Bush's unseen role in the impending demise of GM and Ford.

[KlatooBNikto]

The alarming news from GM and Ford last week, has sent tremors throughout Wall Street.As usual, our commentators have failed to connect the dots and let Bush off the hook as though his mad adventurs in Iraq have nothing to do with this crisis.GM and Ford have stayed solvent in the past ten years through their emphasis on building gas hogs like big pickp trucks,monster SUVs and the like that bring in hefty profits.Their core automotive business has been all but abandoned because their asses are being kicked by the Japanese, Germans and Koreans.

Now, as Bush embarked on his adventure in Iraq,the cheerleaders at GM and Ford dutifully lined up behind the New World's own Fuehrer, realizing little how he has thrown a hand grenade into their business strategy. After seeing Iraq's oil riches coming down to our gas pumps,we now face $2.00 a gallon gas and very likely even $3.00 a gallon gas in the next twelve months. This has already killed off the demand for the gas hogs.The Japanese,with demand for their cars at all time highs, and their near monoploy on hybrid vehicles,are going to deal a death blow to our domestic auto industry soon.

While I blame the arrogance of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld for not seeing the consequences of their madness, the corporate CEOs at GM and Ford are also equally to blame.Not merely have they neglected their core business, by becoming cheerleaders for the GOP's reckless policies in the Middle East, they have hastened their own demise. It is as though, a guy strapped to an electric chair, throws the switch that kills him.

Bush and our shortsighted business "leaders" deserve each other.Once again, the small guys get the shaft.

[whistle]

1. Where do dead fish rot first? In the head.....

[NewJeffCT]

2. that's the problem

If people had stopped buying the GMs & Fords years ago, they would have been forced to change & adapt, which they have done in the past - after initially almost sinking in the 60s and getting a body blow from the rising Japanese automakers in the 70s, Ford made a pretty strong comeback in the 80s and 90s.

Unfortunately, Ford & GM and not looked long-term like the Japanese or Chinese?

Then, what happens in another year or two when those $5,000 Chinese cars with 10 year/100,000 mile warranties come along?

[KlatooBNikto]

3. You may have the answer at the end of this model year. It is my

understanding that without huge rebates and 0% loans,their cars are just not moving off their lots.That only means that their profits are razor thin and unless there is a huge volume, they will not be able to run the business profitably.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall, with a little help from Gee Dubya,of course.

[NMDemDist2]

4. it's the economy too, anybody that can afford a new car already has

got one

the rest of us are just keeping the baling wire and chewing gum manufacturers afloat

[Ernesto]

19. short term profits are the 'merican way

I keep squawking about Boeing out-sourcing wing assemblies to CHINA. Give'em 2 decades & we'll be buying airliners from them. Fighter planes can't be too far off. How's this for a "national security" issue? Is this LHOP? NO, like 9-11 I'm afraid it's TSTSIC (too stupid to see it coming)?

[whistle]

22. Bring 'em on, the Chinese are actually much larger people...

...than most of the other auto competitor countries, so us 6'3"++ guys and gals may actually get fuel economy, affordable prices and sufficient room in our automobiles!

[dbt]

5. Detroit got its wakeup call thirty-one years ago.

Remember 1974? Long lines at the pumps? No gasoline on some Sundays? Yet the Big Three plowed ahead with fuel-guzzling, shoddily-built cars even as the Japanese landed ship after ship full of gas-sipping, well-constructed Toyotas and Datsuns on our shores.

Detroit's answer? Cut the butt off a Cadillac and Full Speed Ahead.

:freak:

[Clark2008]

8. But, that hasn't been the case since about 1989.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with my car (save the brakes and an O2 sensor) and it's a Ford with more than 100,000 miles on it.
In fact, my mother has a nearly 20-year-old Ford and it's still running just fine (it's an Escort - good gas mileage, too, for its age).
The problem, is, of course, that people kept THINKING American cars weren't as good, but they had improved, and the average person just couldn't get over the 1970s.
Personally, I won't buy a Japanese car - their wiring screws up and you have weird electrical problems after about five or six years. My ex husband had two Nissans that did that - in a row.

[dbt]

12. True. However, Detroit gave Japan about a 15-year head start, no?

Even someone as removed from Big Auto Business as I was/am could see, in 1974, that "the world had changed forever" as a result of the Oil Embargo. My point is that Detroit's inertia at the time let the Japanese car makers get two legs up on them.

COUNTERPOINT: Toyota foisted some truly horrible V-6 engines upon American consumers back in '98. These Pieces Of Feces would begin to burn oil at around 50,000 miles and Toyota refused to honor its own warranties, preferring to blame its own customers for "improper oil changes."

[noonwitch]

15. I've got a 98 Escort I'm getting rid of soon

I'm going to lease a Focus for a couple of years, and see if the economy picks up before buying another car.

My Escort is not in terrible shape, it just has repairs coming that I don't want to pay for. Ford built the Escort better in earlier years than in the last two or three they made them, and the roads of Detroit have just been really hard on this one.

