http://www.lewrockwell.com/suprynowicz/suprynowicz55.html

The idea here has always been to get as much as I can and everyone else be damned, regardless of the consequences. Even if you were to implement drastic strategies that would make imports uncompetitive on price, history has shown us that all the domestic manufactures would do is raise their prices to just under what the imports sell at. That goes for all industries, not just automotive.

But the notion that buying a domestic car over an import is the patriotic thing to do to support the US auto industry, is something that’s been bugging me.

This country’s consumers MAKE IT A POINT to not have to pay more than they have to for anything. The trade deficits we have with most every country in the world is proof that from T-shirts, to shoes, to TVs, to pretty much everything else, US consumers want to pay the lowest prices for the best quality and be damned if the average worker in Myanmar is working for a slave wage. We import $600 million dollars worth of Christmas decorations each year from China. Why is it that patriotic buying is only applied to cars?

In a utopia, US consumers would buy the best products in the world at the best prices from American companies that employ American workers being paid a living wage, the fact is such is not the case. When even companies like GM are outsourcing the manufacture of major sub assemblies to China, it is a hollow argument that buying an American car somehow shows support for this country.

The union-bashing does get tiresome. Eliminating the UAW will not singlehandedly make GM, Ford and Chrysler competitive again.

But union bashing soon leads to the appearance of its opposite, but equally inaccurate, sibling – laying at the foot of the union virtually every good thing, except for the debut of the miniskirt, that has happened in America since 1935.

Any philosophy can be made to look good on paper, when divorced from the real consequences of implementation. If you think that a decade of stagnating or decreasing real wages for all but the top 5% is a good thing, so be it. If you think a disappearing middle class is a good thing, so be it. If you think these things are unrelated to ideas like ‘real Americans buy what they want’ and ‘what this company needs to do is declare bankruptcy so it can invalidate it’s contracts and pension liabilities’, so be it.

If you are not selfish (self-interest is a better term) then you are someone elses slave. Note how the Government, Broadcast Media and all Collectivist/”Socialist” attempt to convince you that sacrifice to others (Them?) is a virtue…Hmmmm… Makes me feel like a CopperTop battery.

In those other highly unionized countries, the government picks up the costs of health care and retirements. It’s not so much the unions here as the fact that they’re preventing the companies from jettisoning their healthcare and pension responsibilities.

I don’t see how that explains why some folks in Big 2.5 management chose to beat the hell out of most of the lineup with a big fat ugly stick. These cars are simply not desirable because of design, engineering and content, three areas over which management maintains control.

Here’s an exercise for you — go through GM’s 2005 annual financial statement, remove the healthcare costs in their entirety and see what you get. Do that, and you’ll find that GM would have still lost money, even if had **zero** healthcare costs. The healthcare costs are just an excuse to blame the workforce, since blaming the yen, the Japanese, the price of cheese and the full moon are no longer in fashion.

Only the ‘me’ generation here in the US (i.e., the boomers) — with marching in the streets and taking over the college campuses as part of their ‘good old days’ — have refined the art of hating your own country to such a high art.

Interesting. That must explain all those Republican soccer moms driving Honda Odysseys and Toyota Siennas.

On a serious note, if that’s the mindset in Detroit, then I hope that they enjoy filing Chapter 7, because that’s what is going to happen if they believe that contempt for the needs of the customer is patriotic. Successful companies build products that people want, unsuccessful ones don’t.

I would hope that someone in a Big 2.5 design studio could put down their flags just long enough to create an attractive, appealing, reliable, and enjoyable car that many people, whether right and left, Republican and Democrat, fascista and communista, could all see a reason to buy. It doesn’t matter who I vote for, you still won’t find me in an Impala.

When people say that “the government” picks up the tab for health care, they forget that “the government” is funded by taxpayers. It must raise revenue to pay for that healthcare, and anyone who studies other countries with nationalized health care would discover that one of the recurring problems in those countries is…how to pay for soaring health care costs.

This summer I spent time in Ireland, Great Britain and Germany.

In Britain, a friend who is hardly a conservative (she hates Bush, blames the U.S. for global warming, etc.) was complaining about the shoddy care provided by the British National Health Service.

In Ireland, we heard people complain about the taxes they pay to support nationalized health care…and yet people still purchase private insurance to supplement the government-backed plan, because they want to ensure quality care.

In Germany, my aunt told us that companies are still responsible for providing health care to their employees. (They may receive help from the government to do so – I didn’t think to ask that question. But I do know that many Germans purchase private health insurance to supplement their standard coverage.)

