Looks like GM and Chrysler are toast

[Mike]

The only viable car company left in the US is Ford. Which didn't take the bailout, and is the only one that can still have management of it's shareholder's choosing, and the only one that can still control what kind of cars it makes. In fact, Ford's situation has improved BECAUSE they didn't take the bailout, their sales are increasing. And I suspect they will increase further as we start to (DESPITE Obama) creep back out of recession later this year. I currently own a Ford. I've owned two Fords in my lifetime, along with a Dodge and a Chevrolet. I've never been unhappy with any Ford I've had, and I'll probably buy my 3rd Ford next year (assuming I still have a job).

GM and Chrysler are destined to spend their final days with management picked by people who probably couldn't make a car out of Legos, much less manage a company that makes real ones. They are going to be forced to build Goreacle approved eco "Trabants" (google Trabant if you want an idea what a government manufactured car ends up like) which no one will want and which no one will buy when they have alternatives (Ford, Toyota, etc).

Our new pseudo-totalitarian regime in Washington will then be forced to show their hand, force ably take over Ford and force them to make Eco-Trabants too.

Mark my words. One word I never associate with "democrats" is Democracy, economic or political, given their history of vote fraud, rigged elections, and legislating through unelected unaccountable judges rather than legislators people can VOTE OUT. It's about as wrong an assumption to make as thinking the National Education Association having anything at all to do with improving schools.

[cgarison]

People are not watching close enough, but the car company that is going to shock the world will be Toyota. They have passed the GM level of desperation and headed toward Chrysler levels if April does not turn it around for them.

Well, in fall 2001, I was not in the position to do my part to purchase a car and help Ford and GM save the US. This time around, I helped make a difference. And for the record, this is my first showroom new car. Now where's the line to claim my tax deduction next year.

[AmpedNow]

I'm getting sick and tired of the anti-Toyota, and anti-import mantra that is growing louder and louder. It's nothing more than a diversion tactic from the rudderless management and the burdensome UAW that got Detroit into the mess it's in.

Toyota, Honda, and Nissan got to where they are by making quality stuff. Not because of hearsay that really isn't true. I've seen it with my own eyes many times over.

At this point, the imports are as integrated into our economy as Detroit, with all the plants and dealerships they have. Saving Detroit at the expense of the foreign auto manufacturers will not have a net positive effect on the economy.

With all of that said, if I was to buy "American" again, it would be a Ford, because their chances of survival are much greater than the other two. (In fact, I don't see Chrysler making it at all). Plus, as I've mentioned, I can see the substantial improvements in their products over the last decade or so. The Focus and Fusion is really nice.

Even then, I would find it hard to stomach the "legacy costs". It's just ridiculous.

As for Toyota getting hit hard, it's going to hurt them worse than the others naturally if everyone stops buying cars, simply because of their size. If they're producing, say, 20,000 cars per day, but people are buying only 7,000 per day, they've got big problems...

I've noticed they've seriously cut back on advertising, too, just like everyone else.

[Ace Purple]

I'm getting sick and tired of the anti-Toyota, and anti-import mantra that is growing louder and louder.

Agreed. I love my Honda Accord (and it's nearly ten years old). What's more, whenever my current car gives up the ghost, I'll probably buy *another* Honda Accord. Quality breeds loyalty.

[fearpeddler]

and behold, our tax dollars at waste....

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/04/07/gm-a ... 2-wheeler/

[Mike]

and behold, our tax dollars at waste....

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/04/07/gm-a ... 2-wheeler/

Looks like a wheelchair with a motor on it. And there you go, what the establishment elite wants you and I to have to get around in, basically an electric rickshaw. While they continue to fly to "man made global warming" conferences in private jets and ride there in fleets of Suburbans and limos.

[Greg Goodfellow]

The Billy Mays ad will appear in 3-2-1...

Let's just dub this Project D.O.P.E.Y. for Draconian Oppressive Punitive Environmental Yutzes

[Bob Campbell]

Uh, that's been in development for several years. Not what your government wants you to drive, but definitely another example of why GM is in the toilet. Probably the union forced them to develop it.

[Mike]

I wonder how they are going to manage to pull off a GM bankruptcy that soaks management, the investors, and creditors, yet leaves the union (which is half the problem) unscathed?

