That’s sure better than what McCain would have done; instead of Taxis for NY , Humvees to Irak.

Gee, what was that rhetoric about not helping U.S. companies that export jobs? How will the new Russian manufacturing operation play in this?

I just might get my bonus & profit sharing check afterall.

You guys had an election? Who’s the black guy?

^ LMAO! ^

good, it really isnt the big 3’s fault at this point, they are doing all they can to turn around but they need the help, GM has the best cars theyve ever put on the road and Ford is starting to show serious promise if they take firm grasp of the Kinetic design language. Chrysler? i dunno but theyre working it out too with the dual clutch V6 powertrain in the pipeline and the amazing new Ram.

Do you at least remember at which corner you relieved yourself while on your way home from the bar that night, Johnny?

man i voted for Batman, not Obama

NO NO NO!!! The government should let the market take its course! Now the big 3 can do whatever they want because they know that the government will bail them out.

There’s still hope for you yet, Beavis
Unlike A4, who seems to have forgotten the last 20 years of automtive history, when the domestics started to seal their fate
DrFill

The Canucks were playing. I thought I was spelling my name on the ice, but it turned out I was pissing all over the TV while trying to follow the puck.

I have said it before and I will say it again, bailouts do not work and they go against the very nature of our economic system. However, we need our auto manufacturers to be healthy so they could, if there ever were a need, convert to military production. So, I guess we pretty much have to bail them out (since it is unlikely that startups like Tesla, which has its own problems, are unlikely to fill the shoes of the “big” 3 anytime soon) with cash loans for operating costs (it has to be direct loans since the banks are hoarding the money they are getting from the current bailout plan). That is no long term solution though. We need to sit down with our Asian and European allies and point out to them that we want them to be strong, but that they cannot maintain their strength at our expense. So, we threaten them with the same quotas they impose on the “big” 3. Re-negotiating the tariffs and quota systems seem to be our only hope of saving domestic manufacturing long-term. Do not get me wrong, free trade is great and protectionism is bad; but, when we are the only ones not employing protectionist measures then free-trade is deadly.

Oh and DrFill-

Sorry about out last pissing contest. We will just have to agree to disagree on the necessity of U.S. manufacturing.

A pre-requisite of a “bail-out” should be to cap the CEO’s salary and bonuses. It should be in the form of long term loan that will be paid back. In the event of an acquisition by a foreign company, the U.S. government holds the first and best lien towards the proceeds. In the event of a bankruptcy, the U.S. government holds a mandatory superlien. No BS toxic auto loan buy back is allowed. The focus is to keep the assembly lines running, not to bail out loan sharks and greedy CEOs who are rightfully burnt!

Sharpie-

After a cursory reading of your comment I cannot see where anyone could complain about such safeguards. It is only fair and it touches on exactly what infuriates 90% of Americans about the current bailout regime.

Sharpie, your first line is the best answer yet. Salary caps should be the first requirement for any sort of government assistance. Actually, your whole post is great.

@Lionwithoutpride, let me get this straight…we are to renegotiate quotas and demand that other countries are to accept third-rate products at a higher cost while some of those very companies are beating us in our backyard making the vehicles the US consumer wants? Wow, there’s some pretzel logic that’s doomed to fail. And you are assuming that the next war on US soil will be fought with vehicles? Man, that’s damn good propaganda. The US does not have the bargaining power it once had, and will not regain it overnight.

Oh good, apparently there’ll be 4-8 years of racist “jokes” on here too. I thought this webpage was for talking about vehicles and the latest news relating to cars & trucks, not as yet another forum for bashing someone because of their skin color. I didn’t expect that from you Johnny, you’ve consistently had the most common-sense, funny, and well thought out comments on LLN, in my opinion.

Gundy, I don’t think Johnny’s comment was racists at all. He mentioned a descriptor of a person. Would you not call someone tall, short, stalky, skinny, old or young? If he had said, “Who’s the guy with the short hair?” would you have taken the same offense? If McCain were elected and were in the picture, and Johnny had said, “Who’s the old white geezer?” would you still have been upset? Johnny used the word “black” as an adjective to describe a person (noun), not as a racist slur. Stop being so sensitive and stop looking for ways to be offended. It’s not becoming of you.

*racist. I don’t know why I kept putting that extra “s” in there, but I at least caught it once.

Lariat-

You really should hit the history books. The U.S. rebuilt Japan’s manufacturing sector post-WWII and many U.S. auto-engineers went to Japan to advise companies like Toyoda (it was Toyoda-the family’s name-before it was changed to Toyota) on how to make cars capable of meeting American specs (this was considered good will). My step grandfather was one of those engineers, which is where he learned to speak Japanese-while being paid by the U.S. government to work for free to help build factories for the Japanese. Moreover, we allowed the leaders of Japan to set quotas that, at least according to one professor I had, allowed less than 14,000 U.S. vehicles per year TOTAL into Japan in the crucial 1960s. We considered it fair to let Japan protect their nascent auto industry from American autos that were far superior in quality. So why should America not now get similar concessions from the Japanese? Also, I am sorry that I did not flesh out the logic for you as you are apparently unaware that in wartime (war as declared by Congress), U.S. auto manufacturers retool their plants to produce things like tanks, fighters, bombers, etc. And, to this day, the Pentagon conducts reviews of U.S. auto manufacturers to see how quickly they can be retooled for massive wartime mobilization.

