ForumGarden

Well, the auto makers are back testifying before Congress asking for more money, but this time with "plans" for success..like the $34 billion they are asking for will be sufficient.

This time they drove from Michigan to Washington in hybrid vehicles instead of the corporate jets. I wonder what PR idiot talked them into making bigger fools of themselves?

Now for the debate between grandma Pelosi and W, he wants to tell the auto guys to use the $25 billion they have been given for building "green" cars for their survival. Grandma wants to give them another $25 billion and save the first $25 billion for the green stuff.

What am I missing here? If they don't survive what will the green cars matter, they will be made by Toyota? And if they use the first $25 billion to survive they are going to make the green stuff anyway because that is how they will make money in the future...assuming of course someone wants to buy them, but on the other hand if nobody wants to buy them then the first $25 billion is meaningless in the first place, get it! :rolleyes:

Grandma apparently doesn't.

QUINNSCOMMENTARY;1077663 wrote: Well, the auto makers are back testifying before Congress asking for more money, but this time with "plans" for success..like the $34 billion they are asking for will be sufficient.

This time they drove from Michigan to Washington in hybrid vehicles instead of the corporate jets. I wonder what PR idiot talked them into making bigger fools of themselves?

Now for the debate between grandma Pelosi and W, he wants to tell the auto guys to use the $25 billion they have been given for building "green" cars for their survival. Grandma wants to give them another $25 billion and save the first $25 billion for the green stuff.

What am I missing here? If they don't survive what will the green cars matter, they will be made by Toyota? And if they use the first $25 billion to survive they are going to make the green stuff anyway because that is how they will make money in the future...assuming of course someone wants to buy them, but on the other hand if nobody wants to buy them then the first $25 billion is meaningless in the first place, get it! :rolleyes:

Grandma apparently doesn't.


I think you should read a book about the British car industry in the 1970s, it seems that history is repeating itself, though for differing reasons. I would say that on some levels of course its important to have a strong manufacturing sector in the states for your long term economy, and perhaps the plants and engineers, and skills can be saved through a total restructuring, and the recreation of a consolidated, more lean car manufacturing industry, with a focus on actually making good, innovative automotive products, and a realistic worker-management set up not run by auto-unions (you could maybe headhunt some German and Japanese car people to set it up, they seem pretty good at this kind of thing).

But don't allow the existing executives and management to survive or the companies as they are currently constituted, they are entirely responsible for their own demise; its just throwing good money after bad, and none of us has an endless supply of that. I would actually say that the same thing applies to the financial companies even more so, where companies have to be nationalized; just get rid of the entire executive class, and put in people who are a) serious b) honest and c) competent. Don't listen to any nonsense about needing experienced people from the existing industry, none of them has a clue, and are totally compromised by their venality. The people you do get, make sure and pay them realistic wages, not the GDP of a small European nation, and get them to work rebuilding a shattered economy.

QUINNSCOMMENTARY;1077663 wrote: Well, the auto makers are back testifying before Congress asking for more money, but this time with "plans" for success..like the $34 billion they are asking for will be sufficient.

This time they drove from Michigan to Washington in hybrid vehicles instead of the corporate jets. I wonder what PR idiot talked them into making bigger fools of themselves?

Now for the debate between grandma Pelosi and W, he wants to tell the auto guys to use the $25 billion they have been given for building "green" cars for their survival. Grandma wants to give them another $25 billion and save the first $25 billion for the green stuff.

What am I missing here? If they don't survive what will the green cars matter, they will be made by Toyota? And if they use the first $25 billion to survive they are going to make the green stuff anyway because that is how they will make money in the future...assuming of course someone wants to buy them, but on the other hand if nobody wants to buy them then the first $25 billion is meaningless in the first place, get it! :rolleyes:

Grandma apparently doesn't.


I dont really believe that those execs drove all that way. I bet they took RV's (with a hired driver of course) and stopped outside of town and drove the hybrids fromt there.

Galbally;1077770 wrote: I think you should read a book about the British car industry in the 1970s, it seems that history is repeating itself, though for differing reasons. I would say that on some levels of course its important to have a strong manufacturing sector in the states for your long term economy, and perhaps the plants and engineers, and skills can be saved through a total restructuring, and the recreation of a consolidated, more lean car manufacturing industry, with a focus on actually making good, innovative automotive products, and a realistic worker-management set up not run by auto-unions (you could maybe headhunt some German and Japanese car people to set it up, they seem pretty good at this kind of thing).

But don't allow the existing executives and management to survive or the companies as they are currently constituted, they are entirely responsible for their own demise; its just throwing good money after bad, and none of us has an endless supply of that. I would actually say that the same thing applies to the financial companies even more so, where companies have to be nationalized; just get rid of the entire executive class, and put in people who are a) serious b) honest and c) competent. Don't listen to any nonsense about needing experienced people from the existing industry, none of them has a clue, and are totally compromised by their venality. The people you do get, make sure and pay them realistic wages, not the GDP of a small European nation, and get them to work rebuilding a shattered economy.


When they replace the current executives with someone else , they should be people who can and will stick to negotiations with the union till a contract is agreed upon. A contract that is good for the employees as well as the company.....not just for todays bottom line but for tomorrows as well. For those companies to end up in this predicament, there had to be some serious failure during those contract negotiations on the part of the company. Maybe the company should recruit some of the union negotiaters.