if they wouldnt be charging so much for a new car them more people could get into a new car and they wouldnt have to be trying to get bailed out of the mess they are in. yes if any of those 3 companys were to go under it would strike a big blow to alot of people. since they are chargin 30-40k for a band new car or truck its hard for most people to pay 400 or more each month for a car plus insurance on it. yes i am aware of the cost of materials to make the car are going to rise over the years but come on.

 

Maybe a dumb question, are tehy talking about selling off saturn, pontiac, hummer and whatever, or just closing to doors?

 

Mullaly is stupid. When he came into a company that was doing layoffs and raised C-level salaries, I said to myeslf that boy is going to kill that company - how is the union supposed to give any ground when the line workers are being fired and the executives are getting pay raises?

 

No, I agree. Like I said, fuel friendly cars are less susceptible to economic conditions. Yeah, I'll agree, they rode out a huge boom and god blind sided hard. I always wondered why people bought such large vehicles. I know people who graduated college and the first thing they did was go out and buy large trucks for a daily driver. You better believe if GM offered a small vehicle comparison to a VW golf, that got 38+ mpg, I'd be all over it for a new daily, sadly they don't.

If you did get the accord, you'd be making threads "Got new antenna installed, check out my new fresh pics" then you'd masturbate to pictures of a GT-AH.

 

If one of our automakers declares bankruptcy, it will be the end of that company. The reason is simple...the overwhelming majority of buyers do not trust buying a new vehicle with the threat of no warranty. There are estimates that just the threat of bankruptcy has driven many 30% of buyers away from the big 3 in just the past month. In a recent survey of 6000 people who were planning new car purchases, 80% stated that they would not buy from a manufacturer who was in bankruptcy. That's simply not enough buyers to keep the doors open no matter if they used slave labor.

You can thank the federal government for the high prices. Higher crash standards, mandatory safety items such as seatbelts and airbags, high mount brake lights, pollution control devices, and even that little black box that records the last 30 seconds before an airbag deploys...all brought to you courtesy of the US government. Part of the price of that new car also includes all of the R&D that goes into developing the more fuel efficient vehicles that the government is mandating.

Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate having airbags, seatbelts and better fuel economy however I don't like the government forcing it down our throats...but it's a hard call because if they didn't you have to wonder if those items would ever reach mainstream vehicles.

 

if the one guy is a rocket scientist shouldnt he be working for NASA, not running a car company.

and also alot of the major airlines filed for chapter 11, and the economy didnt collapse.

 

You don't get to be that high in the corporate world by being stupid. I don't think they have the means or the ability to fix such a huge sinking ship though. It appears to be a superhuman (and impossible) task for them to each fix their respective companies singlehandedly, which is where their bad reputations probably comes from.

 

Mullaly may be a "rocket scientist," but he was brought in because he's the guy that brought Boeing back.

 

Another big problem is that most people don't know what is really going on. The media has mis-labeled the whole situation as a "bailout", when it in fact, is not. It is an offer to the U.S. Government pitching an investment opportunity. They are not asking for free money, they want the government to invest in them. The big 3 will be paying the money back as part of the deal. The same thing happened 30 years ago with Chrysler and this solution worked perfect, and they were actually in a worse position back then. Ford does not need the help, Chrysler only needs some, GM is the big fuck-up right now, and I truly don't blame GM too much. The problem is what consumers have been programmed by the media and peer pressure to think. How many people when looking for a non-truck, or non-V8, in general, even give a GM car a serious thought? The public has been brainwashed into thinking that the foreign companies are the only ones capable of producing a economy car. It doesn't matter how nice or how good the quality is, that's a huge hurdle to overcome in sales. Combine that with people not being able to get loans and it's not a good outcome. It's also ridiculous how ignorant people are to the R&D american companies have put into alternative fuels. All the money they have dumped into that isn't making things any cheaper either. While they were building too many trucks they were also researching alternate fuels. Of course they make plenty of cars too, but people just bought hondas instead when they were in the market for a car.

As already stated also, the safety shit is a big problem. All the weight of all the features and size required to pass safety regulations these days makes it difficult. We were getting 40mpg with gasoline cars in the 80s no problem, but now everyone wants their 40mpg to come with 37 airbags, power everything, TVs, Nav, and all the fancy shit. Sorry morons, but if you want to be that stingy on fuel efficiency then you're gonna have to give shit up.

Also, you can't compare this to the airlines. The airlines can declare bankruptcy and still sell tickets, because the planes are still going from A to B. If any of the big 3 declared bankruptcy it'd be the end of all sales. Even though they wouldn't be disapearing that quick, so much of the american public is too fucking stupid to understand this and just wouldn't buy because of it.

 

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Excellent post... I couldn't say it any better. The quality is there and the cars are there, but people's habits and opinions are very hard to change.