So, to sum up Lariat, you are stating that it was good for the U.S. to strengthen Japan post-WWII (as we knew we would need a strong Asian ally to serve as a bulwark against communism); but, there is no reason for us to change those policies, which are still in place, that continue to favor the Japanese companies? So, you are in favor of predatory economic policies, which are by definition illegal according to the WTO (the U.S. simply has not brought a complaint re: these matters). Is that pretzel logic?

I just realized that one of my lines is unclear Lariat; so, let me clarify. The U.S. government paid my step-grandfather and other American engineers, but the Japanese companies they designed plants for, taught quality control to, etc. paid nothing.

So Lionwithoutpride,
There are many, myself included, who believe that the big 3 are in the mess they are in currently because for years, even decades, they had little or no competition in what is the largest home market in the world, this lack of competition caused said companies to become lethargic, unimaginative, and corpulent.
It is only because of any competition that the average American isn’t driving around in some separate framed, 120hp 7 liter V8 that struggles to do 80mph without a slope and a generous tailwind.
Now you might say I’m being ridiculous, but one thing I have learned about the American way is that you certainly don’t like fixing what you don’t see as broken, even less so when theres a hint of a profit in it for someone. Pretty much all of the European manufacturers have been through this, those that chose not to change died, the others survived, with improved products, and a lot less of the corpulent behavior that seems to infect ’successful’ American corporations.
Your suggestion to reinforce the attitudes and behavior that created this mess by allowing it to thrive in a protectionist environment is at best ludicrous, at worst dangerous.

Catiadesigner-

Honestly, I am beginning to wonder about the reading level around here . . . I never said we should put in protectionist measures UNLESS they are MIRRORS of those put in place by the Japanese, Koreans or EU nations. Example:

Japan says: No more than 10,000 U.S. cars will be allowed into Japan.
The U.S. says: Okay. Meanwhile, you can export as many Japanese cars to the U.S. as you would like AND you can build them here to get around tariffs.

This is the current state, to which those with brains have replied that the system should be as follows:

Japan says: No more than 10,000 U.S. cars will be allowed into Japan.
The U.S. says: Okay, fine. And no more than 10,000 Japanese autos will be allowed into the U.S.

It is the Japanese, amongst others, who are practicing protectionist measures and yet those like Lariat and Catiadesigner either cannot understand or else they believe that protectionism is good for everyone except for the U.S. That makes no sense. That is the type of lazy logic that foreign corporations thrive upon. Beggar-thy-neighbor policies do not work in the long-run. The hope amongst those of us who have some notion of fairness is that if other countries are not going to live up to free trade that the U.S. will be protectionist for long enough to harm the economies of other countries long enough to bring them back to the bargaining table.

Another point, instead of giving money to a company to make more cars that no one wants, how about giving the money to joe public to but a car, that way the car companies get the money, the working man gets a nice new car, the workers are all busy building said cars everyones a winner.
Apart from the execs who don’t get their sticky fingers on the money first.
And no doubt the banks would cry foul because they wouldn’t be making the interest on all the car loans (that they’re not even making).
Sorry, forget that idea, I forgot we’re talking about a litigation obsessed America…..

I think what is so infuriating to many Americans is that there are so many who claim to: A. understand free-market economics and B. believe the foreign economies the U.S. is dealing with are following the same principles.

Do any of you bother reading history books, newspapers, magazine articles? Everything I have said has been laid out time and again in the Wall Street Journal, The NYT, Time magazine, Newsweek, etc. And yet, it seems like the only thing that folks like Lariat and Catia are getting is that free markets are good. Well congrats guys, welcome to step one. Now start examining the bilateral trade relationships we have and tell me if they are truly free market. If you can find some reason to defend them and define them as non-protectionist I will be impressed as you will have discovered something that the vast majority of historians, political scientists, economists, journalists, etc. have not.

What would I know, I’m only an engineer.
I just know that good product sells, bad product doesn’t.

Catia-

You are right, good product sells and bad product does not. So, how come something like the Flex, that has been reviewed by Leftlane and has come out with flying colors (other than for looks), does not sell? Are looks really that important? Or, are we sophisticated enough to look at history and go: Oh, years of predatory economic policies that helped to make American products more expensive (which begins the vicious cycle of not selling enough, which leads to not making enough, which leads to not having enough to reinvest in product or lower prices on something like the Flex) are now slowing sales of otherwise well engineered vehicles?

Toyotas are widely renowned as being, like the Ford Flex, well built, but of a design that appeals to some, but not all (or even most). Yet Toyotas keep selling. So, maybe a low price combined with an take-it-or-leave it looking vehicle that is well engineered sells. So, really, the economic argument is utterly germane to sales figures.

btw, I realize I have an unfair advantage of being stuck home all night with nothing to do but study Tax Law (the girlfriend is studying for her MPRE tomorrow) and leave whiny rants on Leftlane. So, I’ll leave ya’ll to criticize me sans my whiny responses.