The government – i.e., the taxpayers – does assume all responsibility to provide care for the unemployed and elderly. Which we have here in the U.S. – Medicaid for the poor and Medicare for the elderly – except that there is no way that the UAW will allow its retirees to depend soley on Medicare, as it is not nearly as generous as the UAW-negotiated plan.

Before you say that the government should provide benefits to everyone as generous as the UAW plan – this country would be bankrupt if it did so. Diverting all of the money spent in Iraq and at the Pentagon, and then taxing the Donald Trumps and Paris Hiltons of the country at 99 percent of their income, would hardly make a long-term dent in the problem.

We cannot afford it. Costs are already soaring for Medicare and Medicaid. Imagine making the benefits richer, and extending them to everyone.

Ar-Pharazon: I also disagree with your statement regarding US folks purchasing foreign vehicles and prior protectionism. If you think many in ‘the Greatest Generation’ would have bought a Japanese or German car, you must be good at ignoring the elephant in the room. They would not have, for rather obvious reasons.

When the Greatest Generation began driving, American cars WERE the best all-around purchase. That is the obvious reason. Now many of them continue to purchase Buicks, Cadillacs, Lincolns and Mercurys because they remember those marques’ glory days, and sheer force of habit.

Ar-Pharazon: In fact, I think that pre-Baby Boom generations would not have done this because for them the norm was to love their country and try to support it, as is currently the case in much of the rest of the world. Only the ‘me’ generation here in the US (i.e., the boomers) — with marching in the streets and taking over the college campuses as part of their ‘good old days’ — have refined the art of hating your own country to such a high art. The rejection of all things domestic and fawning over the ‘other’ is a direct outgrowth of this and I believe is one of the rarely stated drivers of the trend away from domestics. Yeah . . . not denying the past quality problems . . . but that doesn’t explain the whole story, nor the continued progression in spite of (what apparently many here argue) a turnaround in product.

Please…the domestics lost a generation of buyers by building junk, and now they have to win them back. People forget that those Baby Boomers started out with Mustangs, Chevelles, Fairlanes, Camaros and Barracudas. Lee Iacocca specifically designed the Mustang with the Baby Boomers in mind, and he obviously succeeded, given the car’s spectacular sales numbers. The switch to the imports really began in the early 1970s, when the Japanese at the low end and the Germans and Swedes at the high end began moving ahead in vehicle design, while the domestics stagnated and let quality slip.

Many of these buyers are perfectly happy with their Toyotas, Hondas, BMWs and Hyundais, and don’t want to look anywhere else. And why should they? yes, domestics are better, and some of their products (Fusion, Mustang, Edge) are very nice. But lots of the much-ballyhooed product is still a notch or two under the best of the foreign competition.

Can we please stop acting as though everyone has some sort of obligation to check out the offerings from Ford, GM and Chrysler before purchasing a new vehicle?

The simple fact is that satisfied customers have little reason to look elsewhere. Honda, Toyota, BMW and a few other foreign marques have done a better job of providing customers with vehicles that meet their needs and desires.

That is not anti-Americanism – it’s How to Run a Successful Business 101.

Ar_Pharazon: In short, the darn hippies just ‘made it cool’ to hate America and American things.

I honestly looked forward to a move away from this mindset as the boomers kids rebelled against their parents (as teens normally do) . . . a resurgence in pride. Darn that chimp GWB as he seems to have set my dream back at least another whole generation.

Left-wing hippies and alleged right-winger George W. Bush are bashed in the same post by the same person.

The times are a-changin’…

Sorry, but George W. Bush can be blamed for lots of things, but the lack of sales appeal of American cars when compared to their foreign competition isn’t one of them.

Last time I checked, Bush did not design the Aztek or the new Sebring; he did not tell Ford to let the Taurus rot on the vine and then release the Freestyle and Five Hundred/Montego with an underwhelming engine; he did not tell GM to keep all of its divisions and feed them badge-engineered versions of the same vehicle; he did not style the Cobalt to look like a warmed-over Cavalier.

Please.

I’ve butted heads with unions a few times and I always came away from it not understanding why there was such an insistence to do anything but get the job done. I can really understand why there is some resentment towards them.

But I don’t agree with your statement that what you purchase makes you a patriot or not.

One of the truths of this country is that we reward ingenuity and hard work. We didn’t build this country on mediocrity and “just good enough”. Why is it that now we’re supposed show support for our country by foregoing the strife towards excellence and just settling for good enough?

