10:42:
At the moment, the execs are late. That’s what Congress gets for making them drive.
Sen. Robert Bennett: Hey, I’ve got a brilliant idea. Why don’t we just have all the debt holders convert all their debt to equity. That would solve the problem of the large debt burdens these automakers have to service, right? And the equity holders would then be able to oversee the business strategy of the auto makers and force them to evolve.
And this pretty much sums up Congress’ ignorance in these matters. Try to understand: No one wants to own stock in these liquidity black holes anymore, Senator. You really think that the banks want to end up holding the keys here and actively managing these money pits? Ugh.
What amazes me, truly makes me scratch my head, is how much discussion can go on about the importance of lending, warranty, jobs, taxes, oversight, and yet the key factor driving much of Detroit’s ills is totally ignored. Their product simply sucks.
11:35:
Senator Jon Tester: Can anyone give me assurances that if we hand over this $34 million that we won’t have to be back here in a year, two years?
Anyone?
[Crickets]
Ok, my time has expired.
(It’s $34 billion, Senator).
Ok, Execs in the house.
Oh, if you want a preview of the new models, they are in the Dirksen parking lot.
12:06
Richard Wagoner:
Yes, I have the same stylist as the Donald.
Look, we axed the corporate jets, that’s gotta be worth $12 billion, right? Seriously, we are in this situation because of forces beyond our control. Give us a break here.
Ron Gettelfinger (UAW):
Look, if you people don’t throw some cash this way our way of life is over. I mean we can’t have that. You people have got to force some sacrifices from everyone else. Yeah, it took us 30 years, but we are nearly competitive now (if you don’t include the jobs bank, health care, pension benefits, early retirement and the like) so what the hell? And this bankruptcy thing is just not an option. I mean we are going to have to give up the farm if we end up in front of a judge!
Plus, you guys bailed out Citi. Where is our blank check? Eh? I mean we just want an emergency bridge loan that we will likely never pay back. What’s the problem?
12:15
Alan Mulally (Ford):
Look, we dumped all those high-margin euro brands like Land Rover, Jaguar and the like. Now we are totally focuses on the low-margin, cookie cutter American designs. And that localization thing? Screw that. One product, one global market. We are focused. It’s like Henry Ford used to say: You can have it in any color you want, as long as it’s black. Back to the basics, we say. We don’t expect a near-term liquidity crisis. We’ll be profitable soon. You know.. soon… like… soon… 20…(ahem) 11… soon. You know. Look, we are America. You can’t give those other guys money and not let us suck off the teat for a bit.
12:27
Robert Nardelli:
(The only guy to bother to point out that it might be a good idea to build cars that someone wants to buy).
We need you guys to fund our “product renaissance.” (Wow, that’s not bad… really….) and there are going to be 500,000 electric drive Chrysler vehicles on the road by 2012. (Assume we still exist). You handing us a bunch of cash is the least costly way for us to survive.
James Fleming (Automative Retailers Association):
Ok, look. We are small business people and entrepreneurs. So, since you have to pay us off to get rid of us, and our contracts make shutting us down totally cost prohibitive since we’ve squeezed you all for over a decade, thanks for inviting us. Since we’d all be sent to pasture in front of a bankruptcy judge, we really can’t let that happen. Your function, the function of the automotive industry is to employ us. Period. We are going to sink all of Connecticut if you do that. Bank on it. Voters in your home states are doomed, baby. Look, all we need is some time to adjust. Yeah, we’ve have 10 years to do it, but now we’re really serious. Seriously serious.
Mark Zandi (Moody’s)
These are my personal remarks, I wouldn’t want to damage the sterling reputation of my employer.
$34 billion is bullshit. Think $75-$125 billion. And this $34 billion? In phases, with milestones.
1:40
Uh, Senator Schumer? I know you want to stick it to the bond holders, since “the workers” have already given so much (though I haven’t seen anyone propose killing the jobs bank) but why in the world do you think they would give even the slightest bit more than they expect to have to in bankruptcy?
How long does GM have before bankruptcy?
Ron Gettelfinger: The end of this month.