I believe I heard that Hillary Clinton or John Kerry may be our future Secretary of State.
But, honestly, if the government is going to monetarily help out any of the big three, there needs to be stricter and any “relief package” should be more than a nice monetary donation (in a sense). We need to make sure we know WHERE these will be used. A relief package needs to include something to set the COMPANY in the right direction. Keeping quality cars rolling into the streets.

-eat your cereal

I also think you’re living in some sort of bizarre dreamworld if you think that the Japanese are clamoring for chevy’s and pontiacs and Buicks….
Beside it seems the ideas you advocate have been tried before, record profits for the big three that certainly did not go back into the product.
One should never underestimate the greed of those running US companies.
Some interesting reading from 1985 :
2/l/85
THE COSTLY TRUTH ABOUT AUTO IMPORT QUOTAS

Imports into the U.S. of foreign automobiles, mainly from Japan, have been restricted since April 1981 by a so-called “voluntary restraint agreement.” The quotas were imposed in response to pleas by the U.S. auto industry that it needed time to grow strong enough to compete with the imports on the free market. The’ quotas have not come cheap. Last year alone-, it is estimated that Americans paid an extra $5 billion because of the import limits. At the same time, the U.S. auto industry had its best sales year since.1979–earning a recbrd’$10 billion profit. The import restrictions are due to expire at the end of this March. The United Autoworkers. Union, Chrysler and Ford want the quotas con- tinued. General Motors, on the other hand, opposes extension, and the Reagan Administration seems to be leaning in this direction. Were the quotas to be removed, the winner would be the U.S. consumer. winning too would be the U.S. auto industry, which would become more competitive. The “voluntary” limit on cars imported from Japan was negotiated by the Reagan Administration at the urging of the then-ailing auto industry. From 1981 through .1983 the Japanese were allowed to ship 1.68 million cars annually to the U.S.; last year the ceiling was 1.85 million. By restricting the number of imported cars, Washington made it possible for the auto companies to raise prices without fear of losing business to less expensive competitors. Wharton Econometrics calculates that the average price per new car has risen by $2,600 since the market restric- tions were imposed. Brookings Institution economist Robert Crandall estimates that $400 of this price hike per U.S.-made car was possible .only because quotas reduced competition. With 1984 sales of nearly 8 million U.S. cars, the quotas took $3.2 billion out of the pockets of consumers and gave it to the auto industry. Crandall further estimates that the low supply of imported cars mandated by the quotas added $1,000 to the pricetag of every Japanese car sold in the U.S., a total of $1.85 billion in extra consumer costs. The total 1984 bill for U.S. consumers due to auto trade restraints: $5 billion. Some argue that quotas should be extended because the U.S. auto industry is still not economically sound. This is a strange argument.

I wouldn’t go as far as calling them ‘whiny rants’.
I don’t really want to offend anyone but Americans, in general, don’t quite seem to be up to speed with the rest of the world, not your fault, after living here for too many years I’m not surprised at all given the shortsightedness of your media, but thats a discussion for another time.
The flex, i think was just bad timing, not having had the chance to crawl around one for any length of time I can’t really comment on the quality of the vehicle, the styling is take it or leave it but then I do have very European tastes. The Focus on the other hand is a symbol of all that is wrong with the big three, Instead of doing the job properly , as they have in Euro land with a completely new focus, the US spec one is merely a re-bodied series one, The interior is completely different as well, gone are all the nice soft touch plastics in the euro series one for some horrible, hard, cheap feeling, rattly, creaky stuff. Hey, why do anything nice when you can do something terrible and still sell them?
I have lots of ‘inside’ experience in the US motor industry and have seen that exact thought process so many times its sickening.

Bmacc: I wouldn’t say that as the damned jap government have done pretty much everything they could do to protect their precious auto industry, so I don’t see why everyone’s crying foul when Americans try to do it over here. I’m against bail outs as well (particularly with the greedy financial corporations), but it’s an entirely different story with the Domestics. If the Big 3 go down, the consequences for the U.S and its people will be disastrous, on a magnitude no one has ever imagined. It’ll make the Great Depression look like a jolly Christmas party.

@Lionwithoutpride, if you’ve read your history and since I have multinational major corporation business as part of my experience I can tell you that Japan, particularly, is not interested in American automobiles to the extent that you would believe that they are, and so they will never be well received unless there is an amazing transformation by what is left of American automobile manufacturers. I have yet to see the transformation as in the case of GM it is still being led by the same execs who are now suffering from major foot-in-mouth disease. If you read your history is was Edwards Deming who is the hero of the Japanese manufacturing rebirth. And if you read your history Deming could not get his ideas accepted here in the US, even by the very car companies who are headed six-feet under today. Your choice of reading material leaves a lot to be desired, but your propaganda is first-class. Do you sell stocks for a living, because you sound like those analysts who overrate everything and sucker the uninitiated into purchasing stocks that yield no value other than to the analyst? Your nationalism will turn to fatalism for the US as your course is off-course. You cannot support the same of which led us to the very situation that we are in today. GM has not learned its lesson; Ford seems to have done so, but it might be too late; Chrysler ceased being a car company when Cerberus acquired them. I take no satisfaction in the situation of today with the Big 2.0025 as they remind me, shamefully so, of the spoiled young adult who never learns to be disciplined, and lives off mom and dad until mom and dad move away in the night, or die.

