By Another Expat, December 18 at 10:47 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

“..The US used to be 25% bigger than the next largest economy.  In other words, we were—until very recently—heads and shoulders above all other economies, as is evident if one travels.

For some reason, as some of the comments reveal, Americans have no idea why or how the US came to be in what was an enviable position…” 

~~~~

Careful there Another Expat

•  25% ‘ bigger’ than the next largest economy? How do you figure the 25% and who or what nation is the ‘next’ largest economy, and what do you mean by ‘bigger’? EVERYTHING is RELATIVE!!

•  “Until very recently” - meaning when?  And how is all of this ‘evident’ if one travels? Are you including ‘travel’ in the US? I can’t imagine that you are, (the Southern portions of the USA and portions of the Midwest have been depressed for flippin’ DECADES, and there are multiple countries (consider some of the Scandinavian States) that have enjoyed a far better standard of living than that of the average American in the past 2 decades…at least.

So, if our economy has been 25% ‘bigger’ (and I’ve never seen any statistics confirming that) it doesn’t mean a damn thing if the people generating the economy aren’t realizing anything from it. And if one ‘travels’ as apparently you (AND I) have done, the ‘economy’ of any nation state is only important relative to how it can provide for its own population and compete on the world stage in terms of trade and export.

Meantime, if most American’s don’t realize how we came to be in what was such an ‘enviable’ position, (and again, I would question that as relative to time and interpretation of what is ‘enviable’) it might be because we haven’t BEEN in an ‘enviable’ position for longer than I can remember!! So anyone born in the past 40 or so years isn’t likely to recognize that ‘enviable position’ REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THEY’VE ‘TRAVELED’ OR NOT!! If anything, those who have traveled or otherwise done extensive study of global affairs and comparative government systems/economies aren’t likely to see this ‘enviable’ position either, because the facts tell a different story.

The only ‘difference’ I see between the rural areas/urban slums/Indian reservations of the US and the ramshackle slums of Hong Kong or Brazil are the size/numbers of the space and the humans that fill the space. If anything, the outsourcing that major Corporations have done over the past 30 years to 3rd world countries where there are no labor laws and the Multinationals (mostly US) can wreck havoc on those economies as well, as was the plan for Iraq’s natural resources. (And they’ve succeeded in that…the Big Three Oil corps are finally back in Iraq after over 40 years since being thrown out.) Is that what you mean by our ‘enviable’ position? I hope not, because it isn’t OUR enviable position!! I don’t own any stock in these corporations, and neither do the Iraqis.

So you’re right, most Americans don’t know how we came to be in such an ‘enviable’ position. Care to explain how that came about?

Expat—We have never been in the mess we are in now, in the US.

It is not “betting agasint the US”—what do you think I am, some kind of ex-pat? I live here. I do not WANT it to fail—we just cant seem to get anyone in power who will stop Wall St., the multi-nationnals, and, the global financiers. They dont take advantage of any country , the way they do US citizens. We demand almost NOTHING from out government.  People know that everything is based on money, they just believe the lie that, someday, they too can have what Bush or Trump does. Or, even , what Obama does.

If not, there’s always “heaven”, right? Right..opiate of the masses…

Why? Because the people in power have private islands off Saudi Arabia and dont give a rat’s ass. They can go to one of their other 7 houses.

BTW—the most “patriotic” thing you can do , is to criticize your country’s govt , when you see it going over a cliff…

If the Big 3 go, what happens to NASCAR?

Another Expat—Yes, exactly.

But, I do think that the US’s days as the “richest country on earth” are irreversibly over.

Our rate of consumption, might indidcate that that would be best for all….

Well, if we can’t kill off the Big 3, and I agree to do so would be stupid, then let’s do what Shakespeare suggested many years ago: Kill all the lawyers.  Aren’t these the usual suspects who protected the miscreants from American MBA programs who got us into this hell-hole of a mess?  They told the bean counters of the auto industry that it wasn’t necessary to listen to engineers and the like to keep a competitive edge in the world markets and keep on laughing all the way to the bank. Smoke and mirrors like The Volt that is now somewhere crushed in a scrap yard would be enough to keep investors accumulating more paper and the Big 3 could keep on selling SUVs to the gullible.

Hesperion—I would agree. I was hoping the strike in Chicago would spread…we need more empowered Unions, that will actually fight to,at the very least, maintain, working/middle class wages.

We have the weakest Unions in tthe “free” world.

One correction—the GOP doesnt want a minimum wage at all…they want the “market” to “set it”—as low as possible.

...And the great Republican war on the working class goes on. Destroying the Unions would get them closer to that longed-for goal of minimum wage for one and all (a great slave class) expect the plutocrats and bankers that these Republican legislators really work for. They are counting on the people being ignorant and compliant. That sit-in in Illinois should have spread to a general strike by all the workers, “organized” or not from one end the the nation to the other. The people hold the power and could solve this mess in one great action but they are too lazy or too disinformed to see it.

