stonefaceddog

The domestic auto makers are paying for their collective lack of planning and innovation. I remember in the mid to late 1990's when they were giving out huge bonus checks to everyone from the CEO down to the guy who operated the torque wrench. Everyone that worked for the auto companies were strutting around throwing money away. The companies would have been far better served to invest in new technologies and equipment. I read that Honda has its plants set up that any Honda plant in the world can build a Honda Civic. None of the domestic auto makers can do something similar. The plants are old and inflexible, the labor force is much the same and management can't see past their own greed.

I remember about twenty years ago when I was in college and I managed to buy a new Honda CRX, one of the guys I worked with whose dad was employed by GM asked me why I bought the Honda and I told him it was the most reliable car I could get for the money. He responded that GM could build cars that lasted far longer than the current models but then people wouldn't have to buy cars as often. I was left dumbfounded by this line of thinking. Considering that other than a home a car will most likely be the most expensive thing I buy, I want the best I can get.

pan6467

In negotiations, you never give your best offer.

Well, people would buy for the tax credits. Other countries such as China subsidize their industries why should we not?

If you demand ALL parts and assembly be made in the US on US vehicles receiving ANY tax deferments or credits or help in ANY way, you open a manufacturing base again. This puts workers to work, this increases tax revenues in the communities, states and federally. This also helps people make money that they can invest with, helps build disposable income and in essence helps businesses around the new manufacturing jobs start to thrive.

I would also, freeze utilities, gas, and oil prices for the year. Every quarter they can increase their price by 10%.

This allows for stability.

Those ingredients and we would have a booming economy again.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Craven Morehead

I agree in principle. However, that also relieves them of any outstanding liabilities. Which would also bankrupt several other companies as well as drive many employees and retirees into personal bankruptcy.

What about a government assisted restructuring? Essentially go through the bankruptcy proceedings in order to renegotiate a better labor contract. But government subsidies for retires, warranties and relief to their creditors. The warranties on recently purchased American cars can not be ignored and terminated in bankruptcy. Those have to continue forward. Let's face it, we're not going to get out of this without sending several billion to Detroit. Put the money to the victims, put the Big 3 on a solid footing and then see if they can survive.

I have driven GM products for several years. No complaints. Also have a Mazda in the garage. No complaints either. Both are great for what they are. For much of rural America, there isn't a Toyota dealer in their town. But there's usually a GM or Ford dealer around. The closest Honda, Toyota or Nissan is at least 15 miles from me. And I live in a very well populated area. Picked a Mazda because it was local. Not everyone has the convenience of a Honda dealer a few miles away.

ASU2003

Do you still drive that car?

I drive my Saturn car from 15 years ago. But they made cars that were different back then. I could easily get another 15 years out of it.

He is right though, it's that business model that they have stuck with. Toyota/Lexus implemented the Certified Used car program to be able to resell the used cars instead of letting some random used car dealer do it. They can guarantee the quality and still make a profit buy reselling the car again.

If people kept their cars and ran them into the ground, no current auto company could survive.

lotsofmagnets

are the american car manufacturers still churning out the big, poorly built suvs? if that´s the case they´re digging their own grave. they should focus on making the quality of their cars less of a worldwide joke and move towards more competitive cars. there is a reason dinosaurs are extinct.

__________________
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she shed her mountain turning training wheels, for the convenience of the moving sidewalk, that delivers the magnetic monkey children through the mouth of impossible calendar clock, into the devil's manhole cauldron.
physics of a bicycle, isn't it remarkable?

Tully Mars

From the NYT today-

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/29/bu...r.html?_r=1&em


So it's seems we have some numbers on buy out for white collar workers. My first couple thoughts after reading this is I'm kind of surprised it's not more money. Plus I'm a little shocked to read it's not more graduated. Seems you're either in one group or the other. People that were employed 10yrs or more and 10 yrs or less. This stood out to me-

Sounds to me like she, Ms. Krul, worked there for two years and got 50k cash and 25K for a new vehicle. What if you worked 9 yrs and 11 1/2 months? You'd get the same deal she got? Don't get me wrong if I were in her shoes I'd take it too. But i bet it's a along time before she sees that kind of money again.

Sounds screwy to me, but much of what the auto industry does sounds screwy to me.

If white collar workers are getting 75-100K wonder what the blue collar people will get? I mean when this first started I read a news story about guys making $70 an hour. I think we all know that was BS now. The average worker's making roughly $28. So what was the average wage for these white collar people? And the most they could get on the buy out was 75k cash and a vehicle? 75K really isn't very much money. If you lived in the states it might keep you a float for what? 3-5 years. Then what? Hope the economy turns around I guess.

