GM Flight Dept?

[AA717driver]

The problems facing the Big Three are not going to be solved outside of Ch. 11(365/1113). They HAVE to fix/eliminate their retiree issues.

When these contracts were first developed, most blue-collar workers died in their 60's. Now, with the "30 and out" still in place, retirees are leaving at age 50 and living well into their 70's and beyond.

My uncle, living on a UAW pension has been retired longer than he worked. The automakers have MILLIONS of people who have retired and are living on their pensions and medical.

Issue 2: As someone said above, they have ailenated so many people in this country with crappy cars and crappier service, millions of us will never buy another Big Three vehicle. The quality sucks and their answer is to tell you to screw yourself.

This is a problem that needs to be solved by the UAW and the BOD. The UAW needs to amend their contracts and the BOD needs to tell management that their way of doing business is broken.

Absent those first steps, these companies will fail regardless of any "bridge loans". Talk about a Bridge to Nowhere...

TC

 

[G4G5]

Hi TC,

A year maybe even 6 months ago I would have said the exact samething. But, in todays economy this could be the big one. 6 months ago the Fed would not even acknowledge that we were in a recession, today everyone is talking about the great depression.

IMHO, in todays current economic climate, letting GM go into ch11 would be devistating. It's not just GM or F, it's all the jobs the suppliers, secondary jobs, Detroit's economy, yada yada.

The $25 billion is a drop in the bucket. How much will the The PBGC (AKA you and I) have to spend on those retiree pensions? Just like Pan Am, the rail roads and the steel industry, you know that's where they will wind up. Add inthe auto industry and the PBGC may go under (aka require a tax on the public to keep it going)

The biggest shoe has yet to drop, GM has $45 BILLION IN DEBT. Who does that crush if they file ch11? The banks, the ones we just lent the billions to in the first place. Not to mention the CDO market, the banks were betting huge that GM would never file so they will be looking at getting only cents on the dollar for the debt and then having to cover the stock losses to the institutional investors because they wrote billions in CDO's. This will take YEARS to get figured out in the courts.

Nope, I have to say in today's economy it's not a good idea to let Gm or F go ch11. This goes beyond the Nth power, it's hard for anyone to comprehend how far this will trickle down. One thing for sure it would definatly deepen the recession and make it longer. Some economists are saying this could lead us into a depression. No Thanks, give them the loan, when compaired to what AIG or banks, got it's peanuts.

 

[satpak77]

Hi TC,

Nope, I have to say in today's economy it's not a good idea to let Gm or F go ch11. This goes beyond the Nth power, it's hard for anyone to comprehend how far this will trickle down. One thing for sure it would definatly deepen the recession and make it longer. Some economists are saying this could lead us into a depression. No Thanks, give them the loan, when compaired to what AIG or banks, got it's peanuts.

But when do we say when? At what point do we stop putting govt money after bad? How many bailouts are we going to give, say, US Airways?

What happens when Toyota or Honda, thru good business practices, and smart engineering, has produced a quality product, now continue to compete with Big 3 Detroit who are all on government welfare?

People say "yeah but so many victims if GM dies". I understand that.

Maybe Big 3 should have thought of that 10 years ago and reminded themselves of how many people depend on them.

Sadly it looks like they didn't.

 

[Rez O. Lewshun]

But when do we say when? At what point do we stop putting govt money after bad? How many bailouts are we going to give, say, US Airways?

What happens when Toyota or Honda, thru good business practices, and smart engineering, has produced a quality product, now continue to compete with Big 3 Detroit who are all on government welfare?

People say "yeah but so many victims if GM dies". I understand that.

Maybe Big 3 should have thought of that 10 years ago and reminded themselves of how many people depend on them.

Sadly it looks like they didn't.

Instead of thinking that we are awesome free market operators... why not understand that a little front end regulation is better than allot of back end dumping of billions of tax payers dollars?

 

[stupidpilot]

Because its not. Whenever the govt has gotten involved in the market, it's made it worse. FDR's New Deal was estimated to have extended the Great Depression by as much as 7 years.

 

[On Your Six]

According to the WSJ, the home-building industry is now looking for its share of the bailout. Potentially asking for $50 billion or more.

