geordi wrote:
Other than personal opinions that I differ with, does anyone have any direct proof that the unions were the SOURCE of the problem? I'm not saying that they were perfect, far from it. I'm a member of a stagehand union, and have been questioning the behavior in several areas. But I also don't have the complete picture about my union, and I don't think any of us have it about the UAW.
Where I see the real causes of these problems: Upper management's decisions to continually push the price of their cars to above what the average buyer can afford, building them outside the USA (Which REDUCES the available pool of buyers, thereby exacerbating the pricing problem) and finally, building things that are just like everyone else's, but at a lower quality. Cooled cupholders don't make up for a design that is 1000 lbs too heavy and has an unreliable transmission.
But the biggest cause of the problems for the auto industry is also one that they can't control, or haven't woken up to see the problem and the solution: If you can't FINANCE the car, you can't HAVE the car. Chrysler Motor Credit, GMAC, and Ford Motor Credit have been DENIED bailout money that was instead routed to big banks that used it to buy up smaller banks or investment firms... While not using it for restoring the credit system.
GMAC et al needs that money, and they aren't getting it. Putting money into the manufacturers for ANYTHING when they can't sell their product is putting a band-aid on a bullet hole. Its not gonna work.
For this reason, I maintain that Chrysler and GM are doomed. The unions may be doing unhelpful things, but the attitude of the companies that they want to slough off their pension obligations is equally unhelpful. They agreed to provide for the retirees, and now... What recourse does an 80 year old man that can't work have? He put in 40 years giving his life to them, and now they thank him by cutting off his reward and stealing it for themselves? Not cool.
Now that the UAW and the feds technically own the company. They will artificially inflate the price of cars no one wants even higher. The feds will pressure the non-union shops of the Japanese companies and make it tougher for them to make margins and with the backing of the UAW to keep them in power will dictate to us the cars they want you and I to drive. The UAW can still collect their high dues from the workers which it will funnel up to the party that keeps them happy.
Capitalism is the ultimate Democracy because you and I vote every day with our dollars. The Maoists in power now are seeking to destroy this system and they will succeed with the help of the thugs at the UAW. Just last week Dear Leader Maobama was screaming on TV calling out the names of the men who loaned Chrysler money; money which kept the company afloat when it couldn't get all the bailout money it wanted. Dear Leader called them charlatans; these men have impeccable Wall Street pedigrees but that does not matter. Dear Leader declared that he was with the workers and their families and not with the bankers. This is what dictators do, they declare enemies and they destroy them.
The Domestic car industry is in trouble because all they know how to do is build trucks, no one wants their cars. No one wants to pay $2000 of the total bill for some union benefit package. That $2000 buys a much nicer car at the non-union shop and our dollar votes have reflected that for years.
This is a country that was founded on a rejection of European values. Most of us are descendants of people who risked everything to come here because they rejected the system of whatever sh*thole they came from. To embrace a system that Franklin Delanobama is trying to implement is to turn our backs on our own birthright. My great grandparents came here from Italy when they were 16. I never heard them speak Italian, my grandfather nor my father know any Italian because it was important that our family assimilated. My great grandfather was terribly homesick and was a grave digger that got paid $1 per grave, but he knew he was in a better place. I cannot support this administrations policies any more than I can piss on my family's graves.
If domestic auto industry is to survive by being under the control of the feds, it will be at the peril of everything our country was founded upon.
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