I think another thing to notice is that the guys/gals at the top are making HUGE (GIGANITC) money compared to the average workers near the bottom.

So how do you control greed without a Robin Hood tax scheme?

While those of us working folks are getting by okay, earnings have risen at the top by leaps and bounds and earnings at the average Joe level are stagnating.

I’ve never gotten much of a raise b/c the places I have worked have always told us “we just can’t afford to pay you anymore” despite me getting very good evals. My increased wages have come only from changing employers. My friends report the same. Meanwhile the guys at the top do well…

One small business proprietor I used work for during college was entertaining. She used to complain that she couldn’t afford to pay us more than the penitence she did yet she vacationed in foreign lands, bought new Mercs/BMWs/Caddies annually and had a full range of toys in her garage. The answer was simple – she was greedy.

None of us stayed there for too long. She didn’t care if she had a high turnover.

What is next in America? A society like the one that I saw in Venezuela – really rich and really poor and not much in between?

Is this how a third political party arrives on the scene? I can’t imagine the Libertarians doing much taxation of the rich…

If you REALLY want to be little patriots, do your civic duty and buy a Honda Civic.

I recently ordered a Civic Coupe! It should arrive sometime this month. Came down to that I don’t want another UAW built vehicle for the party they tend to support. And I am a Jeep guy too.

Can someone (anyone) confirm this? Is a Chinese-made Buick a better all around car than an American Lucrene? Is GM priming the pump to import Buicks from China? With China, of course, being the current low cost producer (until the Vietnamese get their act together in 5 to 10 years.)

The free-market is a good rhetorical device as long as it blinds the masses and is advantageous to the upper social echelons of the country. In reality free market is nothing but a ploy from the well-heeled to increase their wealth and keep the masses busy trying to make a living so they don’t have time and strength to think what deal they are getting and vote accordingly. The money people think nothing of going to “Communist” China to exploit the semi-slaved labor there to produce their company trinkets on the cheap, all the while railing against socialism and branding everybody who points this out a closet communist who should be locked up in Guantanamo or shot.

That’s one little irony. The second irony already mentioned is that all these companies are for free markets even while they are asking for government bailout. Perhaps a bit of cognitive dissonance there one might think. Hardly, these companies might say, ‘we just wan’m fureiners trade fair and square. If they did we wouldn’t be in trouble’. Yet when independent trade bodies rule that foreigners are actually trading fair in a specific instance and in fact rule so repeatedly often the American government still imposes tariffs. If you don’t believe me ask Canadians.

Carry on.

Methinks the financial events of this week has put the fly in that ointment – especially one month before the general election. The catalyst has shifted from “hate foreign companies” to “hate Wall Street and the U.S. Banking System”, as well as “hate the politicians who voted yes on the $700 Billion Bailout package”.

History has shown that the political party who resides in the Oval Office during bad economic times has paid dearly at the polls. It happened to the Carter Administration, to the first Bush administration and is on track to occur again to the current Bush Administration…

Learn how to do something else.

The complainers who think Japan and Europe have it figured out socially and that is the reason for their automoitve success are somewhat misinformed. One poster said that Japan had “free” health-care and a fat social pension system, which solved some big cost headaches for their car companies, quite unfairly vis-a-vis the D2.8.

But that isn’t accurate really. Looking at Japan’s balance sheet as a country, the only thing that keeps them afloat is that they are net exporters. The public debt in Japan is almost two times the GDP! That health-care isn’t quite so free, I guess. Their postal office-pension scheme for retirement has basically financed lots of Japanese bonds to do things like build bridges to nowhere (literally, you gotta see some of the highways there…eight lanes to a village of 10,000 people), finance endless cronyism in essentially a one-party parliamentary mess (kinda like Mexico), and maintain a level of bureaucracy that is the envy of France. For all their “savings” in their national-retirement scheme, the Japanese people have probably gottent the worst return on capital out of any industrialized country (barring the United States Social Security scheme of course, there’s probably some bomb craters in Grenada that we are still paying interest on).

