Sad, GM to file for bankruptcy Monday 6/1/09

[turbojay]

Toyota doesn't make a nice car. It makes reliable appliances for the transportation needs of it's customers. The Camry, as a car, sucks. As an appliance it's pretty darn nice. Look for this to be the wave @ GM. Except that Toyota and alla the other mfr's. know to also include performance variants and I've yet to see anything in writing about the future of these GM products. The new Camaro really blows the competition away. It'd be a shame to see it go away so quickly. And with the people in charge, I'd wonder if Buick stands to see anything interesting in their line-up either?

As to why GM failed? Aside from the usual answers, I'd blame the lag in public perception of quality. The same vehicle can and has gone up in quality of build in the past years and still the imports enjoy a perception of being better while that's no longer the case. America makes a competitive product. Nobody is interested though because they've grown accustomed to buying foreign.

90% of car buyers are looking for what you call an appliance for a car, they don't care about performance, they just want the car to start every morning and keep going for 150k miles without any major issues and that is exactly what Toyota makes. I don't like the Camry either but if that's what people want, that's what auto builders should build. I am rooting for GM to make it, I always have at least one of their cars in the garage, currently I have two.

 

[TT/Ameasap]

Gm made their money through financing....Indirect sales. When the banks failed and the economy collapsed, they failed. Why do people want to make it some kind of conspiricy?

 

[gyrhead]

Caddy ISN'T dead...

Caddy is NOT on the chopping block. Who came up with this tidbit of mis-info?

Also, Autoweek magazine claims that the C7 Corvette program is still alive with no plans for cancellation. I hope that is true, the C5, C6 Vette did a lot to convince non-believers that GM could build a world-class sportscar....

I'd buy another GM product in a heartbeat. Our company 2001 Silverado HD has over 177,000 HARD commercial miles on it, and aside from some minor repairs and maintenance, it runs like new.

 

[TurboChris87]

on the plus side our dealership made it through the first round of cuts, but there's more of that to come...

 

[V6 Beast]

UAW members approve General Motors concessions - Yahoo! News Maybe the union should have made concessions earlier???

Wonder how this will effect the future of any performance cars still being made. OR are we only going to be offered econoboxes. Think the Corvette will survive?

They may cal it bankrupcy but in actual pratice it is a goverment takeover that will not fix the problem. The UAW will continue to suck every last dime they can get their hands on.

 

[Rivical]

FWIW, I've got a Focus 'appliance' myself that's gone 140K with only a water pump recently and regular routine maintainance. Nobody's any better or worse by much these days. People just don't seem to get that and so some companies enjoy a perception of value or quality they don't rightly deliver on vs. their competitors.

The question to me is not why the UAW didn't make concessions earlier. It's why they weren't OFFERED by the company sooner??? It's not the place of the representative of labor to make that offer, it's the company'sResponsibility! And what exactly Was agreed too?
If Waggoner had to go because he felt bankruptcy was the best option, why's GM bankrupt after all these Billions? Was it all a ploy to steal a car company for Obama's forced compliance to some social shift? I can say that the entitled class is PO'D about this money(our money) being spent that could have been flushed on Wall Street! Not gonna expand on it more here tho. I've got mixed angers over this whole debacle.

 

[klrv6]

That's an opinion...not an absolute fact...

Claude.

X2

A few searches for "T" on this forum will show some nice things about many manufacturers in question.

I see this move by GM as a way for the Volt to make an entrance that will set the stage for the rest of auto transportation. The government wants nuclear power and battery powered cars...they just might get their wish.

 

[VinsGN]

Just my thaughts, you don't like them... thats fine.

The UAW is in for a rude awakening.... How could they justify an assembly line worker making almost twice as such as an average EMT or school teacher. Give me a break.

And the Gov. can take GM over, somebody needed to... The idiots at GM have not properly run the company in like 20-25-30 years, its been a long time no matter how you slice it.