[NewJeffCT]

14. great book - "The Reckoning" by David Halberstam

Tells about the original rise of Ford, their near demise in the 60s & 70s due to things like the Edsel and then Japanese competition and then the comeback they made in the 80s & early to mid 90s.

Unfortunately, because so many American cars were shoddily built for years, the Japanese passed them in quality after first passing them in gas mileage. Now, it will take years for American cars to regain their prestige with buyers (there are Buicks all over China, though...)even as they have almost caught up with the Japanese in terms of quality.

My own personal experience with this was when I was when I got out of college & wanted something sporty a year later. A new car on the market at the time was the Mitsubishi Eclipse / Plymouth Laser / Eagle Talon. All essentially the same car with a different name stamp on it and different color choices. However, when researching in either Consumer Reports or some similar publication, the estimated resale value in 4 years was like 45% of original price for the Mitsubishi and 40% of original for the Plymouth & Eagle. The Eclipse was getting a premium on the MSRP, while the Plymouth & Eagle were not.

[Divernan]

6. Industry analysts say GM in trouble because they build way too many models

GM has not been posting a profit for about 6 years at least. That's plenty of time for any competent board and management to have turned things around if they had the ability to do so. They should have emulated Chrysler, which posted a 7% profit last year.
I wonder how negatively GM's stock going to junk bond status will impact various mutual funds and pension plans.

[KlatooBNikto]

7. In posting this, I wanted the focus to be on Bush and his war on Iraq.How

that war has made gas prices rise to $2 a gallon and killed off the demand for the gas hogs.How the CEOs of GM and Ford who line up behind Bush on the War on Iraq have signed the death warrants of their own companies and the yahoos who thumped their chests and supported Bush are now going to meet the repo man after losing their jobs.It is this spiral that is going to make Bush go down in flames along with a million families.

[imenja]

9. GM and Ford make more fuel efficient vehicles too

I'm not about to lament the demise of SUVs. It's about time people started to face the reality of high gas prices.

[KlatooBNikto]

10. Those fuel efficient vehicles do not make a profit for GM or Ford because

they have to go head to head against many fine Japanese, german and Korean cars. The GM/Ford models need enormous rebates to move them off the dealer lots cutting profit margins to nothing.In the big gas hog market, GM and Ford have a monopoly and can dictate prices because the Japanese do not have many models there. So, GM and Ford have become dependent on those big gas hogs for their survival.As gas prices go through the roof, the attraction of those models has worn and GM/Ford are in big trouble. That is why I say, Bush has unleashed a war whose consequences have come to bite us in the ass.

[imenja]

11. I have a Ford which is made by Mazda

I don't know where the dividing line between American and Japanese cars even is anymore.

[KlatooBNikto]

13. Similarly, GM owns SAAB.But those cars contribute so little to the

bottom line at Ford or GM that unless their core North American operations start making profits, they will be dead in the water. The market has already rejected anything that has a GM or Ford brand name on it because there are better alternatives available from Toyota and Honda and Nissan.

The rise in gas prices makes their end nearer.They can thank GW for that.

[indepat]

16. That an army of corporate chieftians having been cheerleaders for reckless

and ruinous GOP policies, both foreign and domestic (tax policies), might well be the death knell of many of their own companies, our economy, and maybe the Republic itself, should be a no-brainer to every person having even the semblance of literacy.

[Toots]

17. They outsource most everything anyway so it is no big loss

What is the difference between a Japanese auto and a Japanese/Mexican made auto with an American name? If I am going to buy a new car why not buy the real mcCoy. Same logic applies to politics. Why vote republican lite?

[blm]

18. Gore negotiated a deal with automakers to make more fuel-inefficient cars

and trucks. When Bush took office in 2001 he released the automakers from the prior deal they had made.

Kerry would have fully funded alternative energy research and rewarded tax breaks to those automakers who put forth fuel-efficient or alternative energy cars and trucks.

But, some people claim there was not much difference between Bush and Gore or Bush and Kerry. As if oil and energy manipulation isn't what's driving our foreign policy imperialism today

[DemocracyInaction]

20. According to Bloombert there may be a bigger trick up the sleeves

Actually, our darling little freak in the WH and his boys want GM to become the next "airline industry". They are hoping that they will file for bankruptcy and thus destroy all union contracts and pull all worker pension funds, etc. Then they feel that will go through all UAW industries---i.e., the other car manufacturers, companies like Deere and Catepillar and all those making construction and farm vehicles, etc. In other words, the last big gutting out of good paying jobs and benefits and any way to live past 55 years old!!!! They feel then they can hire people for pennies and be competitive with China and Japan, etc. Sure is hell, though, to buy a car when you're making $3.00 an hour................fucking assholes.

[Poppyseedman]

21. I'll hate to point this out,

As much as all things are BFEE fault, GM has been in trouble for a long time.

Also gas prices with adjusted inflation, are still very low.

At the corporate world of GM and Ford. Those guys don't give a rats ass whoever "thinks" is running the country.

Even if gas was a nickel a gallon, GM would still be in trouble basically because the cars they build have sucked for 25 years and only a sucker would actually buy anything but a Cadillac, which is a different division.

They saw this coming and will use it as concessions from the unions.