Brief GM rant

[mormit]

Yeah, I've been through Janesville. Nice town. I'm dissapointed this is happening there.

I hope they land on their feet and did not get themselves in over their heads like the Wachovia CEO who decided to buy all the high risk mortgage debt.

That pay, time off, and healthcare were only because of the union barganing for those guys. Mr Wagoner will drum the beat to buy American while building plants in Mexico and Korea.

 

[Mucho_MPG]

Hoping they can retool the plant for Volt production. Might be an option, but they will probably make those in Mexico if I was was a betting man.

 

[Rock_Hudstone]

Originally Posted By: glennc
I have my fingers crossed because I would love the US auto industry to be no-excuses competitive with the imports.

Don't hold your breath, the government sold U.S. manufacturing down the river long ago.

No matter what U.S. automakers do they are at a huge competitive disadvantage against imports due to idiotic trade policies and other costs.

Our markets were opened wide to the world, with little to no import tariffs and its been a downhill slide ever since, sad to say.

 

[PF52]

Originally Posted By: Kestas
Could you imagine three years ago, when gas was $1.50 a gallon, GM announcing that it'll shift production and other efforts from profitable SUVs to inexpensive econoboxes?? The shareholders and employees would have screamed bloody murder!! It's too easy right now to play monday morning quarterback.



Particularly when Americans were buying up those profitable SUVs like they were sliced bread.

 

[pbm]

Originally Posted By: Cutehumor
here are some fuel efficient vehicle options. Bring back the Geo metro 50 mpg. put a hybrid system in the cobalt or aveo, get 50mpg. eat away at the prius sales. bring back the old saturns that got over 40 mpg.


Another good mpg 'domestic' was the late 70's early 80's Ford Fiesta with the 1.6 Kent engine. You couldn't kill that engine and it was very frugal too. Ford could throw that in their European market Fiesta or Ka and it would sell well here.

 

[ekpolk]

Originally Posted By: css9450
Originally Posted By: Kestas
Could you imagine three years ago, when gas was $1.50 a gallon, GM announcing that it'll shift production and other efforts from profitable SUVs to inexpensive econoboxes?? The shareholders and employees would have screamed bloody murder!! It's too easy right now to play monday morning quarterback.



Particularly when Americans were buying up those profitable SUVs like they were sliced bread.


It's not so much that they were making big trucks and SUVs in response to the demand, it's that they did such a poor job hedging their position so that when we got to the point where we are now, they could continue to easily make a profit. Not that it would have been particularly easy, but it's pretty evident that they didn't do much to prep for the inevitable explosion in fuel costs. Oh well...

 

[mpvue]

Originally Posted By: Mucho_MPG
I live near the town of Janesville, WI where one of the plants is laying off workers. I feel bad for the workers. A lot of them were coming out of high school and making 25-35 bucks an hour with lots of time off and a very generous union health plan. That is all gone now, and it will be tough for those folks to go to the standard Wisconsin pay of 10-12 bucks an hour with expensive health benefits and a week of time off per year. The hand writing has been on the wall with regard to the Janesville plant shutting down for years. Hopefully, people prepared themselves for it by not being in debt, buying an overly expensive house etc.

Many workers at the plant said the union would save them and that the plant would never shut down. They were wrong.


you know the majority of them didn't prepare for getting laid off, many if not all are in debt, just like the rest of America. it'll kill that town too, all the suport industries, builders, dealerships, etc. it does suc k, I feel for people that have families, but it happens again and again in America, and they still drink the union kool-aid, thinking it won't happen to them. I've witnessed it, experienced it myself; I'm in the Lehigh Valley, former home of Bethlehem Steel (gone, they are filming Transformers 2 there right now), AT&T/Lucent- gone and all those high wage union jobs.
curious, wonder how the nissan truck plant in MS is doing, or the texas toyota plant?

 

[mormit]

Originally Posted By: mpvue
Originally Posted By: Mucho_MPG
I live near the town of Janesville, WI where one of the plants is laying off workers. I feel bad for the workers. A lot of them were coming out of high school and making 25-35 bucks an hour with lots of time off and a very generous union health plan. That is all gone now, and it will be tough for those folks to go to the standard Wisconsin pay of 10-12 bucks an hour with expensive health benefits and a week of time off per year. The hand writing has been on the wall with regard to the Janesville plant shutting down for years. Hopefully, people prepared themselves for it by not being in debt, buying an overly expensive house etc.

Many workers at the plant said the union would save them and that the plant would never shut down. They were wrong.


you know the majority of them didn't prepare for getting laid off, many if not all are in debt, just like the rest of America. it'll kill that town too, all the suport industries, builders, dealerships, etc. it does suc k, I feel for people that have families, but it happens again and again in America, and they still drink the union kool-aid, thinking it won't happen to them. I've witnessed it, experienced it myself; I'm in the Lehigh Valley, former home of Bethlehem Steel (gone, they are filming Transformers 2 there right now), AT&T/Lucent- gone and all those high wage union jobs.
curious, wonder how the nissan truck plant in MS is doing, or the texas toyota plant?


