Is General Motors Worth Saving?

[spookyturtle 9,466]

unions have nothing to do with it. union workers are the lowest paid employees at gm...how are lowest paid ruining the company? people have nothing else in their simple little minds to use for excuses except blaming unions.

Union benefits add about $1800 to the price of a car. The foreign companies who build cars here aren't crippled with this.

and just how much is upper managements benefits adding to the price of a car? $1800 is a small price compared to the powers that be now arent they.

That is what it costs to provide benefits to retired workers. It is a factor that the foreign makers aren't saddled with.

[IAMX 3,055]

Quite simply put, there's a reason why Japanese cars are better.

They are not better. If the Chevy Malibu was called the Toyota Malibu, or the Buick Enclave

was sold as the Honda Enclave, GM wouldn't be teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

GM cars have won rave reviews from motoring press and are every bit as good as

those of its Japanese rivals.

People believe otherwise only because America haters like you have been repeating

the same lies since the '70s.

Kay. If your entire argument is "GM is gud, ur American hater", I guess that pretty much sums up what I've been thinking all along. Wave flag, make assertion. That's pretty much all a freedom fry is worth.

Now, if you want to actually be serious rather than make a joke statement, I'd have bought a GM car had they continued their EV1 trend. But no. They wanted to make a bold faced lie and suggest us Californians had no interest in EV1s. Horse sh*t. There was a political game behind it, which explains why they bought out the Nickel Medal Hydride batteries that were used in the Ev1 and refused to give them out to cars which could have used them back then. So time passes by, and Toyota starts picking up the hybrid market, along with Honda, with more fuel efficient vehicles after a bunch of redneck yokels decide that having gas guzzlers is awsum, likely because they sit at a height greater than others. So thankfully Toyota and Honda, not being AS influenced by the oil industry, takes up hybrids. And your suggestion is GM is great because they decided to throw out an entire market for politically motivated reasons? Hah. This market would have been much better off had GM stuck to it rather than caving to oil and buying up things that would have helped less our reliance upon the oil industry, in turn making us more reliant.

You might want to read what I suggested on one of the first few pages about bailing out American companies. You'd be one of my target consumers.

Move to Canada. You don't like it here anyway.

I like it just fine in California. Do you enjoy being wrong?

You seem to erroneously believe that California is a self sufficient economy. Where do you think the majority of your beloved google's revenues comes from? the state of California? EPIC FAIL! From the rest of America and abroad.

Actually when you look at it, a significant portion of the top 100 corporations there rely heavily on international trade and as well as trade with the other 49 states in America. I remember you saying the state of California should break off and form their own country. What would the economic impact be for California? Especially if the US then decided to have a trade embargo with this newly formed country.

Point being. You nor your state works in a vacuum. A loss in one industry in America will have a huge impact on every other. EG The Housing mess which impacted CA greatly.

May hell freeze over when I, or anyone rational, listen to some obsessive compulsive kid from Australia with ####### envy tell me about California.

California very well could be self-sufficient, and would be amongst the top nations in the world if it were so. Of course, this has what to do with cars? Oh yeah, nothing. You might want to whine about blacks and ghettos now.

Edited November 13, 2008 by SRVT

[spookyturtle 9,466]

California very well could be self-sufficient, and would be amongst the top nations in the world if it were so.

You really wear the rose colored glasses, don't you?

[mawilson 2,133]

unions have nothing to do with it. union workers are the lowest paid employees at gm...how are lowest paid ruining the company? people have nothing else in their simple little minds to use for excuses except blaming unions.

Union benefits add about $1800 to the price of a car. The foreign companies who build cars here aren't crippled with this.

and just how much is upper managements benefits adding to the price of a car? $1800 is a small price compared to the powers that be now arent they.

You have got to be kidding me.

In 2007, GM produced 9.284 million vehicles. The added cost was 16,711,200,000 - that's 16.7 billion dollars!

