[travior]

Obama was on the front of the Greenville News on Sunday announcing his newest brainstorm to save jobs. He claims to be able to save/create up to 2.5 million jobs by hiring them to rebuild infrastructure. Now, I support rebuilding bridges and roads, but my only question is where is he going to get the 2.5 million illegal Mexicans to fill the jobs???

[Les-R]

While the Big 3 are struggling and faltering up in Michigan, not much is mentioned of the foreign-owned factories in the southeast (where UAW has a more tenuous toe-hold) which are operating quite profitably.

Even if the Big 3 go under cars and trucks will Still be made in the US, they'll just all be Toyotas and Nissans and etc..

[dog77_1999]

A good infrastructure project would be a great idea. If we are gonna pay people to dig holes than it might as well be roads or something like that. It's already dilapidated, although if the other 90% of the gas tax went to roads like it was intended, we wouldn't need it.

[dog77_1999]

Les-R wrote:

While the Big 3 are struggling and faltering up in Michigan, not much is mentioned of the foreign-owned factories in the southeast (where UAW has a more tenuous toe-hold) which are operating quite profitably.

Even if the Big 3 go under cars and trucks will Still be made in the US, they'll just all be Toyotas and Nissans and etc..

True. It's still profitable to build cars over here. The UAW and the Big 3 management have really screwed themselves over.

[CanadianJeff]

You know there WAS a plan to keep the big 3 in business by merging 2 of them into one company.

Of course the moment the government started opening it's ears to the idea of bailing them out....

they government should not be approving one dime of this bailout. Let the companies come up with a plan where they pay the taxpayer for the money the taxpayer LOANS them. That's right how about the TAXPAYER CHARGES INTEREST to the very companies that need them right now.

How's that for free market. And instead of the corporations getting all the money all the taxpayers get a big tax break over the next while which will encourage them to spend and the free market takes over.

Oh wait common sense in congress...never works

[romanP]

Robair wrote:

Psudo wrote:

Government should not be doing this at all. Not one dollar, not one cent, not one regulation. It's absurd that they even think they can control this mess.

Isn't lack of regulation how Greenspan got us into this mess in the first place?

Yep, and further deregulation is all we can look forward to until George Bush and Stephen Harper are not running anyone's country.

[Thanos]

Check out how many partnerships and co-managed product lines the Japanese/Germans and Big 3 are working together on both on assembly lines and in parts manufacturing. If the Big 3 go down the foreign companies are going to take almost as big a kick to the nutsack as North America will.

Something I blundered across earlier today but I forget which blog I swiped it from:

"Ford has owned a majority stake in Mazda for decades. Nearly every vehicle in Mazda’s lineup is platform shared with a Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, or Volvo.

Until last year GM was the majority stake holder in Subaru. GM sold off their shares to Toyota. Ditto Isuzu.

Mitsubishi has been kept afloat for decades by Chrysler. In the 80’s and 90’s about half of the entire lineup at Chrysler was platform shared with Mitsubishi. Engines and transmissions are still shared today.

Toyota and GM share a factory in California. The factory produces the Toyota Corolla, Toyota Matrix, and Pontiac Vibe.

BMW has used GM automatic transmissions on and off for years. BMW paid GM to develop the automatic transmission in the BMW 5-series and Cadillac CTS.

GM, Chrysler, and Mercedes Benz have a joint venture to build hybrid powertrains.

Chrysler alone, backing out of a deal to buy automatic transmissions, forced transmission manufacturer Getrag into bankruptcy. Getrag supplies transmissions for every auto manufacturer.

Ford and Nissan buy their hybrid technology from Toyota.

All of the auto manufacturers share suppliers. Any one of the Domestic 3 failing would likely take out the other two and severely damage the foreign owned companies ability to continue to operate here. That’s not to say they don’t need to reorganize, but to even do that they have to be able to make payroll and buy materials. That is what this loan is about. Additionally, to the foreign governments who are planning to protest any bailout by the US government as unfair to imports, the imports have been getting their own “bailout” for years via socialized medicine and other government subsidies."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maybe this is the worst of the worst case scenarios but it sures sounds damn spooky if it were ever to reach the ultimate level of badness.

[Robair]

Quite the house of cards.

