Boycott Of GM Called

I am a GM employee, and I am personally glad the government stepped in to assist us. If they hadn’t, I and thousands of others would likely have been out of a job very soon. There are a lot of good, hard working GM employees that would have suffered if that happened. In addition, the ripple effect of all those people being out of work would only serve to further cripple an economy that is already on the verge of collapse.

I guess I don’t understand the animosity toward GM just because the government has taken a temporary stake in the company. The government wanted something for its investment, and I don’t blame them for that. If the government had plans of keeping its ownership indefinitely, and controlling the business, I would have a problem with that too. However, the plan is for GM to buy out the government’s interest as quickly as possible. There is already a timetable being put in place for divestment. While they hold a stake in the company, their only input will be to provide oversight on major expenditures. So far, they have not objected to any of the plans GM had previously announced for new models, R&D, and new technology. Hopefully that will continue.

Now, I don’t like the fact that the government has a majority stake in the company either, but if that is what it took to help GM survive during this economic crisis, I’m all for it. For those that want to boycott GM just because the government has a temporary stake in it, I guess that their prerogative. However, please let me know who you work for, or what your business is, so I can be sure to return the favor if I get the chance.

Phillip

What economic crisis? You must mean the one the government is playing up. Scaring everyone half to death so that they can take more control of everything. So that the new administration can be the saviors. I understand that Detroit and some other isolate parts of the country are having problems. I also understand that our government created a financial banking mess.

What folks object to is the way our tax dollars are being wasted and the out of control borrowing.

Want to fix the domestic auto industry? Then kick the UAW out. They are the ones that created the domestic auto mess. The best thing that could have happened to GM was for them to face the mess on thier own so that they could fix the real problems and not hide from them, all the while spending borrowed money.

The government is not the answer to GM's problems, they will only make it worse because what they are doing will not work and never has.

The government did not bail out the auto industry. They are bailing out the UAW! Pure politics, that simple.

P S I seriously doubt the American tax payer will ever get thier money back from GM.

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Originally Posted by Franco

What economic crisis? You must mean the one the government is playing up. Scaring everyone half to death so that they can take more control of everything. So that the new administration can be the saviors. I understand that Detroit and some other isolate parts of the country are having problems. I also understand that our government created a financial banking mess.

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If there is no economic crisis where you live, please tell me where it is, so I can move there. There are pockets of this country that have been devastated by the economy. MI is one of them, but even where I live in KS, we are feeling the effects. Housing prices have fallen. I have neighbors and friends that have either lost their jobs or taken wage reductions. Most of those that have lost jobs are having a hard time finding a new one. Municipalities have had their budgets slashed, and services have been reduced or eliminated. There are so many people out of work in MO, the State though it might run out of money to pay unemployment benefits. I am in fleet sales, and my sales will probably be half of what they were last year. Several businesses I normally sold to are now out of business. Some customers are just trying to weather the downturn in business, so they cannot afford to replace vehicle that are getting old. Some of my largest customers are either buy half of what they normally buy, or not buying at all because their business is so bad. I have a large beer company as a customer. Their distributors normally buy 200 – 250 vehicles per quarter. Last quarter they bought 50. When people stop buying beer, you know something is wrong. I think it would be more accurate to say there are a few isolated parts of the country that are not being affected by the current economic crisis. The fact is, our economy has been on a downward spiral since 2004. Our government just kept lying to us and telling us the underlying economy was strong, when it wasn’t.

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Originally Posted by Franco

Want to fix the domestic auto industry? Then kick the UAW out. They are the ones that created the domestic auto mess. The best thing that could have happened to GM was for them to face the mess on thier own so that they could fix the real problems and not hide from them, all the while spending borrowed money.

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The UAW is not the problem. I agree they have put some unnecessary costs in the system by backing workers that should be discharged. Some of the benefits were probably above and beyond what the manufacturers should have been obligated to provide. However, it has been unions that are largely responsible for raising the standard of living in this country. If the unions hadn’t secured health care and other benefits for its workers, no one would be giving it to their employees today.

Now people want the U.S. auto workers to accept pay and benefits on the level of what the Japanese plants in the U.S. are paying. If you notice, all those import plants went to state where the cost of living and wages were low. The people there were happy to take the lower wages because it was still more than they would have been able to make in most other jobs locally. Well, now, the UAW will have wages and benefits lowered to match the imports. But, please explain how lowering wages, and thus the standard of living, is going to benefit anyone?

