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On Dec 15, 11:10 am, "Leon" wrote:
Snip



As you say Leon, the writing has been on the wall for many years now,
probably about 25 or so. I remember reading many serious
dissertations concerning the demise of the Big Three as early as the
80s. Poor quality cars, silly labor costs, bad management, etc.,
etc., created a monster cancer that has slowly killed the industry.


I still remember like it was yesterday working for the Oldsmobile dealer. I
was the Service Sales Manager at the time when Oldsmobile was probably the
most arrogant. Our dealership had won the Oldsmobile Service Supremacy
award. This was based mostly on customer satisfaction with the service
performed. Oldsmobile steered many customers our way because the other 4
dealers could not fix reoccurring warranty problems. Because we did more
warranty work "proportionally" in service than the other dealerships we
automatically had 10-15% of our warranty claims kick back to us. The
reason, we had more warranty claims than was our share. Never mind the fact
that the cars did have problems and we were the only ones that could do a
repair that lasted.





Even protectionist taxes couldn't kill the foreign cars or their
makers. They invested billions here in our own country to build
better cars here with our own labor forces at a better price. They
beat us at our own game with quality, design, pricing, reliability,
and most importantly a long term business model.

And the foreigh auto makers are making more money with the added taxes. If
the Big 3 workers are worth a damn they should not have a problem finding
jobs elsewhere but they are probably going to be paid a wage more in line
with what they are actually worth. Right now if they are layed off they get
up to 95% continued salary for 2 years.



Compare that the first meeting of the Big Three with the Senators to
beg for money a month or so ago (when they flew up to meet in their
private jets to be greeted by private limos) revealed they literally
had no written, no verbal, or even an objective for a plan that would
save them. They simply wanted the money to pay bills, base on "or
else the public would all pay for this".

The fools showed their hand right off the bat. You know if the leader of a
company is wasteful and ignorant the rest of the company is probably in the
same shape.