Alternative headline: “Extortionists Are People Too”
“It’s worth wondering why Detroit’s automakers are still having such a tough time winning public support. Do Americans still not grasp the consequences of a GM bankruptcy? Have the companies so soured confidence in their products that Americans think them unworthy corporations? Are their CEOs so uninspiring that Americans just don’t trust that they’ll turn things around?
Hard to figure how these companies, which employ millions, and whose spinoff industries reach into every nook of the manufacturing sector nationwide, can’t get more support than they are. They’ve got detailed plans. They’ve been forthcoming about their circumstances.
Do people really believe the nation would be better off if they didn’t survive?”
Don’t you understand? It’s just a perception gap? They DO have a plan! Honestly!
Sorry. I gave at the office. Love co opted by our government. Moral obligation over.
I think the sad fact is that the big three have managed to alienate people thru years if not decades of arrogance.
People realise they can’t get along with banks and insurance companies yet they can get along just fine with foreign cars like many have been doing for decades as it is.
I don’t think there’s a single aspect of this whole debacle/disaster/tragicomedy that isn’t disappointing… from the horrible CEOs, UAW, the shonky 117 page “plan”, the lack of viable futures models, FIAT, the pay now or PAY MORE later… I’m not seeing any upside or any light at the tunnel…
After decades of seeing jobs shipped overseas, Americans are numb to the perils of American manufacturers.
There has been very little loyalty on the part of American manufacturers over the years. Job after job went to lower labor rate countries with little thought to the job losses here. The reasoning was that this was necessary to remain “competitive”.
Well, it turns out that was a lie. They were not competitive, and still are not competitive. Now they need taxpayer money – they claim that will make them competitive.
Americans aren’t stupid. They know that the auto industry will continue. It’s weakest players, however, will not.
Let them go. The strong ones will survive, and they might even hire American workers.
-ted
The Toyota with a beak on it is a great choice for this item.
The kiddie aspect is perfect-you hard-hearted @#$%*’s.
Bunter
zerofoo, awesome comment.
It’s nice to have a domestic auto industry, but the current one doesn’t cut it. We don’t need today’s American auto manufacturers, we need tomorrow’s.
Before the phoenix rises from the ashes, it finishes burning.
Please, stop giving them money and let them go bankrupt. Some companies will pick up the worthwhile infrastructure and intellectual property and make the cars that people will buy. What nobody wants at fire sale prices is worth, well, nothing.
I bought my first car in 1976, and I buy a new or used car every couple of years. Now I’m looking again, and for the first time I’m considering an “American” car. But, and here’s the kicker, I am only looking at Fords because they’re not taking my taxpayer money (yet).
So listen up Detroit, ’cause here’s the deal. I will not buy your cars if you take my money and give me nothing in return. Please, please either don’t take any money or go bankrupt and rise from your ashes reborn as you must. Then I will buy your cars.
I do think the country would be better off if they died vs. the continuation of this.
Ideally, they go bankrupt, fix themselves and get on with it. I’m not opposed to the govt. helping them out that way. I am opposed to an endless pile of cash given to avoid the embarrassment of the bankruptcy they so clearly deserve.
The Freep just doesn’t get it. I don’t see GM as a sick patient, but as a drug addict.
I will pay for rehab in hopes of recovery but not just fund the next month’s worth of heroin because quitting will hurt so many dealers and the “detailed plan” is to put on pants, take a shower and get clean some time in the future.
I think the Op-Ed title was a typo.
“Still No Love for Detroit’s PR?” is the correction.
There’s a sucker born every minute.
Even worse, 57% (see it here) of respondents to a Rasmussen poll say one or both of the two auto companies is likely to go out of business in the next few years, anyway.
Hmm… if I didn’t know any better, that translates directly into “throwing good money after bad.” But we should ignore that and do it anyways. Yes, this guy is a pillar of ethical strength.
Do people really believe the nation would be better off if they didn’t survive?