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wolf

No one wants to see 2 million people out of work, certainly won't help the already ailing economy. However, giving these three companies money only so they can turn around in 3 - 6 months and have the same issue is ridiculous. The problem isn't UAW, the problem is these companies make an inferior product to Toyota, Honda, and a slew of other foreign car manufacturers out there. Even if they made a wonderful product, public perception is that they don't. Ford is now getting some good crash test ratings and they seem to be gaining a shred of consumer confidence and trade publication interest. We'll see. IIHS just came out with their crash test ratings, Chrylser didn't score 5 stars one one car, not one. Are the majority of people going to buy a Chrylser, no. Congress will have to see what these companies come back with for a plan and hopefully at least one of them won't suck.

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FlatLand Flyer

This is a HUGE problem for the industry. I was raised to buy American. I was the first in my immediate family to see the light. My Ram got 12 mpg and had a reputation for transmission problems (I did not have any for the 55,000 miles I drove it). I traded for a toyota pickup that was rock solid, but sure did not have the power of the Ram. My dad continued to buy American and got a fully loaded Dakota. Went through 4 sets of rotors before I convinced him to get a Tacoma. Not a lick of a problem with the Tacoma. My girlfriend got a 2000 Neon. 3 sets of rotors and 23 mpg (in a 4 cylinder manual), she got rid of it for a '99 chevy blazer. I convinced her to get a service contract. Over $4,500 worth of repair went on that contract. Repairs were mostly to get the damn thing to stop leaking. Got rid of that for a 4runner. No problems with it.

My point is that I still want to buy american, I really do. However I can no longer trust them. I got a 2008 Corolla. 36 mpg and my dealership also included a lifetime powertrain warranty. They can offer that because they know that it will most likely never be used. None of the big 3 would even dream of doing that.

I really think the big 3 are screwed. I hate to see them go bust, but I believe that their failure will leave a void that will be filled by other manufacturers.

tisonlyi

Let it die. All of it.

Assemble one viable, strong company from the rest.

Hopefully, the pensioning volk will get healthcare from obamaniam if not a decent pension.

__________________
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roachboy

i watched some of the hearings last night on c-span and was struck by bremmer's intervention in which he outlined what is actually at stake here---whether the united states is to begin catching up to most other industrialized nations and have an industrial policy. he kept alluding to miti...the problem here is organizational first, competences second---what mechanisms will be responsible for formulating such policy, how will information be gathered which is required for that activity, who will do the gathering, what objectives are being pursued, what powers will be granted to accomplish them.

this is obviously a problem situationally---the automobile manufacturers are in a total short-term liquidity crisis--the go to washington and say give me 30 billion. we'll do something good with it, don't worry. you'll do this because if you don't, we collapse.

what is notable in this seems to me to be the realization that what detroit is asking for is beyond the limit of the present conservative "policy" of ad hoc, reactive measures.

what seems to follow from this is a deferral of action from congress and a series of ad hoc, reactive measures behind which will follow some kind of basic alteration in the public/private relationship at the level of co-ordination.

among the consequences of this will probably be, judging from the way the hearings went (until i fell asleep) is a merger between chrysler and gm. what appears to be a driver for this follows from (a) previous negociations on such a merger based on the famous "synergies" that would result among which would be (b) increased flexibility at the level of production through the consolidation of existing platforms from which would follow (c) very considerable job loss. now what was odd about this in the hearing was the way these job losses were pitched as affecting management first and primarily. there was an oddly inarticulate gentleman from the uaw present who functioned mostly to prompt this emphasis on middle-to-upper management being a primary "victim"....

i write all this because i think we're seeing a change in outlook at the level of the senate anyway. moving away from the context of the bailing out of the financial sector to something more structural. so i think the debate is changing. i think it has to change, because the financial sector as a context guarantees continued incoherence.

what i didn't really see emerging yet is a coherent stand relative to employment as a political question. if the american states gets involved in industrial policy without a politics that ties it to employment levels, the involvement will be nothing more than an accelerator of the fragmentation and deterritorialization of production that is already well under way. what will matter in that context is the activity of capital and jobs will be understood as a secondary consequence. if employment is a primary consideration, then a quite different logic of state action would follow.

one of the possibilities that comes out of the pulverization of the neo-liberal world is a re-regionalization of production--a rethinking of scale--a shift in the understanding of the linkages which connect capital flows to the socio-economic systems which enable it. the multiplication of centers is a multiplication of nodes of power. in that kind of context, i think the options for the american automobile industry look interesting. so it is hard to say what "should happen" at this point because the logic that will shape what's possible is changing very quickly.

for example, there is obvious consternation about "outsourcing" which gets treated as some kind of alien phenomenon and not as the extension of a model of capital accumulation that subordinates *all* social contexts and implications to the movement of capital flows. the greater the recognition that the problems detroit faces result from *both* the model itself *and* the decisions made in the context of that model by the american manufacturers, the more possibilities open up for changing the model itself.

so another factor that seems at play here is the ending of the political consensus around flex accumulation/neo-liberal globalization. but this ending has not yet acquired an adequately sharp expression, so operates like a haze around discussions.

so what looks to be happening within this discussion about detroit/the auto industry is:
a) the beginnings of a serious break with neo-liberal assumptions that is at least now being framed for what it is.
b) the posing of a real Problem for the american state: how to proceed, which mechanisms to create, what objectives to put into place, etc.
c) FINALLY there is at least the start of a recognition of the Problems that neoliberalism has generated for decent=paying employment in the production of actual stuff.

that's what i think is going on, based on a non-representative sample of the hearings yesterday.

the question of what should happen is tied up with these shifts, in whether and how they issue into something new. the fate of the auto industry is out of its hands now.

