right that the number is basically wrong. Big Three workers aren’t making anything close to $73 an hour (which would translate to about $150,000 a year).
But the defenders are not right to suggest, as many have, that Detroit has solved its wage problem. General Motors, Ford and Chrysler workers make significantly more than their counterparts at Toyota, Honda and Nissan plants in this country. Last year’s concessions by the United Automobile Workers, which mostly apply to new workers, will not change that anytime soon.
And yet the main problem facing Detroit, overwhelmingly, is not the pay gap. That’s unfortunate because fixing the pay gap would be fairly straightforward.
The real problem is that many people don’t want to buy the cars that Detroit makes. Fixing this problem won’t be nearly so easy.
The success of any bailout is probably going to come down to Washington’s willingness to acknowledge as much.
Let’s start with the numbers. The $73-an-hour figure comes from the car companies themselves. As part of their public relations strategy during labor negotiations, the companies put out various charts and reports explaining what they paid their workers. Wall Street analysts have done similar calculations.
The calculations show, accurately enough, that for every hour a unionized worker puts in, one of the Big Three really does spend about $73 on compensation. So the number isn’t made up. But it is the combination of three very different categories.
The first category is simply cash payments, which is what many people imagine when they hear the word “compensation.” It includes wages, overtime and vacation pay, and comes to about $40 an hour. (The numbers vary a bit by company and year. That’s why $73 is sometimes $70 or $77.)
The second category is fringe benefits, like health insurance and pensions. These benefits have real value, even if they don’t show up on a weekly paycheck. At the Big Three, the benefits amount to $15 an hour or so.
Add the two together, and you get the true hourly compensation of Detroit’s unionized work force: roughly $55 an hour. It’s a little more than twice as much as the typical American worker makes, benefits included. The more relevant comparison, though, is probably to Honda’s or Toyota’s (nonunionized) workers. They make in the neighborhood of $45 an hour, and most of the gap stems from their less generous benefits.
The third category is the cost of benefits for retirees. These are essentially fixed costs that have no relation to how many vehicles the companies make. But they are a real cost, so the companies add them into the mix — dividing those costs by the total hours of the current work force, to get a figure of $15 or so — and end up at roughly $70 an hour.
The crucial point, though, is this $15 isn’t mainly a reflection of how generous the retiree benefits are. It’s a reflection of how many retirees there are. The Big Three built up a huge pool of retirees long before Honda and Toyota opened plants in this country. You’d never know this by looking at the graphic behind Wolf Blitzer on CNN last week, contrasting the “$73/hour” pay of Detroit’s workers with the “up to $48/hour” pay of workers at the Japanese companies.
These retirees make up arguably Detroit’s best case for a bailout. The Big Three and the U.A.W. had the bad luck of helping to create the middle class in a country where individual companies — as opposed to all of society — must shoulder much of the burden of paying for retirement.
So here’s a little experiment. Imagine that a Congressional bailout effectively pays for $10 an hour of the retiree benefits. That’s roughly the gap between the Big Three’s retiree costs and those of the Japanese-owned plants in this country. Imagine, also, that the U.A.W. agrees to reduce pay and benefits for current workers to $45 an hour — the same as at Honda and Toyota.
Do you know how much that would reduce the cost of producing a Big Three vehicle? Only about $800.
That’s because labor costs, for all the attention they have been receiving, make up only about 10 percent of the cost of making a vehicle. An extra $800 per vehicle would certainly help Detroit, but the Big Three already often sell their cars for about $2,500 less than equivalent cars from Japanese companies, analysts at the International Motor Vehicle Program say. Even so, many Americans no longer want to own the cars being made by General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.
My own family’s story isn’t especially unusual. For decades, my grandparents bought American and only American. In their apartment, they still have a framed photo of the 1933 Oldsmobile that my grandfather’s family drove when he was a teenager. In the photo, his father stands proudly on the car’s running board.
By the 1970s, though, my grandfather became so sick of the problems with his American cars that he vowed never to buy another one. He hasn’t.
Detroit’s defenders, from top executives on down, insist that they have finally learned their lesson. They say a comeback is just around the corner. But they said the same thing at the start of this decade — and the start of the last one and the one before that. All the while, their market share has kept on falling.
There is good reason to keep G.M. and Chrysler from collapsing in 2009. (Ford is in slightly better shape.) The economy is in the worst recession in a generation. You can think of the Detroit bailout as a relatively cost-effective form of stimulus. It’s often cheaper to keep workers in their jobs than to create new jobs.
But Congress and the Obama administration shouldn’t fool themselves into thinking that they can preserve the Big Three in anything like their current form. Very soon, they need to shrink to a size that reflects the American public’s collective judgment about the quality of their products.
It’s a sad story, in many ways. But it can’t really be undone at this point. If we had wanted to preserve the Big Three, we would have bought more of their cars.
__________________
2005 Mustang GT M5 -I reject your reality and substitute my own-
The CEOs don't need anyone to fall back on. They're doing just fine. They're all still knocking down 9 digit annual compensation packages. If all three of the big three crash and burn tomorrow that will not effect their standard of living at all. Which is exactly why they do need regulation. An industry like that is far too important to the well-being of the entire nation to leave it's fate in the hands of a half-dozen or so people that don't care if the Detroit auto industry survives or not.
they have reputation on their side, and its a little late for that with the big 3....