[Pseudonym]

romanP wrote:

Robair wrote:

Psudo wrote:

Government should not be doing this at all. Not one dollar, not one cent, not one regulation. It's absurd that they even think they can control this mess.

Isn't lack of regulation how Greenspan got us into this mess in the first place?

Yep, and further deregulation is all we can look forward to until George Bush and Stephen Harper are not running anyone's country.

Nope. What are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac if not examples of government interference in the market?

[Firekite]

Robair wrote:

Isn't lack of regulation how Greenspan got us into this mess in the first place?

That question makes me wonder whether you even care what the reality is. To lay this at the feet of Greenspan is just...incredible.

As to the Big 3, there are a number of problems with them, but their primary problem that directly affects their viability is not quality or fuel mileage. Congress has decided they must force Americans to drive weaker cars by their CAFE standards. If Americans wanted the tiny fuel-sippers of Europe and Japan, they would've been voting with their wallets. Quality has actually been improving quite a bit, too, in many cars manufactured by the Big 3. Several GM vehicles have been awarded the title of best in initial quality. I rented a Saturn Aura (basically a rebadged Opel Vectra--that's right, GM and Ford are global companies) last week during a business trip, and it was great. Weak, but otherwise solid, comfortable, had fairly high-quality surfaces, good seats, and great options. That's not really the problem.

The problem is the long line of utterly outrageous contracts with the UAW. Unnecessary unions have been killing Detroit for a long time. The only reason they've been able to get away with it for so long is because things have been booming enough to barely keep the companies' head above water. Basically, the price of US autos are artificially inflated because so much money is going to pay people wildly inflated wages, incredible benefits, and mind-boggling pensions. When some shmoe with a high school education and no job skills is being paid $40/hr to tighten a nut, an $8/hr job at best, we've got a major problem. When $200 of every Toyota vehicle is going toward health care while $1600 of every GM vehicle is going toward health care, we've got a major problem. This has been sustained only on the backs of cash-cows like overpriced but still best-selling trucks and SUVs, and when demand for those slows, the UAW finds itself threatening to slice open their golden goose and rape its corpse.

The UAW is in business for itself, and business has been good for a long time. Each generation of managers caves and buys into these ludicrous contracts figuring that the next guy will deal with them, just to keep the line moving. And in the mean time, the UAW is bleeding them dry in the name of the common man, in opposition to the actual numbers being presented. Even now the UAW is insisting that all these asinine agreements are completely reasonable and sustainable, that paying laid-off employees 96% of their salary is completely sane, and they refuse the acknowledge that their decades of unchecked, abject greed has created a situation that's likely to take us all down with them.

Toyota has opened up a manufacturing plant here in San Antonio, and a friend of mine has been working there since it was opened. He says they're a decent company to work for, that the pay is good (though not exorbitant), the benefits are satisfactory, and he's not constantly worried that the plant is going to crumple in under the weight of shoddy contracts.

But the partisans in Congress like that retarded chimp Barney Frank (who insisted up until the day they failed that Fannie and Freddie were fine and bragged about them) stick to the same old party line that pretends unions are good for today's workers and therefore the only problem is that not enough American vehicles get 50mpg when pulling up to $1.75 gas. Well, congratulations, America. You were the ones who cast aside conservative and intelligent public servants in favor of electing spend-happy Republicans and all these party-blind Democrats in the first place, and it's only going to get more socialism-heavy when the next crew is sworn in. Have fun with that.

[Robair]

Firekite wrote:

Robair wrote:

Isn't lack of regulation how Greenspan got us into this mess in the first place?

That question makes me wonder whether you even care what the reality is. To lay this at the feet of Greenspan is just...incredible.

When I said "this mess" I was referring to the recession.

[Robair]

Pseudonym wrote:

Robair wrote:

Psudo wrote:

Government should not be doing this at all. Not one dollar, not one cent, not one regulation. It's absurd that they even think they can control this mess.

Isn't lack of regulation how Greenspan got us into this mess in the first place?

Nope. What are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac if not examples of government interference in the market?

Not sure where you're going with that comment...? Greenspan was all about free markets and zero regulation. He assumed the markets would regulate themselves. They didn't and a pile of bad mortgages were issued. Hence the housing buble and recession leading to the current global mess. This is why the auto industry is in trouble now. They were likely headed for trouble anyway for all the reasons firekit is going on about, but the recession is why they are screwed right now.

