"Wes" wrote in message
...
F. George McDuffee wrote:

One of the posters in another GM thread indicated that it was
commony GM practice to *NOT* pay for tooling until production
started. ==Does anyone know if GM ever paid for this tooling as
it is for a 2009 model?== If they did not, it may be a major
reason that Cadence went b/k.


George,

As you read the responses you have gleaned, maybe you and Ed can
understand my hatred for
GM and why such a bully should not be bailed out. This has been going on
for at least a
decade.

I hope you don't have the idea that I would defend the way GM manages -- or
Ford or Chrysler, for that matter. I reported on the industry for over 25
years and I saw how they bled their supply chain dry. They couldn't run the
parts-making on their own, so they shoved all their troubles onto outside
suppliers.


Having said that you are learning the magnitude of the problem. Where was
government when
vendors needed protection? Seriously, I think organized crime has better
ethics than GM.

The vendors didn't need protection -- how would you protect them, anyway?
What they needed was to get into another line of business. Those who have
generally have done better. Savvy tier-two and -three vendors have made an
extreme effort to diversify. But, with cheap imports to battle for consumer
goods, that's been an uphill battle.

Making parts for cars has been one of the few high-volume metalworking
segments available, in good times, at least, for a couple of decades.
Medical-device manufacturing has been good but the industry is too small.
Making parts for off-road equipment, home-and-garden, and so on has also
been better than automotive but, again, it wouldn't begin to take up the
slack.


Any bailout better address the vendors. If G/F/C ride this out by gutting
the supply base,
you will see the bigest abuse of power in your lifetime.

I think they'll gut their supply chains and offshore as much parts-making as
they can. Now what?

--
Ed Huntress