You’re right Jackpine,

It IS a Pirus, though I had to be prompted to remember the name. And it’s my sister who acquired one back when it appeared that there would be no ceiling on how high gas prices would go. At the time, she had a BMW,(an old one - pre-owned) and it was keeping her in the poor house.

The irony is that she had waited two decades to actually purchase a foreign-built car, since she’s been a mini-van driving soccer mom for longer than she really wanted to be, and the only other vehicle in the family (at the time) was her husband’s truck. She’d become rather bitter there at one time, complaining that they’d never owned anything close to a luxury vehicle, and were restricted to attending social functions in either the minivan, or that big ass F-10 that her husband drives.

So, she finally managed a BMW after boosting at least two of the kids off the household budget, (saved enough just on groceries to swing the car payment) and then…you know the rest. When gas hit $3.00 a gallon, she said “I’m parking this sucker” (meaning the BMW which ONLY burns the premium stuff). That’s when she got the Toyota hybrid, (Pirus) and she’s been very pleased with it.

Needless to say though, not everyone can afford a Pirus. Hell, I can’t afford ANY car.

Meantime, you brought up a great point about the American tendency to prefer leasing cars to owning them. I never have been able to understand that, but I suspect that it’s because I’m from a more practical era. Or more likely, it’s probably a change in consumer mentality intentionally orchestrated to that change.

It’s not just cars that American’s so casually swap out. It’s everything, and none of what is manufactured now has anywhere near the same quality as what was manufactured back in the day.

In fact, I was absolutely delighted last week when I happened upon an old Hoover iron. I’m a big time sewer (or used to be) and so I have a seriously keen appreciation for what most folks either hate or take for granted. Irons being one of them. But I’m here to affirm that I haven’t been able to find a decent iron in over 20 years, because none of them being manufactured now (here or in China) are heavy enough. The one I came upon last week has been kept by the owner for over 25 years. Who would have ever thought that I could become so nostalgic over a flippin’ iron?

The We against Us syndrome is an illness that has infected the GOP/Republicans since Mr. Nixon came on the political scene, before I Like Ike (and Dick too) and the war hero, General Eisenhower selected him as running mate. (I wonder if Ike is still wondering in his grave about what it was that Mr. Nixon did.)  Mr. Nixon’s feelings of inferiority became infectious to the GOP constituency because he won when “Conventional Wisdom“  said he wouldn‘t , couldn‘t. If it weren’t the communists, it was the unions, (except for the teamsters who bought them out). If you were against the military/industrial complex you were un-American. Reagan was The Master of this strategy, because he made so many of us believe that we were a big part of the We, when we weren’t. Hosea Williams and Ralph David Abernathy jr., of the Civil Rights Movement thought that they had arrived, and so came out for Reagan’s presidential candidacy. And Rust Belt union workers believed that the principal spokesperson for GE, was in truth, the Gipper from Notre Dame, and therefore was “one of the guys who loved booze, broads. Sunday Pro Football was God’s Game, so it was OK to go war in Iraq. Go figure!  The Gipper gave John Wayne a Medal of Freedom for winning the war in the Pacific, so that’s says it all. What has happened to the Republican Party is that it has run out of people to put the blame on, to point the finger at those who were the cause of our collective miseries. All that remains is an ideology that is nothing more but articulations of “smoke and mirrors, myth systems that aren’t funny any more, and if not cake, a meringue that doesn’t even leave an after-taste. In short, the GOP doesn’t have Us to kick around anymore.  Just empty air.

Sabagio Mauraeno,  recovering from sticker shock after reading my most recent 401K quarterly statement.

Cyrena,

One of the little tricks that almost nobody knows about when selecting a vehicle is to look at the VIN plate inside the door.  Never buy a car built in December of June (at least an American car), because the factories close for maintenance and retooling at Christmas and the 4th of July.

I don’t think that Japanese quality will remain high, but i also think that American vehicles have a somewhat undeserved reputation for being rolling piles of shit.  Different models will have different quality levels, but most people buy a vehicle based on what it looks like…not its mechanics.  I know a good many people with stories of Fords (etc) that go 130,000+ miles with nothing more than routine maintenance.

I don’t think that quality will remain high with the Japanese because they’ve wholeheartedly followed the American market.  And i do not think that the corporate culture that made them so good can survive America for very long.  Moreover, they’re quite worried about their medium term labor costs in the States.

