Flashback....1973.....Arab Oil Embargo.....gas prices hit all time high. The big 3 still trying to sell the great big heavy, huge engine cars that get 8 miles a gallon. little Japanese companies Datsun, Honda, and Toyota offer fuel efficient cars that get close to 30. Fast forward to 2005.....gas prices hit all time high in US of over $3 a gallon....the big 3 are once again caught with pants down trying to push huge SUV's on public once again the Japanese are flooding market with the newer technology hybrids. GM is planning on introducing its new lineup of SUV's in spring of 2006.

When will they ever learn....when will they learn

Hi, It's just not the SUVs here. Look at the Ford Mustang, Chevy SSR and Corvette, and that Hemi-fied truck Doger has out, not to mention other vehicles all along the line, from all the makers, that have big V-8 power in them. You sell to the public what it demands, or more to the point, what you can talk them into demanding.

Don't know about how the rest of the world operates, but we Americans are a car crazy country, and for the most part feel that the automobile is a reflection of ourselves and our success in life--or at least this is what Wall St. has brain-washed us into believing is true. (Not to mention most people's ever expanding waist lines these days, but that's another subject.)

You would think that gas being around $3 a gal, there would be absolutely no maket at all for these kinds of vehicles, yet they are selling, and selling very well, at least around this neck of the woods.

And since the major Am. auto makers are heavily invested in other foreign car makers, they aren't going to loose any money any way you look at it. Now this isn't to say that the Am. workers who make these cars aren't going to suffer somewhere along the line, but then again, that's not the big business boys concern.

Now it looks like these hybird cars are going to be the new rage, but again, we have to stop and look at the cost in keeping them going on down the road. My son told me the other day that in some of these vehicles, if you have to pay to replace the battery pack in them it's something like $6,000! So if someone is thinking about one of them, they better be sure to get a good l-o-n-g warrenty to go with it. Which goes to show that one way or the other, the person who buys a hybird or someone who buys a Hummer is going to be coming out just about even on down the road a ways. You either pay up front or you pay later.

As long as the people are satisfied with the current trends--and more importantly, can use the credit cards to buy it with--the carmakers, no matter what nationality they may be, are going to continue to produce--and sell-- what they know they can talk the people into buying..

Strange, strange world anymore. Common sense and logic just doesn't seem to cut it anymore. But this may be an age-related thing too, since I'm no longer directly in the rat-race, so to speak.

Take care, Sgirty

Over here in the UK liquid petroleum gas (LP Gas) conversions are a lot more popular than Hybrid Electric/Gasoline Vehicle (Honda IMA and the like), but I am still very worried about carting a Large LP gas cylinder around in the boot (trunk).

Hummer’s and the like get ±6–10 miles per gallon, my diesel Astra gets 40+ miles per gallon. No, my Astra can’t tow a tank or transport 5 tons of munitions, but the family gets to wherever we are going (including luggage) and the fuel bill isn’t all that bad.

Maybe all that is needed instead of radical (liquid petroleum gas (LP Gas) conversions or Hybrid Electric/Gasoline Vehicles) changes is to start with small ones, such as fuel efficiency and then work up from there?

Hydrogeon! Why not the technology exsists? Why can't we ever learn, I think we should take a big lesson from the Euro's and learn from our own mistakes, but NO! Not with the oil barrons in office!! Hmmm let me see oil companies report the highest profits ever! Let me think about this...

Fuel efficent cars! Who would of thought? Doh! Me no, I'm not opinionated. Just tired of the same old BS that we Americans put up with. This use to be a great country, and it is sad to think we use to be such a great leader in the world of technology. I just wish we would become what we once were when quality, highstandards, were the norm. Not disposable people, goods, and the wasting of natural resources.... I love my country, but not the way it is currently headed.

Ah that's much better. Sorry...

Hydrogen and hybrid cars are the way of the future. The only problem is affordability.

Over here, we do tend to see less and less SUVs on the road. Seems like 2000Cc cars are becoming the norm, almost considered high end with the ever rising petrol prices. Over here in NZ, its $1.51 for a litre of low grade petrol. Diesel is $1 a litre. You do the conversion to gallons.

Having worked at Ford in Truck Product Development in one capacity or another for over 28 years, I can tell you it ain't quite that simple.