And finally I love how people bash Toyota becuase GM lost the overall race.... 1) Toyota makes a great car for what ever reason, yes there have been and will be problems from time to time, there's no way around that, so stop the poo talk 2) Time and time again they have come out on top of GM, again get over it.

We may be the Super Power of the world but this situation is a sign that there is a ding in our armor. There's alot of lively hoods on the line and an economy in the crapper. I would think we would be happy that the Gov. is trying anything to save GM, they may not emerge in the exact form we would like but in reality GM was not performing. Times are changing and if there is a snow balls chance, GM has to get with the program.

 

[Nick Micale]

I keep hearing it's the guys at the top that are responsible. They need new management etc. etc. My question is if GM was selling more and now as many cars as Toyota then what to you assign the losing money too? If they sell many more then Honda or Subaru why do they stll lose money.
Toyota makes a nice car and the camery was their top seller. The Camery at one time, last year had over 80% domestic parts in it. If it was the best quality using mostly domestic parts then why arent domestics similar. Obviously selling more cars isn't the answer. Been there done that.
I have an opinion as to why they are failing in spite of the sales numbers but am curious what others think. If you stll think it's managment then give an idea what they should have done?

I agree with what you are saying, and like others, I also have an opinion on how this situation was "helped".

When a new foreign car is purchased in the US, the profits go back to the home country.

Most all of the foreign companies have government involvement and/or subsidies and have specific goals to penetrate the US market.

Then our "genuis" politicans remove almost all duties and obstructions for them to import cars, or worse parts so they can "build" them here with less labor costs than the big 3. "Oh, I bought a Honda, but it was made in the US." Profit still goes to Japan.

Of course the foreign company has extreme duties if a US car is brought into their country, even Canada?

Toyota and Nissan brought in large trucks to compete with ours and thanks to them undercutting the price [and quality] of the US product, they became the "in thing" for the tree huggers.

My final comment, the greedy politicans have been screwing up the system and the working class for so many years, we now have reached to point of no return.

Hope there is never another World War, as we not longer have the Big 3 to produce the planes, tanks, ammo or other items to save our ass.

 

[Mike Licht]

hey Nick thanks for saving me a lot of typing
Mike

 

[Rivical]

Just my thaughts, you don't like them... thats fine.

The UAW is in for a rude awakening.... How could they justify an assembly line worker making almost twice as such as an average EMT or school teacher. Give me a break.

And the Gov. can take GM over, somebody needed to... The idiots at GM have not properly run the company in like 20-25-30 years, its been a long time no matter how you slice it.

Not to knock ya for having an opinion, but c'mon man! How do you justify insuring those whom you represent get a fair shake in the real world? Just because everybody else got hit first and until very recently with the wage stagnation that was caused by globallization that started with NAFTA, doesn't make it right. So everybody else has been getting ass-raped longer. Does that make them right? Or just give them seniority to eat the ****-meat-sandwich?

I'm coming to realize that no matter what's been tried @GM, political forces have renderred it useless. Waggoner was moving them toward bankruptcy as a business tool if not receiving govt help. In asking for that help though, that wasn't allowed to happen until the company was stolen from his stewardship. You, me and our children spent Billions to stop it. Now they're bankrupt anyhow. Except that now our govt OWNS their product line-up and business plan to force social shift on us. All while putting American's out of work and onto welfare roles and helping foreign producer's. WTF! This is a disgusting travesty of democracy... From this point out, I personally Boycott Government Motors

 

[VinsGN]

Not to knock ya for having an opinion, but c'mon man! How do you justify insuring those whom you represent get a fair shake in the real world? Just because everybody else got hit first and until very recently with the wage stagnation that was caused by globallization that started with NAFTA, doesn't make it right. So everybody else has been getting ass-raped longer. Does that make them right? Or just give them seniority to eat the ****-meat-sandwich?

