And the Senate shot down the Big 3 loan...

eric said:

weird. i agree with baggss on a financial/political topic... ;P

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and that makes me go hrm....

<<< just like bucky

Kash said:

For starters, Ford is doing just fine. Chrysler always sucked, and GM is the one that's facing the biggest problem in terms of liquidity. However, you're making the assumption that if one of the car companies go belly up, then all that happens is that the company crashes and a couple of people are out of a job. That's an extremely near-sighted view of the impact such a collapse would have. Let's forget about the thousands of jobs that are going to be directly affected, there are also the thousands of dealerships that are going to go out of business along with the distributors who supply the parts for the cars. Then there's the ripple effect you have to worry about since those distributors are shared amongst the auto manufacturers. If these distributors lose out on one or two of their biggest customers, they go out of business. Once that happens, you've got the problem of increasing costs, thus leading to the downfall of the formerly solvent Ford and potentially the foreign companies that build cars on American soil.

So no, it's not as simple as "let them fall because of bad business practices." One would be naive or seriously misinformed if they actually thought it was that simple.

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Let them be bought out by a business that knows what they are doing in the industry. I don't know how GM is so broke when they use the cheapest parts possible. Oh, maybe thats why, people don't want a car made from $0.50 plastic parts.

The Japanese and European companies seem to be doing fine. Japanese cars cost less to make per car and are better quality than US cars, and some are even made in the US! There won't be countless jobs lost, the void filled by one failed car company will be filled by another, even if the company isn't bought out directly.

it costs US manufacturers almost double what it costs Japanese manufacturers (in labor costs) to build a car in the US.

True, but labor costs are only like 5% of the total cost of a car, so reducing that to 3% or 4% isn't going to fix the problem. Detroit needs to start building cars people want to buy instead of complaining about labor costs. Focus on the 95%, not the 5%.

No, but it points to larger issues within the big 3 culturally. They're complacent, actually bordering on lazy. Their product is lousy, not exactly innovative, and over priced for what it is and to be honest.. I'll probably never buy another of their products

If you read the article I posted, you'll see that labor costs aren't really twice as much. Detroit's pension costs are higher simply because it's had a longer history of providing retirement benefits in this country than the foreign car companies have. Given enough time, the foreign companies that manufacture cars in this country would end up having increased labor costs through a rise in retirement benefits.

Kash said:

If you read the article I posted, you'll see that labor costs aren't really twice as much. Detroit's pension costs are higher simply because it's had a longer history of providing retirement benefits in this country than the foreign car companies have. Given enough time, the foreign companies that manufacture cars in this country would end up having increased labor costs through a rise in retirement benefits.

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Do they even provide retirement benefits like those of the Big 3?

Not trying to hijack this thread or get off topic.. but I'm just wondering why a thread I started about this very subject got deleted, yet this one is left open for "discussion?"

was yours the one from a week ago or so, or did you start yours after this?

eric said:

was yours the one from a week ago or so, or did you start yours after this?

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I started it at least 3 weeks ago. I PM'ed Schweb and asked him if it was deleted and he said it was....

maybe it got too heated? that would be my only guess.

tkim said:

I started it at least 3 weeks ago. I PM'ed Schweb and asked him if it was deleted and he said it was....

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This is really not the place for this kind of question. Schweb already addressed your question, and if you have further concerns, you should bring it up with him in PM.

eric said:

maybe it got too heated? that would be my only guess.

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And this one isn't heated??

cwa107 said:

This is really not the place for this kind of question. Schweb already addressed your question, and if you have further concerns, you should bring it up with him in PM.

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Fair enough, just wanted to put it out in the open and ask why mine was shut down. Someone fairly new to the board starts a "heated" thread and it gets shut down. Yet eric, who is a consistant contributor and member to this forum starts the same discussion and it's left open. Sorry if I'm a little PO'ed about it.

And I didn't bother to ask Schweb why it was deleted or even who it was. It was obvious that he didn't agree with what was being discussed on a public internet forum, so he deleted it. But he's a mod/admin so it doesn't really matter.