The development cost to create each new model is staggering, in part due to the requirement to meet the literally hundreds of regulations that goven automotive products. The size of that development cost tends to be about the same whether you are making a sub-compact or a full size truck. And despite what the press might say, you don't decide today what products you want, and have them start showing up at the dealer by Christmas. Not THIS year, not NEXT year, and NOT the year after that.

The customers decide what they want to buy, and they can change their minds in a hurry, as witnessed by events of the last few months.

With HUGE development costs, there are two ways to recover that.

1) Sell what you make at a high relative price. (big margin between price and cost)

2) Sell at a much lower margin and recover your investment with high volumes.


For the last 28 years, what has the customer been asking for????

Is it small fuel efficient cars? (which because they are "small" don't meet the first test.)

Nope! It's trucks and SUVs and not only have those vehicles provided the ability to meet the first hurdle of large margin, guess what?? Everybody wanted them and so you got volume too.

With limited capital to spend in a highly competitive and VERY low return on investment business (Just a bit over .01 on the dollar!!!!!) what do you think YOUR company would do?

Despite what anyone says to the contrary, even though we REALLY do try and create demand, at the end of the day, what is and isn't moving out of the show rooms isn't decided in Detroit, it's decided in "Anytown, USA". We can TRY and create markets, but the BEST we can hope for is to anticipate trends and hope like hell you don't get caught short, because catching up is HUGE.

Guess we're finally going to have to pull out all that 100 miles per gallon technology we've been sitting on all these years based on our conspiracy with the oil companies.


Tom

I sold cards for 10 years. The last four of them selling Saturns. This was before they had there little SUV. You know what, people got what they wanted. At that time we had extremely good gas milieage, but people complained that we didn't have enough horse power. Everybody want big V-8s, big SUVs, big Trucks. When gas is relatively cheap Americans want bigger, and the Big Three complies. When gas is expensive then we complain that they don't give us what we want.

For the record I drive a 1987 Mercury Tracer. Last time I filled up I got over 400 miles on 10.5 gallons. It's ugly as sin, shakes and rattles, but it gets me where I need to go.

Hybrids and non-gas cars are going to ruin the joy of automobiles

As I understand it, big SUV sales have crashed. The only thing that supported them the past 6 months were the low costs / super discounts. Why isn't ford pushing it's smaller line of cars, they have more out there than SUV's I live practically next door to the GM plant that assemblies the SUburbans, Tahoes and the like, and they have cut production 50 % lately. I realize that things take a while, but the writing was on the wall over a year ago. Me, as a military planner performs an inital plan to what is expected, the more time I have, the more contingency plans I make. Gas has been cl;imbing for 2 years now. Why didn't the car companies make contingency plans? The only thing they concentrated on for the past 5 years was bigger and bigger trucks. At least in the car division they had a choice of a V-8 or a super V-8 or a 6 (Mustang, Mustang GT, Cobra) Of course the real culprit here is the consumer. Why someone needs a pickup that seat 6 comfortably and has 6 wheels just for some fella to drive to work (we call them duelies )Or the Ford super duper deluxe extendo SUV to haul Johnny poopie pants to soccer practice or even worse like in my neighborhood.....6 blocks to school(and we wonder why our kids are growing up obese)? Now folks are eating hotdogs so they can pay for gas just to get to thier jobs. I'm no saint, I have a Mustang GT, however I drive it at 2000 Rpm and only where I have to. I fill up once every two weeks.

Hmmmmm...

A lot to say on this topic. First a bit of background- I spent 27 years in the auto industry- GM & Ford, engineering and product development. I was raised in a "car" family...my Dad held (co-held) the patent on the first 4-barrel carb (Holley Carb) and pioneered the first widely used electronic engine control system- EEC at FoMoCo.

Tom said a fair amount of what I was going to say...

One issue- there are 2 (3 sorta) anomalies acting on the price of oil & gasoline. We have not built a refinery in many, many years. As a result they refineries we have are operating at or near 100% capacity. Also we currently require about 40-50 different blends of gasoline nationwide. This tremedously complicates the distribution network, for a very modest benefit. Finally, a fair percentage of the increase is due to this year's hurricane season. Based on a lot of data, crude is seriously overpriced. In spite of these issues, we as a nation need a forward looking, realistic energy plan.

