Are Ford, GM and Chrysler going to make it?

[bmacsys]

Will all three survive? And if so in what form? Smaller companies with less capacity? Mergers? Will they emerge globally more competitive? Is the upper management of all three as incompetent and out of touch as they are being portrayed? Will we become more like Europeans driving tiny cars for the most part?

 

[Mark_88]

I think the biggest problem with all three is they are too diversified and competition is fierce these days...but I would say that the competitors are probably not doing so well either...it's just that the "big three" are long-time providers of employment in NA and if anyone is going to get bailed out it should be them first...loyalty to home-grown companies should be a huge priority in my mind...

We have several towns and cities in Canada that are almost totally dependant on their survival...Oakville is Ford, Oshawa is GM, but I'm not sure where Dodge is based...but there are numerous smaller suppliers that would also go tits-up should they crumble...and that's probably very similar to things in the US...

 

[Danger FX4 Ranger]

I think the biggest problem with all three is they are too diversified and competition is fierce these days...but I would say that the competitors are probably not doing so well either...it's just that the "big three" are long-time providers of employment in NA and if anyone is going to get bailed out it should be them first...loyalty to home-grown companies should be a huge priority in my mind...

We have several towns and cities in Canada that are almost totally dependant on their survival...Oakville is Ford, Oshawa is GM, but I'm not sure where Dodge is based...but there are numerous smaller suppliers that would also go tits-up should they crumble...and that's probably very similar to things in the US...

+1. I'm confused by the ignorant claims that Ford and Gm "only build gas guzzlers". Most of the new SUVs I see around here are Toy-yota 4Runners. A toy-yota tacoma gets the same mileage as a ranger, and they're selling like crazy.

 

[Rangerman4158]

I think that the government should help bail them out cause its alot of jobs at stake but i think that the upper management should have to take a huge pay cut because they are the ones that got themselves in trouble in the first place. I work at a Ford dealer in South Carolina and would like to deep my job

 

[177CIOfPureLove]

You know I was reading a very impressive article my business professor gave me. The author stated that if you really loved the American car companies the bailout would be the definite beginning of their end. Those companies are broken from the inside so bad they need to be completely rethought and new management must be installed from unrelated fields. All the bailout would do is allow them to continue the same way as they always have, until once again they cannot continue and go out of business for real. Problem is is that it will take a lot of change. new management needs to be better with talking to the union leadership, and the unions need to realize that to be competitive they need to work for the same amount as the foreign car company workers in America as well. Either way it will not be easy for anyone.

Fun fact, each representitive that plead their case for the bailout each took a seperate leer jet, costing their compainies massive amounts of money, when they could have taken commercial planes, or even all taken the same plane. Seems to me there is a great deal of waste.

 

[bmacsys]

I think the biggest problem with all three is they are too diversified and competition is fierce these days...but I would say that the competitors are probably not doing so well either...it's just that the "big three" are long-time providers of employment in NA and if anyone is going to get bailed out it should be them first...loyalty to home-grown companies should be a huge priority in my mind...

We have several towns and cities in Canada that are almost totally dependant on their survival...Oakville is Ford, Oshawa is GM, but I'm not sure where Dodge is based...but there are numerous smaller suppliers that would also go tits-up should they crumble...and that's probably very similar to things in the US...

Oakville, didn't they make the Windstar's there?

 

[bmacsys]

You know I was reading a very impressive article my business professor gave me. The author stated that if you really loved the American car companies the bailout would be the definite beginning of their end. Those companies are broken from the inside so bad they need to be completely rethought and new management must be installed from unrelated fields. All the bailout would do is allow them to continue the same way as they always have, until once again they cannot continue and go out of business for real. Problem is is that it will take a lot of change. new management needs to be better with talking to the union leadership, and the unions need to realize that to be competitive they need to work for the same amount as the foreign car company workers in America as well. Either way it will not be easy for anyone.

Fun fact, each representitive that plead their case for the bailout each took a seperate leer jet, costing their compainies massive amounts of money, when they could have taken commercial planes, or even all taken the same plane. Seems to me there is a great deal of waste.

