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Posted by: Spadecaller 1 year, 1 month ago
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Spadecaller1 year, 1 month ago
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The failure to protect and preserve the working class and labor in this nation has a lot to do with our failing economy. When Wall street was wallowing in luxury, main street in America had been suffering throughout this nation for several years. Our present debacle did not just happen over night. A new aristocracy has risen in this nation and it must be looked at carefully.
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Among the many people that have contributed to this downfall of the American economy is George W. Bush. His attendance at the latest international summit regarding this world recession speaks volumes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mnyD8Zv1vY-
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Endoscopy1 year, 1 month ago
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Poor spade caller. Ranting about the car companies.
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But they don't care about their workers. Very high pay and benefits. That does not count. Workers that lose their jobs due to changes in the company get a year with pay to find another job. That does not count either. Yep they just hate their workers.
They have problems selling their cars. Why? Cafe standards, emission standards, crash avoidance standards, crash worthiness standards, post crash standards, theft prevention standards, inspection standards, defect and noncompliance standards, uniform tire quality grading standards, bumper standards, etc.
Could these force the design to have a very high cost. Of course not. Liberals never dream that rules have a cost associated with them. They like to make laws that other people have to pay for.
Then just like the last time there was a gas crunch, over night small cars were at a premium. I had bought a Pinto for my father and a couple years later sold it for 1/3 more than I paid for it. That was under the Carter gas crunch. Same thing then. All of a sudden the big cars would not sell. It takes about three years to retool to go to different cars. In March the big cars were what people wanted. Then as gas went up they wanted the small cars. Of course the car companies were supposed to look three years into the future and know that the phase over to small cars would occur.
The only acceptable solution that it seems that spadecaller wants is for the government to take over the companies and be in charge of the companies. Socialism at work.Great concept spadecaller.
Amazing in his post he blames Bush for the financial problems. Lets just ignore that the Republicans tried to fix Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac and the Democrats went ballistic in their defense. Who did we have to bail out early on when the finance crunch started? Of course they will not take credit for changing the banking laws in 1992 at the behest of ACORN going into effect in 1995. Housing took a very large drop and all the financial institutions that held Mortgage papers lost 30% or more since 2006. Zap, all that money gone. Crash came the financial institutions. But Bush was to blame for that. LOL
Keep trying spadecaller.-
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the_heat1 year, 1 month ago
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Yup, an average of almost $75/hour for the auto union workers, plus all of the standards they have to meet. I guess this is one of those cases where the deregulation of the Bush administration is at fault...kind of like the gov't forcing lenders to count unemployment income as income when they are considering a loan, or face being sued for discrimination.
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I guess thats why they say liberalism is a mental disorder... -
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wtagg1 year, 1 month ago
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"They have problems selling their cars. Why? Cafe standards, emission standards, crash avoidance standards, crash worthiness standards, post crash standards, theft prevention standards, inspection standards, defect and noncompliance standards, uniform tire quality grading standards, bumper standards, etc."
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Ironic that the foreign manufacturers operating here don't seem to have the same problem meeting the requirements and selling cars for more money the the US manufacturers. Why are the foreign manufacturers always ahead of the curve as far as the desires of the US public?
I guess Acorn gets the credit then for the housing and banking successes of the 90's and early this decade.
You never respond because your talk show entertainer icon hasn't provided you the answers.-
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Jeboba1 year, 1 month ago
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I would normally agree with you but have you actually checked out the new Chevy Malibu? It's got a lot of quality in it. It gets 30+ mpg and is priced about the same as the most popular Toyota Camry.
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Unfortunately, the Malibu came along way too late. The foreign cars had already eclipsed the American made junkers and it's pretty hard to turn a loaded tanker around quick enough to avoid a collision.
As for me, I've driven Fords for the past 10 years. Let me tell you, they have been the most reliable autos I have EVER owned and I've had a BUNCH of foreign cars. My wife's 1999 Mustang has 100,000 miles on it and we haven't so much as replaced a fan belt!
Another part of the problem is the 'glamour' of driving a foreign car! People were led to believe our American cars were junk back during a time that they were indeed junk! Somehow, the American auto industry was never able to correct that perception even though they started building some pretty damned good cars.
Finally, why did Detroit concentrate on the big gas guzzling SUV's and ignore the compact, fuel-efficient models? BECAUSE YOU WOULD NOT BUY THE COMPACTS! Detroit had to build what would sell. Did you ever notice that even Toyota and Nissan kept coming out with bigger SUV's, big Pickup trucks, etc.?
We, the American consumers, are largely to blame although the greed of the top executives and the unions in the American auto industry are probably the largest reason for the fall.
What is the answer? Do you need a new car? GO BUY AN AMERICAN CAR FOR GAWDS SAKE!-
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wtagg1 year, 1 month ago
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"BECAUSE YOU WOULD NOT BUY THE COMPACTS!"
