Comments on: Auto makers bailout – Open Forum

By: Jason

Jason — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 07:19:54 +0000

Ok so they will get the bailout money. So now it is our responsibility as taxpayers not to buy from any of these 3. We may have to pay the taxes but we surely do not have to buy their products. The employees will suffer but it was their union that caused their injuries. I dont see Toyota, Nissan, or Honda asking for a bailout. Why? They build quality vehicles to last and do not sell junk. Well Honda did sell the Passport. Still buy Toyota and Nissan and show the government and the automakers, whose greed caused their downfall, taxpayers should get a vote on matters like these. Sorry I do support buying US products but will not buy from thieves.

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 00:07:23 +0000

Unions have outlived their usefulness, get rid of the UAW, build autos like the Japanese do, and the problems of the automakers will be solved. Union presidents and vice presidents make over $200,000 per year with benefits, other union reps make over $100,000 per year, and there are many of them.
Get rid of many government restrictions on safety that automakers have to employ in order to sell autos, employ only those common sense safety restrictions. Auto makers have the technology to make autos that get over 50 miles to the gallon, force them to stop building cars that get less gas mileage in 5 years. Stop their dependence on foreign oil.

By: Drowssap

Drowssap — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:18:05 +0000

U.S. Treasuries to be issued in Yen? Without getting hypertechnical this is the way Japanese bankers say "You guys suck." Who in the year 1945 would have seen this headline coming?

By: Drowssap

Drowssap — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:55:07 +0000

Bailouts already hit $4.28 Trillion!!! The government is well known for it's ability to efficiently direct money and resources. I'm sure this will end well. 8-)

By: Drowssap

Drowssap — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:40:43 +0000

Evan

If the car worker’s job was based on consumers’ overstretched buying power, it wasn’t solid growth anyway. This was bound to happen sooner or later.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. We had shopping malls full of people spending money they hadn’t earned living in homes they couldn’t afford. Business built stores to handle this capacity but the capacity wasn’t real. The entire economy was a bubble waiting to burst.

By: FAC

FAC — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 14:29:55 +0000

The first industry that went down in this crissis was the construction industry. The problem is most of the people who work in this industry are contractors so the unemployment index wasn’t affected too much. However millions were lay off or lost their small business. No bail out for them?

By: Evan

Evan — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:02:55 +0000

Drowssap,
You can look at it this way: what happened until now was unfounded optimism. There was too much securitization per cash flow in the market and too much paper money relative to goods and assets (the dollar was floating around global markets). Now it’s readjustment time. If the car worker’s job was based on consumers’ overstretched buying power, it wasn’t solid growth anyway. This was bound to happen sooner or later. The subprime credit crisis was the last drop, that made the whole thing topple. The system was rotten long before that. Now it’s gonna be about finding the ground under our feet again.

By: Mary

Mary — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 06:52:13 +0000

But what about performance and cost to consumer over the life of the vehicle? That’sone of the reasons their sales are down.

By: Pathia

Pathia — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:58:05 +0000

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/11/14/autoline-on-autoblog-with-john-mcelroy/
Here’s a blog about it. Alot of this is still in progress. It’s part of their plan to turn around, they were in the middle of reorganizing everything, but then their sales fell 40% Almost any company will have issues if 40% of their revenue just completely vanishes.
Essentially, once this works out, if they can avoid bankruptcy, they’ll be right at the same cost per car as japanese companies.

By: Drowssap

Drowssap — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:39:30 +0000

General Motors starts begging for your money video
The sad thing is that every part of this video is accurate. If the Big 3 go down we all get hurt.
The banks, insurance companies and auto industry are all so big that the government won’t let them fail no matter how badly they manage their assets.