[xlabel]

From what I've read the $70 figure is for a current workers wage and benefits. They are obviously not making $70 an hour but they are costing $70 an hour, and that figure excludes what the retirees cost. True, they may be only making $28 an hour but they can earn a 10% shift premium(as well they should) for working an odd shift. they can get double time on Sundays,straight overtime, etc. I am not pro union by any means but what really kills me about the whole situation is the real villians in this whole mess are sitting there mum and silent as usual, the spotlight is not on them. You see, the real villians are not NAFTA, nor is it the UAW. The real villians are our most expensive in the world, but by no means the best healthcare system, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies and their relentless crooked BS.

[smellykat]

Originally Posted by xlabel

From what I've read the $70 figure is for a current workers wage and benefits. They are obviously not making $70 an hour but they are costing $70 an hour, and that figure excludes what the retirees cost. True, they may be only making $28 an hour but they can earn a 10% shift premium(as well they should) for working an odd shift. they can get double time on Sundays,straight overtime, etc. I am not pro union by any means but what really kills me about the whole situation is the real villians in this whole mess are sitting there mum and silent as usual, the spotlight is not on them. You see, the real villians are not NAFTA, nor is it the UAW. The real villians are our most expensive in the world, but by no means the best healthcare system, insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies and their relentless crooked BS.

Canadian plants are 7% more profitable. Why? The employees have universal healthcare coverage thru the government. No one includes benefits in their hourly rate. Your salary is what is reported on your W-2. Just another ploy to demonize the unions.

[Huckleberry3911948]

a company that will not will not make anything but gas guzzling cars.

[xlabel]

Originally Posted by Huckleberry3911948

a company that will not will not make anything but gas guzzling cars.

I have a 99 Ford Escort ZX2 33 mpg hwy, and a Ranger 93 rated at 26 mpg hwy. ZX2 2.0 liter, Ranger 2.3 liter and can go put 8 bucks in both of them and I swear the ZX2 would run out of gas first. Both of them properly maintained, both stick shift, can't be that much of a weight difference, I don't get it.

[12GO]

Originally Posted by Huckleberry3911948

a company that will not will not make anything but gas guzzling cars.

But my old escort got 56 mpg! Diesel, and then I added a turbo to it and outran most other econoboxes including the GT escorts, Z24, and never had a honda or toyoda keep up!

[wanderer74]

Originally Posted by Huckleberry3911948

a company that will not will not make anything but gas guzzling cars.

I drive a Saturn (GM) car that gets 27 mpg city, 37 mpg highway. That's about the same as a Honda Accord hybrid and yet I don't hear anyone complaining about Honda's 'gas guzzling cars'.

GM may have been late to get on the hybrid bandwagon, but they haven't only made gas guzzling cars. It's just that the majority of car shoppers (of GM and otherwise) were buying the gas guzzling cars. Even with what happened with the $4/gal gas there for a while, hybrids were still only accounting for about 3 measly percent of all car sales. Unfortunately it's not that consumers want cars with good gas mileage and GM will only give them the gas guzzlers. It's the consumers who want the gas guzzlers, except when gas prices are high - the rest of the time they don't seem to care how much gas their car uses.

[US-Traveller]

Mitt says let em die!

[magellan]

Don't know if anyone has seen this yet, but for those who think GM should concentrate all their energy on hybrids, think again.

Toyota puts off opening of Prius plant in Mississippi | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press

Construction of the new Prius plant has stopped, with no plans to open the plant for the foreseeable future. Prius sales dropped 48% this year.

No better way for the Detroit 3 to go under than to divert all their energy to hybrid vehicles (under current market conditions). However, if the Feds want people to switch to these vehicles, they need to either raise gas taxes astronomically and/or provide tax incentives to offset the higher costs for hybrid versions.

[magellan]

In similar news, Canada has now released a report describing how much of a hit Ontario would take if the Detroit 3 declare bankruptcy (or have a major disruption in production):

Canada Job Losses Would Be ‘Catastrophic’ in Automaker Collapse - Bloomberg.com: Canada

“I don’t know of any economist in North America who would suggest that an extinct auto industry would be anything other than catastrophic for the Canadian economy,” Michael Bryant, Ontario’s minister for economic development, said in a telephone interview today.

Maybe people will finally begin to realize that, no matter how much ill will they have toward GM, Ford and Chrysler and the UAW, getting rid of them in one full swoop would be catastrophic. I'm not willing to take my family to a homeless shelter just to stick it to some guy on the line who I think makes too much money.

[Frank the Tank]

Originally Posted by magellan

Don't know if anyone has seen this yet, but for those who think GM should concentrate all their energy on hybrids, think again.

Toyota puts off opening of Prius plant in Mississippi | Freep.com | Detroit Free Press

Construction of the new Prius plant has stopped, with no plans to open the plant for the foreseeable future. Prius sales dropped 48% this year.

No better way for the Detroit 3 to go under than to divert all their energy to hybrid vehicles (under current market conditions). However, if the Feds want people to switch to these vehicles, they need to either raise gas taxes astronomically and/or provide tax incentives to offset the higher costs for hybrid versions.

It's not the Prius that has beaten up on the Big Three - it's the dominance of the Camry, Corrolla, Civic and Accord over any of the Big Three's sedans. The American automakers ignored sedans overall when SUVs and trucks were hot, so when the trend moved toward smaller cars (not necessarily hybrids), they got hammered.

Also, even if American cars have arguably improved in quality, the public's perception is that they are still low quality cars. The problem is that I'm not sure if that perception is ever going to turn back. (Disclosure: I currently own a Toyota and Mercedes after having owned GM and Chrysler cars, and personally, I doubt that I'll ever be buying an American car again after comparing the performance and maintenance costs). In turn, that negative perception has made the resale value of American cars depreciate so fast that anyone that acts rationally in his or her economic self-interest will buy a Japanese car over an equally-priced American car every single time.

Finally, the number of redundancies between brands, particularly within GM, is ridiculous. Toyota sells just under the number of cars as GM in the United States with only two main brands (Toyota and Lexus), one smaller brand (Scion), and around 1,400 dealers. For about the same number of sales, GM has Chevy, Buick, Cadillac, Pontiac, Saturn, GMC, Hummer, and others spread across 7,600 dealers. Think of the overhead expenses in terms of management, marketing, executives, and workers with all of these redundant brands and dealers. GM should be cut down to two brands: Chevy and Cadillac. Specialty nameplates such as Hummer and Saab might be sold off since they provide niche products. Buick, Pontiac, Saturn, and GMC, though, really don't provide much differentiation from what Chevy and Cadillac already provide.

A government bailout of the American automakers will not make people want to buy American cars or spur those companies to restructure in ways that would fundamentally alter their businesses - if they haven't done it since the 1970s, then I have absolutely no confidence that they will do so in the next few months. Let them go into Chapter 11 restructuring (which is NOT the same as going out of business - case in point, United Airlines still operated business just as normal when it was in Chapter 11 and is now in better position to survive the current economic downturn as a result of the restructuring) and force them to change their approach to business. Government money here would be a complete waste.