If you want to argue that American companies could use a little help in being the best they can be, I’ll cede you that point. However, it sure is tough to swallow when American companies like GM are building parts and assemblies for their “American” cars in a Communist stronghold like China.

How do you think the post WW2 generation would feel about that?

Pch101 . . . this points out the fact that it’s not unions per se, but rather the situation here in the States that unions are fighting to support. In those other highly unionized countries, the government picks up the costs of health care and retirements. It’s not so much the unions here as the fact that they’re preventing the companies from jettisoning their healthcare and pension responsibilities.

I also disagree with your statement regarding US folks purchasing foreign vehicles and prior protectionism. If you think many in ‘the Greatest Generation’ would have bought a Japanese or German car, you must be good at ignoring the elephant in the room. They would not have, for rather obvious reasons. In fact, I think that pre-Baby Boom generations would not have done this because for them the norm was to love their country and try to support it, as is currently the case in much of the rest of the world. Only the ‘me’ generation here in the US (i.e., the boomers) — with marching in the streets and taking over the college campuses as part of their ‘good old days’ — have refined the art of hating your own country to such a high art. The rejection of all things domestic and fawning over the ‘other’ is a direct outgrowth of this and I believe is one of the rarely stated drivers of the trend away from domestics. Yeah . . . not denying the past quality problems . . . but that doesn’t explain the whole story, nor the continued progression in spite of (what apparently many here argue) a turnaround in product.

In short, the darn hippies just ‘made it cool’ to hate America and American things.

I honestly looked forward to a move away from this mindset as the boomers kids rebelled against their parents (as teens normally do) . . . a resurgence in pride. Darn that chimp GWB as he seems to have set my dream back at least another whole generation.

Four guys standing around debating for half a day on whose responsibility and job description it was to move an A/C flex duct on the ground blocking a doorway. The discussion came to an end when I kicked it over to one side so I wouldn’t trip over it.

———

Also, let’s not forget that in Fremont ,California, they build Toyota Corollas and Tacoma trucks with UAW labor. The plant can afford to pay their workers over $70k this year and operate in an expensive area of the country because they’re able to sell lots of cars and trucks.

The biggest threat to the Big 2.5 is its mismanagement at the top. It’s the same management that squanders its precious R&D funds developing Saabarus and Saabilacs that disappear into the ether, while having the audacity to think that a Malibu stands half a chance against an Accord or Camry, or that a Cobalt has any place on our highways and byways next to the Civic and Corolla.

Let’s not forget — every competitor of the Big 2.5 is unionized. The Germans and Koreans, in particular, have unions that make the UAW seems like a Pop Warner team compared to the NFL. Yet somehow, these foreign rivals prove time and again their ability to design and build products that Americans want to buy, and they turn a profit while they do it.

Americans are buying non-domestic cars because they don’t like the local alternatives. GM and Ford only became dominant players in the first place because the US market was more isolated during earlier times, while two world wars did a fine job of setting back the competition for decades. Had they needed to compete in a global market from the onset, the story might have turned out to be quite different.

Toyota invented Total Quality Management; the original Model T’s were built without a QC group ever being involved on the line. Once the US market opened up and rivals got stronger, the beginning of the end was already upon us. The Big 2.5 lose on branding and on product, bungling both to the point that their cars could be built for free by a team of automotive Peace Corps volunteers and they’d still lose money.

Enough of this pointing fingers at everyone and everything else: Big 2.5 management needs to learn what we all learned as kids — when you point a finger at someone else, three are pointing back at yourself. Build cars that people actually want, and they might begin to make money again.

For both the Companies & which ever union:Some days your the bug,some days you’re the windsheild.

No mention of profitability since…it’s entirely possible that initially profits soared when changes were made (plus, as I noted, they were made in a booming economy). But what has happened since? The figures are rather conspicuous by their absence.

And if the article is accurate, Tyler is not attracting first-rate employees with those working conditions…it can’t, as they will find work elsewhere. Quality WILL suffer.

And searching the net for even more information, as you suggested, I found an article in the April 22, 2003 edition of the Tyler Morning Telegraph with this quote:

McWane Corp., parent company of Tyler Pipe, and the United Steelworkers of America on Tuesday announced a joint agreement establishing a top-level safety task force, calling it a major element to increase workplace safety.

He and Mike Wright, USWA director of health, safety and environment in the union’s Pittsburgh headquarters, said the local plants have safety and health committees, but this joint task force will include senior members of the union and management. “Mr. Gerard agreed to encourage participation by union members,” Page said. “The nature and scope of a senior committee is yet to be defined.”

