On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:51:27 -0400, the infamous "Ed Huntress"
scrawled the following:
They can make big profits when fuel is cheap and the economy is humming
along. But they're structured in a way that's almost guarenteed to fail when
the economy turns down or fuel prices rise sharply. It's in their bones,
their culture, and their structure.
C'est la vie, Detroit! And don't let the door hit you in the arse on
the way out...
They watered their weeds until they seeded, eh?
Yes, and that's the result of living too long in isolation from foreign
markets and from oligopolistic relationships among the US car makers. It
doesn't take stupidity or evilness to get into that trap. It takes only
unrelenting pressure to make the best short-term profits, and short-sighted
leadership -- although that could be described as a lack of ability to
predict the future. g
Hah! Look at what Toyota has done, starting with imports long ago,
then brand new factories in our country, and then turning into the #2
manufacturer here. Managerial greed was controlled. Too bad for the
Big 3, who didn't control it.
--snip--
I probably wouldn't argue, but for the fact that the union issue has
made the survival of the Big 3 a moot point. They can no longer
compete and will die. THAT is why I, a Ford man from _waaaay_ back,
bought a Toyota last year. I didn't think Ford would survive to offer
any warranty. (I kept my last truck for 17 years.)
The only way to understand the situation is to take a long historical view.
The answer to why we're in this fix is the answer to the question of how we
got here over the long haul.
The first fuel crisis in the 70s?
OK. That's why we have you here, Ed, to set the record straight. Umm,
quickly scanning the wiki, it created the NLRB, which I see as a union
puppet organization. Was it always so?
Not always a "puppet." It was the mechanism that put the Wagner Act into
force. It was helped along by a reversal in Supreme Court decisions in the
mid-'30s. Until that time the Court always sided with the owners, and
basically said that union organizing was unconstitutional.
It was a bizarre time in Constitutional history, well worth studying.
Who has the time, if they were so inclined? I sure don't.
Maybe he didn't have enough white space into which to pour all the
necessary BS about Euro taxing policies. That would have cut his
1,000 or 1,500 words down to nothing, ah reckon. 
What he's left with, though, is a screed that plays to the prejudices of his
audience. It's not evidence of anything except what dogmatic beliefs those
people already hold.
Nobody's perfect. titter
They never did realize that by producing the wrong cars, they'd
eventually go out of business, losing all market share to competitors
who would build the right (or closer to right) cars.
I'd like to help you identify some stupidity or ill motivation on the part
of management (who I think are intellectually lazy, flabby, and dull, but
not stupid), but that isn't the complete story, either.
It ends the same either way, doesn't it?
Have you ever looked at the Consumer Reports graphs for GM cars? For
every year, they have had the worst record of any car maker.
Disclaimer: I haven't had access to those stats for a couple of
decades, but friends have told me that they haven't changed. GM is
still a POS and Ford is sliding toward them with their godawful
transmission problems, etc.
I think they've gotten a lot better, but it's too late. They're like John
McCain in the final weeks -- spinning around looking for a solution.
I don't want to see the Nov 4th results. I really don't. I think I'm
going to have to yet again face an (five in a freakin' row?)
antithetical presidential term and I reallyreallyreally don't want to.
They sure know how to kill patriotism in D.C., don't they? sigh
I'm for minimum three-digit IQ in voters. No more of this single digit
crap, OK?
reason for every occassion in which the US builders started with efficient
cars, and then dropped them. As Henry Ford II once said, "small cars,
small
profits." They want big profits. They want to sell 6,000 lb. Ford
Extortionist SUV hybrids.
Then God Bless GM's Hummah, eh?
It sure looks like a stockholder's wet dream, eh? Another couple of years of
cheap gas and a good economy, and it might have expanded into a whole line:
Hummer sports coupes, convertibles, station wagons, and family sedans. We'd
all own Hummer-like objects before long.
We'll all be buying 2-bedroom homes with 10-SUV garages!
Ayup, and with unions screwing us out of good money, the labor can
never be lower; it's likely higher than the cost of the rest of the
car parts combined. (WAG)
Your WAG is off by a bit. d8-) Total direct labor cost (averages $43/hour at
GM, which is the highest, and that includes the legacy benefits of $9/hour
or so for retirees) is around 10% of production cost, but this is a screwy
figure because parts made by outside vendors are counted as materials costs.