I'm coming to realize that no matter what's been tried @GM, political forces have renderred it useless. Waggoner was moving them toward bankruptcy as a business tool if not receiving govt help. In asking for that help though, that wasn't allowed to happen until the company was stolen from his stewardship. You, me and our children spent Billions to stop it. Now they're bankrupt anyhow. Except that now our govt OWNS their product line-up and business plan to force social shift on us. All while putting American's out of work and onto welfare roles and helping foreign producer's. WTF! This is a disgusting travesty of democracy... From this point out, I personally Boycott Government Motors

Points well taken,

But if you thought GM was going to churn out big SUV's, trucks and gas toilets forever then I have no comment. The economy bottom falling out was just the spark for what was/is happening to GM. Poor management and unwillingness to realize change over the last 20 years are the real issues at hand. Blame who you want but the bottom line is upper GM mangement lost touch with reality in the market place. God, Lutz was speaking poo that cars had nothing to do with climate change. Is his that F' n stupid? In the last 5 years, you are willing to except the fact that GM didn't see the severe increase in fuel prices? Toyota was gaining market share? No one had the balls to stand up to the UAW? Come-on.... The blame is on them not Obama, this was a long time coming. Don't get me wrong I'm a Rep. and really don't like what I am seeing but its time companies/individuals start taking resposibility for there actions or in actions in this matter. Gov take overs not what I want to see but 250K+ additional families out of work is even worse for you and I.

 

[bison]

Points well taken,

But if you thought GM was going to churn out big SUV's, trucks and gas toilets forever then I have no comment. The economy bottom falling out was just the spark for what was/is happening to GM. Poor management and unwillingness to realize change over the last 20 years are the real issues at hand. Blame who you want but the bottom line is upper GM mangement lost touch with reality in the market place. God, Lutz was speaking poo that cars had nothing to do with climate change. Is his that F' n stupid? In the last 5 years, you are willing to except the fact that GM didn't see the severe increase in fuel prices? Toyota was gaining market share? No one had the balls to stand up to the UAW? Come-on.... The blame is on them not Obama, this was a long time coming. Don't get me wrong I'm a Rep. and really don't like what I am seeing but its time companies/individuals start taking resposibility for there actions or in actions in this matter. Gov take overs not what I want to see but 250K+ additional families out of work is even worse for you and I.

What in your opinion could the upper management at GM done with the UAW? I think Nick and Mike already hit the nail on the head with their posts. Almost everyone agrees that the UAW is the big reason GM could not pull it together. Something would have had to been done differently 40 years ago for this to be avoided when you have a powerful labor union like the UAW. Baby boomers retiring and making more while collecting retirement than a lot of guys on here that are in the work force and they are living a lot longer now than 35-40 years ago. Oh S hit we f'd up.

 

[rtviper]

Like I said earlier many keep complaining about management not running the company correctly. They didn't go to the smaller fuel efficient cars instead sold SUV and trucks. Those vehicles made a lot more profit then the smaller cars do per unit.
GM was selling more vehicles then anyone and still sell more vehicles then Honda, Subaru, BMW, Mercedes, nissan etc etc, yet they have been bleeding red ink for years. It's kind of like the guy who loses money on every sale but plans to make it up in volume.
Toyota and Honda use as many domestic parts as GM so whay does GM still lose money? Use the information you have in front of you not what coulda,shoulda been.
As for the Government you want to complain about being in the car business, you are the Government. This is now your business and even if you dont want to be in the car business, well many don't want to be in ther war business. You are already in the Police, Fire, and mail business and have for ever.
Now why was GM really losing all the money?

 

[Rivical]

Yeah yeah rt, I hear ya. And it seems to make perfect sense. But any attempt to assign the blame while missing a single employee in the bloated bureaucracy of GM would be inaccurate. Sure, most had no power to change the direction, they were just part of the problem. It's kind of similar to our nation IMO. The problems are obvious, but they are also HUGE and the train is hurtling over a cliff while the power brokers have tea and discuss their other investments and golden parachutes. The blame belongs at the top, where greed has done the un-doing. But like our politics, it appears to be two different sides that share this blame. When in reality they're just two corporate entities sharing some agenda beyond us. And then people want to blame the little guys for not being able to stop it all. Why aren't we stopping it all?

