It’s mind-boggling how some conservatives and libertarians are such true-believers when it comes to hating organized labor that they’d let the entire economy implode just to get rid of the UAW.

Would that Republican stance be any less odious than the Democratic party stance against GWB? Or is winning the only consideration anymore?

I would rather try to do the least damage possible and then try to make the best of it. THEN I have the right to finger-point as needed.

{^_^}

Yet Japan’s automakers are not celebrating. Far from it. They are suffering mightily from the same massive decline in auto sales that is killing Detroit. Moreover, the bankruptcy of one or more of the Big Three could create havoc among parts suppliers that sell to Japan’s carmakers; job losses would send more shock waves through the U.S. economy, deepening the recession in what is by far the largest single market for Japanese cars. “What we’re seeing is the 30-foot tsunami that not even Toyota can cope with,” says Tatsuo Yoshida, executive director and senior analyst at UBS Securities Japan.

From Time magazine, hardly Detroit cheerleaders.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1864667,00.html?xid=feed-yahoo-world

Here’s a prediction–even with bailouts these companies are still going under and they deserve it. Tell me again who bailed out all the internet companies back in 2002-03 with their 100’s of thousands of employees. Go check the layoff stats in just Silicon Valley.

Silicon Valley offshores a lot of its production and doesn’t pose a systemic risk that the failure of the automotive supply chain would. But since we’re talking about Silicon Valley, do you have any idea how many chips and ICs Detroit buys?

God bless you but you have not a clue on how the market works. GM, Chrysler and Ford are considered the three worst car companies in the world. That is why their stocks were basically at zero. Mercedes sold Chrysler because they realized it was a hopeless company with useless union contract employees and managers.

As to the other companies cutting production, of course they are. The world economy has slowed to a crawl. The problems that are plaguing Detroit have nothing to do with the slowdown. GM etc have been losing market share for 30 years because they are an embarrassment in the industrial world.

As to the workers being laid off etc, cry me a river. Everyone else in the real world is subject to being laid off without, I might add these stupid union contracts that have put these companies on the welfare line.

The absolute best thing that could happen to these companies is to go into Chapter 11 and face the reality of being shit companies with shit management. Instead you are looking for a handout under the pretense that these companies are important. They are no such thing. They are way past their due dates. Clear them out and let smartly run companies take their places building better autos. Don’t even try to compare any of these companies to Toyota.

Basically I think the workers who didn’t take the golden parachutes they have been offered over the last several years were idiots.

Here’s a prediction–even with bailouts these companies are still going under and they deserve it. Tell me again who bailed out all the internet companies back in 2002-03 with their 100’s of thousands of employees. Go check the layoff stats in just Silicon Valley.

As to the financial companies–until this market bust each and every one of them provided a service that folks were happy with unlike the auto companies who people have been shunning for decades. Personally I have been against those bailouts also.

You’d think the senator would be willing to work with Big Auto after they named that engine after him.

And this is supposedly what passes for informed commentary?

Shelby is not the name of an engine, nor has it ever been.

I can’t believe that so-called conservatives are giving a hypocrite like Richard Shelby a pass. Why not ask him how much money he’s getting from Mercedes and Hyundai?

If we were truly a free market economy they would go out of business as the other 50 or more auto companies went out of business between 1910 and 1940. In their stead all the better run auto companies would build and open new factories to take advantage of the new marketplace, hiring 100’s of thousands. The free market would invent a better mouse trap in a few difficult years.

Not without a supplier base. The problem is that so few Americans are involved in manufacturing that they don’t know what a supply chain is and how vulnerable it can be to disruption.

If, as previously mentioned, the companies instead were Mercedes, BMW etc the money would be forthcoming with no hesitation because they are viewed as viable institutions. GM, Ford and Chrysler? You have to be kidding.

“Viewed”, perhaps but perception isn’t always reality. When Daimler bought Chrysler, at the time Chrysler was more profitable than M-B. Moving to the present, BMW is cutting production at their plant in SC, offering buyouts to workers. Mercedes has drastically cut production at their SUV plant in Alabama so near and dear to Shelby’s heart. Ford turned a profit in the 1st quarter of this year.

Why the bank bailouts? They had been very viable firms.

AIG was viable? Lehman Bros? Bear Stearns? Why are the taxpayers backstopping $300 billion in bad debt for Citi? On paper the banks are just as insolvent as the auto companies.

GM, Ford and Chrysler have done the opposite over the last 40 years.

