Chrysler to stop all vehicle production Friday!

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I just refuse to believe that this is all due to quality.

I own a vehicle produced by all three car companies. I own a Ford, a Chevy a Chrysler and a Pontiac. In that order. The Ford Chevy and Chrysler were all bought new. No major troubles from any. The pontiac is now 39 years old. It had 3 problems I've encountered in the 3 years I've owned it(it's all original) - bad coil, needed front brakes, gas line loose at carburetor.

And what I hear for our stupid elected "leaders" is that it's all the car companies fault. "Nobody" wants to buy these brands. Except that the Senators asking Rick Wagoner, Bob Nardelli and Mullaly of Ford why they have failed, all support fancy tax breaks for foreign car companies within these United States. In other words, keeping Joe Schmoe of Alabama employed at a foreign car company that gets millions in tax breaks is more important than keeping Johnny Whatshisface employed in Detroit where Michigan taxes the crap out of the old car companies based on a taxation model circa WWII. And yet NONE of these Senators seem to care about the survival of these United States. As a nation. Where a Michigander and an Alabaman can stand together AS AMERICANS.

So on Friday, vehicle manufacturing for Chrysler stops. Period. I do pray and wish the best for those who are affected by the outage. And I hope and pray even more that our entitled, fat, bloated representatives who get re-elected time and time just the way the communists voted in the same folk back to the Politburo start giving a damn about the well being of the United States and act as leaders rather than worrying about whether they'll lose a job like so many of their constituents are losing.

It's a damn shame what's happening in the US. Manufacturing tanking,

401(s) a waste of time and money, Social Security unfunded. Perhaps someday our fearless leaders will grow a pair and fight for what's right. But I fear that's not going to happen. I think we're going the way the Soviets went in 1991. Into the ash heap of history. I hope not. But the light I think I see at the end of the tunnel I fear is a train, and not the exit.

Jimmy

Reply to
Jimmy
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[big rant deleted]

I don't see what your all het up about.

Chrysler made too many cars. What do you want them to do? Make more so that they have to sell them at below cost? Make more so that they have to stack them up in the warehouse like cordwood?

Sure it sucks for the workers to lose a month's pay and unemployment won't make all of that up - but at least they will have jobs to come back to a month from now.

It's not like everyone buying cars switched to buying from Toyota. The import automakers are seeing the same drop in sales that the domestic automakers are seeing.

Ted

Reply to
Ted Mittelstaedt

Where do you get a problem about quality? Can't you read, I saw nothing about quality. I saw 30+% less sales, and trouble getting credit to buy a car. If they can't sell all their production capability, they have to cut back.

I have a problem with Chrysler's cars since 2004. They have nothing for me, for a variety of functional and styling reasons. Chrysler is now basically a truck company; I'm sure by Dailmer's design.

There are unemployment payments to enable workers to survive.

You need to read better and become more objective, those fat cat politicians you hate think much better than you.

On the subject of bailing out the Big 3, I now feel it's a big mistake. The Big 3 are stuck with UAW contracts they can't continue with. They need a change in those contracts and the UAW is unwilling to compromise, so unfortunately Chapter 11 bankruptcy is needed to restructure the industry. If this restructuring doesn't happen, the Big

3 will struggle along from bail out to bail out.

You should stop driving this oldie 1969 Pontiac, it's polluting our air badly. Get it to scrap ASAP and you'll show you care for others. You have enough cars without it.

Reply to
who

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That's correct. And it's not due to the demand for cars, it's due to the credit markets drying up. No credit or small amount of savings, nobody can buy cars at their current market prices. In a credit starved market the cars are simply too expensive. Hence the drop in sales. But at least the Japanese and Koreans have the common sense to help their companies without question. We make our domestic manufacturers do a dog and pony show and STILL tell them to go pound sand. That ain't right.

Jimmy

Reply to
Jimmy

Unemployment funds are running out in the majority of States. Have you heard that? The country is broke and trying to save itself by running the credit cards up even more.

They do think? Like they thought through giving Secretary Hank Paulson a $700,000,000,00.00 blank check? That was supposed to "save" the credit system.

Reply to
Jimmy

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It's Cerberus playing double-dare with Congress.

That said, Toyota shelved plans to complete its Mississippi Prius plant.

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News

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By the way the "laid off" union members will be getting 95% of their base pay while the are off - don't think they are suffering too much.

Fred

Reply to
fred

Oh God!

Would you PLEASE quit perpetuating the MYTH that somehow the amount of money that a person pays for an item is LESS if they pay for it on credit than if they just pay cash?

The US consumer is waking up in 2008 and discovering the REALITY that if you buy something on credit, that the INTEREST that is paid tacks a LARGE AMOUNT OF ADDITIONAL COST on to the price. So they are pulling back, paying down their credit cards, and doing the old-fashioned method of buying things - which is to save up the money FIRST and THEN spend it.

Why do you think that all of the investments are paying shit right now?

Home costs are an exception to the rule because in prior years, the appreciation of the home value outpaced the interest rate on the mortgage - so even though you may have ended up paying, say, a half-million dollars in interest for a $120K home at the end of

30 years - the home price had appreciated to that half-million dollars. Thus, you didn't lose money - although you really didn't make any money either.

How many new car sales every year do you think are vanity purchases? I'd conservatively guess about half. The non-vanity purchases are made up of 80% business purchases, and 20% individual purchases I'd guess.

That leaves a LOT of slop that can be taken up in a tight market.

