Would it be a fair statement to say that GM (and other manufacturers) would have a much better chance of honoring those Pension Plan commitments if our nation's wages could have kept pace with the Cost of Living inflation, --and if the average American's wages had not been continually decreased due to our nation's manufacturing being outsourced to China/Tiawan of which Wal-Mart was the trend-setter?
Ummmm, I think you are confused. Wal-Mart is paying MUCH less for product than what a Mom & Pop type store would. They receive volume discounts from the manufacturers/supplier that the individual store just cannot get. They network with their suppliers to aid them with capitol and even assist them in overseas outsourcing. The small business man cannot compete against that. Also, this may/may not have been before your time (sorry, don't know your age) but just as few as 3+ decades ago, you could make a very decent middle-class wage as a worker at a department store or at a Mom & Pop type business. Remember that we were a "Service-Based" economy then. When I went to school in the early 70's, almost every kid's Mom was a "stay-at-home Mom". Dad worked and was the sole bread winner for the entire family. With his salary he supported a couple of kids, paid a home mortgage, and even had a savings account. What changed ...and WHY??
I didn't have the energy to read all of this ranting but having owned rented, ridden in a bunch of the new GMs over the past 20 years their cars do nothing for me. I love my 69 Chevy C-20 but they haven't built stuff that good in many moons. They are blowing it on many fronts - quality, design, you name it. Plastic cladding that falls off and makes a 5 year old car look like scrap hasn't helped their image either. Stop building crappy cars, period. I drove my 37 year old Fiat down to the Pontiac dealer to check out the Solstice, which is a good looking car. The design wasn't though. Here's what I found: The top folds down into the trunk and fills it. You can't fit a small laptop bag, single sack of groceries, tool kit or anything else in there. On the Fiat you can fit a couple of soft side overnight bags and a box of wrenches in the trunk and close it (once the Solstice gets old, the wrenches will be needed). Space for two occupants. That's OK but the Fiat is a much smaller car and it has a small backseat that you can put stuff on or kids or freinds you want to torture. Anything carried inside the Solstice with two people is in the passenger's lap. I don't know about you but I drive my car to places and buy things or take things with me. Where's my f'n cooler supposed to go? There's lots of space that you could have made bins and cubby holes around the car to put stuff like tools, beer etc. It weighs about 1,000 lbs more than the Fiat. Why? What for? It ain't a truck. I'm not saying the Fiat's a better car but why not make something at least as useful as they did 40 years ago. Living with that car would be a pain in the ass. Too bad they blew it, that's one of the few times in my life someone enticed me to go to the dealer to look at a new car.
Maybe that's exactly what GM needs. The current dealer network is rigged to take (started to type "steal") as much money as possible thru bizarre financing, trade-in schemes, unwanted add-on options (undercoating, wax??) , and any number of barely ethical and shady high-pressure practices. Add in a surly and non-customer focused service and parts department and you have a system designed to drive customers away. Now I know that not every GM or Ford dealer is like that, and that there are some good, professional sale and service people out there, but I think thats rare and those kind of folks don't usually last long at most dealerships. It's a system set up so that every buyer ends up with doubt and remorse, and then feels hassled when service is required. After three new Pontiacs in the last 15 years I've switched to Toyotas and Mazdas in the family fleet. All of them have been higher quality vehicles than the Pontiacs and all of them were much easier to buy. The service departments call and email me, they give me rides and loaners, they don't gouge me on parts, and I leave feeling like I've been taken care of. The GM guys never did any of that. Every trip to the GM service or parts dept felt like getting raped. Whenever the cars were in for more than a day (which was often) I was NEVER offered a loaner or a ride. And when handed a bill, never a thank you for my business. GM can bite my ass....never again, American or not. Some companies deserve to go out of business, and when they do, someone else offering something better will fill the gap.