__________________
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it make you sick.

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shakran

Let it die,and your Honda/Toyota/BMW is suddenly a hell of a lot more expensive.

That said, I'm unconvinced that there actually is a way to save the American auto industry. America's attitudes are finally catching up to it. We've never, with the exception of a few, isolated organizations, been interested in exacting quality standards and good engineering. We prefer to come up with the idea, and then try to make whatever we produce from it look good, without necessarily being good. Sort of a "Fuck it, it's good enough" attitude.

Rather than fix the severe quality problems that GM has had since the 1970's, instead they stuck bits of ribbed plastic, or wings, or fender holes on their crap-mobiles and expected America to just buy them, not picking up on the fact that it was a holey plastic turd with wings.

It didn't work.

It didn't work so spectacularly that GM a few years back sent out a letter to former customers. Paraphrased, the letter said "We know we built crap in the 70's and 80's. Please give us another chance and buy a GM car now."

Might have worked, except that instead of a true committment to quality, they instead had a true committment to sticking more plastic, holes, and wings on the cars.


GM's cars have been like old western buildings. From a distance the building would look like a really nice 2 story building. Get up close and you find out it's dirty, rat infested, and the 2nd story is fake.

You can only put gold dust on a turd and sell it as solid gold for so long before people start seeing beneath the shine to the offal beneath.

To fix things, GM has to turn themselves into the American version of Honda. It doesn't have to be fancy. It doesn't have to be the sleekest looking thing on the road. But it'd better be damned high quality.

Even if GM can overcome American laziness enough to find the workers to do it on a mass scale (They already did it in their Corvette program, but can they replicate that on large-scale assembly? Dunno. Doubt it), they have a nearly 4 decade reputation now for making crap. People are not going to assume they're suddenly making great stuff. So I'm not sure that even if GM started making decent cars, that they'd be able to convince the public that they were, in time for it to make any difference.

roachboy

so overnight the senate deal on a short-term bailout/loan for the "big 3" collapsed.
it seems there are a few main explanations, but the main one is: the senate republicans are playing chicken with the automobile industry because they want to use this to fuck over the uaw.

i find this to be a shocking development to wake up to this friday morning.

what do you see as happening next?

there's little doubt that the central problem has been at least stated outright by members of congress over the past week or so--what detroit is actually asking for is a coherent federal-level industrial policy---but the way in which this has been managed, and its timing, seems to have also been an attempt to use the context created by october/november's ad hoc reactions to collapse in the financial sector to get help with fewer rather than more restrictions. given that one cannot simply conjure an industrial policy--rather it really needs to be thought out--and given the situation, i actually thought that the only real alternative was the alternative that seems to have been done in by the senate republicans---split the immediate from the shorter term, and add this to the transition tasks--to develop such a policy and propose an administrative arm. the
"car czar" seemed a really stupid idea, a stop-gap....


what now?

i expect the administration will act unilaterally as the consequences of a collapse of the automobile industry are too high.

but i am amazed that the right's desire to use this to fuck over the uaw would result in this...

__________________
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spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Tully Mars

Hell if I know what happens next. I know it seems completely fucked up that the Wall St. guys can show up with little or no plan and get 700 billion. The auto makers show up and nada. Were they asking for 700 billion? No they wanted to 15-35 billion to keep the doors open. This seems to me to be the GOP trying to break the UAW. Look at the GOP senators who fought this the hardest, they all have large foreign, non-union, auto makers with plants in their states. Gee no conflict of interest there. or maybe they're fighting it and it's just a coincidence those guy were the one fighting it the hardest. Personally I rarely believe in coincidences.

We sent billions to Wall St. What do they make on Wall St? What have the tax payers gotten for those billions? Seems to me guys actually making stuff in this country just got told they don't matter. I think they matter. They end up losing their jobs and everyone in the area or related to the industry will have massive loses. The reports I'm reading this morning have the market tanking and the dollar falling off a cliff.

I think the resulting actions by the UAW might make the recent events at the Republic Windows and Doors plant look like a family picnic.

Someone *cough* Bush *cough, cough* needs to step up to the plate and tell these fellow GOP members this is not an option. We need someone driving this bus. Unfortunately the current man in the drivers seat is Bush and he's got a record of putting buses in the ditch, not getting them out of the ditch.