Wow. What happened to GM being liquid enough to manage through 2010? I guess that was 2,010 hours and we all misread it?
1:50
Finally, after hours and hours of nonsense, Senator Bob Corker pulls no punches:
Ford is only here on the coattails of GM, since they aren’t really in deep trouble. Chrysler is only here because Cerberus, who really only bought Chrysler to get hold of GMAC (which has turned into custard) and now refuses to throw any more money at the problem and is just hoping to get enough time to sell itself off to someone, having invested zero in new products or technology and with no future to speak of. Nardelli’s weak protests aside, Corker has them by the short hairs. Three companies are simply not going to survive. So, who is going to take the bullet? (Chrysler, we are looking at you).
I want to move to Tennessee just to vote for this guy.
2:10
Corker continues: Hey, GM, at the debt levels you are at, you cannot survive. Not with 11 million units, not with 20 million. As for bondholders taking a haircut, your debt is trading at below thirty cents. So, with all the whining the UAW has done, those bondholders are not giving any more until the UAW gets serious. So, UAW, what are you going to give? And don’t give me this bullshit I’ve already heard. Tell me about the $21 billion in voluntary payments to the voluntary employees’ beneficiary association because those are eliminated in Chapter 11. How much of that are you willing to dump? They need half of it gone. If you aren’t willing to do that then we have no reason to continue talking.
Is this guy single?
2:22
Protesters! Finally this is getting some juice. Chant it with me: “A bailout is a sellout! A bailout is a sellout! A bailout is a sellout!”
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Well, what do you expect Congress? We had to stop at IHOP for breakfast, and the service was slow….couldn’t even get real maple syrup for the pancakes. This driving on the road shit SUCKS!
3rd!
They’ll probably show up in their Hondas and Toyotas.
@3 maybachs baby, maybachs
This is so easy. Universal Health is the answer. It eliminates all the post retirement benefit obligations of the Big 3.
I’m so good I should play for the Detroit Lions.
They’re not late. It’s the morning circle jerk that’s takin longer than usual. Performance anxiety relaxer.
5 here,
should say ‘post retirement health benefit’.
What do you expect from a D-troit Lion?
@2 I hope we never end up at the same firm.
Isn’t ‘post-retirement’ death?
9, are you suggesting we kill all the Big 3 retirees??
out of the box, I like it.
Bess, I’m going to modify your statement:
“No one wants to own any interest in or collateralized by or indirectly exposed to or even ride in a car manufactured by these liquidity black holes anymore, Senator”
Having said that, I do think the Feds should provide DIP financing for at least two of these guys when it finally hits the fan, if anything just to bolster the confidence of the consuming peasants. With treasury yields the way they are, the cost of capital should be pretty damn low for us. And at this point, $35 bil is just pennies, right?
How many union guys does it take to put in a lightbulb?
“Forty-two. You got a problem wi’ dat???”
~The Union Guy
“Posted by guest, Dec 04, 2008 11:16AM
Bess, I’m going to modify your statement:
“No one wants to own any interest in or collateralized by or indirectly exposed to or even ride in a car manufactured by these liquidity black holes anymore, Senator”
I’m not Bess.
@11, Actually it is just 35 trillion pennies.
Mitt Romney should appointed CEO of the three of them, merge them, clean them up and make a viable company out of them. Because yes he can!!
EP, what do you think of Mitt ‘I’m a sexy PE rockstar’ Romney?
I bet now is a good time to buy real estate.
I avoid Mormons at all costs.
@14 – 3.5T pennies.
Better yet, the Big 3 should be bathed and brought to Prince Alwaleed’s tent – they may get the money alot quicker this way!
combining all three would give us ‘american leyland’ and would be a complete disaster. Not saying that we should ‘bail’ them out either.
EP you shouldn’t. For a modern career girl like you polygamy is an excellent idea, you can share the complainy couch potato phoning you to come home and make him dinner with one or more other girls, while you are still in a committed relationship so you can tell your MD to sod off.
I went bust starting up Mormon-themed coffee houses.