On to products-

There are and have been a number of fuel efficient vehicles produced domestically, maybe not the quality and efficiency of imports, but not too shabby either. BUT they did not sell! What has sold are trucks, what made $s were trucks. What got built was TRUCKS! Business is in business to make a profit- that is done by meeting market demand. Small cars have never been very profitable domestically, and there has not been much demand for them. And I know the imports are in fact way better at producing profitable small cars...we'll get there. But when the public clamors for big trucks, and big trucks equal big profits, you build big trucks. Are the domestic companies suffering for that now? Yes! The profitability of small cars will rise as the demand rises...free markets are funny that way.

Yes gas prices have been rising...and the reaction is now occuring within the industry, but we are NOT where we were at during the 70's gas crisis. At that time we had virtually no fuel efficient cars. There currently are a lot of very good, domestic, fuel efficient cars (and trucks) on the market.

Hybrids are great! Hydrogen is awesome! BUT there is no infrastructure for Hydrogen! The amount of $s to create an infrastructure to support a large percentage of the public driving hydrogen cars is staggering! Hydrogen production (refineries), hydrogen distribution (tanker trucks, pipelines...), hydrogen fuel stations. All that said we had best start on the project! And hydrogen doesn't just spontaneously occur in a form and quantity that can support millions upon millions of vehicles. It too needs to be "refined".

As to hybrids. Another tremendous idea. BUT (there's always a but), if you live in a moderate to cold weather zone, the efficiencies of a hybrid drop significantly. On those cold Michigan mornings (-10 degrees cold) that electric motor won't do much to heat the car. And as time goes by, where are we going to dispose of all the monster battery packs?

These things said- we need to get in gear, plan and implement the infrastructures and systems that will let us wean ourselves from oil. And there is no better motivator than market economics.

OK...I'll shut up now.

Jim

PS I drive a 4-cylinder SUVlet.
PPS The scraping sound you hear is me putting away my soapbox.

As an old marketing guy, I probably pay a little more attention to advertising than most. We (the American consumer) have a tendency to blame the manufacturesrs for not adjusting. Watching ads last night, it dawned on me what the local dealers were pushing. Trucks, trucks, and more trucks. I have to admit, the car dealers are the ones with their pants down. The manufacturers do have several smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles availalbe, but as pointed out, they are low dollar, low proffit. Sell that ultra huge SUV with the leather captain chairs, GPS, DVD stereo, automatic this and that, 4 tier heating and cooling. BIg profits, yet the lots are filling up and the used lots are filling up with recent model SUV,s / pickups around here. Why buy a 2006 when you can easily find a low mile 2004 for about half?

Following on to what Jim said about refineries. It's even worse than he said. It has been over 30 years since a refinery was built in the US.

Has net demand for gasoline increased in 30 years? (I'll give you some time to think about that if you need it )

So why, you ask, haven't the oil companies done what every smart business does when demand increases, that is add capacity??? Because the combination of government regulation and enviornmental activism (coupled with Not In My Back Yard!) has prevented the addition of refining capacity since the early '70s. (Have we had any "energy crises" since then that would have caused us to think about adding capacity??? I'll give you some more time to research that one as well.)

And I read a report that indicated that demand has now exceeded capacity to such an extent that in addition to importing unrefined crude oil we are now also (for the first time) having to import gasoline, because we can't turn the crude we have into gasoline fast enough.

Next tough question. What happens to the price of something when people want more of it than there is?


The good news is that even without the government telling us what to do, consumers are changing their behavior and lowering the demand.

Some.

But unfortunately, while consumer preferences can change overnight, the ability to put an automobile on the showroom floor that meets those new preferences isn't quite that responsive. And even if the product already exists, the ability to shift production into other factories to make more (at say the expense of the big SUVs that aren't selling) doesn't allow for that to be done over the weekend either.

Tom

You are absolutly right Tom. Another thing is all the "blends" of gasoline that have to be made. One state requires this another that and of course the seaonal blends. I think the govt. did step in here and over-ride all the state EPA standards so that they would limit the amout of different blends. Having studied manufacturing processes, I realize how production works as well (I forgot what it is called but I remember all the little dots with times lines and choke-points we used to draw out for Industrial Management class back at Bama). It has started here a little with a summer shut down of the Arlington plant. I imagine come Januray layoffs will start to occur. This sure is going to hurt this area bad. We just absorbed a 1000 folks from Katrina and Rita into the already scace market and that's just in he mid-city section I'm in. The rest of the metroplex has about an additional 20,000 folks to deal with. Chose a good time to start Para-legal training as there will probably be lots of legal stuff cropping up. Just wish I'ld gotten started last January.