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Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

aceventura3

I doubt the UAW is a primary motivating factor in the minds of the "right", one way or the other. I think most on the "right simply recognize that the big three auto makers in the US simply can not be saved without major fundamental restructure.

Most on the "right" also recognize that existing management in these companies are not up for the job. Here is what we are being asked to believe: A) these companies did not anticipate current market conditions; B) they anticipated current market conditions but had no workable plan; or C) they anticipated current market conditions and their plan was to go to Washington for a bailout. I tend to accept A or B, but if C is true perhaps they are smarter than I would give them credit for, and it is actually their plan to use Washington liberals to "fuck over UAW", that would be brilliant.

__________________
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"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

roachboy

even the bush people are making the argument that how the auto industry got into this position is at the moment irrelevant. the fact that, once you factor in supply and distribution chains, something on the order of 8-10 million jobs are at stake means that most rightwing perspectives on this are irrelevant. what they are trying to stave off is a considerable acceleration of an economic crisis of very significant proportions--->the magnitude of which you do not seem to be able to process. for the bush people, this acceleration of economic crisis is also a political Problem of the first order.

as it should be, given that there are no coherent alternatives to seeing in this cluster-fuck of a situation the fallout of 8 years of george w bush et al. this is how political delegimation unfolds, it seems.

there's little doubt that the auto industry aristocracy banked on the track record of panic-driven ad hoc measure that opened up federal coffers to the tune of 700 billion for the financial sector---and there's little doubt that the actions and non-actions of henry paulson have created their own, separate level of static. so it's complicated.

at the same time, one of the elements of conservative economic policy of the past 30 years that has become obvious even to congress (except, apparently, for the republicans in the senate) is that neoliberalism is a form of class warfare, that the decision to prop up the financial sector and not do shit for manufacturing is also a form of class warfare---as is the desire to use this situation to deliver a bit of republican payback to the uaw for being a union at all.

what i expect to happen is for cowboy george to either order that a chunk of the "troubled asset" fund be diverted in this direction or to try to use executive signing order power in an unprecedented manner to create separate funds---of the two, the former seems more likely.

as for how the american auto industry got into this mess---i think it's time to stop the simple-minded pseudo-analysis of this and start doing a bit of actual research. what's involved is the history of the car industry in general since the 1970s. what's involved is the way in which neoliberalism has changed the world that detriot operated in prior to that time. what's involved is a particular management structure, a particular set of technological and cognitive barriers that set detriot (which is largely still wedded to forms of production that are not amenable to jit organization) against more tightly integrated and flexible technological and supply-chain arrangements. in short, it seems to me that among the major explanations for the situation that detriot now finds itself in follows from the absence of a state industrial policy from the 1970s forward---just-in-time and the other major features of toyotaism were developed in the context of extensive state underwriting of research, development and retooling.

this means that not only is the problem managerial, but it also has to do with the entire american/neoliberal way of thinking about the economy as some separate sphere outside the political, outside the social, that is internally rational etc etc etc.

i'll put up stuff that might lead toward a more coherent view of the paths that lead detriot here--but what;s clear is that you aren't going to learn much of anything coherent from either tv or newspapers at the moment---and this simply because what's involved with this is a history and not a series of discrete decisions by isolated individuals--and the dominant media in the states does not do context well at all.

__________________
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it make you sick.

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aceventura3

Perhaps I am splitting hairs here, but it is one thing to say up to 10 million jobs are at stake and to actually believe up 10 million jobs will be lost if Congress fails to provide the US auto industry a bridge loan. GM in particular simply loses money every time they make and sell a car. Someone has to make up the difference it will be shareholders until there is no enterprise value or taxpayers. However, there is still a market for the products GM makes and some companies can do it and make money on every car made and sold. GM needs to be restructured, and they can do that in chapter 11 bankruptcy, and the best way to go would be for the government to guarantee warranties until the reorganization is complete. There are alternatives to the current proposed bailout.

You blame Bush for 40 years of mis-management in the auto industry? You blame Bush for the union contracts the auto industry negotiated? You blame Bush for Cafe standards mandating vehicles that people don't buy unless those vehicles are subsidized? You blame Bush for forcing the ethanol flex fuel waste of time and money? You blame Bush for the competition building new plants in the US in areas where costs are measurably lower than in the "rustbelt"?

It is ironic that a company like the formerly named Phillip Morris in the cigarette business (in declining market, billions in litigation costs, no ability to advertise, etc) can make money and add value for shareholders but our auto industry can't! Phillip Morris diversified when they needed to and divested when it needed to all the while focusing in on long-term viability. GM could have done the same. They built new brands like Saturn and Hummer, that could have been spun off to make profitable stand alone companies. They could have taken a brand like Corvette and spun it off to make a performance car division or stand alone company similar to Porsche. There are endless numbers of possibilities but they did nothing and you blame Bush. Wow.

The CEO's of these companies seeking handouts are failures. That is not complicated. If I run my business into the ground with no profit, no positive cash flow and can't get financing, I go out of business. That is not complicated. If I go out of business the competition picks up my customers and my best employees. That is not complicated.

