The big three are in the tank

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All that I can add to this is. I only bought one forgien car in my life. It was a '74 Opel sport sedan. Sold by Buick. It was junk in six months. Traded it for the '73 Cuda. I always bought American until even the American brands went overseas.

Maybe Im a little more pessimistic right now. After 17yrs of marrige. Wife has been gone for 6 months now. I have increasing medical problems. No insurance. No financial support. Been turned down for jobs, medical reasons Im sure. Living on savings. Im not an abuser, dont drink or drug. House is getting cleaned out by her family. Im 58, been working adult jobs since 16. I chose to retire everything is paid for. I have 2 pensions and 2 401k's. That I will have to share, if the worst comes. 36yrs in a chemical plant. I became the homemaker while she taught school. She is only 45. Me not getting a new job, was her so called reason for leaving. The last couple of years, she spent most of her free time with her Girlfreinds, anyway. So maybe I dont see things very optimistically at this time.

OK, rant and pitty party over..But Iam pissed, not where I thought I would be at this age.

So I dont see the USA in a good light either.
 
Fast Eddie,



Keep your chin up. I've heard this story a lot for men married to younger women. Many of the gals don't like to work when their husbands retire or semi-retire. That seems petty to me, as if the gals only looked at their husband for a paycheck.



My wife has gone back to school to become a teacher. She finishes her degreen in May '10. She will be gainfully employed soon, I hope. When that day comes she will be planting the seed that will provide me (now 42) to one day retire, possibly well before I am 67.



She has been mostly out of the workplace for the past 15 years. I have been doing the "heavy lifting" as the breadwinner since we got married 19 years ago. It will be nice to share the load.



As she is back and school AND now working part-time, I have been doing the house work, including laundry, cleaning and meal prep, and doing soccer mom stuff with the kids. It's great as I work out of the home.



If married couples each keep a "score card" of who does more, or have this strict idea of "who does what" then it is likely in this day and age they are hurting themselves and their marriage. It's simply not healthy to view a marriage in those terms anymore, in today's very different world.



TJR
 
I was watching Lou Dobbs last night.

He had Ted Turner as a guest.

Ted's promoting his new book "Call Me Ted".

I'm not a big fan of Ted, but I admire what he's done with his life and his charitable causes he's gotten behind over the years.

Ted's opinion on the Auto Bail Out is "DON'T DO IT!!!"

He, like others I've heard, feel that if we bail them out this year, we'll be having to bail them out next year too, which could be a valid point.

Unless the auto industry does a 180 shift in their thinking and practices, they're destined to repeat the same failure over and over again, at OUR expense.



But, IMO, a mercy killing of the whole industry, like any mercy killing, would be difficult to do, and even more difficult to watch. The fallout may be worse than anyone can imagine.

 
If any or all of the big 3 go under, there will be others willing to step in an fill the void.I would suspect that these companies would be reborn again with new management, new priorities and even a better product.



The big 3 have been doing itt their way for years and dug themselves a deep hole that they will never get out. Why not start fresh?? Start with no debt and a group ov investors that want to make the fuel efficient cars of the future unicumbered by the union and huge pensions sue. GM is loosing a reported $1 Billion each month just to keep their doors open. It does not take a financial guru to tell them that they need to turn off the lights, the party's over !!



Ford and DM both have other business interests, perhaps they can shut down just the vehicle production part?



They cannot blame all of their problems on the credit crisis because they were stuck in the quicksand and sinking for years before the big Wall Streat Financial institutions failed.



We all want to think that American cars are the best and that their quality has improved a lot over the past 15 years, and it has !! The problem is that the foreign manufacturerrs have also improved their products and are still making better vehicles.



I think the time is ripe for someone in the USA to start up a new automobile company starts with a fresh clean slate with new ideas and new technologies. Something like the compress air powered car that gets 100+ MPG. The technology is here and very inexpensive. If they don't have the time to develope the car, just buy the Frech company that has done all that work already.



I thing the US auto manufacturers have spent billions suppressing some of the new technologies because they did not invent it and resent paying for it.



...Rich
 
I heard about this on the radio today. GM spending $17 million/year on Viagra???:blink:



Yes, I know the article's over two years old, but I couldn't find anything more current to contradict it.



GM Spends $17 Million Per Year on Viagra



By Joe Benton

ConsumerAffairs.com



April 18, 2006



Lifestyle drugs -- chiefly Viagra -- are costing General Motors $17 million dollars a year and the cost is passed along to car, truck and SUV consumers. The blue pill is covered under GM's labor agreement with United Auto Workers, as well as benefit plans for salaried employees.



GM executives estimate health care adds $1,500 to the price of each vehicle but they do not break out how much of the premium is caused by erectile dysfunction expenses. GM provides health care for 1.1 million employees, retirees and dependents and is the world's largest private purchaser of Viagra.



GM recently raised the co-pay for erectile dysfunction drugs to $18 under a new agreement with the UAW and the company has also pared benefits for salaried workers.



The automaker spends almost $5.6 billion each year on health care. While lifestyle drugs are a small fraction of the total medical bill, every health care expense is added into the price of every new vehicle and is a drag on the struggling goliath's earnings.



Given the large number of aging autoworkers in the U.S., the industry's Viagra tab and bill for other erectile dysfunction drugs is certain to continue rising.



Neither Ford nor Chrysler will disclose the amount spent on erectile dysfunction drugs.