Its obvious from the transplants that you can build world-class cars profitably with American workers in America proper. If we want to see an American car company doing that (instead of foreigners) we need to make it easier for companies to get in the car business from a regulatory and legal liability standpoint. It takes hundreds of prototypes and millions of man-hours to get a car legal in the United States. That regulatory regime dooms startups from, well, starting up. If Google or Intel or Microsoft needed a couple billion dollars just for compliance with The Man for their products, they never would’ve happened, we’d all be running government-subsidized IBM junk while secretly pining for a sexy, sleek Fujitsu from the damn Japanese.

The bureaucrats and lawyers (not to mention their super-hybrid overlords…politicians) pine over the decline of the American car business, and don’t realize the best fix in the long-term (if “long term” means five years or more) is for them (bureaucrats, lawyers, politicians) to get the hell out of the situation…which for them is no solution at all. So, we are doomed as Americans to driving Hondas while subsidizing Chevies (thus ensuring Chevy’s continued ineptitude). Sweet.

In the financial @#$%storm we are about to enter, the strong businesses (those with cash and desirable products) will weather the storm and increase market share, while the weak will be destroyed.

The government should use the money it is about to burn by loaning it to the big three to instead provide health benefits to former non management auto industry employees.

Too bad no one felt this way about the IT industry in this country.

If our native auto industry consisted of player like Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Hyundai, BMW, etc, would we be importing the equivalent of USA built Ford or GM models today?

The next question is what domestically produced GM or Ford mainstream vehicle(s) do you think folks in Japan or Korea desire?

Notice that even GM and Ford understand that the trash they dump into the USA market would never sell outside of this country. That is why they make other BETTER cars in and for the other markets.

Look at an American Lucrene and than have a good look at those Chinese Buicks, now tell me which car would you rather have? I have to agree with the other here and say I will not buy a crappy car just to support the UAW lifestyle.
Go ahead and contiune to “earn” you way out of your jobs!

Oh, I too am one of those IT workers who are earning less than I was a few years ago. For the sake of arguement I have a college degree, serveral business certs, and I am also quite skilled with my hands (I know my way around workshop) and in very good physical shape. Trust me I can be trained to do the job of a UAW assembly worker far quicker than a UAW worker could be trained to do my job.

Granted working the line in an assembly plant may be difficult and stressful and does require skill, it is still a job someone can be trained to do in a matter of weeks at most, NOT the years of formal education and advanced technical training required to do my job.

Considering that the UAW workers in the USA are actually doing the same job as those guys south of the border in Mexico why do they believe that hey should be paid more than the Mexcian auto workers WORKING for the same company?

John McCain is that person, and that’s why he’ll win.

I guess you weren’t paying attention during the primaries. It was Senator Obama who was running around Ohio bashing NAFTA and free trade to win votes. And it was Senator Obama who from day one enthusiastically endorsed the bailout of the domestics to win votes in Michigan.

That certainly sounds like a wonderful combination – bashing foreign companies (i.e, free trade) and handing out taxpayer money to failing companies to win votes.

As for GM buyers being “stupid” – it’s best not to disparage people you apparently haven’t met. For many people, GM vehicles still work. GM DOES make some reliable vehicles. GM vehicles really have improved. Unfortunately, the improvements are not spread evenly across the range. The new vehicles, while a big improvement over what went before, aren’t spectacular enough to overcome GM’s reputation or distract the customer from competitive models. Even worse, the images of its brands are muddled. Meanwhile, management can’t accept that GM will never reclaim 30 percent of the market, let alone 50 percent.

But someone isn’t necessarily “stupid” for liking a Malibu, Corvette, Silverado, Tahoe/Suburban, Lambda-platform vehicle, CTS or even the Buick Lucerne enough to buy one. It’s just that those vehicles aren’t nearly enough to support GM, especially in a market that is rapidly heading south.

I work literally across the street from a Ford truck plant and this kind of behavior from the 2.2 is well known and not popular. Three people have bought Honda Civics in the last year. Another bought a Camry. No one questions their patriotism or judgment, and no one blames foreign automakers for selling them cars.