If people thought things were bad before, just watch what happens next since Delphi has filed for Chapter 11.

Their position is they can't pay their bills and they are losing money. True. They also believe they cannot be competitive making parts given their current cost structure, especially the cost of wages, benefits and pensions.

I will be the first to say that the fact that a guy who has a high school diploma and drives a fork lift can make over $100,000 a year, and have a boat, snow mobiles, a cottage up north, etc is a WONDERFUL thing. That guy is spending that money and the economy benefits.

The fact that somebody in another country is willing to do the same work, NOT for $25 an hour but for $5 an hour is something that isn't easy to come up with an answer for.

In THEORY, Ford pays it's SALARIED work force the salary that represents an average of similar work at similar levels of responsibility and experience based on the market for that labor across the Fortune 500 companies. In THEORY if Ford were to say to it's SALARIED engineers, "We're reducing your pay by SIXTY PERCENT" they would not be able to get away with it, because the ability of those skilled engineers to walk out the door and go some place else and sell that engineering degree at a similar level keeps that from happening.

In THEORY!!!! I'm looking at what's going on over there and it flat scares the HELL out of me. While I suppose there are some engineers who COULD do that, I'm wondering how that would work if all of a sudden Ford were to do that to it's salaried work force.
At age 55, with AUTOMOTIVE experience, do I really think there are lot's of jobs out there for me to take? And even if there were, I can just about guarantee TWO things would be true. First, it would mean a move, and second, net/net AFTER that move, my standard of living would be much less than it is now.

For starters, if EVERYONE around here all of a sudden gets their pay cut in half, who's going to be able to afford to buy my house even if I want to sell it? And the fact that my salary gets cut in half doesn't change the bills I owe.

I know that for people who have lost everything due to the hurricanes, these problems are trivial, but they will not only ultimately affect a whole lot more people, they will also limit the ability of those people to help (financially) those already in trouble.


The filing by Delphi for bankruptcy is going to wind up being a watershed event in American buisiness history, and we can't even begin to predict all the fallout. But I CAN predict that it won't be good.

Hi, I worked for one of the Delphi plants here in Dayton Ohio up until I retired about 6 years ago, and I'm kind of watching, at least from a distance, as to how this whole thing is going to eventually come out. It's going to be interesting.

I know that this Chapter 11 thing has been coming along rather gradually and I think that it is something that has been planned by the company for many years, h--- mostly likely at least a couple of decades, in advance.

The comany knew then what it was doing and so it still does today. Nobody can tell me that with the brains that run the big world-wide corporations such as G.M., they are suddenly caught "with their pants down" so to speak. They plan these events and corporate happenings many years in advance well before we, the public even get a hint at what is going on to come to pass.

After all this is one of the many major American corporations who made money, and I mean some really big, big money playing both sides of the fence all throughout W. W. II with the Nazis, so they aren't really too concerned with the American workers's or the Am. pubic's opinion in the overall picture.

As will eventually come to pass with the building of new refineries here in this country to keep up with the demand for gas, it will be the gov't. who will once again, be handing out 'loans' to the various coroprate bosses to correct any 'business mistakes' they may have made to get themseles into the current crises they are now facing.

But after all, this is what all those tens of millions of dollars that are handed out, both directly and indirectly to the various campaign funds of both major political parties is for in the first place. And the good old Am. public gets to once again bend over and take the big one. Oh well, I guess it will just have to be labeled under that banner of "The New World Order" we occasionally here of, bought and paid for by common Am. working man and woman's sweat and blood.

Guess I sort of living up to my user name here. Ha, ha!

Take care, Sgirty

I'm studying Bankruptcy Law right now. Unfortunatly the concentration is on Chapter 7 and here in Texas specifically which is real kind to the filers with the exemptions. 100 % equity in your home, 1 car for each driver in household. IRA,s and 401K's totally protected, hell, evn your recreational (bass fishing boat) gear. I'm talking about equity, If it is secured debt...as in you still are making payments, you still have to make those, but the credit card companies can kiss thier moeney good-bye. Wish I knew more about Chapter 11 but I don't think that it means that Delphi is going to dry up and blow away.