Depends on what “they” means. I blame the franchise car dealer system with commission based compensation for most people who work for the dealership. Under this system prices are less than transparent and every “employee” that the customer comes into contact with gets a larger commission if the customer pays more. Prestige Ford of Garland, TX tried to charge me $1500 to replace an engine/transmission control computer when the root cause was a loose connector. I suspect many customers have a visceral NOT NO, BUT HELL NO! reaction to giving money to brands that have been extracting money from them for years. Too bad that many fine, honest workers work for the same brand as the weasels the customer interacts with.
For comparison, Citibank should probably be liquidated, but my interactions with this bank haven’t left me pissed off. Unfair fees have been promptly removed when I complained and a bank teller went out of his way to help me get free checks after I had already agreed to pay. I should be more angry at the debt I will have to repay because Citibank got bailed out, but I never felt their local employees were trying to rip me off.
“Do people really believe the nation would be better off if they didn’t survive?”
Please, enough of the survival rhetoric. Just because your job as an incompetent CEO or unnecessary line worker doesn’t survive doesn’t mean that the company doesn’t survive.
Yes, the bailouts are destroying the companies and piling onto already massive debt and deficits.
The only way that any of these companies have any future is with bankruptcy.
Sorry Detroit, but that’s going to leave some of your incompetent managers and unskilled, entitlement complex line workers out of work.
It’s the parasites that live off of draining the Detroit automakers dry that will eventually kill the Detroit automakers (many of these parasites likely have Detroit Free Press subscriptions).
Taxpayers know that Chrysler is dead, that GM will never truly be “restructured” unless a bankruptcy court is involved, and that Ford might need that also.
“It’s worth wondering why Detroit’s automakers are still having such a tough time winning public support.”
Seriously? They must have flown to another planet 20 years ago and have now just come back to earth.
If we thought public support was at an all time low during the first go around of “loans”, it has got to be non existent now. I recall Obama saying that a structured bankruptcy is not out of the question. I hope he follows through with it and makes something viable out of GM and Chrysler.
Americans have developed a trait of self-indulgence – from the housing bubble to the birthrate of illegitimate children, my fellow Americans have developed a “what’s in it for me in the next ten minutes” mentality.
When our manufacturing base is gone, and we become a second world economy, they still won’t care.
Yeah, and why don’t Americans still support Enron?
C’mon America, where’s the love?
taxman100> I think the problem is that for FAR too long american taxpayers have received very little outside of basic services from the government — for a very high price. Why should we bail out big business as well?
I have one question. Al Mullaly joined a failing Ford Motor Company just a little over two years ago when their profits were virtually all tied up in trucks and they were in shape equivalent to GM or Chrysler. If he could restructure Ford so they are today producing cars people want, and seem to evidence the means to come out “leaner and meaner”, WTF were the idiots at GM and Chrysler doing while he was doing his job?
Please, Mr. Wagoner, we’d like to know.
@edgett:
I don’t know, building cars people asked for, like the Saturn Astra, Chevrolet Malibu, and the Pontiac G8.
taxman100 said
When our manufacturing base is gone, and we become a second world economy, they still won’t care.
I don’t see why. I mean, most of the agricultural jobs of the old days were gone. But we didn’t starve and the US is not a second or third world economy.
The manufacturing base won’t be gone. Only the unneeded jobs will. We don’t need a couple million Americans building cars and components. In the future, maybe 100,000 workers are enough to do the same work. Nothing unlike the agricultural sector. And, oh, they won’t starve and their children will get into a different industry.
edgett said:
If he could restructure Ford so they are today producing cars people want, and seem to evidence the means to come out “leaner and meaner”, WTF were the idiots at GM and Chrysler doing while he was doing his job?
Because they didn’t drive Lexus cars.
@mikeolan
building cars people asked for, like the Saturn Astra, Chevrolet Malibu, and the Pontiac G8.
These are all decent cars, but Saturn is now gone (that’s some great product planning, there Rick) and they were losing money on every Astra sold. The Malibu is a decent car as well, but seemed to cannibalize Impala sales for its success. The G8 might have been a real winner had it come out earlier and, oh-by-the-way, The GM braintrust is also deleting Pontiac.
Somehow I don’t think the Malibu, supplemented by the CTS will be able to bring GM back to life.