Your friend’s hybrid (if it is a Prius) was built in Japan.  As a Toyota driver, i would only buy one built in Japan…partially because i want none of my money going to the Southern states that host Toyota and the other transplants, not after Sen Shelby’s behavior of late.

The other factor to consider in quality is the supply chain.  If the components of a car fail it is actually a problem with the part vendor (the manufacturer has some control when the part begins being manufactured but less after production starts). It used to be that companies supplied most of their own parts…but in an effort to be leaner and make Wall Street happier, parts divisions were spun off. 

There’s a fundamental disconnect here: these companies were told by the “market” how to act.  Ever increasing quarterly profits, etc.  They acted that way.  Now that the whole idea is blowing up, the blame is falling on the companies for not being far-sighted enough rather than looking at the fundamental reason that they were short-sighted in the first place.  Toyota is better at long-term thought partly because of Japanese culture, and Japanese companies tend to be mostly owned by other Japanese companies rather than “investors”.

And America’s infatuation with the leased vehicle is another reason.  Why should the companies built cars to last when people want to just rent them?  At the end of the 3 years the “buyer” basically throws the car away and gets a new one…that’s still warranty territory.

There’s plenty of blame to go around in this situation and deserves a thoughtful debate…but instead Detroit has become the whipping boy for a nation that knows it’s losing its grip but still doesn’t want to face reality.

Muscleboy,

On this:

•  “…You said our foreign competitors out thought us, how ridiculous. But then wouldn’t that be nice?  That would be something we could easily fix as we have way more engineering level and super-genius level brains than any other country in the world…”

Foreign competitors DID out-think us, and this what you say here is at least part of the reason WHY they did. Do you honestly believe that ‘we’ (the US) have..

“way more engineering level and super-genius level brains than any other country in the world?”

I’ll give you this much muscleboy, there MAY have been a time, when this might have had a morsel of truth. That has NOT been the case however, (super genius from the US) for well over half a century.  Yes, we still have some smart citizens, and we’ve done remarkably well in communications technology. In fact, it’s the ONLY thing we’ve much excelled at lately.

As for engineering (or really anything else) I guess we could acknowledge that the Army Corps of Engineers did in fact report long before the destruction of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, (or any other hurricane likely to occur in the Gulf of Mexico) could and probably would breach the levee system as it once existed in places like New Orleans, wrecking destruction on human life and property. BUT, nobody with their hands on our checkbook was willing to pay for the necessary repairs. Like the rest of our physical infrastructure, they were just allowed to continue to decay.

Even at that, it’s a delusion to suggest that we have more brains than any other country in the world. It simply isn’t true. The Asians, (among others) have been smarter by far, and yes…they did out-think us in terms of automobile manufacturing. Jackpine Savage confirms that in his comments about the far more superior product that Toyota produced back in the 80’s.

Jackpine doesn’t expect them to hold their edge in that respect much longer, because he doesn’t feel that Toyota is still producing the same quality product, and that may very well be true. I have no personal reference from which to judge. A couple of years ago my sister acquired another Toyota that she’s so far quite pleased with…a hybrid. It’s the 2nd or 3rd one she’s owned, but most recently after a series of nightmares with American made cars. I’ve had my own; So many that I don’t even own one now, and haven’t for nearly 8 years. For me, they were CLEARLY more trouble than they were worth. They’re an essential for hauling ‘things’ around, but I can haul myself around a lot more efficiently on public/mass transportation.

BUT, that’s only good where such transportation exists. (and I’ve lived in places where it does not). Now if we really DID have all the engineering geniuses in the world, (or more than anybody else) why do we have such a piss poor and ineffective transportation system? Compared to other countries our system; rail/road/air, is hopelessly defunct/outdated and in a state of extreme disrepair. Isolated locations like New York, Washington, DC or other metropolitan centers have fairly effective systems, but there are far more places that have NONE!!

So, we haven’t been using our super-genius on THAT.

Muscleboy__So the failing US auto industry is ENTIRELY the fault of Duyba—the ONLY problem we have—that is patently riduclous. Nobody detests Dubya as much as i do, but , that is just not true.

The film itself, blames consumers, hydrogen fuel cells, and others as you say. Why do you persist in stating that all of our problems are based on Bush? How long have you been around US politics?.Bush made just about everything worse—but he did NOT do it alone. The Dems have not all been out of town or anything, have they? Why havent they done anything to stop the GOP?

It is just too simplistic…

I still do not see that as a good reason to throw the industrty—and, mostly the workers—under the bus. I know that Michael Moore made some people angry (I am not certain why) when he said that they should hand the industry over to the workers—I think that it is a good idea. They would have motivation to make it work!

