Jalopnik 
Enter your username and password.
Detroit, 3:54 AM
Wed Nov 11
30 posts in the last 24 hours
Tip your editors:
tips@jalopnik.com
Editor-in-Chief:
Ray Wert | Email | AIM
Road Test Editor:
Wes Siler | Email
Weekend Editor:
Murilee Martin | Email
Associate Editor - Houston:
Matt Hardigree
Associate Editor - Detroit:
Ben Wojdyla
Editor-at-Large:
Mike Spinelli
Contributors:
Mark Arnold
John Krewson | Email
Andy Didorosi
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
12/12/08
12/12/08
[www.time.com]
12/12/08
12/15/08
The upsetting part is that most people don't know, understand or even care.
12/12/08
12/12/08
12/12/08
12/12/08
12/12/08
This is basic supply versus demand economics.
12/12/08
12/12/08
12/12/08
12/12/08
* Wilmington (Del.) - Pontiac Solstice, Saturn Sky, Opel GT
That kinda sucks.
12/12/08
If we're going to redistribute wealth, we might as well redistribute labor. How about a three-hour work day, two of which you will spend at the water cooler?
12/12/08
12/12/08
12/12/08
All this progress to improve product and process has the net result of needing less labor and less product.
That's not a problem, as long as you adjust accordingly.
Union contracts make that hard to do, and instead of fighting the good fight to reap the rewards of automation, the big 3 caved to demands for job security.
12/12/08
12/12/08
The industrial powerhouse that is The Netherlands.
Some things don't scale. ...but I do agree that it's all about implementation.
12/12/08
Besides I've heard so many remarks from non-frenchmen regarding the 35 hour workweek that I don't think it would ever even be considered in the US.
12/12/08
Plus it'll really boost re-sale values for existing GM models!
/sarcasm
12/12/08
12/12/08
12/12/08
I was being quite sarcastic. I have a pretty good grasp of where production really is. I'm just pointing out the ludicracy of the transplant fanboys who rant on about "everything" is made in Mexico, while a few "transplants" are built in the South
12/12/08
12/12/08
PLUS
12/12/08
12/12/08
12/12/08
What's really surprising is who among the Donkeys said nay:
Baucus (D-MT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Reid (D-NV) (Talking out both sides of his mouth much?)
Tester (D-MT)
Dems that didn't vote:
Biden (D-DE)
Kennedy (D-MA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Wyden (D-OR)
Source:
[michellemalkin.com]
12/12/08
Biden is burnishing his legacy and this won't affect it (at least any more than pushing the Bankruptcy Law of 2005 did).
Lincoln has a Nissan plant in his state, Tester and Baucus are anti-union and Harry Reid is just a moron.
12/12/08
So you are for the US Gubment throwing your money into a fire that has just begun and has it to even have any fire department show up and attempt to put it out?
The bailout will only keep GM alive for a maybe 3 to 6 months. GM will still fail and you will have nothing to show for that bailout you want right now...
12/12/08
The Big Three need to get a bailout because 1 in every 10 American jobs is tied directly to the Big Three. These jobs range from the lineworkers to parts makers to dealerships to businesses and jobs that are based in auto towns.
Across the United States, you will still find little factory towns. The factory employs factory workers. The workers pay rents to landlords, buy food from grocers, eat meals at restaurants, watch movies at theatres, and send their kids to schools. The landlords, the grocers, the waiters and cooks, the theatre workers, the teachers and the bus drivers all benefit from the factory even though none of them are in manufacturing.
Rent "Roger & Me". It is Michael Moore's best movie. It shows what happens to a factory town when the factory shuts down. Flint, MI is filled with factory towns. It would be not only politically and fiscally unsound to allow an entire State to fall to the wayside, it would be cruel to the people of that State.
Too many people are injecting a bit too much emotion into whether the Big Three should get a bailout. It is emotionally satisfying to tell them to take a hike. But other than soothing one's moral outrage for a short time, it does little else other than ruin the economic future of a region, destroy the US' future viability in a major economic sector, and further vest our fate in foreign control.
It's not about whether the Big Three were properly run or about justice or about how good it feels to say "Screw You" to an undeserving CEO; it's about what is good for the economy. Will giving a bridge loan to the Big Three work? Maybe. Will not giving them a bridge loan ensure their collapse? Yes.
Consider this medical dilemma - an 80 year-old patient has something wrong with his calf. Option 1: You can perform a femoral bypass on him. There is a 90% chance he will die but if he lives, he will still have both legs. Option 2: You can amputate his leg just below the knee. There is a 99% chance of survival, but he will have a lower quality of life. Your patient doesn't want to be an amputee. Do you do the bypass or the amptutation?
You do the amputation. Your patient may not want to be an amputation with a lower quality of life, but that's better than him being dead with no quality of life.
Bailing out a mismanaged company stinks. But it's necessary because the lineworkers, the parts dealers, the small businesses in the factory towns, and everyone else connected to a GM, Ford, or Chrysler worker didn't do anything wrong. Neither did any other union worker in this country. At the end of the day, that's why a lot of Republicans voted against the bailout - to bust unions. I like the idea of unions.
How does not having anything to export help our economy in the long-term? What exactly are we still shipping overseas? iPods? Russia undercut American steel in the late 90's. We don't have any real oil exports to speak of. So what's left? Cars.
China and India are major emerging markets for automobiles. It behooves us to have an automobile industry - not only for Americans - but also for the hundreds of millions of Indians and Chinese who are trading up from bicycles to autos.
Letting the Big Three fail is a stupid idea.
12/12/08
So are you prepared for a never ending supply of money to the Big 3 to keep it from failing? Are you going to buy a GM in the next few weeks/months?
GM is going down no matter what. All this bailout will do is prolong the crash and take what little money we have left and completely waste it.
It is time to stop putting band-aid's on the dam that is about to break.
12/12/08
If buying a Ford or a GM or a Chrysler means that organized labor continues to exist, yes. The Senators from Alabama, Kentucky, and Louisiana voted against it because Nissan, Honda, and Toyota - the other Big Three - all have factories in their States.
And let's not forget the tax breaks that they got and continue to get for having those plants there. To date, there is no unionized foreign-owned auto plant in the United States.
As to it being fiscally foolish to buy American, given the situation, I'm actually looking forward to low prices on American cars.
"Let 'em sink" is not an option. As workers lose their jobs, they'll stop making mortgage payments. There will be defaults, leading to drops in property values in those neighborhoods, leading to more people being upside down on their mortgages, leading to more defaults.
Parts makers will stop receiving orders and have to lay off employees. They'll be unable to pay their accounts. Surrounding businesses will see a decline in customers. They'll fail. They'll default.
When there are enough defaults, there will then be more bank failures, which will lead to the credit markets tightening up even further.
The Big Three is the second wave.