No worries, Leon
We both agree the U.S. needs manufacturing, but may disagree over who is qualified to produce for this country.
As you may know, things are gonna start changing around here, one way or another.
Detroit is gonna get one last chance to run a respectable business
They can choose to McCain it, or Obamanate
A scaled down GM, with less than 7-8 divisions, and Ford, with a combined 30-35% of the market, is probably the new reality.
Lincoln, Mercury, Pontiac, Buick, GMC all should fold.
When they figure out how to run one division well, then they can run two, and so on.
DrFill

The thing as well is that I have seen all this protectionist nonsense before in the UK,and look at what happened there, now if the Auto exec’s are so stupid that they cannot see the same thing happening here then they really shouldn’t be in the job.
The British government got involved in industry in a big way in the 60’s, basically forcing mergers upon disparate companies, so we ended up with the behemoth that was British Leyland, A highly inefficient, highly unionized organization that produced very poor quality product and relied on peoples patriotism to sell anything at all. It was led by very poor quality management that would quite happily chop off its nose to spite its face, the leadership of the individual divisions was very highly politicized with each division trying to out do the other to gain the upper managements favor, usually by undercutting each other to a degree that made no sense to anyone but the most shortsighted of accountants.
Fast forward to the eighties, sales have declined to such an extent, there is no money for the development of product, non essential divisions are ruthlessly disposed of, leaving thousands unemployed, just the core brand is left, a tie up with a Japanese partner is negotiated but the middle management left over from the bad old days still cannot accept that they don’t know best and continue to make poor decisions, errors of judgment and just plain stupid moves, the Japanese partner wants nothing more to do with them and sets up its own manufacturing facility.A premium German brand takes over and after recognizing that it cannot make old dogs do new tricks sells off most of the operation.Slowly, inevitably that which is left whithers and finally dies, cue tens of thousands more redundancies.
The sad part is that one of the plants previously occupied by the now defunct company is producing Mini’s at efficiency and quality levels they couldn’t even dream of in the old days.
Honda operate one of their most efficient plants, in the UK, and what both Toyota and Nissan have done with their UK plants is nothing short of mind boggling.
For my sake and that of many others I sincerely hope the same doesn’t happen here.

about an earlier comment the focus for the European market is a midsized car it cost the equivalent of 30,000 USD not exactly a reasonable price for”joe six pack”, “joe the plumber” and “joe the NASCAR dad”. i mean that is high Camry territory. have more leeway for profitability like that means you can build a better car trying to make money off of a 15,000 USD focus is a lot harder if you try to class up the interior. I am not saying it is impossible to make it better but it isn’t likely. and BTW the focus is terrible it looks like cat **** with wheels but it is better then the 90’s escorts. i have a 2005 civic and really the build quality is not as good as my civic but it isn’t really that bad and i am very picky in switch gear. new dodge journey is terrible, more like dodge journey out of my ass

Lariat-

I have not argued that the Japanese want our cars and I agree with you that they probably do not at this point. That said, lean on the Japanese to do away with their quota system and the American domestics will have a chance to get their foot in the door. Ironically, even with a large population, the size of Japan and excellent pork-funded public transit mean that Japan will probably never be a great market for the U.S. companies . . . which means China, which a NYT’s reported noted was making all the same mistakes as the U.S. in terms of being a personal auto focused culture, is probably going to be the best export market for Americans. And, even then, it is unlikely the Americans will continue to make gobs of money in China as the local partnering rules and quickly growing Chinese auto industry will eventually halt American inroads. So, the sad truth I have to own is that, in all likelihood, the U.S. domestics will HAVE to flourish in the U.S. long-term. Lariat, you are a smart guy with some pretty insightful comments, so if you can think of a means of re-tooling America’s domestics into winners . . . out with it.

DrFill-

I actually agree with your post to me. I am just not sure if it is feasible to do it fast enough (those Union contracts are tough to renegotiate, so it seems like you would have a glut of cars from just one or two of GM’s brands for the foreseeable future . . . unless they paid the workers to do nothing for a very long time).

Catia-

As far as all the protectionist talk you seem to think I am spewing, I guess I have been unclear. I am not in favor of protectionist measures; but, you have to come up with something better than suggesting the domestics put more quality into their vehicles. At this point, with their books in the red, that is utterly unlikely. Even if we could accomplish what all of us on this site seem to want, which is to reduce the pay of the Allan Mullaly’s and Wagoner types, it would not produce the savings needed to free up the cash to accomplish the betterment of the products. As far as efficiency goes, the U.S. was, yet again, the most efficient manufacturer in the world last year (no doubt the numbers WERE helped tremendously by the foreign-owned factories), so more efficiency is not going to save money.