The auto industry isnt the only thing tanking—the entire freemarket is! This is what you get—boom and bust. If not done away with , the “free market needs to be regulated until it “drowns in a bathtub”!

If the auto industry didnt have to pay for heatlh care, private pensions, etc. , they could be more competitive, especially if the stock market hadnt tanked, with most of the middle class invested in it, convinced by Wall St that, they, too, could reap the rewards of the “free market”—there is NOTHING
“free” about it! Except trading and capital gains—no taxes or costs there.

If it was owned by workers, they wouldnt have to build gasoline powered cars—they could build high speed railway. They could build electric cars, hydrogen fuel cell cars, public transit…

Bilejones,

Look at Toyota’s profit breakdown.  They make their profit here because it’s cheaper to employ American workers than it is Japanese workers.  Japanese auto workers cost just about the same as a UAW employee (excepting retirement costs).  And i’m feeling too lazy to look it up, but i’ll be you haven’t either.  Are your figures including GM’s foreign operations? (some of which are not sold under American GM badges)

I drive a Toyota…but not the flimsy jelly beans that they make now, a real Toyota, manufactured in Japan. (way back in 1987) Let’s just see what Toyota’s quality looks like ten years from now and if their brand new cars are still rolling strong at 23.  I doubt it, they’re not being built by the same quality of worker that they used to be built by.

But you probably don’t actually know anything about cars, do you?  You’re just parroting something that someone else said and it sounded good to you.

You brought out lots of great points all perfectly valid and well stated but forget to mention the elephant in the room, Mr. Robinson, our criminal hijacked government and crooks in the private sector.  You even worked in a few misstatements to make it less obvious, although you couldn’t have done this intentionally.

Oh it feels so great, we can pretend our country is basically sound and not entirely hijacked by criminals.  It’s all ok if we pretend isn’t it?

But, alas, no it’s not ok.  The forest will still burn down even if you pretend the fire isn’t there.

You said our foreign competitors out thought us, how ridiculous. But then wouldn’t that be nice?  That would be something we could easily fix as we have way more engineering level and super-genius level brains than any other country in the world.  But you forgot to mention that George Bush halted the electric car in cahoots with big oil who saw their primary market being destroyed right before their very blood sucking eyes.  Big oil had their big oil pals George Bush and Dick Cheney along with bought off crooks in the California government see to it that all the wonderful electric cars produced by GM and other manufacturers were all collected and crushed.  Put a stop to the electric car as completely as they possibly could. 

We have the technology to make fantastically efficient electric cars that go hundreds of miles between charges with plenty of race car like power- actually exceeding the performance of gas powered cars and using effectively no energy as much of the power consumed would be taken from the grid overnight when their is a great excess of electrical capacity.  It would be like buying gasoline for 10 cents a gallon and ending automobile pollution all in one step.

If Obama picks this up we’d have a super charged economy in no time at all. 

No, it’s not the fault of the free market or unions or people lacking in intellectual ability on the American side.  Bush is a criminal not a free-market man. To them free-market doesn’t mean a free marketplace at all, it means him and his friends are free from law.  This entire problem is the fault of criminals hijacking our government.

Between the time George Bush took power to now we could have replaced all of the petroleum powered vehicles on the road; vastly increased our position in the world; and our economy would be super fantastic proving free market democracy works with possibly zero debt left for our children to pay.  Bush and the republicons are a poison to free-market. 

We could be a net exporter of oil and our super tech electric vehicles could be the most popular vehicles in the world.  But we let big oil hijack our government, and waved flags all the while. 

That’s the ONLY problem we have and it’s the only one you failed to mention.

By Mighk, December 16 at 11:03 am #

How do we know if throwing money at GMFordChrysler will even work?  What if we spend the money and they go down anyway?  Do we get it back?  (And I want my money back from the bank/insurance bailout, too…)
_______________________

IIt won’t work; the whole economic system is going to fall big time, and all the politicians know it— but are keeping this fact from the people, so they can help the insiders loot more.

prole
Will every worker in America have their wages and benefits subsidized by the government to bring them up to UAW rates?

_______________________

What? That might actually be practical and fair, we can’t have that in a plutocracy and secret military dictatorship; the people might actually be happy, and not then worship us for their petty freedom.

They might ignore us then—our cult movement, our sheeple talk.

1984 is just late, by 24 years.

