Built like a Mercedes (?)

It may be a choice between some jobs going and a pay cut for the rest or all
of the jobs going.
All jobs are of the 'here today, gone tomorrow' type in a competitive
economy. There is a train of thought that all change is good because it is
always followed by innovation and increased competitiveness, but I'm not
sure I agree with that. The winners in a previous era are usually resentful
if they lose out to new winners. The trick I think is to make sure no one
loses out for long and a good standard of living with an opportunity of new
employment can be had by all.

Huw

 

None of what you are saying makes much sense. Evidence of this is your claim
that you'd buy Fiat, Peugot and Renault. Great, patronize your government by
purchasing known inferior cars. Meanwhile, you extoll the virtues of a free
market economy. Sorta hypocritical to throw government owned business in at
the top of the diatribe, then revert to free market, and THEN claim the U.S.
doesn't like a free market.

Not making sense to you? Great, neither does your essay.

--
Max

"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

 

Actually Tbone, look at what Zeitsche is about to do at DC...... cut
management jobs.

--
Max

"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

 

Calling it a mantra does not make it an invalid point. The post you
originally responded to did not *only* mention pay cuts. It also
mentioned EPA regulations. You can't isolate any one point as a
cause/cure. Typically the same people who are the union protectionists
are also in favor of internal legislation and international agreements
that ultimately force jobs overseas. Both points have to be addressed
together. An open market eventually equalizes everything out - change
or die.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

at this risk of starting a further argument. im a proponet of alternative
fuels but i dont believe hydrogen or hybrid to be it. i believe we could use
bio fuels more readily (the distribution infastructure is already inplace)
and is practically a infanately renuable resorce. it uses vegtible oil and
ethonal both plant based. infact if you can believe the local paper shell
oil is installing a bio fuel station just 4 miles from my home and the
station is already under construction.

 

Is that not the type of fuel that you have to dump more energy in to get
a given amount out (i.e. is a net loss), and therefore if it were not
for gubmint subsidies would not be economoically feasible?

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

The problem here Max is this is a German company. I am talking about the
American companies that lay off 500 workers and then give the CEO a
10,000,000 salary increase and bonuses for raising the profit margin.

--
If at first you don't succeed, you're not cut out for skydiving

 

None of those are British and none are actually inferior. GM has just had to
pay a huge sum to Fiat to get out of a contract it could not afford. Have
you any experience of those cars? Millions of satisfied customers run them
and I have just bought my first Fiat recently to go with my year old Range
Rover and eight year old Land Cruiser. I am very satisfied with all of them.

Meanwhile, you

Fiat is a family owned business and neither of the others are government
owned so I am not sure what you are on about.


then

Did I say that? No. But it is evident that some posters here do not wish it
to be a free market when they are less competitive, only when they come out
top. Rather hypocritical don't you think?
The US government is sticking to free market principles in this case [they
don't always, thinking of steel] but it is a few posters here that are
arguing that they should put up the shutters. I am saying that it will do
them more harm than good.

Then you have a problem. Are you a street sweeper or the office coffee maker
by any chance?

Huw

 

Although this is not a new story it is relevant
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/3564275.stm

Huw

 

Number of riders isn't a measure of efficiency. Capacity per unit of fuel
used is the efficency level. I'll agree we are not using our rail
efficiently, THAT is my point. But it doesn't make cars more efficient than
rail, just because we drive cars more frequently.

--
Max

"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)

 

Current average productivity in the European Automotive industry is
about 66 cars per employee per year. How do the States compare?

 

Really, overpopulation is the main culprit (also in most problems on
Earth). If there weren't teeming masses of desperate people in 3rd
world nations begging to work 12 hour days for $1 an hour, then the
CEO's of corporations in industrialized nations wouldn't be salivating
at the thought of moving production to these 3rd world nations. But of
course, the middle classes in industrialized nations are getting hurt
and their buying power is decreasing which will hurt the long term
health of the economy and the very corporations that are leaving the
USA. Botton line: too many folks, overpopulation, and more importantly,
the poor Earth is being raped environmentally by this swarm of parasites
(humans). "growth for growth's sake is the ideology of the cancer
cell." (edward abbey). It's funny, I talk of overpopulation, and no one
ever replies. Apathy and ignorance.