[genlock]

And who will buy a GM product during a bankruptcy of the company?

[fearpeddler]

And who will buy a GM product during a bankruptcy of the company?

me if its dirt cheap... cause thats about all i could afford...

[Hoosier Daddy]

And who will buy a GM product during a bankruptcy of the company?

I would if the price is right.
I still love our Fords, though ...

[AmpedNow]

And who will buy a GM product during a bankruptcy of the company?

I'd have second thoughts, but overall, I honestly don't think GM will make the same mistake Chrysler made with the K cars in the 80's. Sure, it brought them out of bankruptcy, but their numerous problems and unreliability scarred the long-term image of the company, and still haunts them to this day.

Even their money problems, they can't afford to skim on quality.

Despite with my issues with them, I would still buy GM over a Tata, Chery, or anything else from China.

Gotta draw the line somewhere...

[Mike]

If GM and Chrysler go into bankruptcy protection, the UAW and their retiree's might just have to kiss the gravy train goodbye..

For the life of me, I'll never understand how decent, hardworking ordinary people have so much resentment and hatred towards other decent, hardworking ordinary people who are retired now and have a pension after working somewhere for 30+ years...

Unions are a cancer on the ass of the productive.

I don't give a shit about my "brother worker", except in doing what I'm supposed to do and expecting him or her to do what they are supposed to do. They wouldn't give any more regard for me (and probably less than that) if we were union.

Unions seek to create a situation where people can't be fired for incompetence and where outstanding people get no more reward (and thus no incentive to excel) than the crappiest moron whom everyone wishes would quit or get fired. Union shops sap the productive to reward the parasite, sort of a microcosm of socialism in and of itself.

I have never belonged to a union and I NEVER will. If I ever have to belong to one (and that will never happen where I work thank God) I'd quit my job as much as I love it (and I work for what I regard to be one of the best companies there are). Bring a union into a company and it's doomed to become a socialist experiment of failure, where mediocrity is an aspiration, where success is measured in how much you can screw the boss for instead of what you can produce. I couldn't give a fuck about the "collective" with respect to my career. I want to individually bargain. And I do, very well. I bargain for ME, not to support Joe Loser who doesn't show up half the time and when he does everyone wishes he didn't. My skills and reputation are enough on their own to get me what I want. I'm one of the best there is in my field (and I work my ass off to maintain this, often while NOT at work), not just in Huntington, but in the country. It isn't bragging if you can do it I don't want to be compensated by the lowest common denominator, AFTER the union bureaucracy has skimmed their "take" off the top.

Unions had a place back in a time where the average industrial worker couldn't read and was basically employed to be a human robot. It has NO PLACE in any field where actual professionally trained skill or individual initiative is a required or desired thing. Like most "rights" movements, unions have outlived their original mission (which was accomplished decades ago) and their actual usefulness and exist solely to perpetuate the hangers on and the bureaucracy that was a consequence of their creation.

[Bob Campbell]

Ow, wouldn't it be easier just to move to China? No unions there.

[jag]

Mike, I'm perceiving just a wee bit of angst, in your sentiments about unions.

Let it out, man! Don't sugar-coat it! Tell us how you really feel!

[genlock]

Ow, wouldn't it be easier just to move to China? No unions there.

The Communist Party is a union.

[Force Commander]

I am not yet ready to preach GM's funeral quite yet, but reading the Michigan Governor begging private lenders:

"Those same bondholders who received TARP money should be willing to take a haircut in order for this industry and certainly Chrysler to survive,"

I think am beginning to hear the chimes at midnight for Chrysler.

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090407 ... 1148/rss25

[Bob Campbell]

Chinese Communist Party is a union, huh. That says more about Genlock then it does about American unions.

[cgarison]

I am not yet ready to preach GM's funeral quite yet, but reading the Michigan Governor begging private lenders:

"Those same bondholders who received TARP money should be willing to take a haircut in order for this industry and certainly Chrysler to survive,"

I think am beginning to hear the chimes at midnight for Chrysler.

http://www.detnews.com/article/20090407 ... 1148/rss25

If GM offered to their bond holders the deal that Ford just put on the table, we would not be having this discussion.