“The thing to do is give the automakers the money to buy some time. This is obvious to the current administration, the incoming administration, a majority in the House of Representatives and the Democrats in the Senate—but not to”... the American public. Polls have repeatedly shown that the taxpayers by a large majority are steadfastly opposed to any more corporate welfare boondoggles for Detroit. And so predictably enough, the corporate media like the Washington Post and New York Observer, et.al have a major spin project on their hands, trying to sell another massive public funds giveaway to ‘the rich and the infamous’. After all, advertising from these and other corporations pays their salaries and butresses their stock portfolios. “What the auto companies need is something on the order of $14 billion, which will allow them to survive until the Obama administration takes office and is able to address the crisis in a more systematic way. That sounds like a lot of money” - and it is! If it’s less than the astronomical aid package to the financial hoods - which tht Washington Post certainly didn’t go to the mat to try and stop either - it’s no less, a considerable sum that shouldn’t be tossed away lightly simply because it’s less than a greater misguided rescue package. By that illogic, there’s no end to the amount of public money that can be thrown at profligate corporate incomprtents by complaisant Democrats and their media shils.. $14 here, $14 billion there, on we go down the primrose path to fiscal ruin - just keep it under $700 billion per hit, boys and we’ll be able to sell it to a gullible public. ‘Cept this time the beleagured public ain’t buyin’ it, so the media mavens have gone into overdrive to try and hoodwink us again. Just think, only five more weeks at $14 billion, to tide the auto “bozos” over - and then Obama Copacabana and Larry Summers can shower some real dough on them. Does that sound like a plan, huh? “Lemmings don’t really hurl” good money after bad, that sort of behavor is seen only among Democrats and Washington Post types “who gave us a demonstration when they [concocted] legislation to bail out the auto industry”. “Only a [corporate-welfare] fundamentalist, a lunatic or a Senate [Democrat]—perhaps I’m being redundant—would conclude that now is the moment to [prolong] Detroit’s demise.” “the Big Three deserve to die” and “Economic theory notwithstanding, it would be insanity to throw” billions of more taxdollars at them. Will every other small business in America on the brink of bankruptcy get the same privileged treatment? Will every worker in America have their wages and bensfits subsidized by the government to bring them up to UAW rates? The auto conglomerates many years ago helped to kill off public transit in this country to further their business aims and now their turn has come to die. What goes around comes around. Put the public’s money into public transit and create better jobs and a better enviornment. Screw Detroit and screw the Democrats. Like the Washington Post, they represent power and privilege. That’s what the bogus bailout - and this flimsy rationalization - is all about.

This is all a set up; for it to “look good” to the people they demanded the people return without jets; missing of course what is really going on: showing houses being cleaned out with expensive computers, & all kinds of things “just left behind” & proclaiming “it’s the peoples fault”: IT IS NOT! it is the FAULT of a dictatorship as stated by Woodrow Wilson during his Pres in WW1: we are NO LONGER a land of the FREE: nor even of majority vote; but rather under the dictates of a handful of dominent men.*****this country has been agressively at war with its citizens in every single aspect; & now, when millions of people go missing; NO ONE IS EVEN LISTENING! #1. THEY WOULD HAVE PAWNED, SOLD ON CRAIGS LIST, enlisted help of family & friends to take the items to storage; rent an incredibly inexpensive UHAUL; Seen the Haliburton concentration camps with the trains all set up & ready to go????? “familiar site” as they MOVE FOLKS TO “WORK ON THE ROADS”; the LAWS were adjusted, amended, rewritten, claimed expired “oh, and perhaps you should delete some old ones huh? without of course implicating the Gov; the Govenors: all of them who met with Bush & then Obama; THIS is the change coming folks: are you prepared? are your families ready? when the UPS truck shows up: we may never see you again. Happy Holidays from your Gov with Nazi minded mentality; & underground facilities where so very much more than scientific experiments are carried out. freedomisnotdead groups on yahoo; paranoidtimesgroup on yahoo; learn what YOUR lawless leaders are up to.

It is a mistake to think that there is no replacement for the obsolete products and industrial jobs created by the 3 dinosaurs.
Jon posted a link to a chinese auto maker. Well the US has innovation that has them beaten.

http://www.phoenixmotorcars.com/

Kill the dinosaur and the Phoenix will rise from the ashes.

But it is also a mistake to believe that industrial jobs are likely to continue to exist if auto manufacturing does. Just as innovation brings us new cars, it also brings us new methods of industry.
To illustrate consider this parable.
The horse and buggy. Let the horse represent labor.
Horse = Labor;
And the buggy represent industry.
Buggy = Industry;
In the beginning the horse and buggy brought all the products to people. From the fields, to the mills, and from the mills to the town, and from town to town. The horse pulled the buggy, but he did not decide what went into the buggy, how much went into the buggy, what it was worth, or where it came from, or where it was going.