I agreed with you until you got to the "drinking the union Kool-Aid" bit of nonsense.

What exactly did the union do to give this plant the walking papers, praytell???

The union bargained for the best pay and benefits they could get. I am not a union worker. I am a professional who will move to another company if I am not compensated well. I expact fair pay and a competative benefits package. What exactly is the difference?

In the real world what has happened is that GM Mis-Management has woken up too late to the fact that fuel prices have been rising fast for the past six years. Because of changes in the market they should have noticed at least a decade ago, there will be no 80's type return to 70 cent a gallon gas.

 

[Steve S]

Originally Posted By: John_K
Yes it is ridiculous. Short-term profit over long-term product kills companies, and it's what is happening now.

John
Got to get the quartley bonus for the CEO.Besides Chevrolet had an ad if you might remember .Chevrolet the Heart Break of America. Ring any bells?

 

[Mucho_MPG]

I think the Union Kool Aid comment might be referring to those folks who, with no college degree and fresh out of high school, make 25-35 dollars an hour with no skills. A non-Union position one would start at half that wage, prove themselves skilled and a value to the organization, and earn the 35 dollars an hour over many years.

I do think the Unions and their outrageous wage and medical benefit demands are helping to kill GM.

 

[mormit]

Originally Posted By: Mucho_MPG
I think the Union Kool Aid comment might be referring to those folks who, with no college degree and fresh out of high school, make 25-35 dollars an hour with no skills. A non-Union position one would start at half that wage, prove themselves skilled and a value to the organization, and earn the 35 dollars an hour over many years.

I do think the Unions and their outrageous wage and medical benefit demands are helping to kill GM.


Again, these are our fellow Americans wanting the best wage and benefits they can get. Sounds like the rest of us. I'm not going to look down my nose at them as 'unskilled' if they are building good cars competently.

25-30 dollare an hour is more than Rich Wagoner should be getting for his pathetic drive to ruin at the helm of GM. Poor results should mean poor pay.

Where I do see a lack of skill is at the Mis-Management level. The increase in oil price is nothing new and it should not have taken a lean thinking, six sigma, process excellence master black belt to see it comming.

 

[keith]

Originally Posted By: mormit

Again, these are our fellow Americans wanting the best wage and benefits they can get. Sounds like the rest of us. I'm not going to look down my nose at them as 'unskilled' if they are building good cars competently.



Why not $100 an hour to start then? Only $30 seems a bit stingy for a hard working kid just starting out.

Meanwhile, US corporations pay about the highest taxes of any developed nation and we wonder why they choose to (re)locate elsewhere. Duh!

As far as the success of GM etc. in Europe is concerned, check out the high prices of cars in Europe. It looks even worse now the dollar is weak, but was always higher than the US. If GM charged that much here in the US, they'd be wickedly profitable.

Ultimately, it's the people that are forcing corporations out. We are entitled to $30 or more an hour for a job that is worth at best half that in a free market, and expect to buy $50 sneakers for $25 at Walmart (Little China as I call it). How stupid is that.

Then we refuse to extract our own oil and go begging to our trillionaire "friends" in Saudi Arabia for more of theirs. Pathetic.

I hope the Chevy Volt does well. If it's priced near the Prius, it should. There is some hope out there for GM.

 

[bretfraz]

European cars are priced higher because the cost of building them is higher. You can't transpose pricing across continents, it doesn't work. Just look at how high labor costs are in Germany, where many GM Europe cars are built.

No one in the US is buying the very Euro Saturn Astra, partially because of its price. Yeah, charging Americans the same price as Europeans might be profitable on paper but when Americans have access to cheap Hyundai's and Kia's, and can get a US-built Ford Focus for invoice, who is going to pay GM their inflated price?

Don't expect the Chevy Volt to be priced near the Prius. The Volt is an all-electric car, the Prius is not. Current rumor is the Volt will be priced in the $30-40,000 range with the hope that gov't subsidies will lower the actual purchase price. Expect the Volt to be priced $5-10,000 more than a Prius.

 

[MrCritical]

I think $40k is a more realistic price expectation for a Volt.

 

[mpvue]

Originally Posted By: Mucho_MPG
I think the Union Kool Aid comment might be referring to those folks who, with no college degree and fresh out of high school, make 25-35 dollars an hour with no skills. A non-Union position one would start at half that wage, prove themselves skilled and a value to the organization, and earn the 35 dollars an hour over many years.

