Big 3 blows it again, Japs eating their lunch

When Boob puts you in his "killfile", what that means is, he ignores

one post, then he actually reads every single one of your following

posts, and replies twice to each one. The signs of a true obsessive

compulsive disorder on his part.

Volvo had a lot of reliability problems back in the '70s, from which

they seem to have recovered. It seems that Ford is using Volvo as a

"brain bank," since Ford seems to not have any engineering talent of

its own anymore.

Mazda and Ford have been allied for a long time, from the days when

Toyo-Kogo and Ford teamed up on the Courier/B1600 mini truck project.

Mazda has managed to come up with a new "crossover" SUV that seems to

be selling very well, which is good for Ford, since they can't seem to

design one of their own.

i agree totally with your comments with the exception of one jarring

point...you say a Neon is "a piece of crap"...firstly i don't completely

agree with you but my main concern is that you state it as a fact rather

than opinion and don't support it with any evidence.

you may have very good reason for your view but i find that one comment bugs

me for some reason.

i'm new here Bill but have observed you are a prolific and informed poster

but i think you've got it wrong with this one...Toyota in particular are

known to be a brutal employer, driving their employees to exhaustion with

forced overtime and restrictive practices. there are dozens of suicides in

which employment at Toyota is implicated.

not only that, they are systematically reducing the "unseen" quality in

their vehicles to maximize profits.

i suppose you can argue that all of that is just smart business but if you

make your living as an auto worker i suspect you wouldn't agree.

You're equating two things that are not equivalent. I don't know if

what you said about Toyota is true or not (sounds like union mentality

propaganda) - first I've heard of that. But let's assume it is true for

a moment. What does that have to do with GM allowing themselves to be

boxed in to where they can't exercise good business practices in that if

they find a more efficient way to do a process, they can take one or

more workers off that less efficient old process and put them to new

tasks that help productivity - helps the company and helps long-term job

stability.

I don't see re-assigning workers to more productive jobs as

suicide-inducing practices. I see companies not being able to compete

by exercising good business practices as being suicidal for the company.

Ultimately - yeah that is cruel to the employee when he loses his job

because the company is going bankrupt - except the employee forced them

to go to that.

OK - so you just showed up here. Great - but why are you picking up on

old discussions that stopped months ago and carrying on as if they are

current discussions. One of your recent posts starts off "lol...beat me

to it..." in response to a post in a thread that dropped off the radar

screen several months ago. Are you a troll?

Bill,

no, i'm not a troll. i actually didn't notice how old the threads were that

i was replying to and have already posted an apology for that.

as for your specific arguments below, i don't have time to respond fully

right now but my general concern is that there seems to be a general mindset

developing that auto manufacturing in the "western" world can only be

sustained by returning employees to "third world" levels of compensation and

working conditions. and before you ask, i am not a production worker nor a

union member, i own my own business, and i own two older Dodge vans, so i

have no vested interest whatsoever in the welfare of blue-collar workers.

so my question to Americans (just for the record I am British but live in

Canada) is; do you want your auto industry to survive by creating difficult

or impossible working conditions for the employees? do you want more

Wal-Mart level of employment in your country?

at the end of the day there may not be much choice but i just get the sense

that there is a bit of an "i'm all right jack, i'm a white-collar guy" kind

of mentality developing where people want "somebody else" to do all the hard

work and live in ghettos for their trouble while they (we) carry on serenely

in our suburbs.

now, i am not a "leftie" and i know society will always be somewhat

stratified but i am just concerned that we shouldn't be taking deliberate

steps to make things worse than they are.

well, that is a very simplified version of my viewpoint. it is a complex

issue for sure and the greatest minds on the planet may well not solve the

conundrum.

Have a nice day.

Simon.

I understand now.

Under existing union rules, their jobs will not survive. If you

maintain the existing rules, they will be worse off than if they had to

work under *reasonable* conditions like everybody else. I'm not

proposing coal mine working conditions - just some reasonable rules, not

elitist union rules.

So you think a company ought not to be allowed to move its people around

within a factory for the most efficient operation, profitability, and

protection of jobs? That's all I was pointing out, yet you seem to be

taking issue with that. A strange philosophy for anyone who understands

economics to even a basic level, especially someone who owns their own

business.

If you think the typical U.S. auto worker has been living a ghetto

lifestyle, then you are ignorant of what you are discussing.

I disagree. I think some intelligent and honest economists *could*

solve it, but, unfortunately we have some of the biggest idiots in the

world working on it in Washington as we speak and doing everything they

can to make it worse.

Hmm... I must not be expressing myself very well because your accusations

against me are totally off what I actually think. Maybe I'll come back to

this and try again later. Or not. Really, sometimes internet discussions are

depressingly futile as they actually achieve the square root of f*ck all.

LOL