Then came a new innovation, the train.
Many horses were put out to pasture. But still the horse pulled the buggy from the fields to the mills, and from the mills to the town.
Then came a new innovation, the truck. Many more horses were put out to pasture. But the horses still pulled the buggy from the fields to the mills.
Then came a new innovation, the tractor. All the rest of the horses were put out to pasture, and then the horses’ labor was only used as a novelty.
Industry no longer had use for the horse.

How do we know if throwing money at GMFordChrysler will even work?  What if we spend the money and they go down anyway?  Do we get it back?  (And I want my money back from the bank/insurance bailout, too…)

The sooner we move to a new economy based on smaller-scale and energy-efficiency the better.  When the dinosaurs died off it opened opportunities for mammals. 

Our corporate overlords have even got us liberals conned into believing we need them.  Wrong—they need us.

And the GM commercial on my TV Sunday was for a $63,000 Cadilac Escalade, On Sale Of Course, Regular price $70,000. They Don’t get it and they never will! We are in for a financial downturn that will rival the great depression. The farther “Down” we go the stronger we will come out. The southern states have spent $1Billion to lure the foreign car makers and now production is stalled and yet they will have to pay their “notes” with no income taxes from the “new” workers. They will have their hands out next!  Paybacks are a BITCH !!!

I would suppose that the Big 3 are part of corporate America.  During the Bush Administration corporate profits grew from $980 billion to $1,642 billion, an increase of 68 percent.  Yet today, curiously, corporate America is, if the pundits and gurus and stockmarket ticker-tape are to be believed, nearly bankrupt. 

So apparently rising corporate profits ultimately lead to bankruptsy? True that the 15,000 richest families among us have seen during the Bush years their yearly incomes go from $15 million a year to $30 million a year, but though by itself huge it doesn’t explain how a 68 percent increase in corporate profits led to corporate bankruptsy.

More than anything, I think it’s becoming quite clear out here among us plebians that we’ve been had and any more government/corporate anything will only be more of the same. It’s got to stop somewhere and the somewhere just may be, unfortunate for them, the Big 3.

I visited my family in Detroit this weekend.  My brother works in the auto industry (though not directly for any of the Big 3, but at the plants of one of them).  He has two children and a house that isn’t worth as much as he paid for it a few years ago.  He and all his coworkers live with the knowledge that their jobs may not be around much longer.  And do you know what these guys have spent the last week or so doing?  Seeking out grocery store deals, buying food for the needy out of their paychecks, and collecting food from others to feed the hungry.

And Senator Shelby?

Liberals love to rant about “off shoring” of manufacturing and what it does to jobs and the quality of our products.  Then they turn around and talk about how great the Japanese/German auto makers’ quality is.  Toyota has off shored its vehicle production to America in order to be more profitable.  The Southern auto workers are just Mexicans to Toyota.  Welcome to the Third World, America…you’re finally where you belong.

And i still say that the Big 3 should simply shutter world wide operations.  You all want to see it burn, let’s burn it down to the ground then.

Keep laughing it up funny boys, we are just bidding our time. Jan 20, 2009 I hope a memorable day on a number of levels, A New Pres, A New direction, An New sense of American Pride and Promise and a Chance for Justice.
Honestly Who still thinks this adminstration was JUST Inept? these Guys orchestrated this crashing Crescendo of our economy,starting when they repackage Feudalism as Trickle Down. Instead of a family Crest, it was a Corp Logo. they not only broke every fundemental Law, they broke the very spirit with which those laws were put in place to begin with. a Free market Democracy is not beholden to Kings, or dictators , or Church or Corp, or even Markets. These were written for the sole benefit of the Citizenry,The People.( Therefore Workers have the right to trade their labor on the open market to obtain the best possible return- aka unions.)
What this Agenda has resulted in is the reversal of everything the Revolutionary War Acheived. They’ve not done it just economically, but ideologically. In a Sociological Sense they have converted US back to a ‘colony’, Just this time it’s a group of Corps instead of blood lines.Trickle Down, the rise of the ‘Moral Majority/religious Right’, Excessive Tax cuts, Bailouts & loopholes for the rich, No Accountablity from ‘leadership’, and the brazen rejection of Written concrete Constitutional Law.
Cheney’s “So” and W’s “So What” are enough proof for me of Treason.Those are sentiment which reveal Contempt and disregard for a Democratic nation.
I think it would be appropo to defeat this King George too, but this time it will be US who will be prosecuting for disloyality and betrayal.

Eugene asks,

“..And for what? The Republican senators who voted to kill the bailout knew full well that the White House was determined to find some way to tide the automakers over. It was as if they couldn’t help themselves. Even lemmings must be shaking their heads in dismay….”