U.S. auto plants provided a good living for a lot of people with minimal educations that allowed them to send their kids to college, so they could do better than their parents. That trend may now be a thing of the past.

A greater problem is unfair trade practices. Level the playing field, and the U.S. auto companies can compete. The Japanese have subsidized their auto companies for a long time in one form or another to give them an advantage in the markets they wanted to sell into. They sell over a million vehicles in the U.S. every year. Yet, we cannot sell anything into Japan. A $25k U.S. made car costs about $50k by the time it gets to Japan.

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Originally Posted by Franco

The government is not the answer to GM's problems, they will only make it worse because what they are doing will not work and never has.

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How do you know it will not work? What are you basing that on?

Franco never worked a day in an auto plant. Yet, he KNOWS all about the UAW and unions. I suppose he would like a nice car built by no skill illegal immigrants paid slave wages.

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Originally Posted by zeus3925

Franco never worked a day in an auto plant. Yet, he KNOWS all about the UAW and unions. I suppose he would like a nice car built by no skill illegal immigrants paid slave wages.

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Maybe buy a car from a comany that was broken up by a 32 year old (Brian Deese) that knows nothing to very little about the auto industry, a CEO (Edward E. Whitacre Jr.) who states "I don't know anything about cars," and a union leadership who have never managed a company and during their negotiations with the company "never" considered the health of the company only the benefit package for their workforce would be a better choice.

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Tsk, tsk Mike....I thought that of all people you would have chosen a product produced under a free enterprise capitalist system and bought a Ford....and you would have gotten a better truck to boot:-P:-P

Why are all these folks saying they want to help American workers and buy a GM??? Ford is just as, if not MORE American now.

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I will never own another Ford again after the constant tie-rod problems I had on two Ford units I owned in the past.

I really like this new GMC unit.

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Originally Posted by subroc

...a union leadership who have never managed a company and during their negotiations with the company "never" considered the health of the company only the benefit package for their workforce would be a better choice.

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The key word here is "negotiation". There are two sides to every negotiation. In terms of negotiating firepower I'd still put my bets on the company.

In normal circumstances, unions are were never constituted to provide management for a company. It is a irresponsible union leader that isn't mindful on the effect of they have on a company. The UAW has been making substantial concessions to the the manufacturers for quite sometime now and it has accelerated during the current crisis.

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Originally Posted by Blackstone

The UAW is not the problem. I agree they have put some unnecessary costs in the system by backing workers that should be discharged. Some of the benefits were probably above and beyond what the manufacturers should have been obligated to provide. However, it has been unions that are largely responsible for raising the standard of living in this country. If the unions hadn’t secured health care and other benefits for its workers, no one would be giving it to their employees today.

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That makes no sense. You say "The UAW is not the problem". The next two sentances you contradict your initial claim. Then try to justify why the problems the UAW contributed to are okay. The UAW was doing part of their job and doing it very well, to the demise the rest of their job. I say that because they were able to negotiate inflated labor rates, full pensions, health care for life, etc. for union members. At the same time they were helping drive GM right into the ground. If the UAW was truely out to do what was best for it's members they would have taken that into account. What good have they done if they cause the company its members work for to go bankrupt? I don't think the UAW was the entire problem, but they certainly played a major role. They have a me, me, me attitude, which finally broke GM.

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Originally Posted by Blackstone

But, please explain how lowering wages, and thus the standard of living, is going to benefit anyone?

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The wages and benefits the UAW negotiated for members is atrificially high. Look around the rest of the manufacturing industry and see how inflated those wages are. I read somewhere the other day that every GM bought has the price inflated by an extra $1400 to cover the costs of pensions and health care benefits compare to its foreign owned competitors in the US. That means a GM vehicle that cost $20,000 is inflated by 7% over the competition. That is pretty significant. How could GM and the UAW expect to compete with that?

These are good articles that talk about inflated wages and other effects of the UAW.

http://http://midwest.chicagofedblog...in_automo.html

http://http://www.nationalreview.com...0511290819.asp

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Originally Posted by junfan68

I will never own another Ford again after the constant tie-rod problems I had on two Ford units I owned in the past.

I really like this new GMC unit.

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Mike, you know I am just busting your chops.....

106K miles and no tie rod problems on my Ford regards;),