Yes, management is the biggest problem at these three companies. That they are in the financial shape they are in is mind-boggling. Henry Ford must be turning over in his grave.

 

[Rangerman4158]

177ciOFPURELOVE that is one of the truest statements i have heard in a while they need to change what caused the problem while helping get america out of this mess that were are all having to deal with

 

[97ranger4x4]

You know I was reading a very impressive article my business professor gave me. The author stated that if you really loved the American car companies the bailout would be the definite beginning of their end. Those companies are broken from the inside so bad they need to be completely rethought and new management must be installed from unrelated fields. All the bailout would do is allow them to continue the same way as they always have, until once again they cannot continue and go out of business for real. Problem is is that it will take a lot of change. new management needs to be better with talking to the union leadership, and the unions need to realize that to be competitive they need to work for the same amount as the foreign car company workers in America as well. Either way it will not be easy for anyone.

Fun fact, each representitive that plead their case for the bailout each took a seperate leer jet, costing their compainies massive amounts of money, when they could have taken commercial planes, or even all taken the same plane. Seems to me there is a great deal of waste.

I agree, sorta. There is no doubt that the Big 3 need to make huge changes. The rate they are going they cannot and will not survive. There is also no doubt about it, that many millions of people and thousands of companies need the Big 3 to survive as well. Unfortunatly, the Big 3 cannot make any changes because they do not have any capitol to invest. All of their stocks have tanked. They certainly cannot get loans. Besides the fact that even if the lending institutions were not as messed up as they are now. Who would invest money with the Big 3? I sure wouldnt. The amount of time it would take to see any positive return on my money would be rediculous. Not to mention for all of the time and risk, I would certainly have many other better investments elsewhere. But thats another topic...

the Big 3 need the bailout money to restructure their companies. The CEOs need to stop acting like babies and suck up their pride and take personal hits themselves. They should not be receiveing millions of dollars in bonuses every year for running 3 major corporations into the GROUND! For them each to fly their own corporate jet to DC is a joke! Between the three of them they spent several thousands of dollars to do that. They each probably could have saved one worker at each of their factories had they taken first class on United!

Sorry for the rant, but these CEOs seriously need a swift kick in the nuts. I dont think the attended business school on the day they taught business...

 

[hunt-n-fish]

Will we become more like Europeans driving tiny cars for the most part?

God I hope not.

Is the upper management of all three as incompetent and out of touch as they are being portrayed?

I think the biggest problem with all three is they are too diversified and competition is fierce these days...but I would say that the competitors are probably not doing so well either...it's just that the "big three" are long-time providers of employment in NA and if anyone is going to get bailed out it should be them first...loyalty to home-grown companies should be a huge priority in my mind...

I fully believe that the UNION is the largest drag on the automotive industry. The unions today promote a 'weak' work force, they only work at the pace of the slowest individual because they can't allow 'discrimination' by 'forcing' someone to work harder. Those people are going to get rewarded regardless of how well they do or don't do, on time or not, etc. etc... The employees cannot be laid off and therefore come to work everyday and get paid every day whether or not they actually do any physical labor. I worked on the new Mustang fuel tank tooling back in '99. when the tools were finished and were delivered to Ford, the fuel tank division did not have enough people to run the tanks thru the first tryout so we could get paid. We waited 6 weeks before they were able get in the press. Right across the street, Dearborn Manufacturing had about 100 or so employees(over three shifts) that would clock-in and sit on their arse for 8 hours and then go home because there was nothing for them to do. Those employees could not be transferred to fuel tank division because of the union rules. Take it for what you want, but the union had a time and purpose and I believe that the UAW is one of the biggest downfalls of the big three.

