Detroit Vs Japan

Again, when they also export accounts payable, accounts receivable, accounting, data entry and all other computer related jobs, what's left? What can you possibly get skilled at? Be lawyers? Doctors? Radio disc jockeys? How many of those types of jobs are needed vs. the ever increasing population of this country? Will we have a need for 300 million of these jobs? The need for those jobs vs. the number of people needing work won't add up. This kind of stuff has been preached to us until the point that people believed it. However, if you really look into it, after we've commoditized all of the jobs and sent them elsewhere, this country will be in an economic disaster.

And I have a 1994 Jeep Wrangler Sport with 146,000 on the odometer, and it has only needed a clutch @ 143,000 and a new header since a weld has now cracked in the original. It's still going strong and driven everyday. This inline 6 was designed by AMC, which was not known for reliability, and redesigned by Chrysler to update it with fuel injection, etc.. So what does that tell you? Any car can be driven to 200,000+ if treated right and normal maintenance has been religious enough.

I'm in the construction trade and it's RARE to see a Toyota truck on the lot of any construction site I've ever been on.

SoK66 wrote:

How much do you know about the UAW? How do you figure it's inefficient?

Do you take into consideration that those companies build those plants in areas where unions aren't strong, and support for unions is weak?

I'm curious why people have a beef with unions? Business people negotiate contracts for a living. All a union has is a contract with the company saying they'll provide labor under agreed conditions. If the unions have done so well to negotiate unsatisfactory terms, then those business people don't need to be in business because they can't negotiate squat.

European companies like Daimler-Benz (now DaimlerChrysler), BMW, Volkswagen AG, etc. that produce cars in europe have unions in those plants. Those unions are even stronger than the UAW. But, they still compete well. Why? Because union help is not the blame. Poor management is. Poor design is. Poor engineering is.

Companies like GM are suffering because with the exception of a few shining stars like the Corvette and some Cadillac models, their cars are lack luster. They don't offer the consumer what they're looking for in the market segment they attempt to compete in. Also, GM has missed golden opportunities. They killed of the Camaro and Firebird just in time for a huge resurgence in desire for muscle cars. The Mustang was still selling like hot cakes, but GM claimed that the market for such vehicles had all but disappeared. Now we have a new Mustang, and you can't even find a V8 model on the lot, and they're selling over sticker. The Chrysler 300C and Dodge Magnum RT are a huge success. Instead, GM is pushing a Solstice, which looks to be a Miata competitor of some sort. The Miata came out in

1989, and it's market has dwindled a bit. It's on the downside of it's product lifecycle. Even Honda is considering dropping the S2000. But GM expects it to be a big enough hit to offer a second model sold by Saturn. Good luck! Their other offering is a 1997 design of an Austrailian market car they tried to pedal off as a GTO. It's obvious that this design was dated as soon as it hit the market. It has no pop, and the market has mostly ignored it. GM's other problem is lack of differentiation between brands. They've badge engineered their models to death and there is little to separate them. To make matters worse, instead of having a volume model and a premium model by another brand, they have 4 to 5 versions of the same thing accross different brands. Witness the Chevy Trailblazer, GMC Envoy, Buick Ranier, Isuzu Ascender, and Saab 97x. How many variations of a poor selling SUV do we need? Lastly, in typical GM fashion, they pump as many cars as they can build into the market, and lack of public interest has these things sitting on lots. Therefore, they have to incentivize them to death to get them to sell. At least Ford has finally realized that the best thing to do is cut production to a point that supply is more inline with demand, instead of discounting as much. This has nothing to do with UAW workers. The reliabiltiy of GM products isn't an issue, as GM is very much in the higher rankings of the JD Power initial quality survey (Buick 4th, Cadillac 5th, Toyota 7th, Honda 12th...), and GM plants also got all 3 nods from JD Power for least problems per vehicle for US built vehicles. However, the public doesn't seem to be getting that message, swearing a Camry made in Georgetown, KY is more reliable. However the facts are different. I guess those UAW workers are doing a horrible job...

Innovation. Read Tom Friedman's book.

Pie in the sky...

I'm not bothering to read Tom Friedman's book. What happens when something is innovated? They can just ship those jobs elsewhere too. What's to stop them?

Do yourself and everyone a favor and just look at how it all works. We're commoditizing jobs in this country and shipping them to somewhere else where we can exploit the labor force there. This doesn't save the consumer except where price is the selling point, such as Walmart. Even they get as much as they can out of the consumer while undercutting the competition. However, most items sell for the same price when they move production to some 2nd or 3rd world country as they did when they built it in the USA and actually paid their workers a decent living. Anyone who contests this obviously hasn't taken economics. All we're doing is making those foreign economies stronger, while weakening our own. Since 1980, our trade deficits have grown, jobs have fled the US, and this country is being stripped of any goods to sell the rest of the world in order to compete.

I've been thinking about this kind of stuff, trying to decide what to study in college... I'm great at computers and originally went in for a computer science degree, but since I've been wrenchin on this jeep I have been getting more interested in working on cars...

Do you think being a dealership mechanic is a safe bet?

What I'm describing is going on because we are letting it happen. We've opened our markets basically wide open, while other countries have kept them basically closed to us. I'm not saying that protectionism is the way to go, but consumer awareness of the widespread damage buying goods manufactured outside the US can go a long way. I'm not one that says you need to buy one of the big 3, because many of their goods are made elsewhere while Toyota, Honda, and now Hyundai are providing jobs here. Although, I think NAFTA was one of the biggest mistakes we've ever made. Mexico had nothing for us to gain from except that now our companies can produce the product there and sell it here without any repercussions. It was just plain stupid.

I would think so, at least for the forseeable future, but what I've described is happening, and it'll be a matter of time before they start using more and more Mexican immigrants to do that kind of work for less, too.

I used to be a gung ho republican, but I'm beginning to see things completely different. They seem to be slowly eroding our middle class.

it all depends upon the lifestyle you want. is lower-middle class good enough for you?

Nash being a founding member of American Motors, along with several other companies with small marketshare, I'm still correct that it was an AMC design, though I didn't know the design was quite that old.

Really? Hmmm... I knew some dealership mechanics and they made pretty good money. $20+/hr on a flat rate = a handsome income. Most mechanics turned around 80 book hrs. a week working a 5 day week from 8 AM to 5 PM, with an hour lunch. Do the math: $20 x 80 = $1600 gross/wk = $83,200 per year while working 40 hrs. a week. Like I said, $20 PLUS per hour FLAT RATE. Doesn't sound like lower middle income to me... Of course, they were ASE certified, and I'm sure they had other manufacturer specific certifications to boot. They weren't typical chop shop grease monkeys.

BTW, who's whining about it? I only commented on the original post and after several back and forth responses it turned into this conversation. It was not a whine session, only informative.

Geez, that sounds like part of what makes it a nice place..