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The Staff of SOH
Who killed GM....
- Thread starter Lionheart
- Start date
T
thedude247
Guest
I hate to hear or see anything like this happen to a company. The workers suffer the most because they have to do what they are told to do or else. The way cars and trucks are made in this day and time is a joke. The cost of cars and trucks in the last 25 years have gone out the roof and yet they are made cheaper and most of all plastic crap. With fuel going out of sight the auto makers should have a long time ago started making a better car. One that would at lease last a few months before going back to shop for repairs. The employees working on the cars get paid for each car they repair. As a result the more cars you do a so called repair the more money you make. Most of the time the car isn't repaired right or is done half a$$. When you buy an extended warranty it covers everything but what really needs to cover. Bottom line >> " Junk in means junk out".
Cazzie
SOH-CM-2024
What killed GM and what will kill more automobile manufacturerers is the sheer fact there are too many of them and combined they produced more automobiles than society can saturate. Even if every citizen in every country eligible to purchase a new vehicle were to do so, there would still be a surplus of new automobiles to go around. GM reached saturation level many years ago and yet continued to overproduce. The Koreans are doing the same, no wonder they can give you a 10-year, 100, 000-mile warranty, if the one you bought breaks, they have three to replace it. I won't buy a Korean automobile, not that they may not be fine, it's just those three word names, Kim Jong Il. If his nutcase were to blow a socket and decide to invade South Korea, by-by warrenty.
Caz
Caz
Railrunner130
Charter Member
Outdated business practices, outdated labor practices, outdated sales practices, failure to move ahead with technologies, failure to quit building more monster trucks than are really necessary, failure to steer the consumers towards more efficient vehicles. Instead of providing a quality vehicle, they provide a longer warranty. Sounds like they were avoiding the problem to me.
6
6297J
Guest
I never thought I would live to see capitalism in Russia and a state owned industry in the US of A!
I wonder which marques will disappear forever - Saab? Saturn? Pontiac? I'm sure some of them may be bought by rich consortiums but some will surely vanish.
I wonder which marques will disappear forever - Saab? Saturn? Pontiac? I'm sure some of them may be bought by rich consortiums but some will surely vanish.
There is another factor here beside the unions and inept management. many years ago the auto makers were fat. This was because demand was always high. Many in America bought a new car appox every three years. Why? Well a factor was that it was a partial write off on the income tax. Remember that? It the car was a bomb you got a new one and the deduction! I wasn't making much money then but I got a new one almost every three years if not less. Cars were priced very reasonable then. Congress in its' infinite wisdom(s/) eliminated the deduction and at the time was warned that it would hurt demand, and the industry. They did it and so the inevitable happened, demand dropped off. Now 20 year old cars are a norm.
Cratermaker
Charter Member
GM has a lesser known contribution to society: Consumer debt!
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/04/17/mm_gmac/
Thanks, GM!
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/04/17/mm_gmac/
Thanks, GM!
You all need to learn the governments role in this mess by passing stupid legislation which played a part in GM's down fall. Not to mention just plain stupidity. I'll NEVER buy another GM product (I've never owned another auto company's product) as long as the government has a hand in running it!! You shouldn't either! Say good by to a crap load of money American taxpayers! We'll never see it returned to us.
cheezyflier
Charter Member
apparently i'm in the minority here, but for me, this is one of the tiredest topics anymore. i'm starting to really not care about stuff like this because i didn't break it, and i can't fix it. having never owned a brand new car in my life, i don't see it really effecting me directly. even if i did buy a new car someday (which i doubt i ever would) it wouldn't be an american car anyhow.
in my mind, the players will fix it or they won't. either way, i don't work for them or any sattelite industry. good luck to them, adios, arrevederci, sayonara, cya l8tr, buh-bye.
in my mind, the players will fix it or they won't. either way, i don't work for them or any sattelite industry. good luck to them, adios, arrevederci, sayonara, cya l8tr, buh-bye.
wombat666
Administrator
Mud ....... it's a loan.