J6P didn’t make the endless string of moronic decisions that have wrecked GM, Ford, and Chrysler.

Those companies were, however, run by really really smart people who believed their J6P customers were stupid enough to buy their junk forever no matter what.

Turns out J6P was smarter than that. Maybe Rick Wagoner can write a NYT editorial explaining how wrong he was.

I can understand the need for protection to minimize the trade deficit and defend the dollar- however, transplants which make enough content in the US should count as domestic (which really is only Honda at this point). Give Honda loans too since they have such high US content.
If Chapter 11 is ok for airlines, then it is ok for auto companies. Actually they should be forced to file for Chapter eleven before they get any bailout money (which the guaranteed loans really are).

I want to focus on management’s biggest error: acquiescing to the UAW. They did so because in their view in the 60s, 70s & 80s it was better to do so to keep making/selling cars that hold the line on costs. Of course, back then there wasn’t substantial foreign competition.

That problem has now snowballed to bite them in the ass. I recall as a youngster reading about the UAW contract paying a ridiculous amount of money for what is essentially an unskilled worker (Steve Lang), superb benefits and great job security. Worked great for a while. Now, GM can’t make a car for a competitive price because not only do current workers (UAW wages for GM landscapers!!!) cost too much, but there are far too many retirees to support.

I recently bought a Toyota Tundra (made in USA, Steve). I went back on my promise to myself and checked out the Silverado. I think the Tundra is a better vehicle, both by spec and by quality, but that is arguable another time. Chevy wouldn’t come close to the deal I got for the Tundra. What should I have done, Steve? Bought what I consider the lesser vehicle for substantially more money? To pay for UAW landscapers? I don’t think so.

Back to my original thought: it’s management’s fault – they caved to greedy UAW demands. Now both fall victim to the predictions made at the time. Too bad. Many people will be hurt. Your fault, Steve, not mine.

First off: the people who write editorials here, and the majority of people who read and comment on them, are intelligent. Thoughtful. Reflective, speculative, cerebral, rational, and just plain smart.

Most people aren’t.

In fact, most people are about 12 years old, intellectually. Yes, they have memories — but actual learning? No. 12. Maybe 13 in some places, 11 in others.

So what? So what is this: the 12 year olds out there (in the bodies of 30, 40, 50 and 60+ year olds) have been buying GM for years and STILL ARE. I mean TODAY. Today. Right NOW in fact, as you read this, someone is buying an Aveo. Not just someone. MANY someones. And it doesn’t stop there.

The point: if people were as sensible as this apocalyptic connect-the-dots posits them to be, then, paradoxically, GM would have been dead *ages* ago and the GM deathwatch would be a retrospective instead of a prediction.

People are not sensible. People are Sarah Palin. They are 12. They are emotional — and remarkably irrational. And because of this, and because all of the recessions and depressions in the world CANNOT change this; in fact, it can really only deepen it and give it new, ridiculously accurate ways to manifest, I’m boldly — but boring-ly, if you live in my head — predicting that all of this overwhelming fear that is saturating the US right now will, sooner than later, need a target; it will need an enemy. That’s old news — we all know this. But since we can’t justify spending $10B a month to blow up non-white people, and we can’t afford the psychosocial consequences of blowing up white people (at any cost), the new enemy will be foreign companies. It won’t matter that, say, the Camry is the 3rd most “american” car. That’s being smart again, and this has nothing to do with smart.

This has to do with primal, base, human nature — which has been around a hell of a lot longer than any of us and will bury our grandchildren without breaking a sweat.

So, yes, people will galvanize and start to hate foreign companies — including and especially foreign car companies. They will — absurdly, wrongly, horribly, stupidly — ‘blame’ foreign companies, or those that buy foreign, as being “part of the problem.” There will be a radical pro-US movement that will be borne out of this financial sewer.

No, the unacceptable irony of this won’t be lost on smart people — like people who post here, or write columns for the New York Times or that kind of thing. But Joe Sixpack who STILL thinks that America is land of the free, and will actually seek to take away YOUR freedoms if you disagree (and will then probably kill you if you try and point out the irony of it, because irony is just fancy talkin for no good anti-american giving comfort to the enemy-speak), will buy ‘domestic.’

