Are you at all pissed that Obama spent 80 billion of your money to prevent the GM and Chrysler from going bankrupt? Remember how bad Obama and the democrats said it would be if they filed chapter 11? How is that plan working out? IDIOTS!!! Where is the outrage? Why not a single news story on this blunder? Why hasn't his popularity rating plumeted? Where's my 80 billion? Is anyone paying attention?
Why aren't there riots?
JV II
21 - 40 of 101 Posts
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910 Posts
- Location
- Nashville, TN
I'm driving an Acura made in Ohio. My last car was a Chrysler made in Mexico, and a great disappointment.
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1,947 Posts
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- Northern Vermont / SW FL
My sis's BMW was made in Tennessee... My Toyota Tundra in Indiana(now they're made in Texas). What's the issue? Unfortunately one of my friends just bought a dodge pickup because his friends would give him grief that it's not a US made truck. He probably has as many, if not more foreign parts in that, than in a current Tundra, but good luck at trying to tell his friends that. I can't believe he caved into them, oh well.
His last Dodge Pickup transmission died (second or third time) with less than 80k on the truck.
They might be upset that Tundra is non-union. Hmmm, they all have jobs (even when they closed the plant for 3 or so months last yr during a downturn in sales, and to much inventory on dealers lots). Tundra kept paying them, and sent them out into the community to work on projects there! Now that, in my mind, is a great way to take care of your workers (if you have the ability to do so)!
-VtSeaRay
His last Dodge Pickup transmission died (second or third time) with less than 80k on the truck.
They might be upset that Tundra is non-union. Hmmm, they all have jobs (even when they closed the plant for 3 or so months last yr during a downturn in sales, and to much inventory on dealers lots). Tundra kept paying them, and sent them out into the community to work on projects there! Now that, in my mind, is a great way to take care of your workers (if you have the ability to do so)!
-VtSeaRay
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1,540 Posts
- Location
- Ft. Lauderdale, Fl.
I'm sorry but we JUST DID LET GM FAIL! Thats what bankruptcy is. We dumb a$$ fools just paid 80 BILLION for the privilege of letting it fail.
This has been a fiasco of gargantuan proportions. WHY, to save the unions, not the jobs. A straight unassisted bankruptcy would have had all the GM assets sold to other entrepreneurs who would have kept the divisions they bought alive but with out union labor.
Where is the collective voice of America, they are still in love with BHO, blinded by their devout need to support this buffoon. The bigger question is why such fealty for a man that has yet to do anything of much value except embarrass us and him self?
American has gone into collective insanity.
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1,713 Posts
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- Lancaster,PA Boat: -Sue Creek, MD
I still don't understand this whole fiasco... Our media is again doing a dis-service by reporting the peaches and cream versions of this whole mess... I would have to agree that in part this was done to keep the union solvent. If GM was able to file bankruptcy and force the union out I would bet many more would follow suit.
I have a sinking feeling the next big 'news' will be the compensation packages the leaving management will get for doing such a 'fine job' as they come out of the restructure...
My thoughts are that many a company realized that now that there are 3M out of work we can layoff what we want and not get news or if we do the public will be numb to it.... Then once we start hiring back we can state the turn around has begun...
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2,166 Posts
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- Jacksonville, FL
Well I am still waiting for an answer to this regarding the "Big Three" in the past few years Toyota and Honda alone have built over 18 plants in the US, while the "Big Three" have moved plants out of the country. And no? All of the auto manufactures used outsourced parts. Camry's made in Georgetown, Kentucky are all made from US steel and 80 percent of their parts come from US suppliers.
So there is much which needs to be looked at from both sides
The reason there has not been an outcry is that now you have close to 50 percent of those who vote getting (I am not talking about being old enough to vote) just what they want, socialism. And the polticians are eating it all up.
If 1/3 of eligible voters do not vote then, then one only needs to to obtain more then enough votes of one of the other 1/3's to be elected.
Ah yes "Change" ?
:huh:
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605 Posts
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- Gig Harbor, WA
Exactly.....this "buy american" crap always cracks me up. Now if all the parts were manufactured in America, the vehicle was assembled in America, the company ownership was American and the product was competitive in the market, I might buy this logic.
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1,540 Posts
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US Auto's are made from US made components. The "Just In Time" assembly processes require parts and component assemblies be very close to the final assembly plant. There are no longer parts supply warehouses, any warehousing is in the truck trailer between parts mfg and the assembly plant.
