Thank you, GM. Thank you. Thank you.
Finally, someone from one of the Big Three was willing to step up and take the blame for the financial collapse of their operations.
Meanwhile, the CEO of Ford is still flogging the dead bison, swearing that Americans really do want F-150s more than they want fuel-efficient sedans. Yet if asked why Hyundai’s sales didn’t plummet 41% in November, he has no answer.
Meanwhile, this jackass from Kelly Blue Book is blaming Government itself for the failure of the Big Three because rather than block foreign auto-makers from selling cars in America, they had the audacity to give Americans more choice and the Big Three a little competition. Now, maybe he is correct on some points: perhaps in 1975 the federal government did institute “byzantine regulations that required American manufacturers to build (or at least market) fuel-efficient cars.” And perhaps “American car companies were not geared up to build small, fuel-efficient cars, but foreign manufacturers were.”
So the hell what? That’s like demanding your neighbors buy only from your son’s lemonade stand even though he charges $15 for a lemon wedge in gutter water, while around the corner another kid sells real lemonade for a buck. Even worse: it’s like demanding that even though your child has been told about 30 times that it’s not customary to stir the lemonade with his nose-picking finger.
But even that jackass hit the hammer on the head about Americans being exposed to import vehicles: “Many American consumers liked what they found.” What they found were cheaper, more reliable cars that were cheaper to fill, cheaper to fix, and came with better warranties. How dare our government give us the option of having that?
At any rate, I take any shoulder-patting of the US auto industry with a giant grain of rock-salt: these are the same companies that intentionally bought up technology for, and buried research into, electric cars and alternative fuels for decades because they couldn’t see the writing on the wall until about 3 months ago when it read “only Congress can help you now (again).”
Like many business models in many industries, the Big Three are dinosaurs that deserve to die, or at the very least be replaced by something with a few feathers. They’re the record companies destroying the singles format with the internet on the horizon. They’re the banks giving loans to people who shouldn’t have loans, and offering credit to people who have shown no inclination to use credit responsibly.
On some level, I tie it to the “experience” argument barely cold now from the Presidential election. According to so damn many people, when you have a choice to make, you always go with experience. Yet it was experienced auto industry execs that couldn’t see what any college-age student could: that if you’re not a farmer or construction worker, why in the fuck do you need a giant truck? Experienced record execs are still scratching their heads and trying to figure out why CD sales have dropped, and how to make money from this “internet” fad they’ve heard about. And wasn’t it an experienced cabinet that walked us into an illegal war and the biggest deficit in history?
Experience does not always equate with common sense—in fact, quite the opposite sometimes. My grandma falls asleep watching Law & Order and has long conversations with Ice T. My girlfriend’s grandpa thinks that sharks are, quote, “out to get us.” Nearly 200 years of combined human experience, and that’s the best they’ve got.
The people who put together iTunes were not experienced, but record labels just couldn’t seem to realize that people wanted music digitally. The guy who started Facebook was not experienced (though he’s now the youngest billionaire in the world), nor the guys who started World of Warcraft or Netflix. But what those people did have was foresight and a good idea: use the internet to revolutionize the way we consume, which is something virtually no executive with a mutil-million dollar salary and a fancy desk could see.
Their experience was telling them things would be fine--no need to be alarmed-- just as when the comet hit, T-Rex waved his bony arms in the air and thought “It’s all good, I’ll just walk toward this tar pit and look for something to eat…”
4 comments:
Like Anthony Kiedis said: Right on!
I'm tired of people claiming the auto industry is somehow integral to the American economy. Yes, it does employ a lot of people but those people will be absorbed into other, more productive areas. There's always a need for engineers, people with manufacturing experience, and people that are mechanically inclined. There is no such thing as an industry that an economy can't live without (unless you're a resource export economy with no industrial or service base).
These jackholes have spent decades stuck in the muscle car halcyon days of 1955-1970. The foreign companies saw a different, ultimately more appropriate future. The Big 3 made no effort to change and fell behind. When they did decide to play catchup they made cars that fell apart, performed poorly, and came with a big middle finger in lieu of a warranty.
Anybody that screams "protectionism" right now is a fool. Without open international competition, we would be paying many thousands more for cars that are unsuitable to the current social and environmental situation. Why should we buy huge cars when parking in urban areas is becoming more congested and difficult to find? Why are we building 17 mile per gallon vehicles when the free flow of oil has already reached it's peak? And for Christ's sake why are we implementing a "car czar" to oversee the industry?
This is beyond stupid. If you allow companies to get this big and then claim that without them the economy will collapse, shouldn't that tell you to build more robust companies? Larger companies may be able to take advantage of economies of scale, but there has to be a balance between scale, risk, survival, and sustainability. It's not always all about the bottom line. Well...it is, but that doesn't make it smart or right.
20 years ago I was shopping for a new car and told Joy that I would buy an American made car when America started making a car of comparable quality ANYWHERE near the price as that of the imports.
It has saddened me for a long time that 'our' car manufacturers could not get that concept. Because buying from our manufacturers does strike me as the 'right' thing to do for our country's finances.
By the way, again, why is it a good thing to have czars in our government? Czars were synonymous with evil totalitarian governments weren't they?
People have short memories on the 'czar' thing, but mainly the point is to make the post feel more independent, and not just another taped-on appendage to an already bloated government.
My problem is that every solution being floated just costs more money: $18B in cash, a new office and new 'car czar' to oversee it, etc. What the hell happened to Chapter 11 bankruptcy as an option?
It's not as if 2.5 million jobs are just going to disappear overnight if the Big 3 file Chapter 11-- in fact, the vast majority of those jobs will remain intact. The jobs that are really in danger are the high-level management and CEO's jobs for not having a business plan that makes a damn bit of sense.
The real problem with the car industry is that it feeds and shelters virtually one entire region of our nation-- it's too centralized-- and "turning our backs" on them would cause a political shitstorm, and neither party can afford to have the upper-midwest hate them going into the next election cycle.
How much of the "U.S." auto industry is here vs. overseas anyway? So much stuff is made overseas and shipped here for final assembly that I would hazard to guess that with them going under more foreign workers would lose jobs than domestic workers. What about them?
Also, several foreign companies (Hyundai for one) has assembly plants in the U.S. If the Big 3 go under, these plants will likely expand and suck up a lot of those workers. Because the plants are here, the U.S. makes loads of tax money, jobs are created, and ultimately the cars are what the market demands. So this "all car making will stop and all workers will be out of a job" is baloney.
I do agree with Jack that buying American would be a good way to support your own economy. But again, so much is made overseas that the amount staying in the economy is only a fraction of what it could be. If they would be competitive on things like quality, warranty, gas mileage, ease of use, etc I would even be willing to pay slightly more to keep the money and tax base here. It's not, nor should be, all about price. But since these guys aren't competitive on many of those things they're out of luck in my book. Go Chapter 11.
Plus if these guys get $34 billion and still go under...that's a massive waste of money. Ultimately, under Chapter 11 they get to reorganize and are sheltered from creditors for the most part so they just need to bite the bullet and get over it.
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