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Detroit, 10:30 PM
Wed Dec 9
27 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/08/08
I am going back to Giz now.
11/08/08
Giving Chrysler a loan made sense, because they put forth a plan for turnaround, and all they needed was a little bit of hard cash to put said plan in motion.
GM is just asking for $15 Bil so that they can hold on another year or so, and then what? More demands for more loans? Loan after loan after loan until the economy changes tack?
Wagoner needs to be fired, with no severance package whatsoever. Of course, being the head of GM is probably even worse than being the US president these days.
11/07/08
We get the begging from the company whose hybrid was a "Hybrid Tahoe". If that doesnt show the stupidity of the Major, he got demoted again, I dont know what is.
11/07/08
11/07/08
11/07/08
Rick Wagoner: Let's just say it moved me...TO A BIGGER HOUSE! Oh crap, I said the loud part quiet and the quiet part loud.
11/07/08
If, there was to be some sort of monumental regulatory change to business as usual in Detroit then the parasitic unions need to be amputated from their hosts. This may very well kill off the hosts. But it will at lest send the message to any other unions to re-examine how much they can get away with leeching off a companies profits.
I know it is a pipe dream though since Pelosi/Obama are gonna give the Automakers their money and take away the secret ballots.
11/07/08
11/07/08
11/07/08
Bottom line: Wagoner and Lutz need to get the hell out and the board needs to bring in leaders who are more concerned with the long-term success of the company than they are turning tricks for shareholders.
Well run companies will survive these hard economic times. Those companies whose management lost touch with its consumer base because they were spending too much time wagging their dicks around will have to ask for government bailouts.
11/07/08
Also, so is the phrase "build cars people want to buy!" As if overcoming 30 years of torn reputations is really that easy.
11/07/08
11/07/08
Now they're fucked AND broke.
11/07/08
11/07/08
11/07/08
11/07/08
The "socialists" aren't.
11/07/08
11/07/08
I try to be different. I try to do something to improve the situation instead of just bitch and complain. I'm not always successful but I really do try.
Yay! GM going broke, they'll finally break the union, millions of retirees that put in 30-40-50 years will go without income or healthcare. Yay, it's not me - I don't give a fuck. Yay! Michigan will crumple further into chaos and anarchy (and it will spread) and won't be able to provide basic human services. Yay! Foreign cars are better, I told you they were.
Is the entire population so dead set about being right that they don't care how devastating the results are? I never had much faith in the human race to begin with but what little I had is quickly waning.
We no longer care about neighbors because they voted for the other side or believe in a different god or bought a modular instead of stick built.
It's rapidly approaching the time where it's going to be too late for humanity to get a fucking grip.
I guess I'm drinking tonight.
11/07/08
Oddly enough, a great many of those people are the ones making the statements that we should just say screw GM and screw this socialist crap. For all the people that fall into this category and get their wish to see GM go down, that's all fine and good, but as soon as they realize that that results in them not having a job, they will complain about the rampant, unchecked capitalism that screwed them.
There is no arguing that GM screwed up in the past decade. There is no arguing that they are continuing to screw up in many ways. But they have also made vast strides. They at last have a range of products that are truly competitive, and those that are not will be soon. They have learned quite a bit from their mistakes; note that the Volt of all things lives. Whether you agree that that is enough progress to justify saving them in a utopian context, the fact remains: this is not a utopian context, and the fact that they have shown any progress whatsoever makes this a whole lot easier to swallow than the bank bailout.
The banks were bailed out because we would have been hosed if they weren't. If GM is bailed out, we are hosed. Does their need to be a stringent set of rules, etc. that apply to the bailout? Absolutely. Do I like the fact that they need to be bailed out in the first place? No.
But life is. And quite frankly, for the lives of millions of people in the US workforce, life would be far worse off without GM in business than we would ever be with GM in business.
And let's not hear comparisons about how well Toyota, Honda, BMW, and other companies are being run, as they are run in countries that have significantly more socialist overtones than the US has ever had. They also don't have to deal with unions.
So there it is. This whole situation sucks. But it will suck a whole lot worse if we don't do anything about it. Time to choose the lesser of two evils and get it over with so we can get ourselves back on track.
11/07/08
Years ago, when I was a student of car design I was thinking about where I wanted to work. Our family had been a GM family. We had Chevy trucks growing up and my dad had (still has) his '67 Camaro. The glamour of the GM design studio in the 50's and 60's had gone away, the dome had burned, and adult logic told me that Detroit was not a secure place to have a career- and this was a decision I reached 12 years ago- at that point, GM was hating it, and had just closed their west coast design studio. Years passed and the re-opened a studio in Burbank, but even that location is sketchy soil. I have friends who lost their digs working for Chrysler out in Carlsbad...I don't do well hunting for jobs, I don't do that sort of thing. Weird times indeed, if GM goes away, the history of the brand is the great loss. The products today would not be a loss.
11/07/08
I agree, the loss of the history would be a much more devastating one than the loss of the new products themselves, but I worry about what will happen if we lose that many jobs.
And I like the way you put: the theory is simple enough (triage), but as GM is the general, the reality is a lot more complicated.
11/07/08
11/07/08
True.
Last time I checked, Toyota, Honda, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz all had a few factories in the United States. Their corporate headquarters, however, are not in the USA. The are in Japan and Germany, meaning that the money that they make goes to those countries, not the USA. Additionally, those companies are not faced with the same difficulties that US automakers face, not the least of which is the UAW.
So instead of giving money away to companies that are going to take that money right out of the US economy and do little to nothing to encourage large-scale job growth in the US, employ only a small fraction of US auto workers, and pad their cushy asses in fancy post-modern chairs, let's give money to companies that are responsible for a significant chunk of our nation's employment and GDP, and whose loss would completely cripple our economy which is already on life-support.
From that standpoint, perhaps we should invest in our own national economy and our own future.
Wow. What a concept.
Wow.
11/07/08
Most people who think that GM going under is a good thing or that it is OK, are saying it out of spite.
11/07/08
I've wondered why everyone was so eager for Poland to have unions but not the US.
Also, Japan and Germany and the UK have their own unions that make the current incarnation of the UAW look pretty anemic.
11/07/08
Corporate automotive masters are in multinational corporations anyway, so this fantasy of calling VAG German, Honda Japanese or GM American is specious. I am so tired of that nationalistic crap. The FACT is that this is an inevitable result of globalization of trade, when more manufacturers exist than can be borne by the marketplace.
Let them hang, other manufacturers will take their place. And there NEVER was any reason for a line worker to be making as much money as a college educated, degreed professional, i.e.; let the Unions face up to what they did to the economy. Why the hell should non-auto states be taxed to prop up failing enterprises in Michigan. Bullshit, bullshit, and more bullshit. This is what made the USSR fail.
If anyone REALLY cars about jobs, the economy, and the future, they will be thinking in an entirely NEW direction.
It's time for the government to make energy production a monopoly, then start a CCC style capitalization of construction on nuclear, deep hydrothermal, tides, and biodiesel projects in BLS lands. the profit on these things could be used to finance public expenditures, instead of regressive taxation, and only those who used energy would pay the price.
BUT NO!!!!!
Let's just keep out little ostrich heads covered, and retreat to failed liberal policies of the past. because Jimmy Carter was so successful, you know? Pffffttt..
11/07/08
I didn't know that Japan and Europe faced the same severe issues with unions that the US did. I stand corrected on that one.
11/07/08
11/07/08
11/07/08
See how fast they jump at that.