Now as for this nonsense that credit markets are drying up, that is false. The ONLY credit markets that are drying up are the "we'll finance anyone the law allows" sub-prime credit markets, and unsecured credit. In short, they are no longer letting people with inadequate income amounts, and a history of defaults, get credit to buy a new car. Nor are they just giving out $50,000 credit limits on unsecured personal lines of credit anymore. And this is a bad thing? How, exactly?

For the people with bad credit or small amount of savings, well guess what. There's TONS of used cars out there on the market that are in GREAT shape. Go buy yourself a nice big SUV that's a few years old, and you will get a fantastic used vehicle for a song. Gas prices right now are in the toilet, so no problem fueling it. And if gas prices rise again, well then just use some restraint on driving and get out of that goddam habit of just jumping in the car and driving to the store every time you find you need a little thing.

Use a little logic for God's sake. There's only ONE REASON that new car sales have fallen, and it has NOTHING to do with the banks. It is simply because PEOPLE ARE DRIVING LESS. There's plenty of government statistics to back this up. Every year since 2005 the average number of miles driven by every driver in the US has gone down. Fewer miles driven, well cars don't wear out so fast. When cars take longer to wear out, people don't buy vehicles to replace them.

But, FINE don't believe me. Go ahead with your fantasy that somehow in a few years when India and China start selling the sub-$5000 cars and the rest of the automakers drop their prices to compete, that it will magically wake up car sales.

Ted

Reply to
Ted Mittelstaedt

But that was false logic economy too (that the real estate industry loves to perpetuate) because most families would still need a place to live when they sold that house. The replacement house will also have inflated a similar amount, and since an overwhelming amount of the money they paid into the previous house went towards interest and not the principle, they're going to have to finance the new (probably larger and more inflation-adjusted expensive) house too - at the new inflated (literally) price. If they're "moving up", then they really have gained nothing financially speaking - they just perpetuated their indebtedness that is proportional to the value of whatever home they bought at the moment when they initiated the loan.

Reply to
Bill Putney

A newspaper report a few weeks ago quoted the example of a guy who had just landed a new job after being unemployed for a while but couldn't get financing for the *used* car he needed to get to the job.

Perce

Reply to
Percival P. Cassidy

It's not a myth. And now that the credit markets have tanked, the result is self evident. People can't buy new cars, new car dealers can't move inventory, car makers are making too much product. When supply is up and demand is down, price falls. Macroeconomics 101.

That consumer exists in your head. Marketing folks work with the finance people and the mantra is "buy buy buy - we finance anyone" - stuff like that. No credit markets to lend, you can't move inventory. Inventories have been built and maintained for decades with a credit market supplementing purchases. Look at all the furniture companies that went belly up.

They are paying shit because banks lent money to people who could never really pay back the money. BUT the banks, in conjunction with the rating agencies (Fitch, Moody's Standard & Poors) rated the securitized junk that supposedly mitigated risk as AAA "Investment Grade". In the real world, the loans were so risky they should have been rated junk. When the 24 year old borrowing 2 million dollars cn't sell his "Investements" or pay his mortgages the banks were left with AAA rated pieces of paper. Hence the shit returns you reference. Add in some leverage (10 dollars controlls 100 or more for example) and the crash is exponential.

You lose. You don't rake up leaves in your investment, or fix a leaky faucet, repair cracked concrete - there are huge minuses to owning a home. They aren't investments. But if you can pay it off fast while you're young, you can pocket more cash than renting. *IF* it's paid off. cause you're still going to have maintenance and taxes. And now that school taxes are getting less help from the states, guess where public school funding will comre from? Higher property taxes on your investment.

.

You are categorically wrong.

It's not. But it IS deflationary. And the economy WILL contract.

Plenty of Government statistics, eh? Like the economy was fine, credit markets were fine, Greenspan patting himself on the back talking about the resilliensy of the economy. SEC doing due dilligence. Yes, the government statistics, much like the rating agencies are doing a bang up job, Ted! It must be that people are driving less and not needing a new car. Thanks for clearing that up!

Well, I see you clearly grasp the big picture! And here I was thinking things were bad. Think I'll go whistle past the graveyard now!

Jimmy

Reply to
Jimmy

The point is that somebody buying a USD 20K can't necessarily plunk that sum down on the counter but can afford, say, USD 500 per month.

That is the point and it doesn't matter that the total sum paid is greater. Same with home loans, of course.

In Britain all car loan adverts show the cash price and the total sum paid if in instalments. It's obvious it's dearer to borrow (some interest-free deals notwithstanding).

DAS

To send an e-mail directly replace "spam" with "schmetterling"

Reply to
Dori A Schmetterling

Toyota just opened a new plant in Ontario, the RAV4 is being built there, one shift for now.

Reply to
who

They won't lose a months pay. When Chrysler announced they were stopping manufacturing a month early, there was some Chrysler auto worker being interviewed on TV complaining about, "How am I going to live on 80% of my regular wage"? THAT'S EIGHTY PERCENT FOR SITTING AT HOME. He went on to say how he has a family, bills, a mortgage and car payments! Responsible financial counselors have said for years, you should have six months income in the bank to cover emergencies. Where is his "rainy day fund"? Common sense should have told him to start saving money months ago when the handwriting appeared on the walls.

BTW, there have been continuous Dodge Caravans in my garage since 1984 so I have no ill feelings towards the company. I truly hope they make it out of this.

Reply to
QX

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