[opendtv] Re: News: Ditch Your TV
- From: "John Willkie" <johnwillkie@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:31:30 -0800
The "problem" with U.S. car makers isn't that they sold cars that the
consumers wanted (big ones) at a profit; it's that the government forced
them to make and sell cars (small ones) at a loss.
Another way of saying this is that they were hung by short-termism in not
getting the unions to be realistic.
John Willkie
-----Mensaje original-----
De: opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:opendtv-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] En
nombre de Craig Birkmaier
Enviado el: Thursday, December 11, 2008 7:02 AM
Para: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Asunto: [opendtv] Re: News: Ditch Your TV
At 8:41 PM -0500 12/10/08, Albert Manfredi wrote:
>That's right. The short-term-think so prevalent in corporations made
>them unable to resist cashing in on this deal they had, building the
>biggest, bluntest behemoths possible, and they gave away the market
>for efficient cars to the Japanese and Koreans. Actually, they never
>even tried to compete there very effectively. So now that the fickle
>public has had this epiphany, surprise surprise, they are ignoring
>US brands.
So this explains why virtually every non-U.S. manufacturer of
vehicles ALSO rushed to produce trucks and SUVs, mostly in U.S.
factories?
It is worth noting that the big three ALL produce small fuel
efficient vehicles, and make a profit, OUTSIDE the U.S.
The U.S. manufacturers HAVE tried to sell smaller, fuel efficient
cars in the U.S., but the buying public mostly considered them to be
junk when compared to a Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla. GM even built
a factory in California with Toyota, where they built Corollas and a
Chevy equivalent , which I think they branded as the Nova.
>
>Which is a shame, because some very interesting stuff is in the
>pipelines. It's not like they don't know how to design good stuff.
They build some interesting stuff today. But it costs them about
$2,000 per vehicle more to produce a car than the NON-union factories
operated by the foreign auto makers in the U.S.
The problem is not what they are making. The problem is that they are
saddled with labor costs that are non-competitive.
Let's be realistic. What we are really talking about is a UNION
bail-out, not a manufacturer bail-out. The big three have to keep
paying people for years after they are laid-off. And then there are
the huge retirement and medical costs.
But let's not worry about this. Its small change compared to the
unfunded liabilities of the U.S. government for Social Security and
Medicare.
Just consider the current problems for the Big Three as the movie
trailer for The Big Ponzi Scam, coming to U.S. taxpayers soon at a
government run bank near you.
Regards
Craig
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