these businessman would sell their own mothers down the river for the right price.

If they can’t copy it they’ll buy then make copies for cheap. Closer to their goal of US distribution…

I think Ford is bluffing

I wonder how the Swedish people feel… I would be disgusted.

I am disgusted.

Part of me hates this from just buying a Volvo – but part of me likes it since the Chinese have the money to actually prop up and advance an auto manufacturer so it gaurentees Volvo will be around for a long time.

You just wait… Soon enough you will be able to drive your Sweden-Chinese built Volvo S60 to your favorite Chinese Takeout place and order Swedish meatballs to go. Then go to Ikea for some Feng-Shui furniture. I think we know what’s going on, and it’s bigger than just Geely and Volvo…

and maybe Sven can get his hands on a hot Chinese babe? haha.

Hate to double post, but shouldn’t Ford be controlling the IP and licensing it to Geely-Volvo?

Ford has to ask themselves if 2 billion is enough to warrant the risk… and by the way other analysts are saying 2 billion is on the high side. We all know whether we want to admit it or not that somewhere down the road China is going to learn to do it right. And when they do you now have a competitor with not only a competitive product but a massive advantage when it comes to economies of scale. I say if you can do something to at least delay the inevitable it’s probably to your advantage.

After chinese company get the technology they wanted. All volvo workers in sweden will layoffs.
After chinese company get volvo technology, Chinese company kill US auto industry by cheap price volvo copies.

intellectual property? China is a big country. Sweden goverment and Ford can NOT do anything against to China.

I wonder if Walmart will start selling Volvos in the future

I think those hushing outs will yield hash brownies for Volvo employees and managers in Sweden. On a positive note, they should got used to it by now.

This makes me sad. Henry Ford had his ‘issues’ but he and others helped build, and sustain, the American middle class by paying folks enough to buy the very products they were building. Soon, very soon, that will no longer be the case. The jobs left here won’t afford a person the ability to buy anything… except more credit.

I know that the plants that might be idled down eventually, in favor of opening plants in China, aren’t necessarily located in the U.S. but it is emblematic of a larger trend.

Sigh.

Can any of the business whizzes on this site explain to me why car companies won’t consider paying line-workers the minimum wage? Is there some law I don’t know about? Would the Unions immediately bring suit? What’s the issue? Am I really to believe that minimum wage earners in America (just 2-3% of the population) won’t work at a car plant? I need some help on this.

CNN just posted that article about how Americans are overpaid. If you’re worried about jobs fleeing the U.S. then get off your high horse about how much you DESERVE anything more than a safe workplace and the minimum wage. You won’t succeed in convincing foreign workers to raise their demands (that has to occurr internally). The only thing we can control is what we’ll accept as workers. Which is worse: 1. No manufacturing jobs 2. Manufacturing jobs that don’t pay what Americans think they deserve.

Well, so much for Volvo. Now Volvo bites the dust. I just hope Geely will use Volvo technology to improve their own cars rather than pull a Jaguar X-Type and start making their new models based off of Geely sh*tboxes. If that’s the case that’ll be the final nail on Volvos coffin.

SAAB finally gets saved from GM slaughtering them and now Ford sends off Volvo to the chinese slaughterhouse. What a shame.

Factually US is not even in the top 10 of wealthiest GDP countries by anyone’s account. According to CIA public information we are only #17! Other accounts put US at either #12 or #13. There are a lot of countries where populations is doing better then we are. Sweden is fairing much better then we are (at least before recession).
Jobs were leaving US for years, actually since 50’s. First footwear industry left for Italy. US was #1 in footwear manufacturing, but it was cheaper to manufacture shoes in Italy and shoes walked, Then textiles: those migrated to Philippines, Thailand and other Asian countries. Electronics manufacturing emigrated to japan and So. Korea in 70’s and 80’s. Those were bad news for people who worked in those industries, bit good of the rest of us: shoes, shirts, TV’s were costing less. Countries that manufactured those goods could afford our computers, pharmaceuticals, TV shows and films.
The problem today that I don’t see what new industries we will create to substitute losses. The good news is that in US automotive industry is growing sector: VW just hired few thousand people, Toyota plans to move Prius production here, Honda is increasing US capacity year after year. Even Hyundai building their cars in Alabama. This is not a doomsday for auto industry, however, for the rest of manufacturing news are bleak.

@Lionwithoutpride I don’t think there is any law agaist it. What you are suggesting is almost exactly what Circuit City did a couple of years ago. They laid off all thier salespeople, and rehired new ones at a lower pay rate. In a union plant I would imagine this could only be done if a contract had expired, or in bankruptcy. There would be definite downsides. The reputation of the company would be damaged, making it harder to sell their product. The employeer is going to want reliable/motivated employees. Higher salaries allow them to carefully pick who they hire. Simply put is gives them options. These jobs are probably a bit more complicated than you realise. Do you really want the lowest cost labor building the suspension on your next car? However is the $30 a hour for an assembly job above the market rate? Probably, but minimum wage is also below it.

The fact is the US has a high standard of living compared to countries like China. We want a running water, electricity, 2000sqft of living space, a big car ect. Meanwhile people in China will work $1-$2 a day. Unless people here are willing to work for a similar rate the problem would still exist at minimum wage. Could you support a family on that? I can’t, I couldn’t even support myself.

its always the damn chinese!!!

OK, FOrd had to sell Volvo after they saw this:

http://vodpod.com/watch/1548742-sweden-got-talent-naked-guys-dancing

Enjoy

NoMoreGM4Me-

First off, thanks for the thoughtful reply. However, I have to respectfully dissent . . .

