On Thu, 27 Nov 2008 01:17:04 -0800 (PST), Gosi cast forth these pearls of > wisdom...:
>
> > > >> The question in mind is:
> >> Will the US auto industry be stupid enough to let US auto industry > >> fail?
>
> > Yes
>
> > The US auto industry has been doing this for a few decades now and are
> > at the very end now.
>
> Doing this for decades? GM lead the world in vehicle production. They did
> turn around a lot of their quality issues (though admitedly, not all), > they
> did offer competitively equipped cars, they did lead the world in the
> number of over 30mpg cars offered. GM has been producing comoftable,
> powerful, capable cars that get over 30mpg for over a decade now. Most of
> what Japan offers today is smaller, chincier, and does not get any better
> mileage than what a Park Ave Ultra offered in 1992. And the ride in those
> little cars does not compare to the ride in that old Park Ave. Not to
> mention the greater ability of that Park Ave to protect you in an > accident.
>
> I do believe the management at GM has to go. The corporate philosophy with
> regards to the manner in which they respond to and respect their customer
> base is more what has cost GM over the past 10 years than anything else > IMHO.
>
> The unions are the second biggest contributor to the problems at GM.
> Protecting workers is fine, but the UAW goes way beyond that and is as
> corrupt as the worst of the worst out there. Union workers are nothing
> short of stupid for blindly trusting their unions, and with equal
> blindness, satisfying themselves with negotiations that fattent them > today,
> at the cost of what it will bring tomorrow.
>
> The economy, the cost of a barrel of oil - these are all ticks. They come
> along every couple of decades, and they go away. They are self-stabilizing
> events. These two factors contribute far less to the current problems in
> Detroit than anything else. If GM, Ford and Chrysler had done a better job
> of paying attention to customer care, resolved long standing design
> problems, (instead of ignoring them because customers will just come back
> anyway), trimmed the business in keeping with business practices in the
> 90's and 00's, then they would have been in a better position to weather
> through the current times. Unfortunately, across the board, there was too
> much Good-Old-Boys stuff prevailing.
>
> --
>
> -Mike-
> snipped-for-privacy@alltel.net
GM reahed its top around 1960 or so and has been going downhill since then. It stopped being a world leader and has slowly been heading for the abyss. They have had massive opportunity to turn things around. Now they are standing at the edge of the waterfall and it is unfortunate but ineviatable that they will fall.
It will mark a new beginning for US and a lot of new technologies will emerge after the fall..
And where will this technology come from, your garage?