@12: Brilliant.
If CNBC wouldn’t broadcast Bernanke every time he makes a speech, the market would be up 1,000 points.
combining all three would give us ‘american leyland’ and would be a complete disaster. Not saying that we should ‘bail’ them out either.
The gang of 3 should ask these folks how to sell products that suck …
http://philipmorrisusa.com/en/cms/Home/default.aspx
Fuck this bailout nation we have become and all our government officials for the TARP.
Fuck Wall St and their ridiculous risk taking
Fuck it all, the American dream is fucking gone.
@23 I think I know you, I had the Mormon-themed cigar shop across the street.
@27 nicotine infused steering wheel covers?
really, why does the us need a car industry? last i checked, there are plenty of products that the us used to lead in but don’t make anymore, think any consumer electronics, and don’t because other countries can do it more cheaply. it’s a vestigial low-tech mass-manufacturing industry dependent on cheap labor that the us economy left behind years ago.
When you start rewarding failure – there ain’t no success.
Can we recall all these congressmen and women and appoint people who actually know what they’re talking about?
EP your scorn for their products is a bit (but not nearly totally) unfounded.
They’ve made significant (although not nearly enough) progress in the past 5 years which you seem to completely ignore.
Yes, they still have A LONG ways to go, no argument here about that, but you cannot simply ignore the (slight, relatively inconsequential) progress they have made.
Where is Mark Haines???? We need a rant!
@34
Spoken like a true Ford Fusion driver.
YOU GO GIRL!!!
Anal_yst: Ford has been around forever, while Toyota (and Japan) was decimated during WWII. Yet, Toyota and Japan have completely defeated the US automakers in quality.
The Japanese learned “quality” from Americans. The Japanese followed the plan. Amricans did not. And here we are today.
I am counting on Obama making smoking cool, permissable and widely legal again.
Smoking will help us out…population control, people.
-Nick Naylor
THOUGHT EXPERIMENT-
I own a business. My business is not doing so well, but I wouldn’t fault you for thinking otherwise. For reasons unknown, people lend me money at ridiculously low interest rates (often at negative real rates). I suppose I’ve never defaulted on any debt or missed a payment, but my books look terrible. My business doesn’t really produce anything. It does provide a few services, but I vastly overcharge for those services (fortunately, I don’t have any real competitors). I’m heavily in debt, and currently use over 1/3 of my revenue just to service my existing debt. This year, my total costs exceed my revenue by approximately $455 billion. Next year, its estimated that costs may exceed my revenue by $2 trillion. Oh, and I have huge future liabilities. All that said, certain businesses in my community are struggling. No one will lend them any money. I’m being pressured to lend to these businesses at rates that would get laughed at by every other lender in my community. This is to be done in the name of “stability.” I’ve already loaned signifigant sums of money to floundering businesses that no one else will touch, yet people still loan me money hand over fist.
What is wrong with this picture?
is there a reason Chris Dodd’s hair is in a bouffant like that? is this a shout-out to GM’s heyday in the 1950s?
37 needs a sarcasm meter
@38,
did you know that in most plants UAW employees can smoke on the production line?
They really look out for their peeps.
41, read your post real fast, thought it said ‘orgasm meter’.
now that’s a great idea.
@39 – Who is John Galt?
Is there anything more American than sucking off the teat of government?
If the Big 3 want to be profitable like Phillip Morris, maybe they should just export all cars to China and India and get a combined 6 billion people addicted to their product. Fuck this market – their cars are DEAD TO US!
sweet Nissan banner ad.
Jennifer Granholm is a senior GILF
I’m sick of hearing about the Chevy Volt. Any car with its name plastered on the door in 400 point font is bullshit. “Pay no attention to the $125 billion, check out this shiny object!”
Love the Chevy Volt!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_h5AOWL0fRE
Michigan sucks anyway. Just a bunch of Yoopers running around saying, “I’m cold, eh!” “Check out our unemployment rate!” “MSU just got smoked by UNC!” “Detroit is more dangerous than the Gulf of Arden!”