How about looking at the UAW? The number one rule of a symbiotic relationship is not to kill your host.

No, no, no. The bottom line is companies need to make a profit. If they can't make a profit, they need to go out of business.

__________________
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"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

roachboy

i numbered the following to refer them to the quote/response segments above.

1. not in this climate. in another context, at another time, maybe i'd agree with you regarding bankruptcy.

2. on the history of this crisis. i've said this before, i'll say it one more time.

the actions of the bush administration have engendered a political crisis that is being expressed through economic crisis.
it could have happened another way, but this is how it's happened.
what is being taken down is much bigger than the reactionary politics of the bush people, however. it is the entire ideology for which they stand. while it is possible that this melt-down could have happened another way, it didn't...it happened this way. so while it is possible that there could in an alternative scenario be no particular connection between the political implosion of the bush administration and economic crisis, in this situation, which is the real world situation, there is one.
no amount of denial will change that.


i see this as a massive, wholesale implosion of neoliberalism, of cowboy capitalism, of the washington consensus, and of the lunatic "globalization" that neoliberalism has enabled. so this is obviously much bigger than the bush administration---neoliberalism runs back into the early 1970s. it's conditions of possibility include the various transnationalizations of transactions put into place by the nixon administration, whose importance in setting all this in motion is still underestimated. ideologically, neoliberalism took shape across the thatcher-reagan period. the political modus operandus domestically, the screen discourse, took shape during the reagan period....but i digress, moving from the ideology of contemporary capitalist incoherence--neoliberalism---which is intimately associated with american political and economic domination--and the earlier claim that the current economic crisis is a political crisis and a political crisis directly brought on my the staggering incompetence of the bush administration.

3. i agree with your assessment of the particular individuals who presented themselves to congress looking to get salvation, but not about the simplistic "analysis" that follows.

you want to eliminate complexity when you think about this, it seems.
i think that if you eliminate complexity, you eliminate thinking, so i don't see the point of heading down that route.

despite the fact that this is a messageboard, we can still maintain a certain minimal relation to what is happening in the world by refusing to boil it down to small-business level bromides.

4. this milton friedman horseshit is a significant element of the washington consensus that got us into this trainwreck. you cannot possibly expect me to take it seriously now. i have always argued that this position made no sense, even when it had some credibility. now it doesn't have that. time to retool your mind, ace. you can do it.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Tully Mars

The perspective on this is kind of funny. This morning on my regular rounds of the gym, walk etc... I stopped in at my friends hotel. Fresh watermelon juice, good stuff. Anyway he was reading the local paper. I could see it was about the auto situation in the US but my Spanish isn't quite to the point where I can really read something. Sometimes I read something and find out it actually means the opposite of what I thought it said. I asked him what the article said and he said it basically said the US government turned down the auto industry's request for a loan and that the paper was suggesting people buy as many US vehicles as they could. I asked why would they suggest that? The cars may not have any warranty or parts available of the companies fail. He said yes, but the paper says if the companies fail people will loose their jobs and that can start a ball rolling down a hill and that will cause everyone pain. He said the paper is reporting several government agencies in Mexico have placed large orders with American auto makers recently. Those orders were set to happen right after the first of the year but they're moving to place those orders now in an effort to help save those companies.

Granted this is in part due to the fact that there are several factories here in Mexico that either make or help make vehicles and or parts, so that's part of it. But I think there's a real concern for those US workers and their families.

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aceventura3

I doubt you could find a consensus on the Bush "ideology". In fact I believe his actions on fiscal issues in particular has been very inconsistent with his stated ideology regarding fiscal policy. And in the past few months it seems Bush has taken the "lame duck" role to heart and his willing to support even the most extreme bailout schemes coming from Congress.


Speaking as an individual who happens to be conservative - none of the above comes into play when I formulate my views. My view of capitalism has been mainly formed from by being a consumer and a provider of goods and services in the market. Since I have never gotten much help from government and large domestic/international institutions and in-fact believe they have mis-used power my core belief is with the individual and the independent regardless of boarders. I am very libertarian in that regard. And what you call "neoliberalism" perhaps I consider libertarianism.

Like Einstein's theory of relativity, the most complex concepts are often the simplest. The paradox of complexity is simplification. I believe I recall that many of Einstein's peers did not see the point of heading down the route he was on when he came to his conclusions. Truth is not a popularity contest.

What is happening is a company like Toyota can make a profit for every car is sells and GM can not. That is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. Profit is the cornerstone of the issue. It is unfortunate that the term or concept is considered something bad in the liberal mind.

I don't control what you take seriously, but at the most basic level any progress requires excess (or profit in the economic context). We can ignore this truism at our own risk.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

roachboy

ace--do you know what makes toyota's production system interesting as a system?
if not, no problem--but i can tell you...