Why didn't GM do something intellegent like freeze and eliminate the pension plan years ago? Why has this still not been done? Who on this Earth still has the archeaic 'pension'? Nobody forces them to negotiate against the UAW poorly. They do that of their own, and at their own peril. For what reason I cannot fathom... If you worked for an automaker you'd understand the sad joke that they're in business in spite of themselves. It's sad that they're so inept.

Your points aren't lost. It's that I also attribute NAFTA,CAFTA,BLAHBLAH, to the reasons that US businesses rooted in traditions fail. Yes, they failed to adapt and that was wrong and caused failure. But all the others were forced to outsource as part of adaptation. Foreigner's come in and do successful business without our traditions. I wonder why their products are so similarly priced to ours if we are losing money @ our price. Shouldn't their product be priced to blow us out of the water? Why were our companies baited with tax breaks etc, to eliminate US labor? Many questions that go beyond this little bubble of one. No answers that make any sense of the whole big picture.

 

[klrv6]

Remember when Suburbans were the "in" thing to have? GM was clearing over $7K on each one they roller out the door. That kind of money is harder to get out of a small compact car, that's why GM made trucks and whatever else people would pay for. Ever wonder what happened to the toyota tercel? Kia moved into that segment and beat toyota out of the price range, toyota pulled out and let the car go. They just have to be careful, if each other manufacturer decided to outprice a certain car that toyota makes, collectively toyota would have to end every product line. I see both positives and negatives with each auto manufacturer, each is dysfunctional in some way, each is superior in some way.

Amazon.com: The Toyota Way: Jeffrey Liker: Books

This is what sets Toyota apart from the competition FOR NOW... I personally know several of the people in this book. Once GM puts more of a focus on consistent quality, things will change very fast for all the major automakers.

 

[Rivical]

Here's a couple stories of wasted profits that stick in my mind.

Say in the course of business a pile of fasteners hit the floor at a mfg'r. For whatever reason, be it fast paced work or lazy worker, doesn't change the fact that they hit the floor. When the line stops, there's nobody telling anybody to do housekeeping. Who's gonna clean up the stuff on their own? Eventually somebody comes by and sweeps up the fasteners and throws them out. When mgt is questioned about this practice the answer is that it would cost too much to have union labor sort and restock! Let's see...take a bolt @ oh, 50cents. Now pick it up and sort it from others and restock, now that bolt's worth 60cents. That's too much in mgt's eyes. Better to replace it for a net cost of $1.00 and pay the landfill fee to send the previous one away.

A water-main wastegate @ a mfgr goes bad and starts constantly dumping water in the corner of the facility. Mgt position, it would costs thousands of $$$ to replace and install using union labor. Answer? Build a tin channel that diverts this unused water to a storm drain. Then ignore the problem for years while millions of $$$ in water are dumped.

True stories.

 

[rtviper]

Here's a couple stories of wasted profits that stick in my mind.

Say in the course of business a pile of fasteners hit the floor at a mfg'r. For whatever reason, be it fast paced work or lazy worker, doesn't change the fact that they hit the floor. When the line stops, there's nobody telling anybody to do housekeeping. Who's gonna clean up the stuff on their own? Eventually somebody comes by and sweeps up the fasteners and throws them out. When mgt is questioned about this practice the answer is that it would cost too much to have union labor sort and restock! Let's see...take a bolt @ oh, 50cents. Now pick it up and sort it from others and restock, now that bolt's worth 60cents. That's too much in mgt's eyes. Better to replace it for a net cost of $1.00 and pay the landfill fee to send the previous one away.