They’re saying they’ll build better cars but GM can’t even manage to put hubcaps on Rick Wagoner’s car.
EP you write very sexy today!
Govt should finance the sale of the Big 3 to Toyota and Honda
i think it’s hilarious that they want “credit” for being better than they were making K-cars back in the 1970s.
Going from an “F” to a “C+” when your comparably-priced Japanese competitors are making B+/A- cars is like going from quadriplegic to paraplegic and wondering why they’re not drafting you for the Patriots.
@ 41
Thank god someone got it, sheesh!
@ 55
Thank you, my lunch is now decorating my monitor.
You guys are missing the boat. Real quality (studies, statistics, etc.) is about equal between the domestics and imports. Perceived quality, trade-in value, and desirability (not so much the way the sheet metal is bent as much as the perception of the brand, brand image, etc.) is where it’s at.
Domestic cars have ridiculous rebates (often approaching a quarter of MSRP..which is why their MSRP has no credibility) Imports have nil (dealer cash [from Honda directly to the Honda dealer] to move certain models..but this isn’t advertised to the public). Domestics offer employee pricing to your dog…imports not so much. Which vehicle has the APPEARENCE of quality issues…the domestics, with their fire sale tactics or the imports that wait for the customer to come to them?
Domestic distribution points (dealers) are dense….imports are sparse…greater competition between domestic dealers…further exacerbating the ridiculous sales that make domestic dealers (and by association their products) look like clowns, comparatively speaking. Don’t believe me…pick up some auto adds and compare the sales tactics. It helps that imports regulate their dealer body and won’t put up with that shit.
When labor becomes a fixed cost (thanks to the UAW via job bank programs) domestics overbuild relative to demand because they hope that the surplus units can be sold at a positive contribution margin. But how do you get rid of thousands of surplus Pontiac G6 product?
Offer a ridiculous rebate to the consumer (crushing the trade-in value while painting the car as undesirable as previously mentioned) and call up big fleet buyers. Sell volume to Enterpise, Hertz etc. One problem…they run the miles up and dump them (in the same volume they bought them) on the used car market two years later (trade value is now totally fucked). Nothing like having 90,000 units of your “totally redesigned” product hit the auction block (with 40K miles on each unit) 18 months after release. These units are then purchased by domestic dealers who clean them up and put them ON THE SAME LOT AS THE IDENTICAL NEW PRODUCT (but for ½ the price). Another problem…for the two years that the fleets have the cars they get torn to shit (you should see the stunt driving I’ll attempt when it’s not my car…plus the rental businesses skimp on maintenance because it’s an unnecessary expense and they don’t plan to keep the cars long enough for shit to break).
Oh yeah…and the financing. Ford Motor Credit and GMAC will give loans to losers with not credit (that often look like rejects from rap videos). Got get rid of that surplus G6 product to anyone that’s willing I suppose. Honda and Toyota actually have lending standards. The result is that you look at the typical owner of an import and you’d trust them not to ass rape your wife in a dark alley…not so much for a sizeable portion of domestic owners (further widening the disparity between domestics and imports in terms of desirability). I’m just saying, how many of you reading this would buy a Phat Pharm shirt and wear it to work even if you really liked it? Plus T-bone generally doesn’t change his oil (quality problems) but that’s okay because his ride will probably get repossessed two years into his seven year loan anyway (becoming someone else’s quality problem).
The big three are in the business of manufacturing cars…but they don’t understand the car business. And this is just a taste.
Get down,
HH
A few things, in typically no particular order:
1. HH your assment is generally spot on besides the slightly racial tinge (trash is trash, regardless of color or ethnicity).
2. Per Ron Gettlefinger yesterday, 80k people have been cut from the jobs bank program over the past few years, and currently there’s only about 4k people there. Ok, so if you plug in $75/hr cost (all-in) that’s still what, $625 mil/year? Not quite an inconsequential cost, anything less than a 100% committment to phase-out the Jobs bank over say 12-18 months (max) is ridiculous.
3. Deals on Caddy’s and other domestic vehicles are getting mighty sweet. Escalade ext’s are going for like 70% “MSRP” (in quotes since its a ridiculous # to begin with).