 

[SansPlane]

[FONT=&quot]Could be part of the problem right here… union workers should be on birth control not procreating…[/FONT]
GM Spends $17 Million Per Year on Viagra

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/04/gm_viagra.html

April 18, 2006
Lifestyle -- chiefly Viagra -- are costing General Motors $17 million dollars a year and the cost is passed along to car, truck and consumers. The blue pill is covered under GM's labor agreement with United Auto Workers, as well as benefit plans for salaried employees.

 

[atpcliff]

Hi!

My first car was a Chevy. I was driving down the highway one day, and it caught on fire.

We own 3 Japanese cars now.

cliff
YIP

 

[TransMach]

ATPCLIFF,

And those three "Japanese" cars were built, where? Most likley right here in the good old U.S. of A. Yup, Toyota, Honda and Nissa beat the snot out of GM, Ford and "C" and build more cars, better cars and cheaper cars right here ... they even build them here for export.

Screw me ...

TransMach

 

[satpak77]

ATPCLIFF,

And those three "Japanese" cars were built, where? Most likley right here in the good old U.S. of A. Yup, Toyota, Honda and Nissa beat the snot out of GM, Ford and "C" and build more cars, better cars and cheaper cars right here ... they even build them here for export.

Screw me ...

TransMach

While GM is getting govt bailout, who is helping Honda or Toyota?

Is this not unlike a Ch.11 airline that drops airfare to bleed the non-Ch.11 carriers at the local hub?

 

[atpcliff]

Hi!

The Big Three have been helping out the Japanese for years. Their biggest mistake was to send Edwards Deming packing instead of hiring him as a consultant.

He wanted to improve the efficiency of the automobile companies starting in the '50s. He was rejected by the former Big 3, and went to Japan, where companies like Toyota and Honda revered him.

Guess what happened?

cliff
YIP

 

[WW24dude]

So, is that a no?

 

[pilot22]

So, is that a no?

Gm says they will sell their corporate aircraft

 

[DrProc]

While GM is getting govt bailout, who is helping Honda or Toyota?

Is this not unlike a Ch.11 airline that drops airfare to bleed the non-Ch.11 carriers at the local hub?

Research the tax abatements offered to Honda, Toyota, etc. and you will discover that they have been getting help for years.

 

[satpak77]

Research the tax abatements offered to Honda, Toyota, etc. and you will discover that they have been getting help for years.

Ok I see. Like GM's 30M dollar tax abatement from the city of Arlington, Texas ? Story dated 1992.

http://tech.mit.edu/V112/N8/gm.08w.html

Or the 17M dollar one in 2001?

http://ref.michigan.org/medc/news/m...D-B25C-C673455D94F9&QueueId=2&ContentTypeId=7

I suppose the fact that Honda's Accord is far superior and was Motor Trend car of the year XXX years in a row, and is superior to a Old's Achieva, another mid-size, 4-door, front wheel drive sedan, or the Toyota Camry, America's best selling sedan (I wonder why?), which is another vehicle of high quality, I suppose the reported tax abatements given to Toyota and Honda (as observed above, GM got them also), are the reason they are so successful.

Yep, its Toyota's fault.

 

[LRvsH25B]

Ok I see. Like GM's 30M dollar tax abatement from the city of Arlington, Texas ? Story dated 1992.

http://tech.mit.edu/V112/N8/gm.08w.html

Or the 17M dollar one in 2001?

http://ref.michigan.org/medc/news/m...D-B25C-C673455D94F9&QueueId=2&ContentTypeId=7

Yeah, its Toyota's fault.

Hahahaha! Good on you! All these manufacturing companies (wind turbine, car parts, cars, etc) all get tax breaks for moving to a particular location. Cities fight over having a place like that come to town because of the massive # of jobs it brings along with it! Jobs=paycheck=tax revenue. People need to stop making excuses blaming the Toyota for the fall of the Big 3. It's pretty simple. US carmakers do have higher costs per car and a lot of that has to do with paying healthcare as most other countries offer healthcare as a right of being in that country, citizen or not. But when people like Hillary bring up socialized medicine, the Republicans light her up and talk about her wanting to make the US like Europe. Would a few European policies be such a bad thing right now over here in the US? Ask the pilots coming out of Detroit.