And I'm sure the vast number of workers and business's who supply GM with everything from paint to widgets will be relieved.
That aside, if the US auto industry were to go belly up the resulting welfare costs to those unemployed would vastly out weigh the bail out money.
However, GM Australia must be doing something right, their production and sales are steady and the death of GM USA (if it came about) would not have much effect on them.
As to who killed GM ........ how about the 'American Consumer'????
Cratermaker
Charter Member
Yup, and I'm one of them. I bought a Toyota. I got burned twice by overpriced GM crap. One new, one used. Never again.
As for the loan.... 30 billion? And GM on a good year made 1, 2 billion? This will be a 30 year loan at least.... I hope the interest rate is at least 10%.
C
Cerberus
Guest
I've got to agree with you mud. If the current government can't assess a single company like GM, I really worry how they are going to manage to run an entire country. Just pretend those billions spent were part of next elections democratic campaign. They had to hold on to the union vote somehow, otherwise those highly democratic areas would have turned on them.
Cratermaker
Charter Member
Agreed on the campaign angle.
J
JSpal
Guest
I agree with all of this, except that I must point out that American auto makers had a hand in lobbying FOR much of that stupid legislation.
Rather than try to produce cars that competed with imports, they lobbied for legislation that would make the requirements for vehicles that were imported to the US different than the laws that exist in their home markets.
Take crash bumpers for example. American laws judge bumpers differently than similar laws in Japan or Europe. As a result, any company that builds cars for for the Japanese or European market and also wants to sell cars in the US have to engineer two sets of bumpers to meet two disparate standards.
The big three lobbied Congress for these laws in the 1970's, not for the interest of vehicle safety, but to make the process of engineering cars for the American market more expensive for European and Japanese automakers.
But it also had the effect of making it more expensive for American manufacturers to engineer their vehicles to for the Japanese and European market.
At the time they didn't care, because the US market was the largest, most profitable in the world. So they willingly ceded the foreign markets to the foreign manufacturers and tried again and again through similar legislation to stem the tide of the imports.
In the last 10 years, since they have seen that the import invasion is not just a fad, and not going to go away, or even stop growing, rather than try to compete they've tried to appeal to American Nationalism, by showing flags and playing patriotic songs in their commercials.
They've also retreated to the only market that they really make good money on anymore, trucks. They've made trucks into family vehicles and they were successful in making people think that they need a 5000lb SUV for their family car for safety reasons. Too bad they couldn't force the oil companies to keep fuel prices to where more people could afford to drive such vehicles.
They've totally brought it on themselves. They ignored trends in design, they ignored trends in engineering, they lobbied for legislation that decreased their own profitability, they laid off and exported the jobs of many of their own customers. Goodbye GM.
If there ever is going to be a viable US Auto Manufacturing industry again, they need to design cars with an eye towards the global market. Without Government subsidy, a local-market-only scheme cannot be a viable business model for a company the size of GM.
Mud ....... it's a loan.
And I'm sure the vast number of workers and business's who supply GM with everything from paint to widgets will be relieved.
That aside, if the US auto industry were to go belly up the resulting welfare costs to those unemployed would vastly out weigh the bail out money.
However, GM Australia must be doing something right, their production and sales are steady and the death of GM USA (if it came about) would not have much effect on them.
As to who killed GM ........ how about the 'American Consumer'????
Once again we disagree on all points. I didn't "loan" my money to GM, it was taken by politicians. GM should fail, will fail and life will go on. People find new and better jobs, I have in the past, why can't the auto workers?! It would be MUCH better in the short term to allow GM to tank, the long term multiple bailout to come will damage our economy much more. Use the example of AMTRAC then multiply it by 10, thats what we'll get with a government run car company.
This idea that unions have that working one job for your life is crazy. That is socialism not capitalsim. The idea that the US auto industry will be gone is wrong, we are Americans, we over come and adapt! It's what we do best. Another car company will take GM's place and do a much better job!