4. Again, we can’t point fingers @ Detroit without looking at ourselves here on The Street. We have similar excess capacity, beaurocracy, inflated wages, etc like Detroit does. Of course, these issues are not the kind of structural, contractually obligated issues like they are for the Big 3, but a little introspection couldn’t hurt here kiddies.
Anal_yst,
Excellent follow-up post. Agreed.
Agreeing that workers who do nothing shouldn’t get paid is a “major concession”.
Yoiks.
#57 fun read. good work.
i’ll be the first…
@57 too long; didn’t read.
@62
Brevity has never known my name.
@61
I aim to please
Anal_yst, the Street has similar structural and strategy problems. And it’s laying off people by the hundreds of thousands, many without severance.
“Let ‘em fail” is way too simple, but the entitlement attitudes of these guys really grate. The whole mindset is looking for someone to give them what they deserve, and ignoring the link between what they produce and what they earn. That goes for management, unions, dealers.
They’ve all been squabbling for decades over carving up oligopolistic returns, while ignoring the steady depreciation of that oligopoly’s position. Now they want the rest of us to refill the golden goose.
@44 I want to have a mindfuck threesome with you and Ayn Rand.
Headless Horseman:
The one critique I have to your argument regards the quality studies. Those quality studies are for INITIAL quality…not how reliable the cars are 10 years from now. These American cars are pieces of shit after 100k miles, whereas you can easily get 200k out of many foreign brands.
This is the main reason why people are buying fewer American cars. They have no resale value down the line because they run like shit after a few years.
That and the fact that most of them are F’UGLY.
Comedy. Really? Protesters? Common street trash, coming in to protest? Look at the sense of power and entitlement these idiots think they have, win one election…
If you give a mouse a cookie…
@64
No doubt, but as you point out, we’re slashing & burning left & right and we’ve nary any recourse due to “at-will” contracts, and more importantly, the tacit acceptance of a career path where the upside is (was?) virtually unlimited with little-to-no downside protection.
Union (and to a lesser extent, Big 3 employees in general) were (are?) subject to quite the opposite; relatively known – and quite comfortable but in no-way remarkable – upside, with incredible downside protections.
The difference is, the downside protection, and the expectation it’ll hold up into perpuity in ever-shifting conditions.
In Finance (and related fields), while we might not like it, its a fact of life we’ll get the boot eventually, and while (some of us) whine and cry about it, you get up and move on.
Unsurprisingly, UAW (etc) workers are fighting tooth-and-nail to keep every last $ they can get their hands on while there’s any $ to be had.
The hippies protesting outside are in the wrong place….they should be up in Detroit throwing buckets of blood at the UAW, they are the nut-busters in the whole fuckin’ charade!
@68
Are you saying the UAW, in fighting for the highest wages/benefits for their membership for the past however-many decades has, in effect, cut off their nose to spite their face?
Hogwash!
Although, again, the same could be said of the Street over the past 5 or so years, but I digress…
@ 65
Who do you know that drives anything with 200,000 miles on it?
How many people do you know that drive anything with even 100,000 miles on it?
The reason why the studies focus on initial quality is because initial quality has a stronger correlation as a driver of consumer purchases of NEW product than does quality 5 years out. I’m a little rusty but as of 2005, the average duration of “ownership” for a new car purchase or lease was 39 months. The typical consumer puts approximately 1,250 to 1,400 miles per month on a new vehicle.
I’ll concede your point that the lack of resale value discourages some consumers from purchasing domestic prodcut, but I disagree with your assertion that actual (as opposed to percieved) quality is the primary culprit. Moreover, your logic doesn’t hold water for leases (why do I care about the quality of something 10 or even 5 years down the road…when I’m only leasing it for 2-3 years and then turning it back in?).
on local tennessee talk radio this morning, [union-supporting] caller berating Sen Corker/Rep Wamp for driving VW’s and not “american”; nothing to do with VWs new tennessee assembly facility in their home town [or "right to work" or no state income tax either] – lol
EP you take the old man, I’ll hop on blondie in the peach. Should I call you Mom?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bob_Corker_Family_Photo.jpg
Anal-yst: exactly what I’m saying. UAW are pushing their own gravy train to the junkyard. Not a single one of them could see into the future that they would be supporting 3 retirees for every 1 worker – where did they think all of this money was going to come from down the line?
