General C. Motors

Charles E Hill

Fri Oct 10 22:21:27 -0700 2008

manage

The big question is, would they bring GM private or take Chrysler public.

On a side note, Chrysler just sued Getrag, a German company who was building a transmission plant in Tipton, IN.  It was to open in 2009 and employ about 1,000 people.

Getrag was unable to acquire the full financing, which was to come from the German gov't.  Chrysler is alledging fiduciary misrepresentation, since the plant ($530 million total) doesn't look like it'll be finished anytime soon.

I currently work in Kokomo, IN, where Chrysler's largest transmission plant (1 of 4) is located.  With all the slowdowns, layoffs and other auto problems in that area, their unemployment rate is already hovering around 12%.  This lawsuit was headlining the local paper the last 2 or 3 days.

This is going to hurt Chrysler's manufacturing capacity in the future.

General C. Motors

GuyFawkes

Sat Oct 11 02:32:32 -0700 2008

manage

The USA motor industry now is where ours was in the 80's, it's dead and stumbling around like a zombie.

The difference being for us this happened at the beginning of the credit boom, so the factories got bulldozed and replaced with housing for the new credit rich to buy.

Someone did a study once, it worked out that for every job actually in the car factory, there were three jobs outside it that depended directly or indirectly on it, so when the factories closed, even with the credit boom, it was carnage.

Detroit looks more like the russian model, when the "special purpose town" loses its special purpose then it turns into a ghost town / ghetto.

The only "american cars" that are in any way sellable now aren't even american, just rebadged things like Chevy Matiz, that'll be a Daewoo with a yank badge.

You only have to look at the outstanding overburden of US auto makers pension plans to know that the only way "forward" is to tank and wipe out that liability and then re-build something from the ashes.

You guys ever hear of Rover? Built some decent cars in its time, employed tens of thousands directly, basically was "work" if you lived in the south side of Birmingham, built literally many millions of vehicles that were sold all over the world, the whole company was sold for 1 UK Pound.

General C. Motors

ehrichweiss

Sat Oct 11 06:55:49 -0700 2008

manage

Do you mean this Rover: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4708739.stm , if so it looks like they sold for more than a mere Pound.

General C. Motors

GuyFawkes

Sat Oct 11 07:46:58 -0700 2008

manage

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5262616.stm?ls "...There have been previous high-profile examples of the company pound shop. Ken Bates bought Chelsea football club in 1982 for £1, while taking on debts of £1.5m. When Barings bank collapsed, after the Nick Leeson rogue trader scandal, it was bought for £1 by the Dutch financial group, ING. And when German car company, BMW, sold Rover, the Phoenix consortium paid £10. ..."

Detroit

zogger

Sat Oct 11 12:27:22 -0700 2008

manage

When I was a kid, I had relatives lived in east Detroit, well, around Detroit, several areas really, so we used to visit (the era was one granny still had ice delivery for the ice box from a guy with a horse and wagon down the alley, the other granny had a hand crank phone bolted to the wall, you spun the crank to get the operators attention I guess). And I'm just an early boomer, not even old enough to qualify as the "in between" generation MH42 was talking about. Anyway... Those were wonderful and safe neighborhoods, neat yards, well maintained homes, etc. never even thought about crime or safety. I remember wonderful cooking smells all the time and fat ladies who mostly spoke broken english would drag kids off the street and stuff them with exotic food all the time. It was cool, a nice place for families and apparently quite affordable. I went back in the mid 70s just to drive around and look...man...I wouldn't live there without owning a tank, and carrying an RPG all the time when I was out of the tank. No idea what it is like now though, haven't been there in years/decades, since then in fact. What I am saying is, ya it collapsed and Detroit has been in decline rapidly because of crazy car companies and crazy unions and crazy investors and stockholders. They had the best gig going and blew it completely. None of them has or ever had a clue on when to say "when".

Detroit

President4242

Mon Oct 13 09:31:30 -0700 2008

manage

I'm shocked zogger- just shocked.   

Not about how Detroit has deteriorated, but the fact that you didn't know how a hand-crank phone works.  Making one (admitedly, as I'm a POST-boomer, GenXer) out of an old dial telephone for use on family camping trips for communication between camper and cab was one of my first real electronic hacks.

The crank actually had two purposes- #1 was to get attention of the swtichboard lady (with the 48 volt peak current) it's true, but #2 was to *charge the batteries* for your phone call- and you'd have to keep cranking every so often.

We did the same thing with a couple of alkaline D's- just provided enough power to the handset for a several hour trip.

General C. Motors

Richard Sexton

Sat Oct 11 13:31:41 -0700 2008

manage

Yeah but Rovers were fiddly rustboxes. The car you'd buy for $400 for a winter then toss it in the spring. Comfy, lots problems and parts were a joke. Nonetheless I'd still kill for a 3500. Or an SM, worse, but better. Ya know.

Microcars work for some segment of the population but the distances involved in north america make it very much not like yurrup or ukkers. You drive for 90 minutes there and you've gone through 3 countries. You can drive for 3 days and still be in the same provence here.

Around here, farm country, trucks predominate. Trucks that get dirty every day and haul lots of stuff from bread to cows.

North America is always gonna need big trucks.

And I say this as somebody that loathes the things.

General C. Motors

GuyFawkes

Sat Oct 11 15:25:20 -0700 2008

manage

Microcars work for some segment of the population but the distances involved in north america make it very much not like yurrup or ukkers. You drive for 90 minutes there and you've gone through 3 countries. You can drive for 3 days and still be in the same provence here.

Wow, you have "provences" that are more than 3,000 miles wide!

Perhaps you want to rename the USA to the Tardis, it is obviously a lot bigger on the inside...

General C. Motors

Richard Sexton

Sun Oct 12 11:05:38 -0700 2008

manage

I have no idea how many miles it is, but I've driven it. Maybe you could do it in two days. But I hope you got the point.

General C. Motors

President4242

Mon Oct 13 09:34:29 -0700 2008

manage

I can't drive 3000 miles in 3 days.

But you're right, something is off with this math.  Though I wouldn't even THINK about taking a trip across my state in less than 2 days, and Canadian Provinces are a LOT larger than US States.

For instance- British Columbia is about the size of Washington, Idaho, Oregon, California, and Nevada *combined*.

General C. Motors

squiggleslash

Tue Oct 14 08:02:55 -0700 2008

manage

The other problem is that very, very, very few people will drive somewhere if it's going to take more than twelve hours to get there. Air travel is the way most people go long distance.