kenmo

It will (in my eyes) be a sad day if/when we loose GM, Ford or Chrysler... Or worse maybe all of them...

What can we do in as North Americans to help the situation? Or are we Americans and Canadians really helpless in this matter?

65coupe

Americans can start buying GM/Ford or Chrysler cars.

Most of the feedback I get on the subject is indifference. They could car less is Amaerican companies like GM. Shame.

kenmo

So true, we North Americans are the authors of our own demise....

Seaside63

If GM were to treat North Americans with respect perhaps North Americans would respect GM.

For over 30 years, the company refuses to build the vehicles that customers want.

It's their arrogance that's killing them.

al329

Many I know would love to buy American. But you start shopping and price, saftey, reliability and warranty. Guess what your left with.

philip964

In today's Bloomberg.

Ford Motor Co. slid 7.4 percent to $2.16. Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian's Tracinda Corp. said it may sell all of its remaining 133.5 million shares in the second-largest U.S. auto company after divesting 7.3 million for an average price of $2.43. Since Kerkorian disclosed his initial investment, the value of what became a 6.4 percent stake fell by about two- thirds.

Kirk is considered a "good" investor. Apparently Bank of America was calling about their loan to finance all this Ford stock and it was threatening his control of the MGM casino in Vegas. His MGM stock has dropped 80% this year, so maybe Ford's fall is sort of relative.

gord holden

I have always bought G.M.never a foreign car.7 vetts 3pontiacs,toranodos 4 g.m trucks new hummer,2, 50 chevs,40 chev.but when the union is making total 68.00 hour.and then the nerve to ask for there supply of viagra in there contract I will not be able to afford them any more.I don"t know what i will buy next.

mdz06vetter

the unions are what suck in the American auto industry - when the average price of an American made car starts out costing on average $1600 for the benefits the unions enjoy, then there is a problem

TBIRD57

are they wasting time and money on chrysler?

I'm very partial to GM.
My dad worked for over 20 years at a GM Fischer Body plant.
He worked hard, got a fair wage, and was able to take care of his family and help me go to college. The pension and medical coverage my mom got after his death helped in her declining years to survive.

So while some are gleeful at the current GM crisis, I am not.
It wasn't the American Auto industry or the UAW that caused this current meltdown.

The famous or infamous guote by George Wilson that what's good for GM is good for America, turns out to have been true.

Seaside63

The problem came from firing all those union workers. Every penny those people earned went right back into the economy. Buying American products.

No workers, no customers, no economy.

The billionaires sucked the money up the tree and kept it. Redistributed the wealth from the sweat of the workers to the vaults of the CEOs.

American sweat is not good enough, send it off to China and redistribute that sweat up into even bigger vaults.

Speaking of vaults, has anyone seen how sales of vaults is going crazy for all the CEO's to store their gold bars? They don't have faith in their own companies so they're dumping their stocks and stacking up the gold.

Maybe the auto workers can get jobs as $7/hr security guards watching those vaults?

philip964

The Boeing machinists are on strike. Boeing has lost 24% since the strike started. Neither side seems interested in settling. They have burned 3 billion in cash since the strike started.

Their plane orders don't go away, so Boeing is in a good position. The union has a big strike fund so they are in a good position.

I don't know but I assume the union is fighting against outsourcing work overseas. Boeing I assume wants to avoid what has happened to GM and wants to avoid settling and having to pay for it down the road.

Sounds like a no win situation for everyone. Too bad, as they make an excellent product.

I worry that the US in 30 years will be just be made up of retirees and service workers.

magicv8

reality check: Every day the managers blow that much on airfare or "conferences" they attend all over the world. Besides that they get better benefits than the union workers.

I believe John Deere has some of the highest paid auto workers in the world, but they see that the CEO was awarded almost $47million last year. Wouldn't you feel justified in keeping your union-won benefits? When the stock price is going up, corporate officers get wretched excess in compensation, but when it goes down they don't have to give it back. The justification of executive leadership providing stock/value growth always fails when the market dives.

Ranting about the problems doesn't solve them. IMO only pressure from the boards of the large companies will force change at the top, which is where the example has to be set.

65coupe

I don't believe that.