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Tully Mars

I'm interested, do tell.

__________________
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Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

roachboy

well, toyota has at least 3 main innovations---at the level of technology, they worked out a far more effective and efficient way of transitioning the assembly line from one model to another---the older school american auto model was centered on long production runs of a single basic type of car. switching this basic type was complicated, time-consuming and expensive---remember that early on the switch from the model t to the model a nearly bankrupted ford. toyota benefitted from the japanese "developmental state" in the workign out and implementing not only a vastly improved technology at the center of assembly line production, but also an alternative work organization for assembly workers, who operate in a short production run context as teams. this is an enormous advantage. [[btw in the 70s a parallel system waqs developed at volvo's uddavalla factory---this had a different political conception built into it which involves types of power-sharing between workers and management that were not present in the toyota model---so for a while there was a "good guy/bad guy in debates about flex accumulation...

the second area is in the adaptation of just in time to supply chain development, which accelerated the fragmentation of the manufacturing process. in general, where the old american model relied on economies of scale linked to long production runs for profit, toyota opts for flexibility in production linked to tight controls on pricing and quality and timing of suppliers and the products that they deliver---so suppliers end up absorbing costs that would otherwise have been associated with production.

it seems to me that the american auto industry knew this model was a problem for them pretty early in the game and opted to retain it's production model and focus on types of automobiles that toyota etc were not producing--which looks to me like a decision to cede defeat to toyota etc in the longer run and seal themselves into it by not adapting the technology at the center of the assembly process. i would imagine that had there been a state industrial policy and funding parallel to that which the japanese ad in place that they would have been able to consider retooling when it was still relatively straightforward to do it. now they are basically hoisted by the consequences of these decisions--if that's the case, then the problems the big 3 now face cannot simply be connected to management--it is a function of the entire american business culture as well (the emphasis on short-term profits over long-term thinking, the substitution of the movement of capital for production as a form of industrial and social organization) and the disadvantage that the american refusal to implement an industrial policy created within that context.

this is a short version of why i see the trouble detriot is now in as yet another expression of the incoherences of neoliberalism.

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it make you sick.

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Tully Mars

Very interesting.

Here's basically my view of the problem and situation



I'm hoping the auto industry and it's workers survive this and I'm willing to have some of my taxes go to help them. But they have to start making cars that aren't crap and cars people want. Maybe it's too late. They showed up in DC in Nov(?) and basically said "give us a huge loan right now or we'll fail." That foresight and planning is pretty much how they've been doing business now for years, IMO.

I want to buy American, I bought American. I think it's good for everyone if manufacturing jobs thrive. But the POS Ford I have in my driveway makes me wonder if it's even possible to save them at this point.

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Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

ASU2003

After watching Frontline (on PBS) episode about retirement, I think that they want to do the same thing that United Airlines did in 2003.

FRONTLINE: can you afford to retire? | PBS

Have the big 3 declare bankruptcy, make them spend hundreds of millions in legal fees and restructuring management, cut or eliminate pensions and benefits, have the workers work for 30% less (because if they don't then the company will die), and switch the cost of benefits from the employer to the worker (401k/health). The private banks would provide the loans, but get superpriority in recouping their losses if they did fail, and would get fees and interest as well. United Airlines is still around today, but they were forced to trim down in order to compete with the smaller low-cost upstarts, instead of regulating that the low cost upstart airlines had to have pensions, healthcare, and other worker compensation. I'm sure there are a few retail stores (K-Mart, Target, Sears) that would want to get bailouted too because of what Wal-Mart's worker compensation policies are.

aceventura3

Why isn't it an expression of a failing US industry? If you use the auto industry as an expression of the incoherences of neoliberalism why not use for example the heavy equipment manufacturing industry to support the opposite, i.e. Caterpillar, John Deer, Terex, etc. These companies are assembly line producers, have unions, international competition, and can be profitable.

The auto industry has been sheltered from domestic competition party due to the liberal obsession with unionism and the guise of protecting American workers. In the end this liberal obsession has killed the industry. If the real economic value of torquing bolts on an assembly line is less than a gross cost of $70 an hour, it is simply insanity to pay that amount. The true focus of liberals should have been to educate that worker so his true economic value as a worker is in line with his pay, which could end up being more than a gross cost of $70 an hour. New domestic auto companies have not been allowed to form and develop in this country because of the union issue and liberals support of the union cause. If new domestic auto companies were allowed to form and develop, these new companies would have grown based on a sound economic model, as has been the case in other industries in this nation.

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Tully Mars

I just don't understand. Today Chrysler came out and said we're going to shutter everything for at least a month. Ok, I guess I kind of get that one. No ones buying so why produce? But GM came out and said they're going to shelve, at least for now, the factory that makes the engine for the new Volt. Isn't this the car and the kind of technology that was going to save them?

I wonder if their doing this to save cash or to bluff the Feds into coughing up cash.

Story here

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Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

dc_dux

The issue is bigger than the Big 3.