United Americans on Welfare, that’s all it comes down to at this point!
My car’s got 130,000 miles and it’s a Pontiac. Still driving it.
Do people even *buy* cars any more? I thought the whole game was the 2 year lease then upgrade it…
My car’s got 130,000 miles and it’s a Pontiac. Still driving it.
My car’s got 130,000 miles and it’s a Pontiac. Still driving it.
@72 good day sir… I said good day sir
Oh yeah and leasing…another way Detroit buried the resale value of its product. Start with unrealistically optimistic residual values, offer hypercompetitive lease rates, and come up with $200-$300 lease payments which artificially increases demand for your products.
Fast forward three years. A glut of 2-3 year old product is now being returned to Detroit. Since Detroit isn’t in the used car businesse (at least it doesn’t think it is…which is why it makes no effort to manage resale values) it dumps all this product at auctions.
Three years ago they figured product A would bring $15K at auction. Now (thanks to the glut of product A being dumped, and factors discussed in previous posts) they’re realizing $10K. They’ve insured the resale values against losses, but not for that much so they end up on the hook for $3K a unit while dealers buy used product for $10K per unit, put $1K into it, set it on the lot next to the identical (from three feet away) brand new models, price the used prodcut at $14K (vs. an MSRP of $34K [$27K net of rebates and "special" pricing schemes for anyone with two legs] for the new models) and now Detroit can’t figure out why nobody wants the current year models? Maybe they should pay a bit more attention to the used market for thier products, eh?
@70 I know plenty of people that have cars with that many miles on them. Not that I have any problem with people that grew up wealthy, but not all of us here (myself included) did. I also valet parked cars to pay for college, so I have driven almost every car that has been made in the last 20 years, so I have plenty of primary knowledge of what I am talking about. And I am completely correct in what I said about qulaity differences.
I will concede your point about leased vehicles. However leased vehicles are only ~15-20% of all cars sold in the U.S.
Additionally, industry data show the average age of the American car fleet is 8.9 years and climbing. Using your (correct) figures for average mileage driven, that means the average car on the road has between 128-150k miles on them. So I guess plenty of people drive cars with that many miles.
Perhaps you are like most of my fellow Wall St. colleagues that either grew up rich or have lost touch with the average person?
American cars are pieces of shit after a few years and until they fix that, they will continue to lose market share.
How else can you explain the Japanese manufacturers taking so much market share with a more expensive (on average) product?
My Volvo is 195,000 and this baby still cranks! Yes, still driving it.
F-U Detroit, U can’t touch the Swedes……..book a coach seat to Stockholm and see what it’s all about over there. More blondes on the assembly line then you can shake a stick at!
I don’t hate Ford and GM, I hate people from Michigan.
Anal_yst,
You are exactly right about employee perceptions of risk/reward in both industries. But the finance employee perceptions were accurate, and the auto industry’s weren’t. And now they want us to underwrite their expectations, because they will be in trouble if they don’t get what they “deserve”.
@80 (Falcon)
Here’s why your mom told you not to jump to conclusions:
I put myself through my undergraduate dual-degree (Finance and Economics at a state college) working at a Ford Lincoln Mercury dealership. Got a bit of that primary knowledge to which you refer myeslf.
Your average age of the american car fleet data point is correct, but as for relevant, not so much. See, the problem is that while plenty of people do drive vehciles with that type of mileage on it, they’re often the third or fourth owner. Kindly refer to my previous posts (primarily 57) to understand why quality problems tend to arise by a domestic products fourth owner (especially if the rental company was the first [not typical of imports]. Fact is, people that buy a $10K used car typically do so because they can’t afford a new one, or a $20K used import (they also tend to skimp on the maintenance because they don’t have the disposable income).
