In Detroit, Chrysler is Crashing First

Re: UAW Sucks

> It's as simple as that.

Really? Management making millions while laying off thousands has nothing to do with it? I'm glad your vision of life is so simple.

Both sides were/are greedy. In America the mentality has always been live for today, period.

John of CA @ Oct 20, 2008 13:54:36 PM

Re: Survival possibility

> the research and engineering laboratories such as the GM

> research center can create new vehicles for the future.

They haven't done a good job so far. Japan is killing us when it come to innovation and R&D. Our companies have huge R&D budgets, lots and lots of management bureaucracy, and little to show for it.

John of CA @ Oct 20, 2008 13:52:32 PM

Cheap Shots

Our biggest problem in this country right now is too many damn journalist. You can never write anything positive it always has to be negative. The thing that needs to be downsized is the number of outlets that produce "news". It would be interesting to live in a world again without 24 hour news stations. Without talking heads telling us how we think. Without spin doctors. Without Fox the rightwingers network. Without CNN and all its permutations. What do you think people?

James Pigg of NC @ Oct 20, 2008 11:06:33 AM

UAW Sucks

It's as simple as that. UAW complained enough to get car factory workers insanely high wages for just running a bunch of automated machines. There is no reason that these workers should earn the same wage as people who hand-make parts.

TJ of WI @ Oct 18, 2008 19:29:23 PM

Greed is good

Greed has given us the Honda Accord. year after year the 'car of the year' as far as dependability and sales. Honda makes a fortune selling that car. Why the Detroit three hasn't taken those cars apart and just copied it is beyond me.

Success is not a mystery. Sell a quality product at a price you can make money. BUT when you are tied into juicy union contracts, it is difficult to make money when your competition is making a better cars in states where no unions control the manufacturing. You can blame Bush all you want(and he is due some blame) Ohio and Michigan are in bad shape because of the unions there.

Now we are just about to elect a man for president who wants to make unions much more prevalent. The union goons with Obama and the socialist/democrat congress can force people to vote for them by eliminating secret ballots. So when this happens there will be more and more unions and therefore our country will lag even farther behind in the world economy.

So we need to decide. Do we compete in this world economy? or do we use protectionism to try to control our world position? That didn't work in the 1930's and won't work today.

It's funny, for some reason the public doesn't understand this. When you tax a corporation, they don't pay the taxes, they just add it to their prices. The buying public pay those taxes. so when the dems talk about hitting Exxon with huge taxes most people don't understand Exxon doesn't pay those taxes. We do.

steve of FL @ Oct 18, 2008 17:57:18 PM

my thoughts....

dont let imports into our countries. we cannot import to their countries without paying tarrifs. we must do that here if they want to do business here in north america. make the tarrifs steep so these imports cost more than domestic cars. its coming to the point when we dont build products in north america and have people working, they wont have the money to buy any imported products. so who is loosing then...not the people but the businesses that moved to forgien countries for cheap labour.

just my cheap 2 cents worth..

neil @ Oct 18, 2008 11:26:40 AM

Survival possibility

Panic and pessimism prevail at the moment. They tend to blind us to the pockets of value that can revitalize the American auto industry. The American auto companies cannot survive in their present forms; however the research and engineering laboratories such as the GM research center can create new vehicles for the future. The automobile is a necessity. We just need the right one for the times. The change to the future will involve a transition period of low factory production and high engineering innovation. Keeping technology on track and using the funding to create cars for the future is important.

James Dow of MI @ Oct 18, 2008 07:07:59 AM

Cost of Production-Unions and Corporate Greed

The simple solution to save the car companies... Union wages and corporate greed need to be cut!!!!!! Unions and corporation stockholders have a NOW NOW NOW attitude= HIGH DOLLARS NOW AND DON'T THINK ABOUT THE FUTURE.They would rather kill the Golden Goose than accept less wages and earnings; possibly ensuring success.

The rest of the economy? We need to reduce imports and become a freestanding economy again. It might cause a little pain short-term, but it would be worth it long-term.

Cord of OR @ Oct 18, 2008 00:55:51 AM