~~~

I have the same question, and it kind of just makes ya wonder eh, if everybody has just lost their flippin’ minds, (as in Republican Senators) because that certainly seems to be the deal.
Expat,

I get what you’re saying here, because many others have said it:

•  “…They’re failing because they produce crap vehicles; poor mileage, poor quality, and poor design.  The economy didn’t kill them; a lack of interest in their products killed them….”

One of my fathers’, (my biological one in this case) had developed his hate mantra against US car companies way back in the early 70’s. His last American car was a Mercury Cougar; I think a 67 or 68. After that, he ranted and raved that American automakers, (unlike Asian automakers at the time) built ONLY what THEY wanted to build, (based on no customer input) and expected the US consumer to buy whatever they built. According to him, the Asian automakers actually consulted the consumer and found out what they wanted, and then built accordingly. Common sense dictates some measure of truth in that, and I could go into my own long list of why, since the corporate greed structure of these past 4 decades has created the same environment in ALL industry, across the board.

So I think what you’ve stated here is a given, but at this point in time, it doesn’t really matter WHY they’re failing, (since we know) but simply that they will take so many down with them. I’m convinced, (as I have been for at least 20 years) that the automakers have failed to make better cars simply because there has been far too much profit for them as well as the oil giants, to make crummy ones. If they’ve come up with poor mileage vehicles, it’s been intentional. If the quality has been poor, (reflected primarily in the materials rather than the workmanship in my opinion) it’s been intentionally to boost corporate profits. If the workmanship is bad, it’s for the same reason. Corporate profits and CEO bonuses cannot be maximized to such obscenities without taking huge cuts out of the labor portion of what it costs to do business. So for every single corporation that anyone can name, the BIGGEST cuts are on labor.
That’s where they demand the greatest concessions. When 2 people are expected to do the jobs of 5, it is immediately reflected in the quality of the finished product. It’s the same for all other manufacturing, as well as the service industry. This is common sense, so obviously it is an anticipated result, but they don’t care.

So we know the ‘why’s ‘ of the failures of the Big Three. There’s no doubt that the entire industry, (among others) needs a total restructuring, back to the days before obscene corporate and executive profits were imaginable. Back to when a 1/10 ratio between the lowest paid worker and the highest paid executive was more common. Back to when the lowest paid worker could actually afford the products of his own labor.

But, that could take a while, (in fact, it will take at least some time) and the crises is now. Flooding the soup lines with millions more unemployed (because despite the failure, far too many other businesses are attached) is a REALLY bad idea right now. (kind of like pouring fuel on a burning house, and the rest of the houses in the vicinity).

2 of 2

For instance, I read recently that Bank of America would be laying off 85,000 employees. And now that I think about it, that would be a case for NOT bailing them out.  (of course we’ve already bailed THEM out, and with no assurances that they would NOT do this.) If the Big Three did exactly what most of the rest of Wall Street has done over the past 3 decades of bailouts, (there have been many) they will end up laying more people off, even if they do get the bailout money!!