HI, You're quite right here Steve. Delphi, as a corporate identity, is not going to dry up and blow away. After all, despite what the legal documents say about it being a completely seperate company altogether from GM, it is still under Gm's 'umbrealla' so to speak and GM is calling the shots as to what Delphi is or is not going to do. (Much like all these independent phone companies, which are still tied to good old Ma Bell, ITT, or whatever name they happen to be going by these days.)

And what with the growing expansion in Mexico, China, Guatamala, Korea, etc. Delphi is actually doing quite well, at least for the major stock-holders i the company.

We must not forget that the bankruptcy laws governing individuals and those governing corporations operate completely differently, despite what the laws may actually say on paper. I'm reminded here of K-Mart which went into Chapter 11 here awhile back, closed well ove 200 stores nationwide, and then turned around the bought out Sears for well over $11 billion in cash and other assests. Now I'm not a genius, but I would have to figure that this was what was planned by the big boys who run the K-Mart chain all along. A merger that the working folks had to pay for with their lost jobs.

I can think of nothing more cold-blooded than a corporation and how it operates on a daily basis for the good of it's major stock-holders. We all should be reminded of this every day by the oil barons, at the gas pumps, in our heating oil and gas, the current war, etc., etc., etc.

Take care, Sgirty

Larry, while I am in total agreement with your sentiment about the total lack of scruples by many of the senior executives that run big business, and I understand what you meant, it's a bit of a misnomer to say that the "major stock holders" are behind this.

This would imply that there is a small group of people who have large chunks of stock in the company and are calling the shots. For starters, almost NO large publicly owned company has a large precentage of its outstanding stock owned by a few individuals, in effect giving a small group of stock holders significant control. Ford Motor Company is one major exception, with 40% of the voting stock owned by the family in a special class of stock. But in general, the SEC gets very involved when an individual, such as Kirk Kerkorian, wants to own a significant percentage of a company's stock. You have to file with them when you intend to either buy large amounts, or sell them.

Most stock is held by employees in company 401k plans and by mutual funds and corporate and individual investors.

It isn't the "stock holders", it's the company officers as well as the board of directors that call the shots. And while most company officers do have significant holdings in their own company, and there is no doubt that an individual can "buy" his way on to the board of directors through acquiring a large amount of stock (and the voting rights that go with it), the "stock holders" aren't in a position to benefit from a Chapter 11.

Stockholders, whether they are major or minor, do not make out when these things happen. As bad as my portfolio has been doing because of how much of it consists of Ford stock, I'd rather have that than Delphi stock. Not too long ago Delphi was around $8.00 or so and it's at $0.36 right now, not exactly a good thing if you own it.

Another thing to remember is that when bankruptcy courts decide who gets to stand where in the line to get "paid" when a company files Chapter 11, people who own stock are at the end of the line. It is entirely likely that anyone owning Delphi stock right now will get told that after the company emerges from Chapter 11 and issues new stock, that the pieces of paper they have do NOT entitle them to any stake in the new Delphi and their value will become exactly zero. That's already happened to a good friend of mine in one of the telecommunications companies and the same thing was true for anyone owning the old Kmart stock.

What does happen is that company officers, very high ranking employees of the company, will be given stock options as part of their compensation package. And so while an outside investor gets left with a worthless piece of paper, the CEO (who presumably has also lost the value of all the old stock he had) will be given either "X" thousand shares of the "new" stock for free, or be granted an option to buy shares of the "new" stock for some extremely low price, which he can choose to do at any time of his choosing during the next 10 years or so. (I have some options to by 500 shares of Ford Stock at $30. When they were given to me, the possibility existed that the stock could climb back up to the $50-$60 dollar range, making that a pretty sweet deal. With the stock at $8.70, I'm not in a big rush to exercise those options!!)

The theory behind this is that by promising "future" benefits, it makes the executives work harder to make the company successful so that they can also make money on their options. But whether they do or don't seldom seems to matter, because not only do they get ridiculously high salaries and bonuses while they stay, they also get huge golden parachutes when they leave.