And despite any evidence to the contrary, you will continue to believe that Detroit makes junk.

Google [Toyota engine sludge] and tell me about reputations.

Do you realize that in all those words you just admitted that cutting taxes works to revitalize business?

Read my lips. I’m a free market conservative/libertarian. Just because I happen to recognize reality and I’m not a Losertarian more in love with ideology than pragmatic solutions doesn’t mean I think that state and federal governments aren’t bloated.

That the states in the most trouble are high tax states?

The main reason why Alabama and other southern states are “low tax” states is because taxpayers in the Midwest, California and New Jersey ($0.65 in federal spending per every dollar NJ sends to Wash.) are directly and indirectly subsidizing those states? You think Alabama got that $650 million they gave to Mercedes, Hyundai, Toyota and Honda came from Alabama taxpayers?

I can’t even begin to address all the spin-off strawmen you stuffed your posts with.

In other words, you can’t rebut what I wrote.

The auto giants have masses of valuable assets – material, process and human – that can be bought up, stripped down and retooled or resold or refined.

The plants and tooling are only valuable to their current owners. It costs hundreds of millions of dollars to change over an assembly plant to new models.

There is no need to start making “Toyondissandais”, continue making the successful models and dump the rest –

Stop the presses! I thought that “nobody” buys “American junk” anymore. You mean that Detroit actually makes some competitive models? You think the 40% of Americans who would never think of buying an American car will start to buy Malibus because they will be made by Toyota?

oh, I forgot there’s gubmint regulations getting in the way of that….so who’s the real villain here?

No argument from me. While you’re talking about the gov’t don’t forget to mention lawyers. GM spends more on product liability insurance and litigation than they do on the hourly labor costs of building cars.

Tell me, how will the hypothetical buyers of those assets build cars when the supply chain is no longer?

Can those who feel the auto industry should allow to fail explain what to do when employment numbers top 10%? And there’s no auto industry?

No auto industry? Put down the bong. There is a huge auto industry here and it would be much healthier if these junkyard companies were allowed to survive or perish on their own. The reason 61% of the American people are against this bailout proposal is because these are failing companies. Their stocks were trading at 50 year lows and they were heading for bankruptcy until this bailout mania started.

The general background noise and resistance to bailing out Detroit is due to the marketplace having previously determined that the Big Three are incompetent.

No amount of lipstick is going to change this. In fact, no matter the sums involved, they who are about to be scalped view the money as going down a rat hole. If, as previously mentioned, the companies instead were Mercedes, BMW etc the money would be forthcoming with no hesitation because they are viewed as viable institutions. GM, Ford and Chrysler? You have to be kidding.

Why the bank bailouts? They had been very viable firms. It is for this reason that financial institutions were given the benefit of the doubt. Many had been 100 year old companies that had built solid reputations. GM, Ford and Chrysler have done the opposite over the last 40 years.

If we were truly a free market economy they would go out of business as the other 50 or more auto companies went out of business between 1910 and 1940. In their stead all the better run auto companies would build and open new factories to take advantage of the new marketplace, hiring 100’s of thousands. The free market would invent a better mouse trap in a few difficult years.

Now we no longer believe in such a market. We will pay dearly for this shortcoming.

rokemronnie on December 8, 2008 at 3:35 PM

Do you realize that in all those words you just admitted that cutting taxes works to revitalize business?

That the states in the most trouble are high tax states?

That the companies, and states in trouble are the most generous in pay and benefits?

rokemronnie on December 8, 2008 at 3:44 PM

I can’t even begin to address all the spin-off strawmen you stuffed your posts with.

The auto giants have masses of valuable assets – material, process and human – that can be bought up, stripped down and retooled or resold or refined. There is no need to start making “Toyondissandais”, continue making the successful models and dump the rest – oh, I forgot there’s gubmint regulations getting in the way of that….so who’s the real villain here?

Yes, jobs will be lost. No, it won’t be the end of the world. With such currently valuable infrastructure, these industries don’t just dry up and blow away. They change shape, sure, and relocate sometimes, but as an economic entity they keep going until there is no more use for them. I think the auto industry has some more mileage left, it isn’t ready for the ‘horse & buggy’ scrapyard just yet.

I suspect that the jobs you do see being shed will reveal just how absurdly overburdened these giants were. This is gonna hurt the unions. As it should.

