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Automotive News & Views What if you were in charge of GM?
874 messages, Last post on Oct 28, 2009 at 10:20 AM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: TIMGT5 (Jun 26, 2009 4:24 pm) I'd be more on your side if you brought up the argument of rewarding the D3s incompetence. 
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Replying to: Mr_Shiftright (Jun 26, 2009 7:52 pm) We have volumes of regulation for everything, it is that for several decades our government failed to enforce them when it came to securities and real estate. The two guys who could have done something about the freedie mac and fannie mae debacle (Barney Frank and Chris Dodd heads of the senate banking comittee) chose to ignore warnings from a certain AZ senator that there were major problems with these 2 organizations and that action needed to be taken back in 2006 to stop them both from hemoraging capital. That alone would not have prevented the recession but it would have made for a slower, softer landing in housing market which would have made the effects of the recession milder elsewhere. As for a planned economy, sorry that does not work and never will. If we look at those bastions of economic planning the USSR, Cuba, North Korea and so on, we see how this fails miserably. The fallacy that economists like Keynes back in the 30's operated under and his modern day disciple Paul Krugman are operating under today is that the economy is a machine that can be fixed with wrench. The Austrian school countered this by saying that the economy is not a machine, but an incredibly complex eco system in which no one entitiy or individual can control because no one can fully predict the consequences of actions taken. I would suggest some further reading: The Road to Serfdom by Frederick Hayek Vision of the Anointed, by Dr, Thomas Sowell Both are great works which explain the fallacies and unintended consequences of government Economic Planning very well. Our founding fathers were specific about the role of the federal government. Government's role is to play referee, keep the playing field level, and protect people against certain dangers, abuse and fraud. The rest is up to us, to be smart consumers and investors. As a libertarian, I will never buy into the idea that 455 men and women sitting under a domed building in DC, along with one guy at 1600 Pennsylvania avenue can micro-manage the lives of 300 million of my fellow citizens. That is exactly what they are trying to do though in the name of protecting us from ourselves.
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Replying to: blckislandguy (Jun 26, 2009 5:03 pm) |
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Replying to: TIMGT5 (Jun 26, 2009 4:20 pm) That explains much. I see none of the "B" cars are built here, either. Here is an article that may explain how they make money at the plant, though: http://www.autoblog.com/2009/06/26/officially-official-gm-to-build-b-segment-car- s-in-lake-orion-m/ ".....The plant will also be able to build C cars like the new Cruze and possibly a Buick version of the Opel Astra. The Viva would be a B-segment car similar in size to the new Ford Fiesta. Powertrain components will also be sourced from GM's North American operations although no specifics have been announced yet. GM emphasized that this is the first car of this size to be built in the United States from any major automaker." This is just an assumption, but that Buick version of the Astra may be the one slated to be exported to China from here.
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Replying to: TIMGT5 (Jun 26, 2009 4:24 pm) Remember, too little involvement leads to our wonderful cratered roads that lead to rotten-tomato suspensions. On the other hand, too much leads to "Government Motors," which still has to build rotten-tomato suspensions because of our moonscape roads. 
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Replying to: cooterbfd (Jun 27, 2009 3:12 am) |
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Replying to: TIMGT5 (Jun 27, 2009 1:29 am) Unfortunately, you forgot to take into account China, which still has substantially more elements of a command economy than even Europe, much less the US. And now we're talking about them buying Hummer, and exporting cars here. Sometimes it DOES work. There's no "one-size-fits-all" to anything, including economics. As a libertarian, I will never buy into the idea that 455 men and women sitting under a domed building in DC, along with one guy at 1600 Pennsylvania avenue can micro-manage the lives of 300 million of my fellow citizens. That is exactly what they are trying to do though in the name of protecting us from ourselves. Agreed, but they seem to find sticking their collective noses into everything to enforce their particular ideology (whichever it may be) much more interesting than doing their actual jobs of enforcing existing regulation and maintaining infrastructure and all that. Which gives us a bailed out GM and rotten roads both.
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Replying to: bpizzuti (Jun 27, 2009 4:05 am) Thats a lot of Pizza Sauce, sorry could not resist the joke L:OL!!! |
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Replying to: TIMGT5 (Jun 27, 2009 1:29 am) If the opposite of pro is con, what is the opposite of progress? |
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Replying to: fintail (Jun 27, 2009 7:39 am) But when planned economy is mentioned, we don't evoke Norway or Finland or prosperous Switzerland or Sweden---or the truly mind-boggling amount of treasure stolen by thieves in American business---we evoke North Korea and the horrors of Stalin. It's a strawman argument, and not a particularly sound one IMO. As for GM, they were shielded from destruction by conservative US administrations, not by socialists by any means. Protectionism guaranteed the D3 a slow death, that's all it did. GM could NOT PAY any of its workers, ever again, and it still wouldn't make any money. How much lamer a performance could a nationalized GM put in than that?
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