Author Topic: "We Had Our Perestroika. It's High Time for Yours."  (Read 5334 times)

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Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: "We Had Our Perestroika. It's High Time for Yours."
5 years, you watch, in 5 years there won't be a Ford Motor company any more.

You are, unfortunately, absolutely correct. There also will not be a GM anymore, because the companies have spent decades overproducing and running themselves into the ground every way possible from accounting practices to their union dealings.

They're not saveable. The auto industry in the Rust Belt doesn't do genius. (That's a Japanese thing.) They also don't do surperb business practice (that's German). They have dug themselves a massive hole, far over their heads, and they wore themselves out doing it so even if they're thrown a ladder, they don't have the strength left to climb it.

The government has realized this and is making a fast exit. The only US car company left in a decade will be Chrysler (or maybe not; there are deep questions about its ability to be saved too, but not as deep), but they'll buy from China. The branches of Honda and the like in the Southern states will be our only carmakers.
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Offline Scotty

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Re: "We Had Our Perestroika. It's High Time for Yours."
Sometime, it amuses me how people think that some things are going to destroy the economy.  No matter how bad it gets, without exception, there will always be an economy left at the end of it.  As long as there are people, and as long as there isn't pure, complete self-sufficiency for every person on Earth, the will be an economy.  So it isn't as strong relative to the rest of the world, or to where it was earlier, but it will always be there, and the natural inclination of an economy is to grow. 

I suppose my point is:  Get over it.  If they fail, we can still get cars.  If they fail, people can get more jobs.

 

Offline NGTM-1R

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Re: "We Had Our Perestroika. It's High Time for Yours."
I'm not complaining, really. I want them to fail. :P
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Offline Rhymes

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Re: "We Had Our Perestroika. It's High Time for Yours."
Agreed.  Those companies are far too bloated to deserve survival.
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Offline General Battuta

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Re: "We Had Our Perestroika. It's High Time for Yours."
Agreed as well. Time for some creative destruction, as the economists say.

 

Offline Rick James

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Re: "We Had Our Perestroika. It's High Time for Yours."
Or we could just give the union workers a bunch of C4 and let 'em have at her.

Boystrous 19 year old temp at work slapped me in the face with an envelope and laughed it off as playful. So I shoved him over a desk and laughed it off as playful. It's on camera so I can plead reasonable force.  Temp is now passive.

 

Offline Rhymes

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Re: "We Had Our Perestroika. It's High Time for Yours."
Or we could do THIS: :beamz:
If you don't have Knossos, you need it.

“There was a button," Holden said. "I pushed it."
"Jesus Christ. That really is how you go through life, isn't it?”

 
Re: "We Had Our Perestroika. It's High Time for Yours."
Quote
Ford won't be able to compete because GM will be receiving tons of money from the Federal government.

The government may be able to keep one company from sinking, but it's not a zero-sum game.  Even in the "OMG TEH COMMEES!" distortion, propping up GM doesn't lead to the downfall of Ford.  There's a leap being made to further distort the real goal of the automotive bailout -- keeping manufacturing jobs in the United States.

The laissez-faire approach, by the way, can't accomplish this one, as the jobs are primed to migrate to Japan, Europe, and increasingly India, just as soon as they're lost in the United States.  I don't care for how the companies have managed themselves over the past few years, building their businesses with legendary shortsightedness, but I've no malice toward the workers, who would be thrust into the overcrowded, understocked job market, should the US auto industry be allowed to sink.

With a crisp, new university degree, it took me six months to find a job, and the one I did find wasn't in either of my fields of study.  How long do you suppose someone with a limited post-secondary education and highly specialized skill set would have to hunt for a job, in a country with no jobs that match his/her skill set?  How long do you suppose it would take, if that worker was joined by several hundred-thousand people of similar education and identical skill?  Neither the big nor small pictures are particularly pretty.

The auto bailout is like chemotherapy.  The medicine is bad, but the consequence of foregoing treatment is much, much worse.

  

Offline Scotty

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Re: "We Had Our Perestroika. It's High Time for Yours."
Quote
There's a leap being made to further distort the real goal of the automotive bailout -- keeping manufacturing jobs in the United States.

Hmmm, I wonder what's going to happen when the jobs move and it isn't because of a faltering economy.  We might as well face it.  Corporations move jobs oversees for two reasons.  Number one is that labor frequently is cheaper than in the United States.  Number two is that the financial policy in those countries is generally more conducive to the purpose of those companies, making more money.