That’s just the problem though. You can’t say “I deserve this standard of living.” It’s something you earn and a decreased living standard is what’s required to create jobs then I don’t see an alternative. As far as things like homes . . . hey, a lot of McMansions are already on the market. Let the free market dictate a fair price. Sure, it cost $600,000 for the current owner to buy the home, but the market is indicating it’s worth, say, $430,000. Well, “dems da breaks.” The current owner gets “screwed,” but the new owner paid a fair value. Meanwhile, the former owner can always opt to downgrade and eventually upgrade again. The nice thing about America is that you get as many first chances as you need.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time in China and, I hate to break it to you, but running water, electricity, ever-increasing home sizes and large cars are fairly common. 4.5 years ago the average Chinese person was making $1200 a year. I’ve seen a lot of different figures since then, but $2000+ is almost assured. Keep in mind that, as of 3 years ago, 400 million Chinese had “Western levels of disposable income.” That means that there are more Chinese people with incomes equal to Americans and Europeans than there are Americans. There are still a couple hundred to a few million Chinese living in poverty, but they are a rapidly diminishing class. That said, China STILL has immense worries about the income-gap, but that gap is less of a long-term problem for the Chinese because bare subsistence is improving in China whereas poverty is increasing in America. Ergo, whether we like it or not, we have to take a wage hit at some point. Sooner rather than later and we’ll cede fewer manufacturing jobs. That’s my opinion at least.

The one thing I know for sure is that we don’t emphasize education enough in this country. That’s why you can afford to pay less to an Asian assembly-line-worker and still get a product of excellent quality. We always make excuses for why our kids can’t learn. The simple fact is that we indulge ourselves too much. It’s harder to obtain education in China, but their low-skilled workers do, by and large, obtain quite a respectable amount. I, personally, attribute this to the fact that education is not guaranteed in China. Their children grow up scared of ending up in the fields or homeless. Each child is reminded daily that if they don’t pass the next large exam they won’t earn the right to APPLY to the next level of schooling (there is no guarantee they will be admitted). That means that some kids education ends after elementary school. And while that sounds harsh, consider that there is less illiteracy in China than in the U.S. (read that stat the other day and it blew my mind . . . it’s flipped, literally, in the past decade of my schooling).

We coddle children excessively. The only reason I ever made it to law school is that my parents constantly asked me why I was okay with failure. A few teachers along the way told me that I was failing miserably. A high school teacher wrote in a teacher comment form: James, you are destined to wallow in failure. I kept that form with me through my senior year. By the time I graduated that teacher swore up and down that she never would have written something like that about me, nor could she even imagine thinking it. My grades improved and I actually started getting compliments I deserved. We need some more of that in America. I see too many smart students failing because no one sets the bar high enough for them and no one scares them enough into realizing that they don’t inherently deserve a better standard of living than citizens of other nations. I wouldn’t trade the reproaches of my parents and teachers for anything.

It’s okay if teachers take a somewhat more constructive approach to critiquing students than what I got, but there still needs to be a fear of failure instilled. To accomplish this, by the way, we also have to give teachers a freer hand to punish the petulant students. Parents need to quit assuming their little darling did nothing wrong. Save your righteous indignation for occasions where your child truly was wronged. Let teachers regain the respect they need to run otherwise unruly classrooms through programs that foster HEALTHY (can’t emphasize this enough) fear of the teacher. I firmly believe the fear will give way to reflexive respect.

I don’t mean to beat a dead horse, but we can’t let ourselves have a lower education level than our competitors while simultaneously demanding a higher salary just because we “expect” (read as “demand”) a high standard of living. Well, I could go on and on and I’ve really only focused on the educational aspect, which is just one facet of my argument, but I don’t want to bore you. Again, thanks for replying buddy!

James, you are absolutely correct about education. I think you missed one fact of life that was with you all your life. Your parents badgered you about your education, because you come from that background. There is developmental paradigm psychology “nature vs. nurture”. In your strata it happened to be the same driving force, your “nurture” environment was predicated by your “nature”. Not everyone (95% of population) don’t get that push in life and don’t push themselves either.

In the long run its good that Ford is concentating on Ford ONLY. Who here on this thead has owned a Volvo in the last 5 years?? I have and it was not the greatest nor the worst. But for the price I paid for it, I would say it was not worth it. It had alot of road noise and the plastic noise inside the cabin was like I was in a Chrysler product. I sold it to a neighbor who really wanted it thank god. Volvo is such a niche product here in the states like Saab who will really miss it?? Or who really cares who builds it?? This is a crowded car market and Ford needs to concentrate on building the Ford product line without distractions and $$$ losses that Volvo brings. By the way, I think Ford’s bankers and bondholders have alot to say about what stays and what goes these days…more than any of us will ever know.

I had a Volvo before it was diluted by Ford, And it was an excellent car. Trouble free for the duration of the lease. It was comfee, fast and handled great, but on on the snow (RWD). It became so-so under Ford stewardship.

jdasch1-

I LOVE my Volvo. That said, it wouldn’t bother me too much if the brand was sold to anyone other than the Chinese (or even if it was discontinued). My problem with Chinese ownership is simply not wanting a strong future competitor from having access to the safety tech. I’ve said it a million times, but that’s the last real hurdle the Chinese auto industry needs to jump to make its cars truly exportable to the U.S. Ford will not be able to compete with Chinese companies anytime soon. The Chinese are quite capable of developing safety technology on their own. That said, it’s obvious they’d like to buy the tech to cut a few years out of development. So, really, I just don’t want Ford to shoot themselves in the foot. Even if it would only buy them another 2 years, Ford has it in their hands to delay a future competitor’s rise. There are other ways to raise capital.

Lion

I can see pay staying flat, or having a bit less purchasing power. However the pay for the average Chinese worker is far lower than ours. If there is that much of a correction we are all in for some bad days.

$2000/52weeks = $38.46 a week
$38.46/40hours = $.96 an hour