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News Blurb Heard on the BBC...
On Nov 11, 8:29*pm, joe wrote:
No, it is because Detroit makes too many big vehicles and too few fuel efficient cars. It is because the high price of gas has finally made people think about driving a vehicle that uses a lot of gas. It is because the turmoil in the banking industry has made credit difficult to get. If sales were down 30% because people lost their jobs, then 30% of the people must have lost their jobs. But that is not true. Unemployment numbers are much lower. The recent reduction in car sales does not track the jobs lost. You have nothing that shows there is a connection. As far as fuel efficiency and building the "right" cars, there is no reason why an American company cannot crank out plug-in electric hybrid cars, using state-of-the-art electronics/chips and software, and improved materials and battery technology. If any country on earth could implement a better crash program to make carbon fiber manufacturing, battery capacity, clean tiny hybrid engines, and optimum management electronics for maximum range and utility, I'd be surprised. All that's needed is a "can-do" attitude, an investment (not bail-out) in basic R&D in all these areas, and a sustained push to get it done. THOSE high-technology cars are the American cars that will sell in Germany, or the UK, or Canada, as well as here. Not crappy cost-cutting gas-guzzlers designed considering only domestic appeal, which are outscored by Korean imports. The Unions can be -part- of the problem. In the late 30s, management was grossly abusing the workers and there was a *legitimate* need for unions. In later years, the unions may have gone too far -- it seems the pendulum swings too far in both directions. (However, there is still a limited need for unions even today -- witness Wal-Mart). Yes, financially they are doing well compared to their competition. However, I respectfully suggest you are not looking at the whole picture. Possibly I didn't make my point clear enough or possibly you overlooked it. It has NOTHING to do with the auto companies (or unions) per se; it has EVERYTHING to do with Joe and Sally Citizen, who -buy- the cars. If the auto companies were making more fuel efficient cars, they would have better sales. Look at the Toyota Prius, one of the most fuel efficient cars around. They are selling quite well. (Notice how Toyota is running promotions on all cars except the Prius. The don't need incentives to sell them.) It has a lot to do with the auto companies. The management has chosen to ignore fuel efficient cars for too long. When years of service is the merit of an employee rather than productivity and quality of work, then the unions are part of the problem. The people that -buy- the cars, everybody from the the guy that makes bed pans to the guy that makes bicycles, has seen their jobs go overseas. Once they have lost that good paying American manufacturing job to other countries, they don't have the money to buy a new car, domestic OR Toyota. Are you implying those who don't have a manufacturing job don't buy cars? Thus my original point that you seem to have overlooked: Bush sending even *more* jobs overseas is -not- going to help this country one bit, and indeed, he seems not to realize that this 'outsourcing' leaves less money for our citizens to buy American made products, nor does he realize the irony that his deal with Colombia (and Mexico and Haiti and India and China) is why the auto companies need to be bailed out. OK, bail out the car companies, so they can do what? Build more cars that nobody wants to buy? That doesn't solve any problems. If one company has to fail, so be it. That is the nature of our economy. The survivors may see more sales. Jobs go overseas because companies can't compete. Figure out why that is and you can start to solve the problem. Jobs moving overseas is a symptom of the problem, not the cause. You need to address the cause. |
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