As much as I hate protectionist policies, we may have to look at anti-dumping laws. Would this result in exactly the scenario you mentioned in your history lesson? Yes. However, you forget that through most of the 1980s the U.S. economy was doing pretty well (admittedly the protectionist American mood did not wane until we were into the nineties and the Asian Tigers went through their own “lost decade” as their economies collapsed). I will admit; however, that I cannot get around your point that U.S. cars were pretty uninspired in the 1980s. So maybe it is all a wash? Maybe no matter what we do, the trend is going to be for the imports to rise and the domestics to fall. I know I am being alarmist when I say it; but, while I have few answers I do know one thing. To paraphrase one of Obama’s cronies who was on Larry King tonight: If we do not do something about the domestic auto industry’s decline we are going to see 3.4 MILLION people out of work in early 2009.

The Unions are in a no win situation, because they’ve helped put management in a no-win situation.
They’ve overleveraged their situation, against a company that has to compete with labor costs from the 3rd world
Either they make it work for the maker, or you risk having 100% of nothing.
These labor battles may cost them the war.
Unions are good, until they manage your business for you.
Things will change.
One way, or another.
DrFill

Sorry to harp on with the protectionist thing after it had been resolved, my apologies.
The point I was trying to make with my last post is that despite British Leyland / Rover’s mismanagement the UK is still a large producer of Motor vehicles, they just are not from domestic brands, I was trying to draw parallels with the situation the US auto industry now finds itself in with the references to British leyland.
Huge inefficient corporations that don’t seem to have the will, desire or ability to make the necessary changes to ensure their survival. Of the big three it is Ford and GM that have the best chance to adapt because they have already adapted to other world markets.
The fact that Nissan, Honda, and Toyota and the BMW mini plant at Cowley prove that highly efficient production can take place in the UK shows how wrong the BL/Rover management were in their inability to restructure effectively and now they no longer exist.
Just handing vast amounts of cash to the big three is not going to solve a thing, I can assure you that product quality and plant efficiency are a very long way down the priority list for people like waggoner, Nardelli and Mullaly and their management teams.
There needs to be wholesale change from within, I think history and current events are proving that current practices do not work and have not worked for quite a while.

catiadesign- Pretty much the at the top of the list for GM, Ford and most of all Cerberus is reducing costs at plants. In the process that means making more efficient changes, as well as getting rid of quite a few. As of right now, it’s definitely at the top of their list. Their plants and inability to move vehicles off show room floors, as well as management is whats sucking out the most money. Their ONLY concern at the moment is to lightly push forward with their existing vehicle development programs, and to reduce costs and overhead.

And the UK would be a great example of what’s happening in the U.S…. but not if your blaming it on management. Not to say they didn’t have piss poor management. They lost millions on millions to labor disputes and… unions. Protesting and skipping work for weeks on end. The only resolution they would accept was one that would go their way. That crippled their ability to change and come out with new products. The result was 1960’s and 70’s products built on immediate post war products. And even in some cases pre-war engineering. They spent their last few pennies coming out with a few innovative vehicles, that could have sold well… if there were any workers left at the plant. All of them were gone drinking a beer, “protesting” what they considered poor management and pay. Fact was, they were trying to live off of the industry they worked for. They all ended up collapsing.

I wouldn’t say it’s as bad in the U.S. yet, but some of the rates that these union workers get paid are that ridiculous. Health care and a whole different set of variables that neither the union or automakers have control of also are in play. Fortunately, no major strikes have happened on a huge scale… I thought there would be last year, but fortunately GM came to a pretty good agreement. Also, healthcare will be off of GM’s back by 2010, since the unions are going to be managing that. That’ll save GM somewhere around 50 billion dollars, although their going to have to cash out about 30 billion before 2010. Surely a price to pay, with money that GM is struggling to manage.

How about we all just see how all of this is going to play out, give the guy a chance he’s not even in office yet, and with the threat’s of some supremacists extremist groups, we can just hope that he make threw this first term…
I for one voted for the guy, I will like it if he can get us out of this mess we’re in…

I feel for the Big 3. They are in a tough situation. But, we forget that these companies are run by americans making & selling products t o americans. Alot of you say they did it to themselves by only producing large SUV’s and gas guzzling trucks. That’s what the American public wanted! They catered to our wants and made a great profit doing so. Why do you think Toyota, Nissan & Honda all started building larger vehicles? That’s what everyone wanted! The bigger the better. Should Ford or GM have had the foresight to see this recession coming? I don’t know if anyone seen the triple threat of the housing market imploding, gas prices soaring and the credit market freezing. If either of the CEO’s at the Chevy or Ford could have foreseen this, started R&D to be ready, I think I would have voted for one of them for POTUS. The CEO’s (and I’m not including Mulally in this statement, he’s new to FoMoCo) simply rode the bubble of the self indulgent american way just like the rest of us. How many of you have negative equity in your homes? How many of you at least thought about buying a house to flip? Why do we blame the Big 3? The government handed $700 billion to alot of these banks that knew their lending practices were flawed. Why not “LOAN” the BIg 3 5% of that money to try to turn this country around. If the american auto industry fails, standby…..it’ll get really ugly.