While many government and company health plans have eliminated impotence drugs from coverage plans, GM has more than two retirees for every active worker on its rolls and must negotiate eliminating the drugs from the union health plan with the UAW.
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:wacko:
 
More on one of the major causes of the auto industry's woes.



November 12, 2008



Labor reform, not bailout, is GM's answer



Remember when Democrats lamented the growing budget deficit and spoke of the burden our children and grandchildren would face if we didn't put our fiscal house in order? That was when Republicans ran the federal government and Democrats opposed tax cuts. Now that Democrats are about to be in charge, concern about the deficit has disappeared and spending plans proliferate, even though the national debt passed $10 trillion in September and we added another $500 billion last month.



The latest, but by no means the last supplicant at the public trough, is the auto industry, which wants a bailout to save jobs because its cars are not selling. There is a reason for that and it can be summed up in five words: The United Auto Workers Union (UAW).



Half of the $50 billion the auto industry wants is for health care for its current and retired employees. This is the result of increasing UAW demands, strikes and threats of strikes unless health care and pension benefits were regularly increased. While in the past UAW settled for some benefit decreases while bargaining with the Big Three U.S. automakers, according to the Wall Street Journal in September of 2006, "on average, GM pays $81.18 an hour in wages and benefits to its U.S. hourly workers." Those increased costs, including the cost of health care, were passed along to consumers, adding $1,600 to the price of every vehicle GM produced. In February 2008, after General Motors offered buyouts to 74,000 employees, the Center for Automotive Research estimated the average wage, including benefits, for current GM workers had dropped to $78.21 an hour. New hires pulled down a paltry $26.65. GM, now facing a head-on collision with reality, has taken an important first step toward fiscal responsibility by announcing the elimination of lifetime health care benefits for about 100,000 of its white-collar retirees at the end of this year.



Contrast this with non-union Toyota, whose total hourly U.S. labor costs, with benefits, are about $48 per hour. Those lower labor costs mean Toyota enjoys a cost advantage over U.S. automakers of about $1,000 per vehicle. Is it any wonder that Toyota is outselling American automakers and from plants that have been built on U.S. soil? According to James Sherk of The Heritage Foundation, Japanese car companies provide their employees with good jobs at good wages: "The typical hourly employee at a Toyota, Honda or Nissan plant in America makes almost $100,000 a year in wages and benefits, before overtime."



While many in the Democratic Party have focused on "corporate greed" and "fairness," according to Sherk, "competition, not corporate greed, is the real problem facing labor unions. When unions negotiate raises for their members, companies pass those higher costs on to consumers." Americans used to tolerate those increases, but no more. Competition has brought lower prices for Japanese cars and Americans are buying more of them, taking a pass on those from Detroit.



The argument made by those favoring a bailout of Detroit is that it will save more than 100,000 jobs in the auto and related industries. But what good does that do if people are not buying cars in sufficient numbers to allow the Big Three to make a profit? This becomes the kind of corporate welfare Democrats decry when it comes to Wall Street. But, then, Wall Street isn't unionized and Democrats want and need the union vote.



What about Chrysler's bailout 30 years ago? It was a loan. Didn't Chrysler pay back the government? Wasn't it worth the risk to save jobs? According to the Heritage Foundation, the $1.2 billion in loan guarantees made by the Carter administration still resulted in a partial bankruptcy for Chrysler.



"Most of the company's creditors were forced to accept losses just
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I changed my mind and did make my earlier post that said:



The auto industry will die because of the UAW. But I thought I would get flamed pretty badly.



So TrainTrac gets flamed first before me:D
 
chad it's ok because it is the truth



les,

so true, your scenario with the domestic airlines in the 90's and the domestic auto boys are following in their footsteps.



and then there is tom,

blame honda and toyota for all this. how ignorant !!!!!!!!!!!!!

you forgot to add wal-mart :rolleyes:
 
let them all die,we don't need fords, Chebys, or chryslers.

Let the germans, The asians, the east indians build cars is the USA.

at least our workers will have jobs.

The brand name means nothing anymore.
 
Your opinion Tim, Thx

Thought the site had rules about abusive language, maybe no more.
 
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Perhaps a reminder of the rules for this site, as posted on the home page would be prudent at this point:



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* Please treat all contributors with respect.

* Abusive language will not be tolerated.

* We are all best served by an honest exchange of information and ideas. Consider your input in this light before posting.
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:)
 
I heard that GM has over 100,000 people on retirement roles while Toyota has 100. The cost of unproductive salaries are sure a major hit for the American car companies. The biggest seller in China is the Buick, which by the way can be produced a lot cheaper without the unions and restrictive US government BS.
 
Here are some facts about good old Japanese cars and the impact they have on the US economy...



A few facts:



With a yen valued at 118 to the dollar, Japanese automakers enjoy an average windfall $4,000 cost advantage per vehicle more than they would if the yen traded at its true value. The overall subsidy Japanese automakers gain for the 2.2 million vehicles they import totaled $8.8 billion in 2006.



The total yen subsidy provided to Japanese automakers in 2006 was $13.4 billion – $8.8 billion for car & truck exports to the U.S. and $ 4.6 billion for imported parts used in American-made Japanese cars.



More than half (52%) of all automobiles manufactured in Japan were designated for export in 2006, exceeding 50% for the first time in 19 years. In fact, even as demand within Japan for new autos is declining, Japanese companies are adding production capacity to Japan-based facilities, reactivating assembly lines, adding workers and postponing planned factory closures as they move to export ever greater numbers of vehicles.





Tom
 

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