Total executive compensation was only about 35 million dollars.

[IAMX 3,055]

California very well could be self-sufficient, and would be amongst the top nations in the world if it were so.

You really wear the rose colored glasses, don't you?

Reality does seem to show quite a bit of red. Though I think that's the foreign policy speaking, not economics.

My glasses are a bit green.

[mawilson 2,133]

Kay. If your entire argument is "GM is gud, ur American hater", I guess that pretty much sums up what I've been thinking all along. Wave flag, make assertion. That's pretty much all a freedom fry is worth.

And what, might I ask, is your argument, other than "GM sucks" and "Toyota is the best"?

Now, if you want to actually be serious rather than make a joke statement, I'd have bought a GM car had they continued their EV1 trend. But no. They wanted to make a bold faced lie and suggest us Californians had no interest in EV1s. Horse sh*t.

I get it, you're mad at GM for killing the EV1. Boo hoo.

Guess what, when a gallon of gas costs $1-2, who's going to want to buy a hybrid?

[NickD 203]

Did I read someone say we are in a global economy? Screw the global economy, that is when our problems really started. We are about the youngest nation in the world, we have a new form of government that led to wealth for the people, if other nations like that, they can copy us.

But it's not really global economy, it's an opportunity for few in this nation to actually control the lives of people and get very rich at it. China is talking about moving 500 million people that have their own traditional life style and cramming them in cities and have them work long hours in factories, Wal-Mart is controlling whole countries. We enslaved the Japanese for a while, about 17 years, but their citizens demanded all the goodies we had, and we finally have been able to compete with them in 1989, had a good four years, until China came in. Now it's worse than ever.

We need equal trade.

A reason why German made cars are so expensive besides their much higher labor rates, is tariffs, very unequal, did you know at one time we were paying the Japanese 10% for everything we imported from them? Not sure if that is still going on, but was extremely difficult to compete with them.

[Donna A 4]

unions have nothing to do with it. union workers are the lowest paid employees at gm...how are lowest paid ruining the company? people have nothing else in their simple little minds to use for excuses except blaming unions.

Union benefits add about $1800 to the price of a car. The foreign companies who build cars here aren't crippled with this.

and just how much is upper managements benefits adding to the price of a car? $1800 is a small price compared to the powers that be now arent they.

You have got to be kidding me.

In 2007, GM produced 9.284 million vehicles. The added cost was 16,711,200,000 - that's 16.7 billion dollars!

Total executive compensation was only about 35 million dollars.

thats only 6 of them...wheres the rest of them?

[HAL 9000 96]

Kay. If your entire argument is "GM is gud, ur American hater", I guess that pretty much sums up what I've been thinking all along. Wave flag, make assertion. That's pretty much all a freedom fry is worth.

And what, might I ask, is your argument, other than "GM sucks" and "Toyota is the best"?

Now, if you want to actually be serious rather than make a joke statement, I'd have bought a GM car had they continued their EV1 trend. But no. They wanted to make a bold faced lie and suggest us Californians had no interest in EV1s. Horse sh*t.

I get it, you're mad at GM for killing the EV1. Boo hoo.

Guess what, when a gallon of gas costs $1-2, who's going to want to buy a hybrid?

Well the market certainly would extend the supply to even greater amounts wouldn't it?

Try thinking about it for a moment- extend the whole "necessity" side of higher fuel economy to a market that prides itself for being efficient to begin with, thereby contributing via the market itself to a decrease in the demand side for petroleum. Sure... OPEC can decrease pumping too. But by then we can cut out the speculative aspect of the business and concentrate on removing petroleum from the automobile industry altogether.

[mawilson 2,133]

unions have nothing to do with it. union workers are the lowest paid employees at gm...how are lowest paid ruining the company? people have nothing else in their simple little minds to use for excuses except blaming unions.

