OK so that means the consumers don't want their (small) product but they
do want small products from the Japanese companies. (And I have heard
that Ford, and maybe the others', cars are doing well in Europe and
elsewhere v. the competition, why there and not here?) I guess we can
mess with the market by providing (taxpayer-paid) incentives for people
to buy cars they would rather not have, for cost or quality or utility
or whatever other reasons, to keep an inefficient inept (insert your own
in-word here) "American" company in business, just because it is big.
When does that stop? Have not heard the good answers to that, and the
senators have no clue either, and the guys who are telling them are the
ones they say they want fired. Who to believe? What to believe?
The military thing is a different kettle of fish. Not sure that relates
well to a well-paid (hard-working?) auto worker, except for a similar
level of ongoing benefits, you can see the reasons. An apple v. an
orange, but it does raise an interesting issue as to how all this gets
paid for on an ongoing basis when the till has only so much (real) money
in it. Where are the choices made? How much do you personally want to
send to Unkie every month to carry the auto industry, the retired
military and GS workers, the people who lose their jobs in market
shakeouts, banks, credit card companies, door/window manufacturers,
people who "bought" more house than they could pay for, on and on and
on. Do you run your family finances that way (like a lot of people seem
to do)?
Do Honda and Toyota have large retiree commitments, like Big3/UAW? I
don't know the answer to that.
--R
Tom Hargrave wrote:
The big three have built smaller cars here in the states. They tried
repeatedly & we would not buy them. We wanted mid-size & larger cars from
American auto makers. One great example of this is Saturn, who built a long
line of smaller, efficient cars. Saturn is performing so dismally that its
one of the brands GM needs to can.
As far as legacy costs go, I suppose you also want us to cut all of our
military retiree benefits? Their retirement & medical benefits represent
much greater legacy costs to our economy than the auto workers retirement
benefits. But I guess it's OK with our armed forces because the cost is
hidden in the Federal Budget?
The only way to shed enough cost right now is to drop the retiree benefits
and that's not going to happen. Ironically, if this were 20 years later,
Toyota and Honda would be in the same position because their retiree base
will also be past their active employee base by then.
Thanks,
Tom Hargrave
www.kegkits.com
256-656-1924
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