Just wanted to contribute to the community and help those who seek it. Just like so many have helped me on this forum. But if that's how it's gonna be, I won't bother anymore. I'll just find another Mac forum and move on with my life.

tkim said:

Fair enough, just wanted to put it out in the open and ask why mine was shut down. Someone fairly new to the board starts a "heated" thread and it gets shut down. Yet eric, who is a consistant contributor and member to this forum starts the same discussion and it's left open. Sorry if I'm a little PO'ed about it.

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dude, i didn't start this thread. i actually got into it pretty late.

tkim said:

And this one isn't heated??




Fair enough, just wanted to put it out in the open and ask why mine was shut down. Someone fairly new to the board starts a "heated" thread and it gets shut down. Yet eric, who is a consistant contributor and member to this forum starts the same discussion and it's left open. Sorry if I'm a little PO'ed about it.

And I didn't bother to ask Schweb why it was deleted or even who it was. It was obvious that he didn't agree with what was being discussed on a public internet forum, so he deleted it. But he's a mod/admin so it doesn't really matter.

Just wanted to contribute to the community and help those who seek it. Just like so many have helped me on this forum. But if that's how it's gonna be, I won't bother anymore. I'll just find another Mac forum and move on with my life.

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And this is EXACTLY why this kind of concern should be brought up in PM. There was a little more to it than Schweb not agreeing with the general consensus in that thread, but that's for him to address. The net result of bringing it up in another thread like this one is now we're going to derail this thread and perhaps it will end in the same result.

You are free to discuss whatever you want here, but it does need to conform to the forum rules. When it doesn't, the thread gets closed or deleted, that's all there is to it. It's not some grand conspiracy to deprive you of free speech.

how about we bring it back on track.



what do you all think GM can do to survive?

what does it need to do with it's brands, the models, designs, etc?

i have lots of ideas, but would like to hear some others' first.

baggss said:

Do they even provide retirement benefits like those of the Big 3?

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No, they're not UAW plants, and those are UAW negotiated plans.

eric said:

how about we bring it back on track.



what do you all think GM can do to survive?

what does it need to do with it's brands, the models, designs, etc?

i have lots of ideas, but would like to hear some others' first.

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Personally, I think GM is doing a pretty good job with its most recent models. Now, I've never owned a GM product personally, but I've seen a lot of their past stuff and have never been overly impressed. The newer stuff, like the Malibu and the Saturn Sky, as well as some of their crossover utility vehicles have been very impressive.

What I think they need to do is to streamline and downsize their operations in response to their shrinking revenue and marketshare. There is no need for GM to be the size it was when it was the market leader. To start this process, they need to start consolidating divisions and eliminate redundancy in product line-up. Pontiac, GMC, Chevrolet and Saturn should be consolidated into one full-line division. Buick and Cadillac should be consolidated into a near-luxury division.

Additionally, ancient pushrod engines have no place in this market, it's time for drivetrains to be modernized along the same lines as what Ford did in the early 90's. Keep the designs around to sell as a crate motors for hobbiests, but no modern GM vehicle for mass consumption should be sold with a pushrod engine that is a 20-30+ year old design.

The only other thing that would keep me from a GM product is resale value. I don't know how GM can fix that problem in the short term, but that was a major reason why I abandoned American cars and went over to Honda. I was very tired of being upside down in car loans because of heavy depreciation. With Honda that almost never happens.

i agree nearly word for word, cwa.

eliminate redundancy - absolutely. merging buick with cadillac is interesting, though, i was thinking a three nameplate solution chevy/buick/cadillac might be better than a two chevy/caddy. only because there are people who want a softer, richer feeling car, without driving a "cadillac" which to some people does have a certain stigma.
the three nameplate deal would probably be similar to what you were thinking, just spread a bit more.

keep the pickups and standard suvs under chevy.
keep the cheaper cars (cobalt), family cars (malibu) and sports cars under chevrolet - keep the vette obvioulsy, keep the camaro, but make it simpler and cheaper - they're supposed to be dumb, fun, cheap speed, not a poor man's vette.
buick should have the mid-level luxury cars, stuff that can compete in some way with the cheaper acuras, lexuses, audis, and bimmers. perhaps also a soft-ute.
cadillac needs the brash, stylish, forward thinking image it has honed for itself for decades (with the exception of the late 70's through the 80s). In the way that cadillac in the distant past, and for the last few decades mercades has; it needs to bring new technology and design to market far before it becomes widely accepted - become again the vanguard it once was. it is close, but it needs work.