Union benefits add about $1800 to the price of a car. The foreign companies who build cars here aren't crippled with this.

and just how much is upper managements benefits adding to the price of a car? $1800 is a small price compared to the powers that be now arent they.

You have got to be kidding me.

In 2007, GM produced 9.284 million vehicles. The added cost was 16,711,200,000 - that's 16.7 billion dollars!

Total executive compensation was only about 35 million dollars.

thats only 6 of them...wheres the rest of them?

These are GM’s top six execs. The rest make peanuts.

[mawilson 2,133]

Try thinking about it for a moment- extend the whole "necessity" side of higher fuel economy to a market that prides itself for being efficient to begin with, thereby contributing via the market itself to a decrease in the demand side for petroleum. Sure... OPEC can decrease pumping too. But by then we can cut out the speculative aspect of the business and concentrate on removing petroleum from the automobile industry altogether.

I'm all for reducing our dependence on gas, but what does it have to do with the quality

of GM vehicles?

BMW, Mercedes, Porsche are the biggest gas guzzlers in the world, yet you don't seem

to have a problem with them.

[IAMX 3,055]

And what, might I ask, is your argument, other than "GM sucks" and "Toyota is the best"?

Well, as it's been iterated numerous times (let's repeat it yet again) Toyota, and Honda, addressed the problem of gas prices with their hybrids years ago. GM spit in the face of it, and thus spit on the face of consumers.

I dunno about you, maybe you like being treated like a moron, or like a company playing games with stuff like this, but I find it rather offensive when the gas price issue and oil dependency is something to take seriously. It's very clear you have a can-do-no-wrong mentality about everything America.

I have an idea, rather than getting ####### when people say something is better than American, try the tough love approach. Your coddling only stands to get in the way of progress and correction.

Guess what, when a gallon of gas costs $1-2, who's going to want to buy a hybrid?

Guess what, when it isn't going to stay that way, who's going to want to keep shitty gas guzzlers? The market spoke for itself.

Edited November 13, 2008 by SRVT

[one...two...tree 2,762]

The question is whether GM can remain competitive under the current circumstances in today's market. They gambled on marketing larger vehicles and took a heavy loss.

Here's a radical idea: GM could restructure itself so that it is mostly employee owned. Then have the employees elect a CEO who shares their vision for the future.

Edited November 13, 2008 by Mister Fancypants

[HAL 9000 96]

Try thinking about it for a moment- extend the whole "necessity" side of higher fuel economy to a market that prides itself for being efficient to begin with, thereby contributing via the market itself to a decrease in the demand side for petroleum. Sure... OPEC can decrease pumping too. But by then we can cut out the speculative aspect of the business and concentrate on removing petroleum from the automobile industry altogether.

I'm all for reducing our dependence on gas, but what does it have to do with the quality

of GM vehicles?

BMW, Mercedes, Porsche are the biggest gas guzzlers in the world, yet you don't seem

to have a problem with them.

From an equal perspective I do. Where I imply that I don't is beyond me.

GM quality in this context means horrible efficiency, meaning by consequence, gas guzzling.

All vehicles should be made to operate under strict efficiency guidelines. Be it an environmental, economic, or just intelligent approach.

[IAMX 3,055]

The question is whether GM can remain competitive under the current circumstances in today's market. They gambled on marketing larger vehicles and took a heavy loss.

Here's a radical idea: GM could restructure itself so that it is mostly employee owned. Then have the employees elect a CEO who shares their vision for the future.

Well, they do have subsidiaries that sell normal sized cars like Saturn. And while the mileage is okay, the problem is, Saturn cars are the very thing mawilson would probably complain about -- being a plastic piece of #######. And given Aficionado's tirade against Civics, there's no way he'd ever buy a Saturn.

So really all that's left is waving the flag and suggesting GM cars are awesome with no inventory of cars behind the assertion. What the GM brand is known for is the Yukon, or the Sierra.

Edited November 13, 2008 by SRVT