Imports take market share because they’re more desirable. I’m not trying to imply a Taurus will last as long as a Camry..as you point out a Camry is more expensive (and that’s without the UAW nonsense and legacy costs) so you should expect to get a little more longevity out of a Camry. I just disagree with the implication that nobody drives domestics because the wheels fall off after three years.
Lastly, in the interest of full disclosure, my winter vehicle is a 1998 Ford Explorer with 135K+ miles on it. Bought it used (when I was working at the dealership) and have kept it because it’s been well-maintained, I tow jet skis and used the trailer hitch for my bike rack in the summer, live in the snowbelt south of Cleveland (there goes the Wall Street cheap shot) and like the four-wheel drive.
Falcon just got his goose cooked. Who else want’s some.
Get down,
HH
70 80 Re driving a car with 100,000+ miles. My Volvo is going on 140,000 and works just fine. Ever read the millionaire next door? Like a lot of people, I could afford to buy (or lease) a new one every year, but its not something that I enjoy spending money on.
Have a 98 Ford Taurus, 110 K miles, and it is still going. Jap quality is a marketing myth. Yanks just need to relearn how to market their wares. Also be a good idea to threaten the UAW with imprisonment.
It’s up to the automakers to figure out a way to sell their cars without destroying their franchise value (as any retailer should). There’s a reason why they are losing market share and whining that the consumer doesn’t get it doesn’t generate any sales. Then asking that same consumer to bail you out is even more pitiful.
Detroit has made its share of mistakes and they deserve to go down in flames. It is unfortunate that there will be quite a bit of collateral damage, but anyone who is surprised by their downfall deserves to go down with the ship.
84 HH: do people in Cleveland still wear “full Clevelands”? That would be white pants, white shoes, dark shirt, and a sports jacket with a tie to match.
84 88 here again. Just kidding… I do a lot of business in Cleveland, which is a fine and prosperous place. Great museum and symphony. Maybe I should bring along my bicycle next time.
HH:
Here is what I wrote:
“Perhaps you are like most of my fellow Wall St. colleagues that either grew up rich or have lost touch with the average person?”
Notice the qualifier that said “either?”
You asked:
“Who do you know that drives anything with 200,000 miles on it?
How many people do you know that drive anything with even 100,000 miles on it?”
So I apologize if I mistook your statement to mean that you were out of touch. Your statement would make most readers assume that you believed nobody drove cars that old, hence my statement about being out of touch. I made no assumption about your upbringing. I posed two possibilities. Why don’t you read a little closer?
And the Wall St. reference is a loosely used term nowadays. It is used to describe anyone that works in finance. Since this is a finance board, I assumed most people here work in finance. I guess I made a mistake with you though. Congratulations for living in a suburb of Cleveland!
I would never purchase an Escalade, even though I think they are nice when they are new. Why? Because I know they are worthless after a couple years.
As stupid as the general public is, many of them are smart enough to make these same rational choices.
I agree with many parts of your argument, yet you are sitting here getting defensive as if I am trying to blow the whole thing up. Why don’t you fucking relax? You are perpetuating the fucking “chip on the shoulder” cliche of state school kids that all of the pedigreed douchebags talk about.
If you weren’t so fucking insecure, you would not be so defensive.
The fact that you say I got my goose cooked is a little presumptuous. The fact that you declare yourself the “winner” bolsters your apparent insecurity.
I went to a state school as well. Dual major – Finance and Economics. Summa cum Laude, Valedictorian. So what?
When it all gets boiled down, nobody wants to buy American cars. That’s all that fucking matters, whether you or I are correct. American car companies should (and will) die.
@80
If anything your data point (average age & mileage) could be spun to prove my point. If GM is the largest automaker and(certainly was 9 years ago…and I believe Ford was #2) and the average car has 128-150K on it and is 8.9 years old…doesn’t that seem to imply that all the product that was sold circa 1999 has held up, on average, pretty well….if everyone is still driving it.