 

[truckmanson]

I agree, sorta. There is no doubt that the Big 3 need to make huge changes. The rate they are going they cannot and will not survive. There is also no doubt about it, that many millions of people and thousands of companies need the Big 3 to survive as well. Unfortunatly, the Big 3 cannot make any changes because they do not have any capitol to invest. All of their stocks have tanked. They certainly cannot get loans. Besides the fact that even if the lending institutions were not as messed up as they are now. Who would invest money with the Big 3? I sure wouldnt. The amount of time it would take to see any positive return on my money would be rediculous. Not to mention for all of the time and risk, I would certainly have many other better investments elsewhere. But thats another topic...

the Big 3 need the bailout money to restructure their companies. The CEOs need to stop acting like babies and suck up their pride and take personal hits themselves. They should not be receiveing millions of dollars in bonuses every year for running 3 major corporations into the GROUND! For them each to fly their own corporate jet to DC is a joke! Between the three of them they spent several thousands of dollars to do that. They each probably could have saved one worker at each of their factories had they taken first class on United!

Sorry for the rant, but these CEOs seriously need a swift kick in the nuts. I dont think the attended business school on the day they taught business...

I agree with you 100% except the bussiness world as a whole, every business seems to have embraced the more money for management and shareholders, not bad to an extent, and also accepted the let the employees wages stay stagnant, raise our prices, and cut as much as we can, as long as the top guys get more, I understand the basis for getting profit increases but if their own employees can't afford their product then how can they expect so many others

 

[bmacsys]

I agree with you 100% except the bussiness world as a whole, every business seems to have embraced the more money for management and shareholders, not bad to an extent, and also accepted the let the employees wages stay stagnant, raise our prices, and cut as much as we can, as long as the top guys get more, I understand the basis for getting profit increases but if their own employees can't afford their product then how can they expect so many others

I am in a union and work in the printing trade in a union shop. If someone is out at least we have the sense to slide somebody who is idle into that persons job even if it isn't the same classification to keep production going.

 

[KELLY88]

You know I was reading a very impressive article my business professor gave me. The author stated that if you really loved the American car companies the bailout would be the definite beginning of their end. Those companies are broken from the inside so bad they need to be completely rethought and new management must be installed from unrelated fields. All the bailout would do is allow them to continue the same way as they always have, until once again they cannot continue and go out of business for real. Problem is is that it will take a lot of change. new management needs to be better with talking to the union leadership, and the unions need to realize that to be competitive they need to work for the same amount as the foreign car company workers in America as well. Either way it will not be easy for anyone.

Fun fact, each representitive that plead their case for the bailout each took a seperate leer jet, costing their compainies massive amounts of money, when they could have taken commercial planes, or even all taken the same plane. Seems to me there is a great deal of waste.

Ya the lear jet case was a real bad move on all their parts. Just goes to show they aren't ready for the restructuring needed to save their companies.

Funny part is that their was an article yesterday about how midwest factories building Hondas, Toyota etc. and their parts suppliers are doing extrememly well. Nearly all the employees are opposed to the bailout of the Big 3. Those workers are part of the Auto Workers Union and believe that's part of the reason they are doing so well. http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/11/20/honda.town/index.html?iref=newssearch

I just don't know. On one hand I really love the Big 3 automakers designs and engineering ingenuity. At the same time though I don't support an industry that's run by people who cut the jobs of a whole bunch of workers so they can have their millions in bonuses every year.

 

[97ranger4x4]

I think there should be some sort of regulation on how much a CEO and board of directors is paid in bonuses when a corporation is loosing money.

The problem is within these companies. Of course the board of directors of the big 3 are not going to limit top managements pay, because that includes them!

The amount of money they are making in bonuses each year for a company that is being run into the ground could be either given to employees who do the work, reinvested into new product design, or go towards paying pensions of retired employees. When you look at the top level of management in each of these corporations, I wonder how many millions of dollars that would amount to being saved. While millions is nothing when your talking about multi-billion dollar companies, it means something to the employees which is kinda the fundamental part to a company and its success. Even if the Big 3 had great products/services (which in my mind they dont), without quality employees, your product is shit!

 

[Psychopete]

I think there should be some sort of regulation on how much a CEO and board of directors is paid in bonuses when a corporation is loosing money.

The day that happened, would be the day I would apply for citizenship in Canada and denounce my American. Not that the idea would be a bad thing, that's going to opening more doors to goverment control on business, which is essentially dictatorship-ish. IMO.

I read an article that stated, "America wants cars made in America, by American workers." Given the current trends, is this true at all? The sad part is, an American driving a brand new foreign car would probably agree with that.

Pete