Full speed ahead! (to paraphrase David Farragut's command during the Battle of Mobile Bay in the Civil War)Certainly LOOKS that way when it comes to America's car makers these days.
With the implosion of General Motors, we're seeing all the subsidiary companies that fed parts and sub-assemblies into them now also doing the "Chapter 11 Two-Step".
And to think GM was SUCH an icon for this nation...as if it was ALWAYS here and would NEVER go away.
We always considered it right up there, alongside the CATHOLIC CHURCH...the 2 greatest forces in this nation (and possibly the world).
Well, that's the way it USED to be, anyway.Technically, GM is not really "going away", but this restructure is definitely going to put a damper on things, automotively-speaking, for a while. Personally, I don't feel that GM will EVER again become the bastion of capitalism and American Spirit that it once was.
I challenge anyone to prove me wrong, and I will gladly concede.
Our local paper had a decent article by Frank Gray today.
Here's the link to the story: http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20090602/LOCAL0201/306029961
Who could have possibly imagined a mere forty years ago, someone saying (jokingly) that GM will fold just past the turn of the century? They'd be considered on some sort of non-prescription DRUG...or tanked out the ass on cheap-ass liquor.
And now, all these smaller outfits that supplied parts TO General Motors are in the same boat (just at a different bank of oars).Yet, there IS "good news"...if you can call it that.
We The People are now "proud" owners of a huge debt-laden car company. The government is into them for about 60% with the latest cash toss (read bailout), so that makes US (taxpayers) owners after a fashion. Every taxpayer has footed about $400K (and change...the type we can't believe in) to bail out GM.
Well, I guess that ought to make getting parts for my 26 year old PONTIAC FIREBIRD a HELLUVA LOT EASIER...AND CHEAPER, right?
I mean I AM a "co-owner" now, and that SHOULD provide me with a FEW "perks".
Same goes for all of YOU who own and drive a GM vehicle, no matter WHAT the year, make, model, and type.
I mean...we're pretty much SET FOR LIFE...being "owners" and all, right?
And the dominoes continue to fall....gonna be a fantastic finish, I'll wager.
One could say that the car makers' collapse, can be attributed to the lack of know where the "boundaries" were...as in biting off more than one could chew.Used to be a time when MAKING CARS was ALL that a CAR MAKER was noted for...and that seemed to pan out pretty damn well.
Trouble started when these car makers began to "diversify"...get their fingers into other pies that they should have NEVER done in the first place. They became "bankers" and "money-lenders". Gee, I thought we already HAD BANKS and LENDING AGENCIES for that kind of crap?
And then they started to buy OTHER car companies, merging, and rendering stocks hand-over-fist. They were writing checks that their bank accounts couldn't cash...they simply couldn't see past that old billfold, folks.
Welcome to TODAY.Companies that led the way in our fight against global domination and fascism, through 2 world wars, are now deserted, rusted memories of a much better time, economically. They stand as a long lost tribute to the American Dream, and the American Spirit.
Make no mistake, American WILL rebound from this, but as to what we will find at the end of this economic "sojourn" is anyone's guess.
In the past, whenever some place closed, there was ALWAYS something else to keep the manufacturing drive going, whether it was a car company, an electronics company, or even a factory that made tin cans.
We cannot be so bold as to state likewise today.
We...are pretty much HOSED.
American, a nation to which SO MANY other nations owe so much to as we helped them preserve their freedoms (and ours) since our inception, now is the nation THAT OWES SO MUCH TO OTHERS.
We're in hock way up past our eye-teeth, and it's not going away anytime soon.
Would that we could roll back the calendars to those years when our national debt ONLY was in the MILLIONS.
Hell, THAT we could pay off, but not what looms on our horizon today.
We have FIFTY STATES in our "Union" (as of 1959), and the way things are panning out, we may be bought out by someone else who might want to add "another star" to THEIR nation's flag.
Let us hope and pray that day NEVER comes.
We ARE made of much sterner stuff, and as a nation, the UNITED STATES, we have ALWAYS prevailed.And I trust that again will be the case...because we've seen too many dominoes fall already.
We need not see any more.
Stay safe out there, America.
6 comments:
well mitch daniels selling the toll road to a forign government isnt doing much better. we are only a few minutes away from being 3rd world nation.
Indy:
Yeah,'ya know I once haerd about ALL that MONEY that was SUPPOSED to be coming to INDIANA after they leased off that toll road...
So...where the hell IS all that dough, anyway???
Certainly makes 'ya wonder, doesn't it?
(Gonna have to buy ROSETTA STONE soon...I think we'll NEED some foreign language "training"...ya think?)
LOL!
Thanks for stopping by.
B.G.
I was listening to the radio - big fat anti-american Michael Moore is touting the fall of the automakers as a "great thing" .. yeah right. Let's toss his behind on a raft and shove him offshore.. set him in one of those streams in the ocean.. let him drift for a long time and go to another country. But the UAW getting $70 an hour for their workers is just plain ridiculous. For doing what? turning a wrench? When I lived in MN, working at Lakeside Toys, we had to join the union. Didn't like having part of my hard-earned money going to someone else. AND when it snowed, the senior people would stay home.. no problem for them.. they would not get fired.. but we came to work. And when it was time for layoffs.. guess who got laid off.. not the slugs who sat around and didn't do their jobs half the time, or do good production. It was the ones with less seniority. Never mind if they had higher production rates. I ran my injection molding machine, and ran 3/1 to the slug next to me. Guess who got laid off.. because of seniority. :|
we have an open shop at my job. the only reason i stay in the union is for the 40hours a week in the contract. that is it. also in my contract management has the right to mismanage. oh there is more bs that i wont get into in this forum. i think gm workers were getting 24 an hour. that 70 comes from the company sharing into health, and retirement benifits. i get a printout every year saying how much money i make an hour and it is nowhere near what i see every week on my paycheck.
Diane:
Moore WOULD think the collapse of the car companies is a good thing...he needs the bloody EXERCISE...LOL!
$70 an hour isn't just ridiculous...it's CRIMINAL!
And YES, I managed to WORK myself out of MY share of jobs as well...join the club.
The good thing that came out of it...I walked away from other jobs, because of PRINCIPLE!
But no one said the WISE & KNOWLEDGEABLE person is the constantly EMPLOYED person now...did they?
(damn shame)
Thanks for commenting.
B.G.
Indy:
The way unions operate comes down to ONE thing alone:
Dangling a carrot in front of the mule (workers) to get it to work.
They USED to be there to halt sweatshop practices and unsafe working conditions.
Now, they're nothing more than bloated shadows of themselves, serving their OWN interests. The workers are there only because they HAVE to be, sad to say.
Worker for worker, a NON-UNION shop that treats it's workers as PEOPLE will ALWAYS outproduce a UNION shop, no matter HOW MUCH money is tossed at the union workers...that's a fact.
When the people WANT to work for a place, that speaks VOLUMES, instead of people HAVING towork for a place.
Read Studs Terkel's book WORKING...and you'll see what I mean.
Thanks for commenting.
B.G.
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