Unemployment will not rise significantly. You are fallaciously assuming that once GM ‘goes under’ that all the buildings/factories/jobs will evaporate – they will not. There will be a crossover period of downtime, perhaps, but current workers will still be needed to operate the facilities once they are bought out by new owners. And they will be bought. Cheap.

You’re fallaciously assuming that the supply chain will survive when they lose their three biggest customers, as well as take a hit directly to their bottom line because they’re not going to get paid what they’re owed.

When a supplier goes out of business it impacts business both above and below them in the supply chain. While many vendors also sell globally as well as to the foreign transplant operations, they are still financially dependent on the Detroit 3 and if the domestics are liquidated those suppliers will fail.

You think that someone will just buy up the GM plants and start making Toyondissandais. It takes close to a year and hundreds of millions of dollars to switch an assembly plant to a completely different model. Since even Toyota’s credit rating has gone down, the money’s not going to be available.

Unless you think that folks will buy Malibus renamed as Toyotas. But then you probably believe that “nobody” buys American cars anymore, ignoring the domestics’ 55% market share. It makes more sense to say, with their <3% market share, that nobody buys Apple computers anymore.

Ever car maker, domestic or foreign, has seen their sales drop at least 30%. If the supply chain for the domestics fail, it will also hurt the foreign brands. Detroit and its supply chain continue to be leading innovators in technology. They still are granted the yeoman’s share of automotive patents, including in alternative energy and related “green” technologies.

But please, go ahead and call my neighbors lazy and greedy. I suppose that you are the only hard working Americans around.

Those who say that Detroit hasn’t changed are ignoramuses or deliberately lying. I’m no fan of the UAW but that union has made enormous concessions. Don’t tell me about “job banks” when there are 1.8 million federal employees who mostly sit on their asses and get an avg of over $100,000 year in wages and benefits. That’s right, the average federal employee makes more than a UAW worker.

If GM is liquidated, the job that is lost may be very well your own. You may think you’re removed from the auto industry, but if the automotive supply chain fails, and it will fail if GM or Ford is liquidated, many businesses seemingly far removed from Detroit and its problems will have to cut back. If the supply chain fails, not only will Toyota and Honda have difficulty building cars here (they use the same suppliers and if the suppliers are out of business Toyondissandai can’t buy components), but our defense contractors will have production difficulties as well.

I’m a free market guy who hates the idea of gov’t subsidies for business, but this is a shit sandwich we may have to eat.

It’s easy to figure out if a politician opposes loans to Detroit. All you need to do is see if they have foreign owned automotive plants in their state and if they get back more federal spending than taxes paid.

If Shelby was honest he’d at least say he’s protecting the interest of businesses in his state, but he won’t say that. At the most he’ll say that those foreign owned automakers with plants in Alabama and the rest of the South are better managed than the Detroit 3. Considering that those plants build primarily SUVs and have been cutting production and offering workers buyouts, I’m not sure they’re any better managed than Ford or GM.

Last week I heard Gov. Sanford of South Carolina (home to a BMW plant) saying that his state’s taxpayers shouldn’t be subsidizing the pensions of California firefighters. While California’s bloated and entitled public payroll is a problem, the reality is that at 90 cents on their federal tax dollar, and SC’s $1.14, it’s California taxpayers who are subsidizing Gov. Sanford’s employees.

Of course, in light of the events of 1860-1865, it’s an open question as to whether or not Alabama, South Carolina and other states in the South actually support the idea of the United States. They sure do like Northern tax revenues and jobs they can steal from the Midwest, though.

DeathToMediaHacks on December 8, 2008 at 2:41 PM

Unemployment will not rise significantly. You are fallaciously assuming that once GM ‘goes under’ that all the buildings/factories/jobs will evaporate – they will not. There will be a crossover period of downtime, perhaps, but current workers will still be needed to operate the facilities once they are bought out by new owners. And they will be bought. Cheap.

For those that are inevitably left unemployed, I suggest they find new jobs and stop looking for politicians to pander to them as if life owes them a damned thing.

Can those who feel the auto industry should allow to fail explain what to do when employment numbers top 10%? And there’s no auto industry?

DeathToMediaHacks on December 8, 2008 at 2:41 PM

and you think this bailout is going to stop this?? oh please.

the government shouldn’t be making decisions about who survives or falls. we’re back in the USSR.

Can those who feel the auto industry should allow to fail explain what to do when employment numbers top 10%? And there’s no auto industry?

Maybe someone who knows how to run an auto industry will buy up the plants and employ people at competitive wages and make cars people around the world want to buy….maybe?