Brent-in-10: I like the way you think (seriously). My point was merely that these promises were made decades ago by management that was no longer there to have to answer to them. A no-win situation really. I think outsourcing is a natural reaction when management wants to cut costs (notice I didn't say a smart reaction). I don't think globalization can be undone at this point, nor do I think it should. I think outsourcing has more to do with growing other countries standard of living than eroding ours. Perhaps we seem worse off because the others are rising. And globalization isn't always a great savings anyway; Mattel probably doesn't think so right now with the massive toy recalls. I suppose I'm also worried about the parallels between GM's legacy cost problem and the Fed's SS/medicare one. Wait till that hits. Anyway, thanks for the good reply. JK
Hmmmm, I don't recall commenting on what they buy things for wholesale. I simply commented on wages. 45 and things change. Dept stores never paid alot. The difference is that the gap between a low wage and a good wage was much smaller. Wal-Mart didn't cause that. I worked for a mom and pop. They had 5-6 employees and were under different minimum wage rules. I think I made $2.65 and hour in 1979. There was a couple people there who had their job there as their only income and they lived, but sparingly. Wal-Mart didn't cause that. People can still do that. Back in the 70's you also didn't have to have cable, high speed internet access. A new computer every couple years. A cell phone for every member of the household. A television in every room. A car that can park itself. Just think, a 100 years ago many parents never left the farm and supported 7-8 kids, a house and a barn full of animals. What changed?
GM needs another Zora... <TABLE width=990 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top>Thoughts Pertaining to Youth, Hot Rodders, and Chevrolet The Hot Rod movement and interest in things connected with hop-up and speed is still growing. As an indication: the publications devoted to hot rodding and hop-upping, of which some half-dozen have a very large circulation and are distributed nationally, did not exist some six years ago. From cover to cover, they are full of Fords. This is not surprising that the majority of hot rodders are eating, sleeping, and dreaming modified Fords. They know Ford parts from stern to stern better than Ford people themselves. A young man buying a magazine for the first time immediately becomes introduced to Ford. It is reasonable to assume that when hot rodders or hot rod-influenced persons buy transportation, they buy Fords. As they progress in age and income, they graduate from jalopies to second-hand Fords, then to new Fords. Should we consider that it would be desirable to make these youths Chevrolet-minded? I think that we are in a position to carry out a successful attempt. However, there are many factors against us: Loyalty and experience with Ford. Hop-up industry is geared with Ford. Law of numbers: thousands are and will be working on Fords for active competition. Appearance of Fords overhead V-8, now one year ahead of us. When a superior line of GM V-8s appeared, there where remarkably few attempts to develop these, and none too successful. Also, the appearance of the V-8 Chrysler was met with reluctance even though the success of Ardun-Fords conditioned them to the acceptance of Firepower. This year is the first one in which isolated Chrysler development met with successes. The Bonneville records are divided between Ardun-Fords and Chryslers. Like all people, hot rodders are attracted by novelty. However, bitter experience has taught them that new development is costly and long, and therefore they are extremely conservative. From my observation, it takes an advanced hot rodder some three years to stumble toward the successful development of a new design. Overhead Fords will be in this stable between 1956 and 1957. The slide rule potential of our RPO V-8 engine is extremely high, but to let things run their natural course will put us one year behind - and then not too many hot rodders will pick Chevrolet for development. One factor which can largely overcome this handicap would be the availability of ready-engineered parts for higher output: If the use of the Chevrolet engine would be made easy and the very first attempts would be crowned with success, the appeal of the new RPO V-8 engine will take hold and not have the stigma of expensiveness like the Cadillac or Chrysler, and a swing to Chevrolet may be anticipated. This means the development of a range of special parts - camshafts, valves, springs, manifolds, pistons, and such - should be made available to the public. To make good in this field, the RPO parts must pertain not only to the engine but to the chassis components as well. In fact, the use of light alloys and brake development, such as composite drums and discs, are already on the agenda of the Research and Development group. These thoughts are offered for what they are worth: one mans thinking aloud on the subject. Signed, Zora Arkus-Duntov December 16, 1953 </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Making all those special parts available to Hot Rodders must have been a huge pain in the ass in those pre-computer days. Probably not cost effective either. But they did it, and it payed off in a big way over the years. But maybe its too late... Maybe all thats left to do is hand the whole shabang over to the beancounters. Let them try and sqeeze a buck out of a more and more bland product. And concentrate only on the customers they havent pissed off yet...
How about "outsourcing" the Bean Counters and Stuffed Shirts that are filling their pockets as they screw the country into the ground ?