 

[satpak77]

Hahahaha! Good on you! All these manufacturing companies (wind turbine, car parts, cars, etc) all get tax breaks for moving to a particular location. Cities fight over having a place like that come to town because of the massive # of jobs it brings along with it! Jobs=paycheck=tax revenue. People need to stop making excuses blaming the Toyota for the fall of the Big 3. It's pretty simple. US carmakers do have higher costs per car and a lot of that has to do with paying healthcare as most other countries offer healthcare as a right of being in that country, citizen or not. But when people like Hillary bring up socialized medicine, the Republicans light her up and talk about her wanting to make the US like Europe. Would a few European policies be such a bad thing right now over here in the US? Ask the pilots coming out of Detroit.

Just remember that Honda and Toyota took all those American jobs and left starving kids in America.

oh wait, the Accord is manufactured in Ohio.

the Camry is manufactured in Kentucky.

well, anyway.....

 

[LRvsH25B]

Just remember that Honda and Toyota took all those American jobs and left starving kids in America.

oh wait, the Accord is manufactured in Ohio.

the Camry is manufactured in Kentucky.

well, anyway.....

And the Camero (you know, the heartbeat of America) is manufactured in Canada (was and will be)

Nissan maxima is built in Tennessee.

 

[G4G5]

You guys are pathetic, I looked up F on the NYSE and it stood for Ford, I looked up T and guess what it doesn't stand for Toyota. That's because it's NOT an American company.

The money goes out of the country and stays out of the country. It's controlled by and managed by foreigners.

Now get over this BS that they make cars here, big deal. Let me stop and think, is it because they care about the American worker or the American Economy? Heck NO! It's CHEAPER for them to do it, they improve their bottom line doing it, which means more profits go back to Japan (foreign soil). AKA Dollars Leave the US.

FYI Buick makes cars in China, Ford makes cars in Europe. Does that make GM a Chinese company?

 

[AA717driver]

G4G5--I KNOW my money is leaving the country. We tried to go back to Ford in the 90's.

They had this big push for quality and my uncles who are line and management at Ford said they had made huge strides in quality. (Considering the nightmare that was my dad's '84 T-bird, I can see their point.)

We bit and got a '92 Explorer. It generally worked ok but didn't have the interior quality that our '86, '90 and '91 Accords had but it was alright.

We sold that vehicle to my wife's sister. The tranny crapped out at 60,000 miles. Oops! Juuussst out of warranty.

Our next foray into the domestic market was the flagship Ford Expedition. Within the first 10,000 miles, accessory motors started dying. Then, on three separate occasions, we ran out of gas--with more than a quarter tank showing. And, it was bent--you know, like it needed a half a tweak of rudder trim.

We called Ford's much promoted customer care line after getting nowhere with our dealer. Their solution? They referred us back to the dealer. Great...

It was the closest I've ever come to committing insurance fraud by torching a vehicle.

G4G5, you know I'm from IND--deep in the heart of UAW territory. And, I'm a union member myself. But I know a bunch of line workers at Chrysler, GM and have numerous family members who worked the line at Ford and Cummins Diesel.

I've heard countless stories of drinking on the job--every day. It was expected that you go pound some beers at lunch. My uncle the supervisor at Ford was threatened with his life if "you make us work". Supervisors at Allison Transmission in Speedway have had their cars burned in the parking lot, tires slashed and windows broken in addition to the verbal threats. Workers who had a good work ethic were threatened with violence if they tried to do a good job.

My wife worked as a bank teller near a GM plant. Every payday, the workers would line up at the drive through and periodically go to the cooler in their trunk and get another beer while waiting. And this was on their LUNCH BREAK. They were going back to the plant to finish their shifts on a moving assembly line after pounding a few beers.

Are there good, hard workers in the auto industry? Absolutely. Are there more than a handful? I can say with certainty--NO!

So, yes, I'm sending my money overseas (same as you do when you fill your gas tank) because I won't reward bad quality and poor performance.

If that's unpatriotic, then so be it but it's no more so than screwing the public by building overpriced pieces of crap and trying to shame us into spending our hard-earned money on them.

Take care.
TC