And who gets stuck holding the bag? The stockholders.

(Besides, if "stockholders" are making money, then what's stopping anybody from jumping on the band wagon, and buying that stock so they can benefit too? If owning stock in the big oil companies is such a great deal, shouldn't you go buy some and share in the wealth?)

Tom

Being one of those hard working slugs in a large corporation (accounting no less) I too wish that workers weren't treated like cattle for the slaughter. Any day I could be on the streets as well.

However I also understand that corporations do not exist to employ people, provide them the good life or even owe them any extra compensation should the company hit good times. They pay you a wage for your time and effort when they need you. Their sole function is to protect their own self interests and to provide maximum value for all shareholders. The irony is that whenever a corporation lays off people, destroys peoples families and finances, sticks creditors with loads of bad debt or files bankruptcy they are doing what's right in order to maximize their survival, assuming there is no fraud involved.

As for those golden parachutes and retention bonuses, I've been on both sides of the deal. Once I was asked to stay on a sinking ship and another I was shown the door. Believe me when asked to stay on a sinking ship you better provide plenty of compensation because
1) You can't leave before the deadline
2) You can't interview for another job prior to the deadline
3) After the deadline you have little opportunity left because all those who left before you grabbed up what was available.
4) If someone doesn't stay till the deadline then unemployement, pensions, severances, 401k and other benefits don't get processed and everyone loses even more.

It may seem unfair but those people have to stick around to take care of business or else you'll be in even bigger trouble than just losing your job.

Hi, I don't know Tom. I'll be the very first one to say that I know very little about the stock market and how it operates, or is suppose to operate, for the good of the country and the common people, and esp. the general stockholders involved. But there is such a thing as different grades of stocks and who can exactly own certain types of it, and it's manipulation by those at the top that laws literally can not touch. (Yes, there are those few who occasionally get 'thrown to the wolves,'" but these people aren't what I consider the really big guns in the corporate business world. Basically just the small and insignificate.) The 'controlling' shares of this stock has to be owned by just a few people, otherwise no business, or what we would look at as baisic day-to-day business decisions at very major levels, would get done in the time frame necessary to do business in today's super-fast, got-to-have-it-done-yesterday world.

But of the unscrupulous business practices, of that there is no doubt whatsoever, having witnessed first hand some of it where I used to work, just on a small-scale, local level. And, of course the things that filtered down from the people we knew who worked upstairs in the head offices that would occasionally leave a person literally dumb-founded, not ony about the local happening, but as they pertained to the national scene as far as the company was concerned too. With, of course, the over-riding factor of everything kept with good public relations in mind.

To me, what with some of the things I heard and read about, there has to be those 'golden few' at the very tip top of the chain of command who do all the calling of shots and manipulate the business to their way of operation. Not to be devious or 'evil', or anything relating to a 'conspiracy' or thoughts of 'manipulation,' but to just doing business. Nothing personal, just business.

When you basically have control of that much money, and, more importantly, the resultant power that comes with it, scruples tend to be left at the front door I have to think. Again, as I've said, nothing 'devious' or 'conspiratorial,' it's just for the good of the business and the stockholders. And evetually we're all in it together.

Yes, you can say I'm a tad bit 'off the deep end' here. Guess I've been just too close and read too much for my own level-headedness. To my mind there is nothing more cold-blooded and ruinous to mankind in our modern world today than the big corporate global buisness firms that head up the "New World Order." God help us all.

Take care, Sgirty

Sgirty

Every common stock holder has 1 vote per share. What happens is that each shareholder gets to exercise their vote or sign a proxy authorizing someone else to vote for them. People who don't vote or exercise their options give up their vote. Typically the largest blocks of stocks are owned by instituional investors. Those are like large pension fund, investment bankers, etc. Usually deals are negotiated in advance so that management gets their votes or proxies. Few individual investors bother to send in their proxies. So management, plus a few large institutional blocks, get's them the largest share of votes.

Sgirty / All,

I agree in part with what Sgirty said...corporate cold-blooded-ness (sorry abt the made up word) is a problem. The relentless transfer of jobs "offshore" is a concern. If the jobs that pay well go elsewhere who is going to buy the products?? And that is a result of the corporate mentality that puts PROFIT at the top of the list. That said- without profit its' pretty pointless to be in business!! What is better- to slowly go under as you defend the domestic workforce, so that eventually NO ONE works for company X or to re-tool and save what you can? What is better. lower wages and benefits or no wages and benefits?