Indirect labor (company labor not involved in production) is something like
5%. In independent car-parts production, total labor runs 15% - 20% of
production cost. FWIW, materials costs (which include these outside parts)
are roughly 80% of the cost of making a car.
Skewedfigures from a large corporation (or gov't office)? Who ever
heard of _that_?
They lobbied for a big-car
industry; they colluded with the oil companies to get it; they got it. Now
we bail them out.
Feh!
There's plenty of blame to go around. The car industry and the oil industry
made that bed, but not without the agreement of consumers. And Congress is
doing what we demand. Someone said here the other day that Congress is
supposed to respond to the demands of the voters. Well, the voters want big
cars, superhighways, and cheap gas. We got what we demanded. Now we're all
paying for it.
That's what Detroit said. It's not, by a long shot, the whole reality.
Detroit didn't change along with our eco-awareness when the first fuel
crisis hit 30+ years ago. Datsun and Toyota did and they're in good
shape here. Yeah, there are still plenty of big-car drivers around,
and they're really nice for cross-country trips like I did to New
Mexico 7 years ago. But the little Hyundai Elantra I rented 2 years
ago was nearly as comfy as the Merc Marquis on the freeway, and it got
me 30mpg at 75-95mph on the Bay Area trip. Big cars are obsolete for
most of the old reasons.
I filled up this morning for $2.46/gal.
I hope it's that low for me tomorrow. I need to fill up. The needle is
just about down to where the light comes on, and I have another load
of pavers to take out. Ugh! That crap's heavy.
Don't forget consumers. We vote, and Congress responds.
Yeah, and we send letters but the CONgresscritters vote the other way
(if the lobbyists' bribes got through.) sigh
Jenkins just selects the right's favorite whipping boys, labor and
Congress,
and blames it all on them. He isn't even close.
I truly hope you're not standing up for either, as they're both guilty
as hell for that and more. They're just not the sole culprits in this
particular case. But, hell, it gave me a chance to whine at 'em
again, so what's yer problem? g
We have met the enemy, and you know who it is. d8-)
Pogo Was Here!
Wrong. Congress is a current problem and we have to fix it. Keeping
them in the forefront is one way of forcing (hopeful) the *******s to
change, though they're extremely sporadic as to the amount they react
to the public eye nowadays.
OK, so Congress kept gas taxes low, and spent money to build highways, and
made it possible for labor to raise their wages -- primarily for the 10% of
costs represented by direct labor, and maybe half of the other labor costs,
inside the car companies and outside.
Oh, come on, Ed. Your focus is too tight. The gov't can't even run a
brothel right. I'm talking about all the unnecessary crap they
overspend on every day.
What did they do wrong? Should they have increased gas taxes? Should they
have not built highways? As for labor, they vote too. Should Congress have
ignored their demands? What is it that Congress could have done to encourage
the building of smaller, fuel efficient cars, that the voters would have
tolerated?
They could have offered reduced import taxes on small cars to the
Japanese (spurring U.S. competition) or rebates to the Big-3 for
producing small cars (monetary incentives.)
And, if Congress is going to contradict the wishes of all of those colluding
stakeholders, who would have voted for them? Would you vote for them if
their platform was higher gas prices?
g
Clinton lied in court over something that
the entire goddamned world knew was the truth, that he couldn't keep
his pecker in his pants. Others have quit rather than face the
public. shrug
In Europe, they would have given him a medal. g
For using his pecker, not for lying in court, right?
BTW, if you want to see what 235 mpg look like, take a look at this
prototype from Volkswagen:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_1-litre_car
Eat your heart out. d8-)
I wouldn't OWN a vubdubya. Ptui! Besides, it couldn't even pull a
small trailer with all my tools in it, let alone the 1,000 pounds of
wood and sand I have in it now.
It must be burdensome. That's business for you.
I've been busy since July, and have done 8 raised bed garden frame in
the past six weeks or so. Fall is making up for a really bad first
half year, thank Buddha.
Viva la Simpsons! Do you watch their show, Ed? I did for a couple
years when it came out, and I thoroughly enjoyed it then. They took
pot shots at everyone.
Same with me. I saw the episode with Crusty the Clown and his new Canyonero,
which had me rolling on the floor. But I only watch it now when my son is
home and he turns it on.
Yeah, I occasionally see a few minutes and it's always a hoot.
--
"The latest documents released this week showed
that priests with drug, alcohol and sexual abuse
problems continued in the ministry as recently as
two years ago. That doesn't sound like a church,
it sounds like Congress with holy water." -Jay Leno