A water-main wastegate @ a mfgr goes bad and starts constantly dumping water in the corner of the facility. Mgt position, it would costs thousands of $$$ to replace and install using union labor. Answer? Build a tin channel that diverts this unused water to a storm drain. Then ignore the problem for years while millions of $$$ in water are dumped.

True stories.

I believe all those stories. The management of those companies are too blame as well as the workers. I have never worked for GM but in past years have been involved with unionized labor forces. I worked at the docks longshoring when in college. I can tell you horror stories you might not believe about the workers. They will steal, destroy flat ignore orders to get to work because they were protected by their union. After watching a race between 3 forklifts literally destroy new product the supervisor, non-union told them to stop. They called him every flilthy name in the book and said talk to our unions if you have a problem other wise f off.
They also make an exorbitant amount of money for their effort. Many long term workers make in access of 250k a year and work part time.
Unions will get you an honest wage but you wont get an honest days work. In many cases.

 

[LC2 ROD]

I agree with what you are saying, and like others, I also have an opinion on how this situation was "helped".

When a new foreign car is purchased in the US, the profits go back to the home country.

Most all of the foreign companies have government involvement and/or subsidies and have specific goals to penetrate the US market.

Then our "genuis" politicans remove almost all duties and obstructions for them to import cars, or worse parts so they can "build" them here with less labor costs than the big 3. "Oh, I bought a Honda, but it was made in the US." Profit still goes to Japan.

Of course the foreign company has extreme duties if a US car is brought into their country, even Canada?

Toyota and Nissan brought in large trucks to compete with ours and thanks to them undercutting the price [and quality] of the US product, they became the "in thing" for the tree huggers.

My final comment, the greedy politicans have been screwing up the system and the working class for so many years, we now have reached to point of no return.

Hope there is never another World War, as we not longer have the Big 3 to produce the planes, tanks, ammo or other items to save our ass.

X3, thanks Nick. Try selling rice to Japan and see what happens. Unfair trade practice helped us get where we are today, IMO. Buy American and the profits stay here. Wake up.

 

[$1987 GN$]

I agree with what you are saying, and like others, I also have an opinion on how this situation was "helped".

When a new foreign car is purchased in the US, the profits go back to the home country.

Most all of the foreign companies have government involvement and/or subsidies and have specific goals to penetrate the US market.

Then our "genuis" politicans remove almost all duties and obstructions for them to import cars, or worse parts so they can "build" them here with less labor costs than the big 3. "Oh, I bought a Honda, but it was made in the US." Profit still goes to Japan.

Of course the foreign company has extreme duties if a US car is brought into their country, even Canada?

Toyota and Nissan brought in large trucks to compete with ours and thanks to them undercutting the price [and quality] of the US product, they became the "in thing" for the tree huggers.

My final comment, the greedy politicans have been screwing up the system and the working class for so many years, we now have reached to point of no return.

Hope there is never another World War, as we not longer have the Big 3 to produce the planes, tanks, ammo or other items to save our ass.

I agree there are issue but not totally correct.

Quote: "By 1996, discussions had begun about tariffs on vehicles imported by non-Auto Pact members. Non-Auto Pact members viewed these tariffs as creating a two-tiered policy. As a result, a complaint was launched with t he World Trade Organization (WTO) by the European Union and Japan. The challenge involved a section of the Pact allowing DaimlerChrysler, Ford and General Motors to import vehicles into Canada from anywhere in the world duty free."

Camada US Auto Pact More here

We had a toysomthing (Toyota) or another name, decide to build a plant locally. Our politicians decide to give them a tax break ! 10 years ! Then the following year my property taxes go up ! I asked why, new this new that FOR who you guessed it the new plant . . . Oh and when they said that they would hire locally 90% (politicians believed them). Most of the help is not local. IIRC it ended up being ~15% local employees.

I agree: "The greedy politicians have been screwing up the system and the working class for so many years, we now have reached to point of no return."

Ok enough of my rant just venting. I could add more but It only tends to upset me. (yes I know I am the only one that can cause me to be upset)

Later AJ