Did you know that GM & Ford top the list of in terms of spending on research & development in America, spending $12 billioion annually? 3rd place – Microsoft.

GM & Ford combined have nearly 100 major plants in the US. (Toyota, Nissan & Honda have 8 combined!)

GM either directly or indirectly supports the employment of 900,000 americans.

Beginning in 2009, Toyota will no longer make the Sequoia & Tundra.

Didn’t Nissan (a japanese company) almost go bankrupt in the 1990’s? Yes, they did. What saved them you ask? The american economy did.

No company deserves to go bankrupt. We the people of this country lose their jobs, lose their homes to hurricanes, get struck with an illness that keeps them from working the US government steps in to help. If we don’t help the Big 3 there will be alot of people that will need unemployment, WIC, food stamps, free health insurance. I guess it’s just a question of would we rather “loan” some $ to help the economy or just wait until no one has a job or home & help them. I do have a better solution – Give a $5000 tax credit to people who purchase a NEW AMERICAN vehicle. When people buy cars, they borrow $, they pay taxes on the purchase, they stimulate the economy! Then we don’t have to give away any $!

BTW, does anyone know how much the execs. of these companies make? We complain they are overpaid & I would complain too, but I haven’t seen anything that states their pay. I’m all for regulating the salaries & bonus of all the blow hards that run these companies.

holy long torturous paragraphs and highly educated words batman- we seem to have edumakated peoples on this web thingy ma jiggy

What’s up with the long paragraphs writings? You guys do know that this is the internet right?

Yeah really. I hate when people type these long paragraphs.

On the contrary, those ‘long’ and ‘torturous paragraphs’ make for great reading if you take the time. I’ve been a contributor to this forum for a little over a year and I’m willing to bet I’m not the only one who’s noticed that the level of discussion has unquestionably risen a notch or two. The format change took the steam out of this board for a short period, though I’d bet our frustration was nothing compared to that of the designers. I would also be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the work of the LLN ‘police’ in maintaining a certain level of decorum, and the likes of writers such as Mark Elias and Andrew Ganz, who despite being paid to do what many of us would do for free are only too happy to join a thread when queried.

Anyway, enough blowing smoke up everyone’s *ss. On October 31st I made a flippant remark (I know, there’s a first) about dressing up as Kerkorian and handing out Ford shares on Halloween night. I think it was Payton Byrd who basically implied he’d take them because should they survive where do they have to go but up? Well, that got the ol’ hamster wheel in Johnny’s noggin turning. I’ve never been a player in the markets other than through my employer, but this week I submitted all the necessary paperwork to my outstanding Canadian financial institution to start trading online. I’m going to put my money where my passion is and buy shares in Ford for sure and maybe GM as well. There’s nothing scientific here, just a gut feeling, but when you drink as much beer as I do that’s pretty hard to ignore.

Now that you idiots have solved the domestic car crisis and detailed the history of British coach building of the later half of the 20th century… perhaps you can move on to say, abolishing world hunger.

Nah, Mutant@DCX. Considering your comment, we obviously need to work on education first. Do you perhaps have an opinion on the article above, or did you really spend the twenty minutes or so skimming everyone else’s posts with the full intent of regaling all of us with your witty banter?

Everyone believes their point to be valid. Agree to disagree, and all that. I think we should try to keep all posts to 1000 words, or less.

Everything needed to save the industry will be done. Unfortunately, in doing so, the country will go bankrupt. It is not a matter of if but when. Save yourselves and buy gold.

gold is a lousy investment. Just when do you buy it and sell it?? It bounces around like a ping-pong ball. Can’t eat it…can’t drive it to work…can’t trade it at the store for food…why own it unless your so scared that your ready to sh*t your pants about it all. A volitile market is a traders dream. Buy low debt companies, that make needed idems and pay a dividend. The whole market is off and only the strong know how to capitalize from it. On the subject of saving one or all of the US auto businesses, I believe its the collapse of the suppliers that will take down all of them. From Tier 1 to Tier 4 suppliers, they will go bankrupt. It only takes just a few less orders of Axles and trannies to stop the train on everybody. One radiator company may make radiators for 6 companies…and all it took was GM or Chysler to go down to fold them up. Worse yet are the Tier 2 suppliers of complex electrical idems like crash sensors and lighting modules that supply to every auto maker, go down and it takes years to retest, certify and build new replacements for everyone. Delphi comes to mind. Ford uses their parts, Honda and etc… Delphi will fold when GM folds. Like Dana folding when Dodge goes away…we are all in this together to get it right…Hopefully the money will be used wisely.

‘jdasch’, you’re too lost to save.

But here’s a guarantee … buy gold Monday and make $500 when it hits about $1250 within eight months, maybe far sooner.

One last thing, I never said buy a bar … there are many avenues in gold investing.

GOOOO OBAMA!!!