I do think the Unions and their outrageous wage and medical benefit demands are helping to kill GM.

the union kool aid comment is a tongue-in-cheek reference to how the union will tell members everything is ok, we'll fight for it, don't worry about it, it'll be like it always has, yadda, yadda, yadda.
things change. you can't compete by making an inferior product but paying people more than the ones building a superior product. it's so unbalanced that the American companies can't build an economy car in the states! that's pathetic. I like saturns of days past, but GM lost money every year on the S car, but sold every one they made. unions have created a sense of entitlement; in a small town, why should the kid at the auto plant make $25/hr when another hardworking kid on the outside is making $10? it's unbalanced. as my earlier reference to Bethlehem Steel, generations worked there, hard workers, making good money. but if you feel you are 'entitled' to it, and feel you make the best steel in the world, while other countries' have bypassed you in quality, and do it cheaper, well, it can't last. and it didn't. same at Lucent; you can't pay people $60K/yr to make antiquated chips in a dilapidated fab while Singapore puts out a superior product at a fraction of the cost in a state of the art fab. it can't last, and, oh yeah, it's gone too.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: bretfraz
European cars are priced higher because the cost of building them is higher. You can't transpose pricing across continents, it doesn't work. Just look at how high labor costs are in Germany, where many GM Europe cars are built.

No one in the US is buying the very Euro Saturn Astra, partially because of its price. Yeah, charging Americans the same price as Europeans might be profitable on paper but when Americans have access to cheap Hyundai's and Kia's, and can get a US-built Ford Focus for invoice, who is going to pay GM their inflated price?

Don't expect the Chevy Volt to be priced near the Prius. The Volt is an all-electric car, the Prius is not. Current rumor is the Volt will be priced in the $30-40,000 range with the hope that gov't subsidies will lower the actual purchase price. Expect the Volt to be priced $5-10,000 more than a Prius.






And look at those same labour costs for cars built in Korea, Japan and soon to be China that are being sold over here for record profits.

It goes both ways.

If the trade tariffs were still in place, things would not be as bad as they are.

 

[Rock_Hudstone]

Originally Posted By: keith
Ultimately, it's the people that are forcing corporations out. We are entitled to $30 or more an hour for a job that is worth at best half that in a free market, and expect to buy $50 sneakers for $25 at Walmart (Little China as I call it). How stupid is that.

There is no true "free market", rather there is a collection of nations looking out for their best interests by practicing economic nationalism, (except of course the U.S.)

China devalued it's currency 45% and keep it there, thats why the factories relocated and those Walmart sneakers can sell for $25. Japan also manipulates it's currency and shelters it's markets for televisons, autos, and steel, while at the same time dumping into ours. Europe imposes a 15% value added tax on U.S. imports and rebates that 15% VAT on exports to United States.

No, there is no free trade, or free market, just the nations of the world playing the United States for the biggest fool in history until we are bled white.

China, Asia, and the rest are booming at our expense, those are our trillion of dollars piled in those national sovereign wealth funds.
If we had a trade policies that put the U.S. first, those investment dollars would have been spent here at home on new plants, equipment, and technology. Instead the corporations want to dump their American workers but keep the American markets with little to no penalty.

 

[Duffman77]

Woah easy there,
The U.S. has abused more than its fair share of the worlds nations. Its just run up against a few that are better at the game now.

 

[AcuraTech]

You really can't get angry or be surprised by this. This has been going on for decades. The American auto industry has been in decline since at least the 70's. GM, Ford, and Chrysler closing plants is nothing new.

Have any of you ever been to Detroit? Not the suburbs, the city itself. Many of the city blocks are empty. Houses that were are long gone. Buildings sit decaying, waiting to be torn down. Not just one neighborhood, but a huge part of the city. Detroit peaked in the 50's, along with the American auto industry. Sure, the GM building downtown is all big and shiny and nice, but most of Detroit continues to rot away, just like all the hopes and dreams of autoworkers that were laid off, along with the cars they built.

I don't view the domestic manufacturers as too slow to react, I view them as too reactionary. It's just a repeat of the 70's. Big cars were king until the gas shortage. Detroit tried to compensate but ultimately failed. They struggled along until big cars (SUV's) came into vogue again.

Let's put it this way. American manufacturers make really good trucks and big powerful cars. The Asian manufacturers make really good small efficient cars. The problem is that the Asians stuck to the efficient theme through the years, even when gas was cheap, and they perfected it. Meanwhile, the domestics went from big to small to big and are now trying to get back to small again.

On top of that, companies like GM gambled on the fact that they would continue to have a dominant market share and didn't have to worry about pension costs, etc. Well, now it's coming back to bite them.

Personally, I'm not some sort of Japanese apologist who hates American cars, I'd like to see them succeed as much as anybody. I just see GM as a marginally poorly run company who made bad management decisions and designed a lot of [censored] cars for a long long time. You can't run a company off of poor decisions and put out a mediocre product and expect to succeed in the free market. It just doesn't happen.

GM was king once, but they blew it. It's a new world, and GM made too many bets that didn't work.

 

[wapacz]

what you guys a missing is that gm was hardly making any money on cars. I live out side flint and every now and then the local paper will run a story comparing profit margins and stuff and lets just say gm makes very little per car. There is no getting around the act that they have higher input costs but have to charge close to the same price. This is do both to management that underfunded the retirement funds when they couldn't hide profits there and the union that went after getting so much when the times where good.