Or do we assume that most of the domestics from that time are in junkyards and the statistics are derived primarily from imports? I think if you dig a bit deeper (hint look at sales volumes by manufacturer from say 1995 to present) you’ll see that’s not the case.
And it’s hard not give Detroit credit for having improved its quality over the past decade.
Don’t get me wrong…I’m a proponent of bankruptcy for all three. Management compensation needs to be adjusted as do union wages, job bank programs, legacy costs(healthcare and pensions), and the number of dealerships. Only bankruptcy provides the mechanisms and oversight for meaningful progress to be made at this point.
Just because a car is still on the road does not mean it’s not a piece of shit. It costs a lot more money to keep an American car on the road than a foreign one when they get older.
Anyway, I have to go…my company is one of the few having a Christmas party. We can fight tomorrow if you’d like.
@90 (Falcon)
Simmer down there cowboy. Not so much insecurity (this board is diversion from my day job…although today I’ve been on it a bit more than usual). Besides, if I was a bit secure it’d be justified. Have you seen the Browns lately?
I understand why you read what you did into my comment. I figured (erroneously) that most of the people on this board were silver spoon types…so I wrote for that audience.
The “goose is cooked” comment had less to do with bolstering my self esteem than it did with my inability to let a bad pun pass by.
Wasn’t trying to get a hug for my undergrad degree either. Just figured that I’d preempt potential comments from other posters (that will surely ensue now) that I’m an uneducated union sympathizer from Cleveland.
I agree nobody wants to buy domestics…don’t so much agree that the companies should die. I think they should be massively restructured (via BK).
No need to apologize. I’d buy you a drink next time I’m in the City (a few times a year) if you think you could restrain yourself from punching me in the face?
@ 89 – Nicely played. Bring the bike..you should see the Metroparks in the fall.
And this thread dissolves into rarified egomania . . .
While I (only ever so slightly) disagree that “no one” wants to buy domestic cars (there are some quality ones/good deals out there), case-in-point look @ the new Camaro and Charger. They’re both “reimagined” incarnations of great muscle cars, but unfortunately they forgot to cut out the extra 1,000lbs of the original. Who wants a 400hp overweight, gas-guzzling, ill-performing “muscle car”?
I love me lots of power just like the next guy, but come on guys, a little imagination and sense of reality here, just a smidge?
@48, don’t knock a GILF until you had one! They like the attention and don’t bitch.
Speaking of failure, how do the 3 Bozo’s plan to recover lost market share? They should have attempted this about 20 years ago while they had a chance. Good luck with dat! Can you say Pontiac Fiero? How about Buick – need to be 60+ to drive one? What about the Camaro that keeps dying and reappearing? Or how about telling me the difference between a GMC pickup and a Chevrolet pickup? Same for the Yukon?
Who the fuck allows this to happen? And we are going to give them more fucking money? Can you say Camaro XIV, Chevy Nova, while they are at it, bring pack the El Camino, Corvair and Ford Ranchero! I miss them so much, reminds me of when I was young.
Ha! Ford did to the British car industry (that sounds so funny) what Toyota, etc. are doing to Ford now.
Check out this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Leyland
and enjoy the parallels.
“While BMH was the UK’s largest car manufacturer (producing over twice as many cars as LMC), it offered a range of dated vehicles, including the Morris Minor which was introduced in 1948 and the Austin Cambridge and Morris Oxford, which dated back to 1959. After the merger, Lord Stokes was horrified to find that BMH had no plans to replace these elderly designs. Also, BMH’s design efforts immediately prior to the merger had focussed on unfortunate niche market models such as the Austin Maxi (which was underdeveloped and with an appearance hampered by using the doors from the larger Austin 1800) and the Austin 3 litre, which was a car with no discernible place in the market.
The lack of attention to development of new mass market models meant that BMH had nothing in the way of new models in the pipeline to effectively compete with popular rivals such as Ford’s Escort and Ford Cortina.”
@72 – “blondie in the peach” is julia, notorious for:
http://wonkette.com/politics/facebook/more-facebook-fun-bob-corkers-daughter-experiments-with-mary-cheneyism-180720.php
but yeah, she’s hot.