Toyota is delaying "indefinitely" an assembly plant in Mississippi for the Prius.

Toyota Delays Mississippi Plant Launch; Slashes Forecast, Details Cost Cuts Next week - Auto Observer

When folks are losing their jobs or uncertain about their job stability, stretching every penny so that they can meet the next mortgage payment or facing foreclosure, or cant get credit because banks arent lending....they wont be buying new cars.

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"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
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Tully Mars

I read something about that recently. Wonder if all these southern senator's will be looking for tax breaks or other back door bails out for the transplants?

You're absolutely right. If John and a few 1000 co-workers loose jobs at WAMU they're not buying lunch at the corner deli anymore, which causes Stan to close up his deli business, which causes a slow down with all of Stan's suppliers so they lay people off and now most these people are at risk of losing their home and none of them are going to go car shopping anytime soon. At this point I really see it as a ball rolling down a hill. I wish I knew how big that hill is and where on it the ball is currently.

I woke up this morning and as I sit here drinking my coffee "Morning Joe" is telling me today's jobs report is likely to show another 1/2 million job loses last month. That's two months in a row. I don't know exactly how these numbers are done but given it's the Christmas, err I mean Holiday season (Damn almost forgot all about our war on Christmas, sorry lack of coffee,) I wonder if season work is included in those numbers. I always thought unemployment went down every holiday season because so many people hire tempts to cover increased business.

Also what do you make of GM closing down the Volt engine plants? Does that make any sense? Why not close out plants that are making cars no one buying?

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I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

roachboy

given the moves that you gentlemen are tracking, it's probably not surprising to find this in this morning's ny times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/18/bu...18auto.html?hp

i believe this article is what we would call "public diplomacy"...the gist of it is:

"the negociations aren't over so don't worry so much about these closures and so forth.

and o yeah, sorry about that madoff thing. don't know how that slipped by us."

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

aceventura3

They normally shut down plant operations during the holidays, the typical duration is 2 weeks, so going to four weeks is meaningful but we are in a recession and this shutdown should not be used as a reason to rush through some il conceived bail-out plan. There is also general shut downs during the summer months of up to two weeks, in the past this time was generally used to re-tool for new production runs. I knew a few people who would use these shut-down periods to file unemployment claims even though they knew in advance and knew they would return to work in two weeks.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

roachboy

toyota plants can retool in a matter of a few hours.
that's one of the problems---long production runs lock you into particular types of car--if demand changes, you cannot adapt in an effective manner. this is a technological constraint of considerable importance. it has little to do with the particular management in place at present, unless you want to say about them that they failed by not undertaking the capital reinvestment required to adapt more thoroughly to the technological arrangement that is increasingly the norm in transnational production in this sector.

o yeah--about this "liberal obsession" that you outlined above, ace (sorry, but i only just saw the post)....if you're talking about the car industry prior to the 1980s, you're confusing things---while it's formally correct that the american car industry was protected before that time, the rationale had nothing to do with what you claim it did---what changed is the geography of capitalist production, the logistical systems that underpin it, and the ideological rules of the game. before the early 1980s, it was GENERALLY understood that production was a social relation, that profit was tied to social stability, that deriving profit came with a social responsibility that was tied to particular geographical spaces, typically framed by nation-states. it was the rise of neoliberalism that reversed this---replacing the movement of capital for any particular geographical relationship, shareholder profits became a simple-minded substitute for broader forms of social responsibility, etc.

so far as i can see, there's no way around it: the primary explanation (even though it's an general-to-abstract one) for what's happening now is neoliberalism--which (again) is coded as conservative economic ideology in the states. "market fundamentalism" or "the washington consensus" etc etc etc.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Tully Mars

They're saying at least 4 weeks. All this "Nothing to see here, move along folks. Just the normal course of business cycles" is complete and utter bull shit. Another 1/2 a million people lost their jobs last months. This is not normal.

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I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

aceventura3

What is normal during a recession?
-----Added 18/12/2008 at 03 : 18 : 43-----
Entry into the automotive manufacturing industry in this country is virtually impossible for a domestic company. The cost, regulatory issues, and special interests needing protection make it so we will never see a new company start in this country under current conditions. Certainly there are union obstacles, but there are also environmentalist, existing dealership networks and also the existing companies that just won't let it happen. And, they use Washington to do their bidding. Real innovation is being stifled due to the difficulties for new companies to enter the market. If I were in Washington my focus would be on new innovative companies wanting to enter the market.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

roachboy

ace--i would think that you fancy yourself in the position to answer that, given that you've been trying to argue here and elsewhere that there's nothing curious or extraordinary happening at present---which transposes (and nothing else) the claim "the fundamentals of the economy are strong"---whatever that means---which implies that everything is normal, yes?

so you tell us what's normal.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Tully Mars

Recessions are normal, this recession shows every sign of possibly being a depression and it's global. The employment rate is falling like a rock, the dollars leaning hard, the credit market is all but frozen, the Dow's lost some 40% in a few short weeks. These are all things I'd say we haven't seen in the post WWII era. I'd call that not normal.