The point is that nearly all the parts and sub assemblies for US made autos are made in the US by US Corporations BUT owned by foreign owned manufacturers such as Denso, Panasonic, Yanmar (Japan). This was done to meet the regulatory restrictions on US auto makers for percentage use of foreign made parts. A foreign owned factory in the US is a US made part for regulatory compliance.
These sub component suppliers are not generally unionized and operate at traditional world comparative costs.
The Foreign Branded Assembly plant sin the US operate in much the same way, they buy parts from US plants which are foreign owned. This includes BMW, Mercedes, Honda, Toyota and others.
When GM and Chrysler filed for CH11 Reorganization they in general are able to abrogate all their excutory contracts with land lords, unions etc..
The process being undertaken in these instance s is a "363 Sale" where the Oldco remains a entity and retains all its liabilities and debts, without sufficient assets to retire them. The Judge convert the bankruptcy to a Ch. 7 and liquidate by collecting all the Oldco assets sell them off and pay out the secured debt holders and right sympathetic letters to the unsecured creditors. I estimate legal fees for GM’s Bankruptcy: $100 Million!
Going forward Oldco is allowed to sell its assets to a third party where the proceeds of sale are used by OldGM to settle its obligations and pay the cost of bankruptcy. Newco(s) go forward with a squeaky clean slate.
In GM's case what is happening is the The Existing GM shareholders have been "nuked" and get nothing (this includes the pension funds, insurance companies, and trust funds that own GM in their portfolios). Parts suppliers will get some consideration, but mostly "nuked".
Bond holders for Oldco will get new shares in NewGM albeit a smaller share of ownership but will be unsecured, creating "Mini Nuked" pension funds, insurance companies, and private equity and hedge investment funds, AND
You my fellow citizens have supplied the all important 80 Billion in cash to purchase the assets in to NewGM and recapitalize the NewGM and you get 60% of the common equity of New GM. But here is the really neat part of GM and the Unions is that that 17 Billion PLUS "We The People" lent to GM back in January ... You got NUKED again!
New GM will launch without any debt, money in the bank, cars in "work in progress" a pared down dealer network where those shed will have been "nuked". New labor agreements (mostly still onerous) will be in place with the unions getting 20% equity.
Everyone else "Nuked". So here is the high spots on GM:
Bondholders of OldCo get 20% equity
Unions Get 20% Equity
US Gov't Get 60% Equity.
A large portion of the dealer network gets "Nuked." and hold the angry consumer bag of car owners without local dealers for service.
Then 13 Communities with assembly plants get "Nuked" and huge numbers of employees displaced into unemployment lines ... to collect all that cash forced down the states throats to support the unemployment system ... (wasn’t this about saving jobs?)
Solvent local businesses in all these States will get whopping unemployment tax increases to support the drained benefit system, (yes it is each States employers that pay for unemployment benefits and not the Feds), So good businesses get "Mini Nuked" and their goods become less competitive.
The really cool thing is if the politicos mess with this government owned and controlled GM you'll get a second chance to fix the sacred lamb.
Now We have not heard much about Chrysler but a "363 Sale" to Fiat has been in the works, but Fiat is only obligated itself to buy the assets for another two weeks. Chrysler and Fiat are not accepting the union line ... the Unions just might decide to kill Chrysler's best chance which is Fiat in the chance they can and will get more of the company in a follow up bid when Fiat walks. Right now, its Fiat's "Stalking Horse" bid any other suitor must beat or the process breaks. If a new auction for the assets is undertaken in an emergency circumstance, the unions would be the strongest bidder, and guess what they will get billions from YOU to support their bid. Chrysler has to repay their loans to the Feds (you) in two weeks, which if that comes to pass means it will get the GM treatment, and WE all really get "Nuked Again"!
The travesty of this all is the money we gave the Auto industry was not to save it, but to give it time to prepare for bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is not for the penniless. This process is only useful for companies that maybe hopelessly impaired but have lots of cash. If you are dead broke, you can't use bankruptcy. Go figure!
Pitch Forks are in rack to the right!
The point is that nearly all the parts and sub assemblies for US made autos are made in the US by US Corporations BUT owned by foreign owned manufacturers such as Denso, Panasonic, Yanmar (Japan). This was done to meet the regulatory restrictions on US auto makers for percentage use of foreign made parts. A foreign owned factory in the US is a US made part for regulatory compliance.
These sub component suppliers are not generally unionized and operate at traditional world comparative costs.
The Foreign Branded Assembly plant sin the US operate in much the same way, they buy parts from US plants which are foreign owned. This includes BMW, Mercedes, Honda, Toyota and others.
When GM and Chrysler filed for CH11 Reorganization they in general are able to abrogate all their excutory contracts with land lords, unions etc..