I guess we are witnessing the global playing field being leveled. Problem is, it seems some of the wealthier nations are being pushed down, as some of the poorer countries are being raised up...sort of a global averaging if you will. I have very VERY mixed feelings about this.

But as I said, without profits, "forget about it". Delphi, GM, FoMoCo are not evil empires, they are PROFIT DRIVEN corporations, who will do what it takes to maintain their viability & profitability.

An aside regarding Delphi... a very close friend of mine is very high within the Corporation, one of the top 5-10 management people there- I assure you that there is not a drop of malice within this person. There is no grand design to screw people from their position. It is a fight for survival.

Manufacturing Corporate America's problems are due to a wide variety of problems- poor management decisions, huge legacy costs (sorry for the use of a "buzz-word"), shifting market conditions, etc.

Is this a contest that will have long term implications for US industry- Hell yes it is. Sadly many folks will be hurt in the process (I've been in and out of the auto industry due to economics several times-my personal economy was completely destroyed by a job loss from the auto industry in 2002...it'll be another 10 years before I can finish digging my butt out), but the alternative of having these major corporations cease to exist is worse.

Another concern is the real need, IMHO, to maintain a strong, compotent, profitable manufacturing base in the USA. A service economy sounds pretty swell, but when the fan and the feces collide, if you have no manufacturing base you are toast.

Well, I have really rambled. I apologize. This is a watershed for American Industry. Things will be different after this- that much I am sure of!

Jim

PS I always get into this topic on late weekend evenings after a few cold-ones...sorry for the ramble mode!

Hi, Well put Jim. As I said, it's just business, there's nothing personal involved, it's just business. This way no emotion, either good or bad, can enter into the question.

Unfortunately with this 'frame of mind' that the corporate bosses seem operate under, both in the past and present, there is no room for thought as to whether some of their practices are morally right or morally wrong , which can bring suffering and misery to the worker who actually physically produce their product(s) to begin with, or their families, or to the total well-being of the nation itself, as a whole, not to mention the flowers of the various nations that have to fight and die for control of the rest of the world's natural resources that we are now seeing in today's world, so that these people can 'just make a buck for their stockholders.'

Again, it's business, nothing personal, just business.

I guess we have to look on this as one of the bad things about our capitalistic type society that people in general would just as soon not thingkabout any more than necessary. Unfortuntely I tend to think, which no doubt is not the best thing in the world to do now-a-days, esp. on this subject.

I'm a firm believer in the the old saying of ' what comes around, has to go around' in this world. And sooner or later, if Mother Nature doesn't take a hand in it that is, we are going to have to 'pay the piper' for our "nothing personal" business types of actions.

Thanks for the imput folks. It's been interesting. Unfortunately on other sites where this question is brought up it quickly degenerates into name-calling, left vs. right, liberal vs. conservative, etc. types of attitudes by all. It's a refreshing change to see it discussed here without all of that meaningless verbal insults that accomplish absolutely nothing what-so-ever to the overall discussion. Guess it just shows that modelers are at least a step or two above the mainstream. Which is a very good thing to know.

Take care, Larry

Larry / All,

I agree completely with the theory of "What goes around, comes around." The world seems to have an ability to put things back into equilibrium. Sometimes sooner,sometimes later.

Also- You are exactly right that this site is one of very VERY few where people keep civil. Becasue of that we can have a "conversation" such as this. Very enjoyable, thanks for the opportunity to "talk"...and sorry for the rambling!

Jim

Respect is what goes on here. A lot of it has to do with intelligence and education as well. Most of the folks here are older, fairly well educated (look at all the research and study we put into our hobby). We're a bunch of "nerds." We also don't attract the type of folks who too often like to spew their venom and hide behind the key board. Most of those get caught up fairly quickly and after having thier posts deleted or edited a few times leave. Gas prices have dropped around here 40 cents a gallon in the past 3 weeks. So, the market is readjustig. I'm hearing the cars and trucks revving up at the stoplight near my house again, so things must be getting back to normal around here. Of course the heating bills will bring people back to reality in December. It's middle of October and we still have 90 degree plus daytime temps.