They are making products that Americans wants. The issue in manufacturing is you can't change direction in manufacturing on a dime in a fast paced and ever changing enviorment. I work for a manufacturer who produces men's pants and we have the same long lead times and development challenges that do not allow speed to market. I can't imagine car development.

Bottomline, stop looking in your rear view mirror on what GM used to do. Today they make great cars.

These cars are high quality and are as good if not better that anything made all over the world in their class. I know as I rent cars constantly for work and request GM/Ford/Chrylsler only.

It's become a fashionable to buy Japanese cars. Japan is an ally of the USA but not a friend. They limit our access to their market and have dumpped below market, electronics and steel to kill our our industry. While living in Connecticut at one time I was told that GM was the second largest employee (indirectly through GM support companies). Now it's all gone. That's just Conn. I'm sure other states had larger businesses with GM. GM was there with support duing all the wars in the past century.

Give GM a chance and buy their cars.

65coupe

Ernie67

I stronly agree with 65 on this. I just rented a new cadillac last weekend and I was extremely impressed. I picked my dad up who is a die hard Toyota fan and he to was impressed. Niether of us could understand why more people don't feel the way we do. General Motors is making world class cars, why is the word not coming out?

Ron Miller

If you build it, they will come. They didn't get into this mess overnight, they're not going to get out of it overnight either. It took time to run down the reputation of US cars, it'll take time to regain it.

My opinion only . . .

vettefred

Seaside.....and what vehicles might those have been?

vettefred

Model for model, the GM vehicles are markedly LESS expensive than comparable Toyota, Lexus, Nissan, Honda models AND quality is equal to these manufacturers. Yes, a big problem is HEALTH CARE and retirement.

C2Driver

It seems that many consumers who choose to drive imports use poor styling, price and perceived quality of GM vehicles as their justification for doing so.

There is a wide array GM vehicles to meet most tastes and prices & quality are consistently amongst the best in the business. Import owners are going to have to find a new excuse to explain their contribution to the ill health of the 'Big 3'. Guilty consciences perhaps? I wonder.

Dan Hampton

The problem, gentleman, is perception. I have always maintained that if Toyota's quality went to zero tomorrow, it would take half a decade for the consumer to realize it and make an adjustment. Very simply, the Big 3 have yet to see those attitudes change, despite an excellent product. Note the quote below:

Reviewing the stats, we see that J.D. Power highlighted significant improvements that Ford (NYSE: F) made in the rankings. Ford's "five top model segment awards" were, J.D. Power says, "more than any other automobile corporation this year." Furthermore, 14 Ford models "place in the top three of their respective segments -- an achievement unmatched by any other corporation this year."

A couple of years ago, this sounded more like Honda than Ford.

Now..on to Union bashing. Nothwithstanding a great product line by the Big 3, their cost structure is at a distinct advantage to their Japanese rivals. You hear everything from $1,500 to $2,500 per car depending on what analyst you listen to, but when the dust clears, the Big 3 can't make any money the way things operate today.

Toyota is very much a comparable company with regard to product as GM is. Even with sales off 30%+ in September, they were still able to make money. The legacy costs of the Big 3 are the defining issues and unless those can be reduced, they will never be competitive and will die a slow death. Don't necessarily blame the unions for this plight. It was management that caved to their demands, year after year. And why would they do that? Well, if your bonus is tied to stock options whose exercise is predicated on a rising equity price, then your attitude is "give them what they want/don't risk a strike" and we can push that problem of rising healthcare and pensions out to a future period and that will become someone else's problem---not ours.

One thing that the Japanese share with Warren Buffett is that they both share a very long term view of things. Detroit has always been focused on what the next quarter would bring, not so with our Asian friends.

A friend of mine owns a 1970 Honda N600 powered by a 450cc motorcycle engine. Think of what the U.S. auto industry was like in in 1970. Then, imagine someone saying to you that the company that makes this tin can, which is the size of my writing desk, will bring the U.S. auto industry to its knees in thirty years. How much money would you have bet on that?

Incremental growth with a long term vision toward quality is what did it. Only now, do the Big 3 get the message. There is enough blame to go around here, gentleman, but is there enough time left to save them?