The process being undertaken in these instance s is a "363 Sale" where the Oldco remains a entity and retains all its liabilities and debts, without sufficient assets to retire them. The Judge convert the bankruptcy to a Ch. 7 and liquidate by collecting all the Oldco assets sell them off and pay out the secured debt holders and right sympathetic letters to the unsecured creditors. I estimate legal fees for GM’s Bankruptcy: $100 Million!
Going forward Oldco is allowed to sell its assets to a third party where the proceeds of sale are used by OldGM to settle its obligations and pay the cost of bankruptcy. Newco(s) go forward with a squeaky clean slate.
In GM's case what is happening is the The Existing GM shareholders have been "nuked" and get nothing (this includes the pension funds, insurance companies, and trust funds that own GM in their portfolios). Parts suppliers will get some consideration, but mostly "nuked".
Bond holders for Oldco will get new shares in NewGM albeit a smaller share of ownership but will be unsecured, creating "Mini Nuked" pension funds, insurance companies, and private equity and hedge investment funds, AND
You my fellow citizens have supplied the all important 80 Billion in cash to purchase the assets in to NewGM and recapitalize the NewGM and you get 60% of the common equity of New GM. But here is the really neat part of GM and the Unions is that that 17 Billion PLUS "We The People" lent to GM back in January ... You got NUKED again!
New GM will launch without any debt, money in the bank, cars in "work in progress" a pared down dealer network where those shed will have been "nuked". New labor agreements (mostly still onerous) will be in place with the unions getting 20% equity.
Everyone else "Nuked". So here is the high spots on GM:
Bondholders of OldCo get 20% equity
Unions Get 20% Equity
US Gov't Get 60% Equity.
A large portion of the dealer network gets "Nuked." and hold the angry consumer bag of car owners without local dealers for service.
Then 13 Communities with assembly plants get "Nuked" and huge numbers of employees displaced into unemployment lines ... to collect all that cash forced down the states throats to support the unemployment system ... (wasn’t this about saving jobs?)
Solvent local businesses in all these States will get whopping unemployment tax increases to support the drained benefit system, (yes it is each States employers that pay for unemployment benefits and not the Feds), So good businesses get "Mini Nuked" and their goods become less competitive.
The really cool thing is if the politicos mess with this government owned and controlled GM you'll get a second chance to fix the sacred lamb.
Now We have not heard much about Chrysler but a "363 Sale" to Fiat has been in the works, but Fiat is only obligated itself to buy the assets for another two weeks. Chrysler and Fiat are not accepting the union line ... the Unions just might decide to kill Chrysler's best chance which is Fiat in the chance they can and will get more of the company in a follow up bid when Fiat walks. Right now, its Fiat's "Stalking Horse" bid any other suitor must beat or the process breaks. If a new auction for the assets is undertaken in an emergency circumstance, the unions would be the strongest bidder, and guess what they will get billions from YOU to support their bid. Chrysler has to repay their loans to the Feds (you) in two weeks, which if that comes to pass means it will get the GM treatment, and WE all really get "Nuked Again"!
The travesty of this all is the money we gave the Auto industry was not to save it, but to give it time to prepare for bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is not for the penniless. This process is only useful for companies that maybe hopelessly impaired but have lots of cash. If you are dead broke, you can't use bankruptcy. Go figure!
Pitch Forks are in rack to the right!
Joined
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3,746 Posts
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- Perry Hall, MD
At least this money was spent for a good cause... Killing those who want to kill us - BEFORE they tried to kill us. The bad part about it is that since we killed them before they tried to kill us, we can't provide proof.
So... If you believe that the radical Islamic terrorists just decided to stop trying to kill us after 9-11 for no apparent reason, then you probably believe that Bush wasted money on the war. On the other hand, folks like me believe that the only reason that they stopped (or that we didn't hear about any other post 9-11 attacks) is because we did in fact take the fight to them.
The short scoop - If you believe Bush wasted money fighting a war to keep us alive, then you will probably never believe that Obama is screwing up. I am certainly am not going to try to convince you. People like me understand that Bush did the right thing. People like you will never be able to comprehend that. We just won't waste our breath arguing against liberal propaganda. Its hooey, and deserves to be treated as such...
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3,746 Posts
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- Perry Hall, MD
I will go out of my way from now on to buy products and services from NON-UNIONIZED companies.