That's the way I understood it going down anyway.

[CaliShark]

"Government is the respectable way to pick a man's pocket."

Realistically, the entire shenanigans here had to do with the government ignoring the reality of nature (There are boom and bust cycles that CANNOT be stopped) and making it worse (By artificially propping up the end of a boom cycle so that when it went bust, it took everything with it). The Fannie and Freddy debacle shows that "enforced low-income loans" championed by liberals can be called "predatory loaning" and blamed on conservatives when necessary, because no one fact checks the Democrats anymore.

We were going to have a recession, it was the frenzied scurrying to prevent it, and then the overly long wait before the response was put into place that made it so bad. Wall Street is a pack of chicken-littles that have no sense of discipline, self-control, or foresight.

[Pseudonym]

Yeah, I wasn't very specific. I was trying to indicate that it wasn't all about deregulation and free markets, because government was involved. The very existence of the Federal Reserve and Greenspan's job is proof of that.

I would tend to blame bad regulation more than deregulation.

[Zipperfish]

Firekite wrote:

Robair wrote:

Isn't lack of regulation how Greenspan got us into this mess in the first place?

That question makes me wonder whether you even care what the reality is. To lay this at the feet of Greenspan is just...incredible.

As to the Big 3, there are a number of problems with them, but their primary problem that directly affects their viability is not quality or fuel mileage. Congress has decided they must force Americans to drive weaker cars by their CAFE standards. If Americans wanted the tiny fuel-sippers of Europe and Japan, they would've been voting with their wallets. Quality has actually been improving quite a bit, too, in many cars manufactured by the Big 3. Several GM vehicles have been awarded the title of best in initial quality. I rented a Saturn Aura (basically a rebadged Opel Vectra--that's right, GM and Ford are global companies) last week during a business trip, and it was great. Weak, but otherwise solid, comfortable, had fairly high-quality surfaces, good seats, and great options. That's not really the problem.

The problem is the long line of utterly outrageous contracts with the UAW. Unnecessary unions have been killing Detroit for a long time. The only reason they've been able to get away with it for so long is because things have been booming enough to barely keep the companies' head above water. Basically, the price of US autos are artificially inflated because so much money is going to pay people wildly inflated wages, incredible benefits, and mind-boggling pensions. When some shmoe with a high school education and no job skills is being paid $40/hr to tighten a nut, an $8/hr job at best, we've got a major problem. When $200 of every Toyota vehicle is going toward health care while $1600 of every GM vehicle is going toward health care, we've got a major problem. This has been sustained only on the backs of cash-cows like overpriced but still best-selling trucks and SUVs, and when demand for those slows, the UAW finds itself threatening to slice open their golden goose and rape its corpse.

The UAW is in business for itself, and business has been good for a long time. Each generation of managers caves and buys into these ludicrous contracts figuring that the next guy will deal with them, just to keep the line moving. And in the mean time, the UAW is bleeding them dry in the name of the common man, in opposition to the actual numbers being presented. Even now the UAW is insisting that all these asinine agreements are completely reasonable and sustainable, that paying laid-off employees 96% of their salary is completely sane, and they refuse the acknowledge that their decades of unchecked, abject greed has created a situation that's likely to take us all down with them.

Toyota has opened up a manufacturing plant here in San Antonio, and a friend of mine has been working there since it was opened. He says they're a decent company to work for, that the pay is good (though not exorbitant), the benefits are satisfactory, and he's not constantly worried that the plant is going to crumple in under the weight of shoddy contracts.

But the partisans in Congress like that retarded chimp Barney Frank (who insisted up until the day they failed that Fannie and Freddie were fine and bragged about them) stick to the same old party line that pretends unions are good for today's workers and therefore the only problem is that not enough American vehicles get 50mpg when pulling up to $1.75 gas. Well, congratulations, America. You were the ones who cast aside conservative and intelligent public servants in favor of electing spend-happy Republicans and all these party-blind Democrats in the first place, and it's only going to get more socialism-heavy when the next crew is sworn in. Have fun with that.

Oh, I think there's enough blame to go around here. It wasn't like the executive we're on any kind of restraint. Didn't the dude from GM make like $28 million last year?