gm / ford alliance

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DETROIT - Executives of General Motors Corp. and Ford Motor Co. have discussed a possible merger or alliance, the trade journal Automotive News reported Monday. Both companies declined comment.

Reply to
badgolferman
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Wonder how many Toyota drivers will rush out to buy a Ford/GM?

Reply to
Scott in Florida

The market will go wild. Imagine the chance to invest in the merger of two companies of proven ineptitude. We're all still a-twitter at the brilliant results from the Nash-Hudson and Studebaker-Packard mergers.

There ya go, the perfect post-merger name: General Decline.

Reply to
Masked

Well at least Nash-Hudson lived on - first as American Motors, then as part of Chrysler, and now as part of DiamlerChrysler. Toyota has absorbed (merged with) a number of other Japanese automotive companies, and owns significant percentages of several others. And for that matter, Studebaker-Packard Corporation did not die, they just quit making cars (did you know that STP was orignally a Studebaker-Packard Corporation Product - it has been sold off, but it started there)?

Ford and GMs "ineptitude" was fairly predictable. As long as their high end products were selling well, they could support the high pay and benefits won by the UAW over the last 70 years. However there is no way they can build competitive small cars in the US with that cost structure. It would be interesting to see how smart Toyota executives would be if they were saddled with similar UAW contracts. Unfortunately in this country, the only way to get out from under a labor contract is to either survive a massive strike or declare bankruptcy. Neither option is very appealing to GM or Ford. Ford does reasonably well in the rest of the world, as does GM. The US problems can be traced to a very open economy that allows import brands to easily move in and very restrictive union contracts that saddle GM and Ford with high per unit costs. Now you can blame the management at Ford or GM for agreeing to bad labor deals, but you'll have to explain to me how they could have avoided them. I keep reading how well Toyota gets along with its US suppliers, but it is common knowledge that Toyota squeezes the heck out of it's Japanese and Asian suppliers. They have the same attitude as Wal*Mart, give us this at our price or you are out of business. When Ford and GM try this in the US, they are lambasted.

BTW, my main complaint against US auto executives (actually, most US executives regardless of industry) is that they are way overpaid. It is important to understand that executive compensation between US and Japanese or European executives cannot be directly compared because of cultural and financial differences, but still many US executives run companies into the ground while maximizing their own rewards. I blame this on the stock holders, who hide their heads in the sand and allow CEO to select their own overseers.

Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

However we might spar about auto marques, I'd be honoured to hold the other end of your banner on that point.

Reply to
Masked

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