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Maybe this would be better as:
BECAUSE YOU WOULD NOT BUY THE(IR) COMPACTS!
Why? The foreign manufacturers had no real problem selling theirs.
"We, the American consumers, are largely to blame although the greed of the top executives and the unions in the American auto industry are probably the largest reason for the fall."
I can sort of understand what you are trying to say here, but you contradict yourself. Either the largely or largest has to go. Can't have both.
Hard to find an American made car anymore. Quite frankly, you can find more of a Subaru, Toyota, or Honda made in the USA than many of the Ford, GM, or Chrysler offerings.
A general reflection upon the entire industry. There have been great strides in technology in almost every aspect of car production sans one. That is gas mileage. You can do things that weren't even considered possible 20 years ago, but we are currently getting the same mileage as 20 years ago. The funny thing is that we are getting bombarded by advertising telling us how good that mileage is, that we were getting 20 years ago.
Why?-
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Jeboba1 year, 1 month ago
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Sorry for the largely vs. largest comment. Guess I need to brush up on my semantics. Thanks for your copy-writer corrections about THE(IR) compacts although the sentence starts with citing Detroit. Oh well.
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However, your closing comment about the same gas mileage as 20 years ago doesn't make sense to me. I don't remember having a car 20 years ago that would get 30mpg. I lived in Europe in the 70's and drove VW's, Mercedes, Peugeots, and Ctroens. NONE of them got 30mpg either. All of my American cars got WAY less than 30mpg.
The new Chevy malibu is a nice car and gets 30-33mpg highway. It's not a compact either. I've said for the past two years WHY isn't GM pushing the gas mileage angle harder? All the commercials for cars in the past few years have been about how FAST and POWERFUL they are. I guess the marketing departments figured out we were more interested in speed than economy.-
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wtagg1 year, 1 month ago
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I am comparing fleet to fleet average mpg. If you want to compare the gas mileage of comparable cars from 1988 to 2008, I think there are plenty of examples. Let's take a Honda Civic:
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1988 4 cyl, 1.5l, Auto -> 26 - city 33 - highway
2008 4 cyl, 1.8l, Auto -> 25 - city 36 - highway
Trying to compare apples to apples is a bit hard due to the variance in the product. Since you mentioned a GM product.
1988 Corsica 4 cyl, 2.0l, Auto -> 21 - city 28 - highway
1988 Malibu 4 cyl, 2.4l, Auto -> 22 - city 30 - highway
I'm using the EPA estimates, including the redo's for the older cars to keep the testing values as close to apples/apples as possible.
Honestly, do you see 20 years of progress? Especially considering the change from 1977 to 1984 for fleet mileage. During that period, it went up about 75%. Of course, Carter mandated that gas mileage needed to improve. Reagan revoked that mandate in the mid 80's.
Maybe instead of a bailout, the government should reward manufacturers for improved mileage. Get a subsidy for each model getting over 40 mpg. Get 2X subsidy for any model getting over 50 mpg. Get 3x subsidy for any suv getting over 40 mpg.
We should reward success.
Oh, the Honda Civic CR-X got over 50 mpg highway in 1986.
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miklkit1 year, 1 month ago
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Those contracts were made when times were good. I've voted to give myself a pay cut. Maybe they will too. On the other hand, you have to go down through six layers of management to find someone who makes less than the CEO of Mercedes-Benz. Will they lead by example? Of course not!
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During the gas crunches of Nixon and Reagan(not Carter) there were plenty of American made small cars. By the late 70's Chrysler made almost nothing but small front wheel drive cars. Ford introduced the Pinto in what, 1971? In 1974 you couldn't get a Mustang with a V8.
As for your hero dumbya, you have seen this national debt chart before. You republicons have killed the goose that layed your golden eggs, and now you are trying to blame someone,anyone, else for your own stupidity.
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/faq.html -
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ADAGUY1 year, 1 month ago
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Maybe there is more to our problems that the auto industry? try going to wal mart, and finding anything made in America. Remember this is the largest retailer in the world.
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Free trade and Republican greed got us where we are now. It will take many years at the current rate to recover from the Reagan and Bush administrations.-
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Jeboba1 year, 1 month ago
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YOU and everyone else is responsible for the offshore buying of goods. We good ole Americans are a bunch of cheap bastards. WE won't pay the price for American made goods. Why are American made goods too expensive for us? ONE WORD - UNIONS!
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Jeboba1 year, 1 month ago
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YOU keep trying endo! You seem to conveniently omit the fact that the foreign car makers building cars at factories in the U.S. ALSO HAVE TO MEET THE SAME STANDARDS AND THEY ARE DOING JUST FINE!
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Why the difference? Their executives are held to higher standards and organized labor has been voted DOWN by the employees in most cases. Why did the workers vote labor down? Because the companies treat them GREAT and the unions would just screw it up for them.
So next time you go off on a rant, tell us the whole story, not just your lopsided view of the world!
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