Yeah, that bothers me too. Those tiny cars used to be Kia´s or Deawoos until a year or so ago, now they are Chevys. WTF? It seems like the European GM brands Opel , Vauxhall and Saab are doing well and making profit. My Dad has a new Opel Zafira Van 150HP Diesel with lots of torque, a very well built car. Fuel consumption is at about 6 liters of Diesel for 100kms . These cars sell like sliced bread over here and I think GM should make good money on them. Of course I´ve no idea what´s going on on the american market. Maybe another 2 cents worth: When I was in SoCal last year I was surprised what an incredible amount of German cars( BMWs/ Mercedes´/ Audis) were on the roads over there. These cars are quite pricey over here and checking out a BMW dealership in LA I found these BMWs are about 15-20% cheaper in the US than here in Munich( where those are actually built). On the other hand, I found the new Mustang a good deal for a daily driver. So when I got back home to Germany I asked the for the Mustang at the local Ford dealership. I was told " not availible in Europe." Eventually I found a private importer for the Mustang, but with prices starting at 35000 Euros( about 45500 US$) I backed off.... What I want to say: There´s a market for American cars in Europe, but I don´t get why the companys wouldn´t sell them overhere like BMW/ Mercedes/ Audi does it in the US?
Okay I feel this one is spiraling. I just think people should know that I am not into the whole political aspect of this. I just know the economic side and the humanitarian side. Wal-Mart, it's CEOs and it's shareholders don't care about anyone - they're rich already and their money will long outlast them. What's worse - they still want more money - at ANY cost. To bring this back to topic - GM is suffering from the same economic tactic as mom-and-pop stores. Sure you can yell at the investors and the CEOs and whoever else for being greedy - but the bottom line is that if YOU are buying at Wal-Mart or Toyota or Honda - then it's YOU who is to blame. I buy AMERICAN. I don't care if it cost twice as much - I will pay the price to support OUR economy. When you see something on the shelf that's really cheap - don't be a sheep and buy it just because it's cheaper - that is unless you don't care about where your children will make their living..... If you take the business away from them - and if you consciously do it for an extended period of time - you will see the affect it can have. Open your eyes to what Wal-Mart really is...... How could an economy survive if everyone (large corp.) followed Wal-Mart's lead - which is exactly what they will have to do if they want to keep up with them. And I'm not just talking about direct competitors like Target/Kmart and the like - I mean ALL upper end corporations. http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/ib235 http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_20070627 http://www.walmartmovie.com/ DON'T BE A SHEEP!!!!!
Broman - Unfortunately the average American is far too short sighted to understand anything you are saying. Remember that study with the kids, and a marshmallow now or two later? America is eating the marshmallow, and doesn't really care what happens later. This company was made into the economic juggernaut it was after WWII because our industry built all of the things the world needed to buy. Guess who is doing that today? C_i_a. We're fucked. Or I should say - you all are fucked. I work in aerospace and that is perhaps one of a few fields (defense) that won't be outsourced for at least a few more generations. Besides, recessions and depressions are awesome if you are one of the few that actually has money. So keep shopping at Wal-mart. The white collar in this country need you to.
I'm glad you posted that. I have been accused in the past of saying things that were considered bs, ...and I feel certain some thought my comments about Wal-Mart are unfounded or untruthful. One thing that I have always wondered is how does Wal-Mart escape the Federal Trade Commission Act? Although it has been years since we studied that, I can't help but wonder why GM and others have been regulated over the years yet Wal-Mart has evidently escaped under the radar. Man, if they do not have a monopoly on things I don't know who does!!
They need to do the same thing Ford needs to do, build rear wheel drive V8 powered cars for the masses. why do so many people buy trucks? Chrysler has figured it out, but are still a little to pricey.Build a V8 powered rear drive car (sedan and coupe) for the workin' man and they would sell like nobody's business.I think we're all tire of the cookie cutter fwd pieces of crap rolling off the assembly line nowadays.
Well I bet GM is glad you guys are not running the company because they would have been out of business a long time ago. V8's, being able to choose your own options, better styling. How many Toyota or Hondas offer any of this? Most people don't want a gas guzzling V8, most people can't wait in line at MacDonald for more than 2 minutes without having a breakdown how do you think they will react when they are told it will take a month to get their new car because they didn't choose the one that was on the lot or that it will cost more because it is a one off, and neither Toyota or Honda are setting any trends with their styling. I'm not sure about the US but they are certainly not cheaper than US built cars in Canada so I don't think that is it either. As has been stated before both companies have built a loyal following by building quality cars for a reasonable amount of money. The US manufactures built poor quality cars for so long that it is going to be very tough to get people back no matter what the quality is like now. Cars are a very big investment for most people and it only takes getting one bad car to turn you away from a manufaturer for a very long time especially if there are no problems with the alternative that you have purchased. And the thing about buying American and paying twice as much well alot of people did that for a long time and got half the product and are fed up with it. The US manufactures have no one to blame but themselves.
The Jalopy Journal