(As an aside, there’s an excellent time line of US CORPORATE Bail-Outs since back to the 1970’s, though I can’t put my hands on it right now. It shows an eventual pattern.)

That’s exactly what the airline industry did after it was bailed out (twice) by the taxpayers after 9/11. What good did it do? They still laid-off hundreds of thousands of people, most of whom have not re-entered the aviation transportation work force in ANY capacity since, and that’s been 7 years.  It’s been the same with the telecoms,  and I could go on and on, but you know what I mean.

So now we bail out the flippin’ banks, because without the flow of credit, there’s a gridlock and the entire economy shuts down. But this injection of cash to the banks hasn’t done as promised, and now we see that they’re dumping their human infrastructure, (labor) who are the very taxpayers that have given up the bucks to save their asses.
Unemployed people don’t pay taxes. In fact, they COLLECT public funds (to the extent that the government will pay them) as Mr. Robinson has pointed out. This is why it’s incredibly asinine to let the industry collapse entirely under its own weight (weight = age old corruption in corporate practices, allowed by deregulation) when $14b of the already promised $700b would prevent it, if only until a more balanced structure can be accomplished. That will take at least a month after Obama takes office. And, that’s a lot of people working their asses off.

This is more triage. Because…the crises is still on-going. Shit is still flying, and people are still dying.

Confused moderate-liberal “lesser evil” thinking isn’t just limited to voting for Democratic candidates, it seems.

Here, Robinson rationalizes one more corporate welfare fix, claiming that special circumstances justify it.  Never heard THAT argument before!

Robinson probably didn’t write the headline, but characterizing the absence of a big-government bailout as “killing the Big Three” is about as accurate as those who hysterically opposed “killing” the late Terri Schiavo.

And while I can see how the enfeebled unions come off as the baby in this cold, oily bathwater of soured and failed capitalism, doesn’t pouring cash into the tub just delay the inevitable?

IMO, only an incorrigibly venal and ignorant Scrooge could lack sympathy for career auto workers caught up in the collapse of their industry.  Still, I would rather that THEY be “bailed out” by well-funded and well-conceived benefits and re-employment programs using taxpayer money, instead of throwing it away on top-down heroic and extraordinary life support measures that primarily give aid and comfort to corporate officers, executives, and shareholders (see Wall Street “bailout”).

Capitalism has failed in America and that will become increasingly clear in 2009.  It was killed by unenlightened self interest better known as power,corruption and greed.  The enormity of the failure, to date, has been masked by trillions of taxpayer dollars.  Corporate welfare in the form of gigantic bailouts is just layering denial upon denial. Beer and football are empty distractions. What is, is!  The shining city on a hill is now coming into focus and is nothing but a festering pile of dung. Finally a diet that works.

Addendum;
I absolutely think the republicans are using this as an opportunity to bust the unions.  American’s wages are effectively the same as the 70’s; except for the autoworkers.  The major problem has been a lack of investment in manufacturing infrastructure.  This country has sold itself down the river (so to speak) by it’s abject laziness.  When we should have been the world leader in manufacturing technology and innovation; we outsourced soon to be obsolete manufacturing processes for cheap labor and then rested on our proverbial laurels (asses).  Is it any wonder the hungry, emerging third world has over taken such a lazy beast.  Hell, the Japanese showed ud the future 40 years ago.  We’re too stupid to live.  It’s empire deja vu all over again; only this time it’s us and not Rome.  EOR (end of rant)

Let the autos and the unions fail.  There co-opting the liberal/ progressive logo; has has only caused us being — slandered by the world.

The unions have failed; they no longer have power,  and they can only be a headache to a anti-war movement.

They were in the 60s, a headache and they are today; because they used to “harass” anti Vietnam war protestors in the name of patriotism.

Killing the Big 3 Would Be Nuts
By Eugene Robinson;

Maybe, but they should be allowed a “near death experience” at the very least.  You know; the bright light at the end of the long passage way.
They’re failing because they produce crap vehicles; poor mileage, poor quality, and poor design.  The economy didn’t kill them; a lack of interest in their products killed them.  I made the mistake of buying my first and new; American car in 1984 (previously bought European).  I bought a Chevy Eurosport; complete junk.  I traded it for a VW GTI (less than a year) at a massive loss to me and never looked back.