Bailout "Big 3" U.S. Automakers??

[bluffmanxx]

I agree with Mitt!!

Let Detroit Go Bankrupt

IF General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.

Without that bailout, Detroit will need to drastically restructure itself. With it, the automakers will stay the course — the suicidal course of declining market shares, insurmountable labor and retiree burdens, technology atrophy, product inferiority and never-ending job losses. Detroit needs a turnaround, not a check.

First, their huge disadvantage in costs relative to foreign brands must be eliminated. That means new labor agreements to align pay and benefits to match those of workers at competitors like BMW, Honda, Nissan and Toyota. Furthermore, retiree benefits must be reduced so that the total burden per auto for domestic makers is not higher than that of foreign producers.

That extra burden is estimated to be more than $2,000 per car. Think what that means: Ford, for example, needs to cut $2,000 worth of features and quality out of its Taurus to compete with Toyota’s Avalon. Of course the Avalon feels like a better product — it has $2,000 more put into it. Considering this disadvantage, Detroit has done a remarkable job of designing and engineering its cars. But if this cost penalty persists, any bailout will only delay the inevitable.

[billynomates]

This is not the story of Ford and General Motors, but British Leyland, a car company that went through £11 billion of inflation-adjusted British taxpayer money, or $16.5 billion, in the ’70s and ’80s before going out of business. All that is left of the company now are memories of cars like the Triumph, and a painful lesson in the limited effectiveness of bailouts.

“It’s all too evocative,” said Leon Brittan, a top official in the government of Margaret Thatcher, the free-market-minded prime minister who nevertheless backed the rescue. “I’m not telling the U.S. what to do, but the lessons of the British experience is don’t throw good money after bad. British Leyland carried on for a few more years, but they’re not there now, are they?”

Other experts are sounding the same alarm. “The British Leyland experience is a relevant and cautionary one,” said John Casesa, a principal in the automotive consulting firm Casesa Shapiro Group in New York. “The government got in the business of trying to make a winner out of a structurally flawed company. That’s the risk in the U.S. as well.”

If people don't want to buy a product you can't make them!!

[spaceboy761]

No way, man. All of the bailout money the government can muster should be going towards THESE POCKETS, BABY!!!

[billybob]

This is a good example what happens when they try to make every kind of car in every kind of color!!!! They should restrict the multiple number of options they have.

[billynomates]

No way, man. All of the bailout money the government can muster should be going towards THESE POCKETS, BABY!!!
__________________

Exactly what the unions, the latinos and the lefties are saying 'It's payback time!! You promised Obama - now you deliver!'

[spaceboy761]

Whatever. Detroit is a lost cause. Apparently, you can't manufacture crap for 20 years and still be viable.

[spaceboy761]

Here's a decent survey article about it from CNBC.

No Auto Bailout? Investors May Just Say 'No Problem': Financial News - Yahoo! Finance

[Wicked]

their mode of transportation to beg for money

[ColdCase]

No bail out............(say it after me) D E P R E S S I O N!!!

Mitt is dead wrong......hello...there are NO banks to borrow from.

This is not the right time to gamble...there has been innovation in the last five years.

They made the Saturn....it was a great idea, but they stumbled and
backed the SUV....The Volt is ready to roll soon ( they have put a lot of energy
into it.....let them finish the damn thing.) Flex fuel chips are a reality.
Fire select donks and get on with it. Management must pay!

BTW....no way will they not bail them out....so I guess you will just have to live
with the fact that the Latino Union Socialist Commie Lazyass Machine will still
be stealing from you. Repeat after me .... B I G O T!!!!

[bluffmanxx]

Originally Posted by ColdCase

No bail out............(say it after me) D E P R E S S I O N!!!

Mitt is dead wrong......hello...there are NO banks to borrow from.

This is not the right time to gamble...there has been innovation in the last five years.

They made the Saturn....it was a great idea, but they stumbled and
backed the SUV....The Volt is ready to roll soon ( they have put a lot of energy
into it.....let them finish the damn thing.) Flex fuel chips are a reality.
Fire select donks and get on with it. Management must pay!

BTW....no way will they not bail them out....so I guess you will just have to live
with the fact that the Latino Union Socialist Commie Lazyass Machine will still
be stealing from you. Repeat after me .... B I G O T!!!!

Lucas, not bailing them out does not mean they vanish into thin air.

Chapter 11 baby. Re-organization.
Once in bankruptcy they can restructure...and a big part of that is eliminating that $2,000 per vehicle competitive disadvantage because of the disparity in wages and benefits paid by the big 3.



they could also do away with the "job bank" that has them paying 12,000 union members to not work.

Ken Pool is making good money. On weekdays, he shows up at 7 a.m. at Ford Motor Co.'s Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne, signs in, and then starts working -- on a crossword puzzle. Pool hates the monotony, but the pay is good: more than $31 an hour, plus benefits.

"We just go in and play crossword puzzles, watch videos that someone brings in or read the newspaper," he says. "Otherwise, I've just sat."

Bail them out and it is flawed business as usual and in 5 years they will need another bailout.