Can it be the automakers stopped making cars because no longer on the federal dole?

[garage sale GT]

During the debate, Biden insinuated it was Trump's mismanagement that drove the US automakers from producing cars.

Can it be though that they simply were kept alive by corporate welfare during the Obama years? Or at least by an agreement or understanding to not go out of business until a change of Presidents?

The cars he had them design were too good and cost too much and no one wanted them when the government was no longer keeping them afloat. There was too much new redesign of parts such as chassis, too much styling (but those late model Chevys are sure nice to look at.)

So what's the point of going on that way? Why turn domestic auto production into a taxpayer supported welfare program for the inner city?

No, this isn't about Black people. The automakers attracted and hired some blacks long before the Civil Rights Act made it mandatory. But some people, be they white or black, don't want the work bad enough.

I have a Ford Powershift transmission in a Mexican-built car and it works very well. The American-built powershifts helped drive Ford Focus out of production. They dogged it from the outset.

Why go on providing work and protecting automakers from failure? Why not find some better way to invest the money which will increase profits and tax revenues instead of becoming a revenue sink?

 

[Froze]

Thank you for that reply Garage Sale GT, more people need to learn the truth of what is going on. The reality however is that it wasn't the automakers that caused the problems for why automakers are on the verge of bankruptcy here in America; the blame rests solely on the UAW! How's that you all scream at me? I happen to know several GM employees, some are currently employed and some are retired, some are or were line workers and some are or were corporate staff, and they all said the same thing...the UAW is not taking enough money out of employees wages to cover health benefits, and the pension, there are other things covered under benefits but those two are the major ones especially the pension. As of 7 years ago, when I asked these people this question, the UAW was only deducting $100 a month for employee benefits, this included family insurance with a very low deductible of $250 total for all family members not for each family member a year with no percentage; meds were $10. Now I want you all to think about how much you pay for your share of the medical insurance cost you have, and think about your deductible, percentage that must be meant, and how much the meds cost you. Back then when I asked this question I was paying about $325 a year, with a $1,000 deductible and a percentage of 20% until the yearly max was met at $2,000, that means that I had to pay out $3,000 just in my out of pocket expense, not including the cost of the insurance every month.

UAW $100 fee to cover all of that medical ALSO COVERED THE PENSION! In order for that to happen the UAW far underfunded the pension program. Give you an example, I was paying in back then for a 403b about $250 per month, and that amount I was paying would have ended up close to what the UAW pension program pays their retirees, except of course I have more risk since mine is based on mutual funds that can go up or down in value and interest.

Just those two benefits alone cost me $575 yet somehow UAW thinks that $100 would cover it. So the automakers were forced to put those costs into the price of new cars to make up for the lack of employee participation, which put the prices of American made cars higher than our main rivals...Japan and Korea. So the next logical step to try to get our prices close to at least Japanese cars was to make the cars lower in quality so as to save money on the production end.

That $100 a month employees pay, includes a good employee discount on new cars whether your working or retired, I know a guy who buys a new car every year, saves enough money on the purchase that he sells the car after a year and makes back most of what he paid for the car, so he drives a new car every year for less money then what annual payment would have been if he bought the car without the discount.

So the financial condition of the automakers is due to the UAW, who looks after their workers while they screw the auto manufactures.

This is not unlike our own Social Security, but instead of underfunding it, we are overspending it, by allowing people to get SS that SS was never originally designed to give to those people, and by not raising the retirement age to a more appropriate age of 68. Also, our government kept borrowing (the technical term is they put IOU's into the fund) money from our SS fund that WE PAID into so they could fund stuff and make bogus promises not to raise our taxes. I hate to say it, but politicians STOLED our money so they could look good to voters with the promise of not raising our taxes, let's word it this way, they stoled our money to use it to buy our votes.

 

[garage sale GT]

I think you are wrong in that what you say might have driven GM to the state that required bailing out the first time.

Then, when the government turned it into Government Motors, they ran the show and at least had the opportunity to restructure the company.

They should have kept updating the cars instead of coming out with designs that had new styling and chassis.

Before the bailout, Impala cost a little less than Camry and was a 30 year old design that had size, cheapness, comfort, maybe not quite the refinement of the better sedans but people liked the price.

Meanwhile the Japanese simply improve their cars a little every year. Camry is a segment leader despite bland styling so they must be putting their effort into engineering and keeping styling plain to keep the cost down.

So they come out with a new Impala engineered to overcome the effect of all this perpetual improvement, and they give it more beautiful styling than any Chevy has had since the 1960s. The cost per unit must be unconscionable.


Mind you, they knew there was going to be a Republican backlash after the Liberal Obama administration. When GM got out of cars, people blamed Trump.

Then the other automakers followed suit because everything you say about the UAW is true. Ford and Chrysler weren't making any money on cars either.

The management of the Big Three want to keep their jobs, power, and lifestyle, so maybe they held out until Obama was out of office so it would look like it was Trump's fault, and then the next president could put the companies back on some sort of Federal corporate welfare dole.

 

[garage sale GT]

What they're doing there is they want to keep more blacks in the inner city.

Then white kids with a little bit of African in their DNA can get an easier time getting into college in the big city because of Affirmative Action.

They're all foreign, but look at Thin Lizzy, Eddie and Alex Van Halen, and Greta Thunberg just to prove that European ancestry can often include black ancestry just like the August 2019 National Geographic says.

Then when they graduate, they can provide services to the inner city because the money brought in by the business of carmaking and the pork barrel corporate welfare give the workers money to spend on doctors, dentists, lawyers, realtors, interior decorators, etc.

Why don't the blacks (the black blacks) get the scholarships and jobs themselves? I don't know, but some sources online claim around 40% of the high school graduates in some inner city schools are functionally illiterate.

 

[garage sale GT]

Now I get the Obama Highway Stimulus.

Too much money was spent on too small a segment for it to have been an economic stimulus.

Have you ever seen as many people working on the roads at once? Even on Sunday Evening? They had to train 15,000 new workers who probably never worked in the field again because we just don't need that much work at one time, ever.

Well, the highway stimulus portion of the stimulus bill was designed to give a few people too much money, specifically so they'd save it.

When they put it in the banks, there was a lot of temporary liquidity which let banks continue to offer loans at an attractive rate.

The system may have been timed to come to a close right around the time Obama was leaving office because they estimated the amount that the people and road firms would blow through in 8 years.

 

[Froze]

https://www.epi.org/blog/by-saving-...ere-an-even-bigger-success-than-acknowledged/

https://www.cnbc.com/id/31682702

https://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-auto-bailout-and-the-rule-of-law

https://pensionpulse.blogspot.com/2012/06/gm-and-fords-pensions-jubillee_04.html

 

[garage sale GT]

Baling the automakers out was expensive and drove up the national debt.

When the government goes heavily into debt, it drives up the cost of borrowing. Cars become harder to buy.

 

[Yojimbo_]

garage sale GT mentions 'blacks' an inordinate number of times in his recent messages.

What's your problem?

 

[PaulJJ]

The state has always solved the problems of the automotive industry through additional tranches. But now they want to shift that onto the shoulders of taxpayers. But I'm not going to play this game. A new car every three years? No, I do not agree. I bought a Toyota Rav4 and am not going to change the car in the next 5-6 years. My solution is already helping me. I can afford to buy more technological devices for auto maintenance and repair. Right now I'm picking a car wash, somewhere in between induction vs universal one. I believe that by the time I decide to change my car I will have a whole set of electrical equipment in my garage. This is something that will serve me for decades)