Tyler was already unionized, or is at least working with the union on safety issues (note that it specfically refers to the Times articles, which were published four months earlier, in January 2003). Apparently the union couldn’t do anything to prevent the series of injuries highlighted in the article you posted.

As sad as it seems to us, I dont think “value added” was ever a factor in determining wage prices. In our capitalist system demand for services, not some vague notion of societal benefit, has always determined what someone gets paid.

Obviously, it doesn’t always work out this way, but you can’t base a pricing system on subjective measures like “benefit to society.” It seems to me that regulating wages based on what someone considers value is inherently not capitalist.

For the UAW this is simple, they negotiated their contract at a time when demand for their services was high, and now its not.

Oh, you’d be surprised, Geeber
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C0DE4DD133EF93BA35752C0A9659C8B63

After you’re done reading this, look up Tyler Pipe, and thier parent company, McWane, Inc.

Just because a system isn’t producing the outcome you desire, or isn’t benefiting the people you think it should be benefiting, does not mean that it is corrupt.

Up until about 1980, when the Big 2.5 constituted an oligopoly within the North American market, the ones who benefited were labor and management. Both white-collar and blue-collar employees did very well, especially relative to peers of similar education and experience.

The people who didn’t do well were the customers, who, after 1970, were offered products with ever-escalating price tags and ever-declining quality. In the 1970s, the question wasn’t whether new vehicle prices would rise, but by how much they would rise. As for quality? Compare a 1975 Chevrolet to a 1970 Chevrolet for workmanship and reliability.

The foreign namemplates came in and forced Detroit to clean up its act. This has meant wrenching changes for both management and labor, but it has been a boon for the people who really matter – customers.

Sounds as though the free market is working they way it is supposed to be.

For years, both management and labor thought that the customer existed for their benefit, which is wrong. Management and labor exist to provide a product that customers want. If they don’t do that, they have no reason to exist.

Management gets it, but I’m still not sure that the UAW does.

Ar-Pharazon: You use the concept of a ‘free market’ to assuage your conscience, if you have one. “Let Acme Inc screw over the employees that it doesn’t kill . . . it’s a free market, and they can get other jobs if they don’t like it.” Nice. Real nice.

Any company that regularly allows employees to be killed will not last long. Only the lowest quality employees will want to work there, which means it will have a tough time providing a quality product or service to customers.

This is a strawman argument.

Ar-Pharazon: On a Pareto chart, you often can’t even see the second-worst thing because it’s completely dwarfed by the first-worst thing. Once that’s gone, though, your second problem may suddenly be seen as a big one, too. I’m afraid now that global communism and it’s rash of dictatorships seems to be nearly gone, history will show that the type of unbridled, screw-the-other-guy, me-me-me capitalism currently practiced in the US will show itself to be the ’second-worst problem’ that’s been hidden all these years. If I was a conspiracy nut I’d even say that our current ‘war on terror’ was in part engineered just to try and put it back in second place.

Except that global capitalism is working to improve living conditions worldwide.

Incidentally, if you want to see the “me-me-me” attitude in action, come in to my office and read some statements and review some of the actions of public union officials. They are very good at talking about helping working families, which really means helping public union employees, which almost always means higher taxes for EVERYONE to pay for the benefits and pay they enjoy.

The UAW got what it could while the gettin’ was good. No problem with that. Who doesn’ t like more money and benefits for less work?

But now that competitive pressures are forcing companies to revamp their operations for improved quality and efficiency, the UAW will have to change, and, like any large organization, it does not like it.

Hence my rant on the fact that our capitalism is ‘broken’. It’s the rare person who gets rich by actually adding exceptional value to the rest of our lives. See previous article on the scientist who is producing novel concepts in energy utilization . . . compare his contribution to society and his wealth to that of say . . . Diddy. Or George Clooney. Or Terrell Owens. Or Donald Trump. It’s shameful.

That’s why folks scoff at your statement. Your idea may be great, but the reality of it is a bit different than you intend, I think.

Agreed Jonny… But the Goverment-gun-backed Wagner Act allows them, by “law”, to be wealth destroyers… ie consume more than they produce. They have literally priced themselves out of the market and made themselves uncompetitive. The free-market sets prices (Including wage prices) with supply and demand pressures and prices change minute-by-minute. Being “locked in” to yesterdays higher price guarantees loss/unemployment. We will see if the UAW concedes to global market pressures and work flexibility in 07. The same pressures we non-Union people face everyday.