Judge set to reverse the General Motors (GM) bankruptcy - bailout ?

[whunter]

Could General Motors (GM) Be Headed For Bankruptcy This Week? | Breaking Business News, Headlines, Stories and Video - CBS News

NY judge ruling soon on shady aspects of GM bailout | Washington Free Beacon

Bankruptcy judge may reverse GM bailout - National Cars | Examiner.com

Canadian deal could throw GM bailout into reverse | Times 247

Could General Motors (GM) Be Headed For Bankruptcy This Week? | iStockAnalyst.com

Could GM's Bailout Be Wiped Out?

Auto Bailout Loss Could Exceed $70 Billion

Judge To Reverse GM Bailout? | Opinion - Conservative

Auto Bailout Loss Could Get Much Worse - Auto Bailout - Fox Nation



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[Skid Row Joe]

The unions killed Detroit. Detroit's lost what, half it's population? What a shame and a disaster. It's not the American ppl's fault the unions have cost the American taxpayers this disasterous bailout. Re-write it, and break the unions' collective backs. They've already run most of the manufacturing out of this country since 1970 +/-, why continue to pay their overpriced demands when there's Americans out-of-work that are willing to work?

[MTI]

Admittedly, I only glanced at the posted links, however none of them seem to go any further than the Washington Free Beacon story, which only speculates a worst case scenario. The stories don't support the thread title.

[whunter]

Growing St. Clair Shores rat problem has city looking for solution | News - Home

Detroit's debt crisis even worse than thought, state's review reveals | City of Detroit | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

UPDATE 2-Moody's cuts Detroit debt ratings deeper into junk | Reuters

Report puts Detroit's total debt at $20 billion

Many projections show an additional loss of 75,000 - 125,000 before July 2013.

The current (July, 2012) active estimate claims 625,000 and dropping.


Population, 2011 estimate = 706,585

Population, 1990 estimate = 951,270

Population, 1980 estimate = 1,203,368

Population, 1970 estimate = 1,514,063

Population, 1950 estimate = 1,670,144

[t walgamuth]

The biggest reason the domestic auto industry lost the market was poor managment decisions on what to build and the choice to build poor quality.

I believe I am correct in saying there are unions in Germany and their industry is doing pretty well.

The domestic industry had the market cornered here in the fifties and chose to keep building poor quality vehicles with big gas guzzler engines when the public was moving onto japanese cars with great reliability and good fuel economy.

[pj67coll]

Originally Posted by t walgamuth

The domestic industry had the market cornered here in the fifties and chose to keep building poor quality vehicles with big gas guzzler engines when the public was moving onto japanese cars with great reliability and good fuel economy.

That's too simplistic an overview Tom. There was a bunch of factors in the long slow decline of Detroit and the supposed reliability of cut price Japanese crap is only one of them.

- Peter.

[t walgamuth]

The biggest reason

I never said it was the only reason.

Its my opinion but i am pretty sure I am not alone in it.

[MS Fowler]

To be sure, there are a multitude of reasons:
Poor management
Poor management decisions to always fight the unions.
Poor management decisions to ultimately give in to the unions and defer many costs until "later"
Poor union leadership and demands.
Obsolete union rules that made removing bad/-un-needed workers difficult.
The Marshall Plan and other post WW2 help that rebuilt our former enemies' steel industry to a more modern and efficient one than we had--at our cost!
a public that willingly accepted lower build quality
A public that willingly bought into the "bigger is better" philosophy. Remember, the Big three had compacts from 1959, and some of the independents for years before that. Although the Falcon was the most successful new car introduced since the Model A, nearly 30 years earlier, sales of the other compacts trailed the big cars. Sales of imports hovered below 5%--not a lot of demand for fuel efficient cars.

I am sure I left out some major factors, but thos list shows that there were several factors at work-not ALL of them were the fault of the auto makers.

[link]

However it’s rationalized, products from Detroit failed over decades for the simple reason they did not compete with products built outside of the USA. The failure boils down to arrogance and incompetence and in design, management, quality control and assembly. It didn’t help that many workers did not do their jobs well. That too is owing to incompetent management that did not properly incentivize quality workmanship.

Rather than put out a quality product, someone came up with the buy American BS marketing strategy. This amounted to trying to coerce the public to opt into a handicap in the form of a garbage vehicle, just because it was made in America.

Years after that didn’t slow the preference toward of foreign built vehicles, the .gov imposed tariffs. To get around that other companies started to ship their products here in pieces and do the final assembly in the US and nearby, where they continue to do so and still produce a better product.

Failure at larger enterprises is *always* the fault of incompetent management.

[Dubyagee]

Especially union management.


iPhone 4

[link]

Originally Posted by Dubyagee

Especially union management.


iPhone 4

Not especially.

But if you feel the need to create a scape-goat then you have fabricated one.

While I’ve never been a member of a union, I would shudder to see what our country would be without their influence on worker’s health and safety.

[Idle]

During the mid 80's I had conversations with several middle managers at GM concerning quality. There was no real desire to change anything as these people were near retirement and were pleased with the way the company was headed. 'If GM just last five more years, I'm happy." was a frequent comment.

There was a battle raging at the top of GM between the numbers people and the car guys. One group could only see the next quarterly report and the other could only see the long range health of the company.

There was also a management fad at the time of 'The company belongs to the stockholders, so we must do everything to maximize shareholder value' and this led to decisions that put the onus on short term gains. Nothing else mattered.

But the customers had the last word, and a bad experience with a purchase that many make only every six years led customers to avoid the brand. Management found that the profit numbers were adequate, so the loss of market share was not a great concern.

In sum: Profit per unit on a small car is slight, but profit on an SUV is large. Therefore production was skewed towards the SUV's which is the automotive equal of putting all of ones eggs in one basket.

Poor management is always the cause of a ventures demise. I have heard every excuse you can imagine for failure, and they always end with 'But I did everything right'.

Capitalism is complex, and to blame a cause that is with-in the control of management for a failure is not an example of reality.

[Idle]

Originally Posted by link

Not especially.

But if you feel the need to create a scape-goat then you have fabricated one.

While I’ve never been a member of a union, I would shudder to see what our country would be without their influence on worker’s health and safety.

Look no further than India or China. Examples of worker health and safety without protections are rife.

And for further examples consider Chinese mining ventures in African countries.

[TwitchKitty]

Read about fractional banking. The goal was to build a system in which as many people as possible would borrow as much money as possible. This applies to organizations as well.

Consumers are dependents. Keep 'em sucking at the teat. If you feel the heat rising under your collar you know you are a wage slave.

[Skid Row Joe]

The inability to fund liabilities of the unions are what did them in. They were Hostess before Hostess. Unions will always ride the gravy train with their foot on the host's neck, until the host flatlines. It's the parasitic nature of them.

If unions were so good for America, why has Detroit lost half it's population? Half the populous didn't migrate to Florida.

If unions were good for America, Detroit's population would have swelled or even doubled the past 60 years.