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I used to drink to drown my sorrows, but the damned things have learned how to swim- Frida Kahlo

Vice President Starkizzer Fan Club

Baraka_Guru

I'd call it bad things happening during a cyclical bear. A bad combination.

I just read here that Canada stands to lose up to 600,000 jobs as a result of the U.S. auto industry woes (i.e. the collapse of the Big Three). Over half of that immediately if/when the bailout doesn't happen for certain.

Do the scaling of the math here. Our population is 33.4 million.

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Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
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roachboy

this just posted to the ny times a few minutes ago. the administration has rolled the dice.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/20/bu...20auto.html?hp

so this is the second move by the bush people that i've agreed with in 8 years. the other was the declaration that they supported an autonomous, viable palestine. that's it.

i'm pleased that the bush people resisted the whackjob approach advocated by the senate republicans, which seems to have been little more than an attempt to use the appearance of sticking by neoliberal principles as a tool to screw the uaw. bankruptcy at this juncture would have been the height of irresponsibility, a wholesale substitution of the financially oriented worldview of the neoliberals for any sense of social responsibility.

i don't agree with the writer of the article about the position this places obama's team in, though---what i see this as doing is more forcing the new administration's hand in terms of figuring out some kind of industrial policy at the level of goals and administrative apparatus that will enable a coherent direction of resources across the economy in order to both move through this implosion of the neoliberal world order and begin the process of seeding something viable (and a way of managing it) into the future.

i should say that i support this despite my political views: if revolution were to come at this point, it would come from the extreme right. fascism is a response to socio-economic crisis.

i'm sure that the details will fall like snow from the media apparatus over the coming hours...

what do you think of this move?

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Baraka_Guru

I'm a bit relieved that there are conditions on the bailout. I'm not sure what the specifics are, but the article mentions that the companies must reorganize and return to profitability. I"m not sure what they'd need to do, but my guess is it will have much to do with catering more directly to the market with a long-term view. There's a reason why I see far more Japanese cars on the roads than I do American cars. It has to do with trends leaning towards fuel efficiency in a car that will last for more than a few of years before it starts to fall apart. Japanese cars are generally more efficient and higher quality. American manufacturers need to compete with that directly, or they'll continue to get smoked.

The hit these companies took with the tumbling of SUV sales should serve as a lesson. I think some of these companies had too many eggs in that basket.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

roachboy

agreed..but i see the problems as being as much technological/organizational as i do mangerial/financial. and socio-political as well. on the latter--this amounts to the imposition of limits on the extent to which focus on capital flows can correspond to a deterritorialized view of capitalism. what's a bit alarming about the arrangement just announced is that its logic can head in several directions--for example, were mc=cain the incoming el jeffe, i would expect that it would have resulted in setting a framework for the making-explicit that the worlds occupied by working-class americans could be understood as the new third world. with obama, there are more alternatives in principle---i just hope that he is not in fact *such* a centrist that he allows his administration to get sucked down that pipeline--because it'd be easy to do.

everyone who thinks about it has known for a long time that there has been a contradiction between the way neoliberalism operates--to the exclusion of all interests that are not constituted by holders of capital--and social coherence over even the medium run in the states. but the collective fixation on capital flows---a function of the dominance of neoliberalism in the states, it's status as lingua franca from the early 80s onward, repeated endlessly via the "free" american press etc etc---had enabled the avoidance of this contradiction. it's implications unfolded at that register of silent anxiety motor...what's strange is the extent to which the folk directly impacted by these deterritorializing processes bought into the same ideology that justified them in the first place. otherwise, you'd have seen what you're starting to see all around now---strikes.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Deltona Couple

taken from shrinking gm means pain for factory families

GM vs. Toyota
GM and Toyota are the two biggest car companies in the world. We compare them side-by-side:

Average assembly line wage
GM: $31.35 per hour
Toyota: $27 per hour


Health Care Costs per Vehicle (2004)
GM: $1,525
Toyota: $201

-----------------------------------------------------

OK, just using this information the average GM assembly line worker makes 31.35 per hour. Now take into account how much of that goes to the Union, and then take into account the plant closures annually for retooling and updating of the equipment, so line workers only get 70% or so of their base salaries durring the retooling period as part of the agreement with the manufacturers.

This means that after you figure everything into it, most workers at the plants are making more like $18-20 an hour when compared to what the average US employed blue-collar worker gets. So annual salaries are more along the lines of $36,500 per year.

I see alot of people talking about how the plants are being shut down and all with the low economy.....the truth is that EVERY year the plants are shut down around X-mas, and are closed for up to 4 weeks for equipment retooling, etc. The manufacturers are adding an extra week or two to the already SCHEDULED plant shut downs due to the economic slump to help curb costs.

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