 

interesting thread. as i understand it, one of the big cost
advantages that the japanese have is simply that their plants are
newer and more modern. it costs a whole lot less to come in and build
new efficient factories than to rebuild an old system like the "big
three" had. we really didn't do anything to help promote new
factories by our auto industry either. we sort of sat around watching,
playing the violin while this fire burned. in fact, the pressure was
there from the politicians to retool the factories (which costs a lot
and in the end still creates an inefficient assembly line) because the
politicians wanted their public to see them fighting to keep their
same jobs at the same factories. even then, the "big three" have
changed their assembly and quality. my dodge truck has been every bit
as reliable as the two japanese cars and one old german car that i
have. i think the problem lies in imagination. honda built a car
that looked good and people wanted to buy. ford, gm and dc built
small cars that looked cheap. seems to me that the ford escape is one
of the first units to come along that can catch the imagination of the
public, and is a small somewhat fuel efficient car. i don't think the
problem has been the work force but rather the management. i mean look
at what the gm response was. the japanese hit the suv market with
great little reliable cars that got pretty decent mileage for their
days. gm responded with the blazer! it had a six in it that pretty
much self destructed at 60,000 miles, got about 13 miles per gallon
and looked like a cardboard box on four tires. what a great response.
in the 20 years since then, what has gm designed to compete with the
pilot, cr-v, forester, four runner? i mean come on, they have
certainly had enough time to come up with something. they haven't.
who in the world is running that place? or better yet, is anyone
running that place? but, and tbone makes this point, the cost
cutting falls on the worker and not on the management. maybe that is
just the way that it is, but it doesn't seem fair. the workers have
been out there building cars, it is the leaders, the managers and our
politicians that have screwed this up. but that seems to be the norm.
i really think that other nations have been able to take advantage of
a period when our political leaders have just sucked. it isn't just
the auto industry that has suffered. it is just an example of poor
planning and poor leadership. then, the fix seems to be to take away
the pay and benefits that the workers have. and we buy into that
philosophy. look at this thread. we all see it happening and here we
are talking about it. what are our politicians doing about it?
playing partisan politics to keep thier jobs. other than that, they
are doing pretty much nothing, other than making sure that thier pay
and benefits are not reduced. this isn't a repub v. demo rant either,
they both have been very lacking. that, i believe, is where not only
the blame lies but also the answer.

 

i agree with the philosophy but in reality your comment is bs bill.
it has not been an open market for a lot of the us industry. foreign
industry has had several advantages and help from thier governments
that ours have not. you can't have it both ways. either we have an
open market and that includes foreign policy from the competing
nations governments, or we provide the same benefits to our industry
that the others have. you can not "equalize everything out" when the
rules are not equal.

 

I'll reply. You're right, overpopulation is a big problem.
And what drives overpopulation?
Which countries and religions say it's bad to practice birth control?

 

The most densly populated nations tend to be the most prosperous and China
has the potential of being more prosperous than the USA. I think you will
find that Japan has a per capita income equal or better than America.
History shows that no hugely wealthy and dominant power stays at the top
indeffinately. There are too many aspirational and competitive nations
snapping at the title. Also the dominant nation gets complacent after a
while and starts whinging about the other upstarts.

Huw

 

Top-posted and un-trimmed, Mr. BudE.

Can some one explain to me why people have such a bug up their butt about
top-posting? I find it much more convenient when reading through a
thread...

 

ok so you mean to tell me the crude oil (admitting its a non renuable
resource that we will eventually run out of) is gonna stay economically
feasible forever?

 

Nissan UK's Sunderland plant fairly consistently built 95 to 99 cars per
empoyee in the last few years with 101 in year 2000.
Honda UK have been up to 83 but vary down to 55.
Renault's Spanish factory made 77 Clio's per employee.
Toyota UK build around 86 each man and boy.
VW's Emden plant which builds the passat, a direct competitor to Toyota UK's
Avensis, managed only 27 cars per employee.
What is the typical and best and worse that US plants manage?

Huw

 

Oh, I dunno...Fiat reliability/rust resistance is still not great (otherwise
I might own an Alfa Romeo, which I try to rent when in Italy) and in Britain
the French cars tend to cluster low down in the satisfaction stakes though
some, e.g. Renault, do well in the EuroNCAP tests.

(Admittedly Fiat produces some funky cars...and, of course, owns Ferrari...)

I guess Renault could be considered private as the French govt only owns
about 16%.

DAS

For direct contact replace nospam with schmetterling
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