Will this Strike Kill Ford/Chevy/Chrysler?

I believe the COGS labor content is maybe 15%. Vehicles cost what they cost because customers are willing to pay. Ditto for why they build them fully loaded.
I remember an early 90's Toyota strippie PU would go in sale for $5000. There was the Chevy "Work truck" for a decent price.

Prices will rise as high as the market will bear.
They’ll rise as high as stupid indebted people can put on payments…
 
They’ll rise as high as stupid indebted people can put on payments…
I have a really big problem with how automobile financing is done. I was looking at a transaction where the borrower barely qualified to buy the house and then two months later financed two automobile purchases. The borrower would have never qualified to buy the house with these payments. How did the auto finance company not catch the new mortgage and if they did, but approved them anyways then shame on them.
 
They’ll rise as high as stupid indebted people can put on payments…
True, but I don't generally use those terms. I've made my share of mistakes; I have zero room to judge.
But your point is well taken; economics teaches us prices will tend to rise until consumption falls to an unacceptable level.

And why should they build 10 low margin strippies, instead of 5 with high margins?
 
I have a really big problem with how automobile financing is done. I was looking at a transaction where the borrower barely qualified to buy the house and then two months later financed two automobile purchases. The borrower would have never qualified to buy the house with these payments. How did the auto finance company not catch the new mortgage and if they did, but approved them anyways then shame on them.
Oversight? Regulations?
IMO, the only answer if to teach personal finance, time value of money, etc starting in grammar school.
 
I have a really big problem with how automobile financing is done. I was looking at a transaction where the borrower barely qualified to buy the house and then two months later financed two automobile purchases. The borrower would have never qualified to buy the house with these payments. How did the auto finance company not catch the new mortgage and if they did, but approved them anyways then shame on them.
If you want to fix this, let your elected officials know you want strong banking laws. It seems we pass some paper-thin law every time we bail the banks out with eleventy billion taxpayer dollars then five years later that new law gets holes shot in it so the banks can make more profits, and, therefore, be "healthier."

Requiring a strong income-to-debt ratio will make lots of expensive things cheaper-- houses, educations, cars. But it hurts the top whatever-percent who currently control such purchases.
 
Sounds like a lot of you are very “soft”
I was a President of a Union for 17 years.
You don’t get what you deserve- you get what you negotiate!
About 30% of those workers are going to probably lose out to EV.
It takes far less workers to make electric vehicles.
If you really knew the history of a Union’s Place in shaping the workforce, you would be their biggest cheerleader.
Are Men nowadays really becoming this effeminate?
Quit drinking the soy milk and be a Man *

So unions are okay with open shops?

After all, if they are so great, there should be no fear of Right to Work. The value of the union would be self evident and people would join because that value is easily demonstrated.

I'm not anti-union. But I am anti-forced membership to work in a shop.

Closed shops can lead to unions that become as mediocre as the management of corporations that have protections against competitors.


Let unions be available to workers. Ditch the closed shops where a worker MUST join the union to work in a specific job.
If the union representation is worth the dues, there should be no fear of workers having the right to say no to the union and still work there.
 
You don't get that high with book smarts. You have to be willing to do dirty things, rub elbows with awful people, and generally have a sociopathic/ narcissistic personality.
Yep. That's business. That's capitalism. Creating markets, jobs, etc all in the name of wealth.
 
its humorous to me to note that when the American Middle Class ( 1950's into the 60's) was most successful, union membership was at its highest.
Back then the average CEO's pay was about 30 times what the average employees salary was.
Nowadays the average CEO's compensation is about 400 times what the average employee's wage is..

Aggregated CEO-to-worker compensation ratio for the 350 largest publicly owned companies in the United States from 1965 to 2021
https://www.statista.com/statistics... that, on average,key industry of their firm.
The more apt comparison is not works vs management pay but management pay as a part of the profits a company makes.

There were more workers in the 1950s and 1960s because there were no robots and little to no automation.


Comparisons to production vs C-suite salaries make sense. Comparisons of line worker salaries to C-suite salaries make no sense.
 
I think that a lot of folks are deluded about the relative market power of employers versus workers. For every person who has done well in the absence of an organized workforce, there are a couple of dozen who haven't.
Collective bargaining also helps those of us who are exempt in that it sets a floor for salaries and benefits.
I think we also need to move beyond the popular delusion that we live in a free market capitalist economy.
We don't although those who get fat privatizing the gains and socializing the losses would be quick to disagree.
We should collectively support the working people since most of us are among them or barely above them in the economic food chain.
 
They’ll rise as high as stupid indebted people can put on payments…

Unfortunately some folks feel the need an $80K truck or SUV to take the kids to school and soccer practice.
Look at the repo rate, 20K vehicles per day getting repoed.


I’m in favor of any workers getting a raise, better benefits and retirement.
 
Unfortunately some folks feel the need an $80K truck or SUV to take the kids to school and soccer practice.
Look at the repo rate, 20K vehicles per day getting repoed.


I’m in favor of any workers getting a raise, better benefits and retirement.
All I know is, back in the 90's and forward the Silicon Valley parking lots were full of drop dead gorgeous German cars. I drove strippie Toyletta pickups and Hondas. Man did I lust after those cars! It was weird, I thought everyone was making more, much more, than me. Didn't add up...
What I didn't know is most of them did not.

In finance we learn, "the opportunity cost of money". It simply means money only spends once. Very important concept.
 
I worked in a Nuclear power plant for 30+ years. I was a supervisor. 3/4 of the guys that worked for me were great. the remaining 1/4 ranged from barely OK to terrible. The Union protects the slackers-period. Anyone (union or non-union) working in a union shop knows this.
 
Unfortunately some folks feel the need an $80K truck or SUV to take the kids to school and soccer practice.
Look at the repo rate, 20K vehicles per day getting repoed.


I’m in favor of any workers getting a raise, better benefits and retirement.
20k a day?!? That’s a ton.

I’m in favor of folks getting some sort of COLA. Not of obnoxious atypical requests.
 
Will the big 2.5 die? I don't think so, at least not due to union strike and demand. What they may do is shrinking and import from Mexico, and maybe turn itself into a holding company that buy or outsource to other companies they own instead.

What would happen if the cost of labor is too high, would be either automation, buying semi-finished from a non union shop to cut labor, and cancel models that won't make them money. I don't know what the contracts do these days but if they just let the older employees retire and not hiring young ones, then eventually they will shrink.

Rivian is a good example of what the big 2.5 would do in the future.
 
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