How can you have intelligent discussion with people who make silly import fanboy talking points like “they make vehicles no one wants”? Are you people idiots? GM and Ford sell about 35-40% of the vehicles sold in the US today and we have people saying they dont make anything people want. People want the Focus. People want the Malibu and CTS and Enclave. Just because die hard import lovers who loathe the Big 3 hate every product that they make doesnt mean NO ONE wants those products. GM makes more vehicles that people want than Toyota or Honda or Nissan in the US market. Ford makes more vehicles that people want for this market than Nissan, Honda and Hyundai. I do not see why hundreds of thousands of current workers should suffer because people here are mad about management moves made in the 80s. Who gives a damn? All that should matter to the CURRENT workforce is that GM and Ford appear to be on the right track from a design, quality and fuel efficiency standpoint. They are doing all the things people have demanded of them for years and people here say they deserve to go under because of mistakes made in the 1950s-1980. You are a certified idiot if you believe that the Big 3 execs should have been wary of Japanese automakers in the 1950s. The most advanced and established auto industry in the world isnt typically going to be on the lookout for a start up auto industry in Japan were the cars were tiny, the quality was mediocre and the engines were barely strong enough to power a motorcycle. We can all agree that certain lessons should have been learned faster but 90% of the mistakes had nothing to do with current GM/Ford employees.

As for SUVs and trucks we should note that EVERYONE got on board with the SUV craze, even Toyota. IN the early 2000s all of the import manufacturers were racing to catch up on the SUV/pickup front in order to cash in on the big profits. If SUVS and pickups were so dumb why was Toyota investing billions into such programs? And dont say “but they never stopped investing in cars”. I cannot stand when people make that ridiculous statement. The CTS, C6 vette, Fusion, Aura, Solstice, 300, Mustang, Taurus/500, Cobalt, G8, G6, etc. are trucks? Do they look like trucks to you people? The Big 3 may have over invested in large vehicles (which made sense when they were profitable) but they never stopped investing in cars. Unlike Toyota these companies are beholden to stockholders and profits. When large vehicles were selling it made perfect sense to invest in them because they were profitable. If they hadnt capitalized the same critics would have been saying they were late to the party and allowed the Japanese to beat them to the punch on SUVs. No one knew gas was going to jump to $4 and if Toyota knew they surely were stupid for investing $1billion in a new plant for the 14mpg Tundra.

No matter what the truth always comes out. For years we have been reeading fawning press coverage of Toyota and their infallable business plan. The pundits said “see, Toyota predicted the gas price increase and is making billions”. WRONG. They were making many b illions when the US economy was strong and their profitable trucks were selling. Now Toyota is using 0% to move metal (something all the critics have beat up on Detroit about) and ther operating profit forecasts have plummeted. I read that they likely lost money in the US and Europe in teh last quarter. If Toyota decison making is so genius how is this happening? Why are sales of virtually every Toyota and Lexus model down for the year? Why is Toyota talking about making production and labor cuts? Until now we have been told “they did it to themselves, watch them burn” with regards to the Big 3 but we know know that high gas prices and the credit crunch have caught EVERYONE off guard, even Almighty Toyota.

Sj
How can you have intelligent discussion with people who make silly import fanboy talking points like “they make vehicles no one wants”? Are you people idiots? GM and Ford sell about 35-40% of the vehicles sold in the US today and we have people saying they dont make anything people want. People want the Focus. People want the Malibu and CTS and Enclave. Just because die hard import lovers who loathe the Big 3 hate every product that they make doesnt mean NO ONE wants those products. GM makes more vehicles that people want than Toyota or Honda or Nissan in the US market.

For years we have been reeading fawning press coverage of Toyota and their infallable business plan. The pundits said “see, Toyota predicted the gas price increase and is making billions”. WRONG. They were making many b illions when the US economy was strong and their profitable trucks were selling. Now Toyota is using 0% to move metal (something all the critics have beat up on Detroit about) and ther operating profit forecasts have plummeted. I read that they likely lost money in the US and Europe in teh last quarter. If Toyota decison making is so genius how is this happening? Why are sales of virtually every Toyota and Lexus model down for the year? Why is Toyota talking about making production and labor cuts?

Turns out the pundits are no sharper than you or I.
A bad year for Toyota is making $25 Billion.
A good year for the domestics is making $4-5 Billion
Does Toyota know the US market better than the domestics? You bet your ass they do! People don’t buy Camrys and Accords and Civics because they want to buy them. They buy them because they are the best.

You pound your chest like GM and Ford having 40% of the market is some type of referendum on their desirability.

20 years ago it was almost 70%!

You know who buys the domestics now? People who don’t like within 50 miles of an import dealership, out in the sticks, and businesses who can buy in bulk on the cheap.

The normal retail customer has left the domestics, in the last generation. 30% of the market. In a generation. Believe it. Why?

Why make the mistakes my parents made? I lived through it once. Live and learn. Other companies do it better. It’s too far gone to bring them back now. You have to wait for the other guy to drop the ball. We had our chance, and we blew it.

I don’t like it. You don’t like it. But it’s the truth. We are a service society now. Deal with it.

Obama and the government can hand them money, but that won’t solve the problem. Americans don’t want to go back to American cars. Find out why before you blame the consumer.