The end game here? Domestic automakers — even those who hillariously outsource to Mexico and elsewhere (anyone here drive a Vue?) — will actually be rewarded.

All it will take to make this happen is a spark; someone to be the catalyst that will tell stupid americans how to BE an american in 2008: hate foreign companies.

John McCain is that person, and that’s why he’ll win.

Carry on.

Pardon me for chuckling at your oversimplification of manufacturing jobs, especially automotive assembly jobs that seem to be so easy that a monkey can assemble a car. I laugh because I hear these comments from people who don’t even know how to replace brake pads on their car that’s just oh so easily put together.

I laugh because the simplicity you describe making a career switch obscures the fact that the years of experience a worker builds up in his current career could potentially mean didly in another. A man who assembles cars is simply not qualified to assemble airplanes without significant resources dedicated to retraining him.

And what exactly qualifies you to deserve a cushy job over everyone else living in the real world without any job guarantees whatsoever…
Asking, cause you seem to be speaking for yourself as you should.

I ‘deserve’ my cushy job because I’ve earned it. It’s as simple as that. If you don’t think you ‘deserve’ the job you have, then perhaps you’re working for the wrong people who obviously don’t value what you bring to their company.

But in case it hasn’t been realized, quality employment is not a luxury, it’s a requirement for the stability of our economy. If I’m not making beyond what’s necessary to survive, that means I’m not buying somebody’s goods, and that means somebody else isn’t being paid, which means he’s not buying somebody else’s goods, and this monster begins to feed upon itself. This is a consumer-based economy. Our role in this globalization game is to buy somebody else’s goods. When we can’t do that, bad things happen.

Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

I do actually work in IT myself, so yes, I understand. Your data already exists on servers all over the world. Between datacentre redundancy, distributed systems and the incredible number of places you do leave kibbles of data, there’s no way you can ensure that. It’s a global network, and there’s not much you can do about it.

If you mean “Is Rajinder in Bangalore any more or less likely to rip off data than, say, Joe in Menlo Park?” my answer would be “Are you treating your employees well, and do you have reasonable security on your data?”. In other words, location does not affect security.

The point was, though, that one person losing his or her job is not the same thing as tens of thousands of people doing the same thing at the the same time. That’s why we don’t bail out individual losses, but do shore up industries. You and I are just two guys; GM and it’s suppliers and the people who work in the towns in which GM and it’s suppliers are located, employ a lot more than just us.

Only problem is with all that protectionism, I’m not seeing any evidence that Japan and South Korea are any more prosperous than the U.S.

And as for this:

“Sprinkle in the legacy European automakers who are frequently given direct government ownership and support of their companies, universal health care, and a long-term quota system that effectively kept competition out, and what do you have?”

In the case of Europe, you have companies that bascially could not compete in the American mass market (Peugeot, Renault, Fiat, Lancia, Alfa-Romeo, British Leyland, and, increasingly, VW) or companies that retreated to niche markets in order to survive. GM, Ford and Chrysler aren’t being driven out of business by Mercedes, Audi, Porsche and Ferrari. And please note that Daimler basically gave Chrysler away because it didn’t know how to compete against the domestics, let alone Honda and Toyota.

Excuse me your majesty, but your sense of entitlement disturbs me, although it isn’t unexpected.

This is exactly what is wrong with this country. When you lose your job, you take what you can get, or you lose everything and you don’t eat. You don’t ask everyone else to subsidize your standard of living as if you deserve it more than they do.

Auto workers turn screws and nuts. That’s what it boils down to. I know because I turn screws on laptop computers for a living now. And I could just as easily turn them on cars, trains, planes, air conditioners, refridgerators, or any widget you can name with appropriate training. You do what you have to do to keep a roof over your head and food on the table. Those autoworkers can, should, and would find jobs elsewhere. Despite what the UAW would have you believe, they aren’t any more entitled to keep that job than you, me, or anyone else in the United States of America. Or were you thinking you lived in the Soviet Union?