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Automotive News & Views Do You Favor A Government Loan To The Detroit 3?
3958 messages, Last post on Oct 02, 2009 at 4:52 PM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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I for one, still feel strongly It'll be a cold day in hell before I buy another GM or Chrysler product, if only because they took my tax money! Ford is the least dispicable to me out of the Big 3. I'm very happy and nearing 50K miles on my Audi with no substantial problems to date. Honestly, the A3 has been so reliable and dependable, that Audi has made not only the Big 3 look pathetic, but has made Honda's made in Ohio look like they need an uptick in quality. |
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Replying to: andres3 (Jan 12, 2009 10:47 am) Ditto here, the last D3 vehicle in my driveway was in 1999. All three of them and the UAW can go pound salt before I voluntarily give them another dime. |
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Replying to: andres3 (Jan 12, 2009 10:47 am) In the time of WW II it was the auto industry that stopped making cars and started making what the USA needed to win the war. Yes and this was done with no strings attached. Buy the way don’t the us autoworkers use the American banks? Why no string for the banks? What did the banks do to help win the war? If we loose the auto industry how do we change over to do the same today? Do we buy what we need from Japan?? Will they make this stuff for us? Will they sell to us? Or will they watch us fall? Or have they started this war on the American auto industry as a pay back on the US. A pay back for what was done to them in WW II. So keep buying *from Japan** and help them buy out the American flag. You will end up stand up to the **Japan Flag.** instead of the USA. We came to this country because it was the land of opportunity but today’s generation has no loyalty to America. This is the start of the end if things don’t change soon. If I had the floor at the auto rescue talks: \“ MITCH ALBOM “ DETROIT FREE PRESS COLUMNIST • November 23, 2008 OK. It's a fantasy. But if I had five minutes in front of Congress last week, here's what I would've said: Good morning. First of all, before you ask, I flew commercial. Northwest Airlines. Had a bag of peanuts for breakfast. Of course, that's Northwest, which just merged with Delta, a merger you, our government, approved -- and one which, inevitably, will lead to big bonuses for their executives and higher costs for us. You seem to be okay with that kind of business. Which makes me wonder why you're so against our kind of business? The kind we do in Detroit. The kind that gets your fingernails dirty. The kind where people use hammers and drills, not keystrokes. The kind where you get paid for making something, not moving money around a board and skimming a percentage. You've already given hundreds of billions to banking and finance companies -- and hardly demanded anything. Yet you balk at the very idea of giving $25 billion to the Detroit Three. Heck, you shoveled that exact amount to Citigroup -- $25 billion -- just weeks ago, and that place is about to crumble anyhow. Does the word "hypocrisy" ring a bell? Protecting the home turf? Sen. Shelby. Yes. You. From Alabama. You've been awfully vocal. You called the Detroit Three's leaders "failures." You said loans to them would be "wasted money." You said they should go bankrupt and "let the market work." Why weren't you equally vocal when your state handed out hundreds of millions in tax breaks to Mercedes-Benz, Hyundai, Honda and others to open plants there? Why not "let the market work"? Or is it better for Alabama if the Detroit Three fold so that the foreign companies -- in your state -- can produce more? Way to think of the nation first, senator. And you, Sen. Kyl of Arizona. You told reporters: "There's no reason to throw money at a problem that's not going to get solved." That's funny, coming from such an avid supporter of the Iraq war. You've been gung ho on that for years. So how could you just sit there when, according to the New York Times, an Iraqi former 20 chief investigator told Congress that $13 billion in U.S. reconstruction funds "had been lost to fraud, embezzlement, theft and waste" by the Iraqi government? That's 13 billion, senator. More than half of what the auto industry is asking for. Thirteen billion? Gone? Wasted? Where was your "throwing money at a problem that's not going to get solved" speech then? Watching over the bankers? And the rest of you lawmakers. The ones who insist the auto companies show you a plan before you help them. You've already handed over $150 billion of our tax money to AIG. How come you never demanded a plan from it? How come when AIG blew through its first $85 billion, you quickly gave it more? The car companies may be losing money, but they can explain it: They're paying workers too much and selling cars for too little. AIG lost hundred of billions in credit default swaps -- which no one can explain and which make nothing, produce nothing, employ no one and are essentially bets on failure. And you don't demand a paragraph from it? Look. Nobody is saying the auto business is healthy. Its unions need to adjust more. Its models and dealerships need to shrink. Its top executives have to downsize their own importance. But this is a business that has been around for more than a century. And some of its problems are because of that, because people get used to certain wages, manufacturers get used to certain business models. It's easy to point to foreign carmakers with tax breaks, no union costs and a cleaner slate -- not to mention help from their home cou ntries -- and say "be more like them." But if you let us die, you let our national spine collapse. America can't be a country of lawyers and financial analysts. We have to manufacture. We need that infrastructure. We need those jobs. We need that security. Have you forgotten who built equipment during the world wars? Besides, let's be honest. When it comes to blowing budgets, being grossly inefficient and wallowing in debt, who's better than Congress? So who are you to lecture anyone on how to run a business? Ask fair questions. Demand accountability. But knock it off with the holier than thou crap, OK? You got us into this mess with greed, a bad Fed policy and too little regulation. Don't kick our tires to make yourselves look better. What needs to change is the compansation in the E band Groups they are well over paid (Grade 12 on up). The E band pensions also need to change ASAP. STOP PAYING PENSIONS THAT ARE EQUAL TO THE BASS PAY OF EVERY PERSON FROM THE PLANT MANAGERS ON UP. THIS IS THE SAME ALL THE WAY UP TO THE TOP AT FORD. They need to have the same pensions that the workers have. When times are good they (the e band) get rich and the rest may get a 3% raise over 3 years. When times are bad they get rich and push the rest out and make us give up our jobs, and cut the pay rates. The public thinks that the hourly are over paid when its the E Band thats steeal the company blind. Its not just the bonuses that its every thing. We all need to cut but they can fly around and blow money. Why is it that the top never gives up when we are in troble. They always pull from the first line supervision, from middle managment and the UAW but never from the E band group. Its time that they start giving up as much as the workers have. Hey, you senators: Thanks for nothing A few parting words for the senators who squashed the auto rescue By MITCH ALBOM: DETROIT FREE PRESS COLUMNIST, December 13, 2008 Do you want to watch us drown? Is that it? Do want to see the last gurgle of economic air spit from our lips? If so, senators, know this |
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Replying to: Vinnmar (Jan 12, 2009 11:05 am) |
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Replying to: driver100 (Jan 10, 2009 1:27 pm) |
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Replying to: circlew (Jan 10, 2009 2:43 pm) I think the next generation of young people see Honda/Toyota as Mom and Dad's car - the antithesis of cool. |
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Replying to: driver100 (Jan 10, 2009 7:09 pm) |
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Replying to: Vinnmar (Jan 12, 2009 11:05 am)
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Replying to: mikefm58 (Jan 12, 2009 11:27 am) |
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Replying to: Vinnmar (Jan 12, 2009 11:05 am) Pay the existing military contractors to greenfield the fab shops and workforce. It's faster and cheaper than trying to gut and reconfigure some inner-city auto plant and cull through the staff to see who can be retained. Do you really think that anyone who works at GM knows how to program the control logic for a UAV? |
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