DrFill

I’m no fan of Obama, but certain policies of his I do agree with, and this is one of them. There’s 5 MILLION American jobs at stake here, and if the Big 3 fail, all of those jobs are gone with them – forever. That would put the U.S. economy into a Depression, the likes of which none of you have ever seen nor could imagine. If you don’t think the collapse of the Big 3 would matter, you’re a fool.

Dr. Fill

1. People in metro areas buy domestic. Trust me. My metro area had 5mil and I see Malibus, Enclaves and CTS’ ALL THE TIME. Get a clue

2. Toyota has projected profits to fall to about $6B for the year. That is a major decline from last year and they are losing money in the US market.

3. GM still sells more vehicles that Toyota in the US so logic dicatates they know what consumers want more than Toyota.

4. Ford’s quality is on par with the Japanese according to CR which calls in to doubt you claims that “they do it better”. Wrong again.

5. Share was 60% 20 years ago because Hyundai was barely on the map, the Japanese didnt make many trucks, vans or SUVS and the German brands only dealt in high end vehicles that were very expensive and inaccessible to most Americans. All that has changed and that has led to more marketshare for the foreign automakers. There was a time when Sears and Kmart had a lot of marketshare to but a juggernaut called Walmart have consumers more choices and diverted those Kmart dollars into their coffers. Increased competition leads to fragmentation of the market. Without foreign competion VW and MB and BMW would have far greater share in Europe. You keep presenting facts in a vacuum. If the foreign automakers had the exact same lineups as 20 years ago your point would be valid.

6. You have completely ignored Toyota’s troubles in the US since you seem to worship them. Lexus and Scion are stumbling big time. The Tundra is a flop and plants have been idled. They have delayed construction of a plant in Missippi due to lack of demand for the highlander. Prius sales are down. The only reason they look OK is because the BIg 3 are doing far worse in 2008.

“Does Toyota know the US market better than the domestics? You bet your ass they do! People don’t buy Camrys and Accords and Civics because they want to buy them. They buy them because they are the best.”

This is one of the dumbest things you posted. The Accord has been outsold by the Impala for two straight months and sales are down big time. The camry is selling with massive discounts. Civic sales have crashed since spring when the civic was the #1 vehicle for a month. The Camry is a mediocre car and reviews support that. The car sells on reputation alone right now but the public will catch on eventually.

“You pound your chest like GM and Ford having 40% of the market is some type of referendum on their desirability.”

You would have to be completely braindead to suggest that entities that control 40% of ANY given market are not making anything consumers want. Would you say the same for the computer industry? Cell phone industry? retail? if Target and Sears have 40% of the department store market would you argue they are irrelevant retail options for consumers? Of course not. Toyota and Hona have about 25-30% of the US market but according to you they dominate US auto sales and are the primary companies giving people what they want. I would hardly call 30% of the market a referendum on their desirability. I would argue that means 75% of the populace doesn’t want a Toyota or Honda product.

Dr. Fill’s hemorrhoid’s ooze import-loyalty.

Why is anyone bothering to argue with ‘DrFool’?

That chimp ‘1115′ is reincarnated and there are still people wanting to have a tete-a-tete over the same SHIAT?

Ignore the biatch … she likes effeminate design to go with her purse.

The problem with the Big Three is that they got their asses handed to them when gas prices skyrocketed over the past 2 years. They did not spend enough money making alternative fuel vehicles instead of churning out SUVs in the 90’s. Their executive leadership has always been a step behind the asians and europeans on quality and design. I think we have to bail them out but also set conditions in doing so. We bailed out Chysler in the 80’s yet they made crap cars like the K car and Omni. I do think they can turn it around, at least GM, but need some time. I would have bought the current malibu had it been available in ‘05 when I bought my Accord. I have bought 5 imports in 20 years for myself and wife and never even considered an American car until recently.

Impulsive
That beeping noise meeans you are too close to the school
Don’t make me take my belt off!

sj
When you lose 25% in 25 years that means you suck!
Only you would pat a domestic on the back as they rocket to the grave!
And only those that can’t get a prime loan from an import maker (roaches)will buy you.
Nobody puts money on the hood, and desperation in their voice, like a domestic
I’ll miss those shills
DrFill

Actually, ‘fool’, that’s my truck backing up and ready to load up on gold.

Maybe you can stand blindfolded behind on of the really big wheels.

…ONE of the, not ON the …

Beatusmongous, you are correct. Sorry for over-reacting Johnny and all, I should have known better. That was dumb to type one in that quickly without really thinking about it, that’s how wars get started. Sorry about that.

No idea why the extra text is below my last post..

No biggie, Gundy. We’re all guilty of it from time to time, including me.

I’m never guilty of it … I’m perfect. Only FACTS, ALL the time.

And, ‘Gundy’, don’t worry about the extra text … it’s LLN and their failure to run a properly working web site … they are clueless about doing things right … just look at the spelling and grammar in their articles.

HA. They must type faster than they think, like I do sometimes..

But they’re supposed to look professional, polished, top quality … instead, they are second rate.