The unions have backed the liberals for a long time. Now, we are all screwed. The inmates are actually running the assylum. So, the only thing that I can do is to sit back and let the inevitable happen. i am sick and tired of being demonized and mocked by the left. Fine. You made this bed, now we shall all lie in it. Just be aware that I WILL research every large purchase and contract that I sign from now on to make sure that none of my money will ever support a unionized business again. At this popint, our economy is wrecked for all of us. Anyone who understands what is going on knows that the liberals have successfully destroyed this country. I will not help them in our hour of need.
To all of the non-lefties on this board, how does the idea of a "Conservative Business Network" sound? We should put up a web site, and list only companies who do not allow unions, support liberalism, or any other "un-American" policies like open borders (yes, we can kick out XX million illegal aliens, and yes, it will take a while, but it can be done). Then, at least we can support each other without helping the other side. I'm done with them.
Michael
The unions have backed the liberals for a long time. Now, we are all screwed. The inmates are actually running the assylum. So, the only thing that I can do is to sit back and let the inevitable happen. i am sick and tired of being demonized and mocked by the left. Fine. You made this bed, now we shall all lie in it. Just be aware that I WILL research every large purchase and contract that I sign from now on to make sure that none of my money will ever support a unionized business again. At this popint, our economy is wrecked for all of us. Anyone who understands what is going on knows that the liberals have successfully destroyed this country. I will not help them in our hour of need.
To all of the non-lefties on this board, how does the idea of a "Conservative Business Network" sound? We should put up a web site, and list only companies who do not allow unions, support liberalism, or any other "un-American" policies like open borders (yes, we can kick out XX million illegal aliens, and yes, it will take a while, but it can be done). Then, at least we can support each other without helping the other side. I'm done with them.
Michael
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61 Posts
- Location
- Wabash IN
It is possible GM could repay the loans the US has given them. If Obama keeps printing money runaway inflation will occur. Then GM can pay us back with worthless dollars. We will be no better off than a 3rd world country. In only two presidents terms we will have destroyed the greatest economy ever known. China will be the next super power. They learned from us and we forgot history.
I feel for the youth of this country.
I feel for the youth of this country.
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2,567 Posts
All UNIONS? Just curious?
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3,746 Posts
- Location
- Perry Hall, MD
Yep... All of them... Unless you can show me one that has supported non liberal candidates at least a couple of times. Every union member that I know votes for whom the union says to vote. Not once have I heard any of them say that their union was backing a non liberal candidate. Since they have been that blind and closed minded for so long, it is time for me to do the same. They are getting what they wanted. I hope they enjoy it. I just won't be helping. Time for me to become closed minded as well. They made me do it.
Any contracting work that I have done from now on will be given to private, non union construction companies.
All vehicles that I buy for now on will be bought from non unionized auto manufacturers.
Anything that I have to have transported will be done by non unionized trucking companies.
I will no longer buy any products that say "made in the USA with union labor". If I can't find a non union made product, I will do without.
Your union is safe. I can't buy a different Fire Department. So I guess we're stuck with each other.
Are any of the beer companies unionized? I surely hope not
Any contracting work that I have done from now on will be given to private, non union construction companies.
All vehicles that I buy for now on will be bought from non unionized auto manufacturers.
Anything that I have to have transported will be done by non unionized trucking companies.
I will no longer buy any products that say "made in the USA with union labor". If I can't find a non union made product, I will do without.
Your union is safe. I can't buy a different Fire Department. So I guess we're stuck with each other.
Are any of the beer companies unionized? I surely hope not
Joined
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715 Posts
- Location
- Louisville, KY
My union didn't tell me how to vote, so there's one for you.
As for unions, I do the same job as 3000 other people I work with. In some cases, collective bargaining is the only way to go.
Sorry you won't hire union workers. My father-in-law was like that ever since he had some hot rivets dropped on him. Not all unions are created equally. I work in the airline industry, and it amazes me how many people sign up for low-paying "non-union" flying jobs, only to organize a few years later when they realize it's the only way to protect their working conditions.
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5,410 Posts
- Location
- Northern NJ
100% agree with what Chad wrote. Every post I was going to create, Chad did and did better. Good work!
The only thing I'll add is that 80b is a pile 'o cash. Considering the "new GM's" anticipated market share, they will be hard pressed to pay that back.
Best regards,
Frank C
Interesting reading
From yesterday's WSJ"
What I Learned as a Car Czar
History shows government and automobile manufacturing don't mix.
By ION MIHAI PACEPA
They say history repeats itself. If you are like me and have lived two lives, you have a good chance of seeing the re-enactment with your own eyes. The current takeover of General Motors by the U.S. government and United Auto Workers makes me think back to Romania's catastrophic mismanagement of the car factories it built jointly with the French companies Renault and Citroen. I was Romania's car czar.
When the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu decided in the mid-1960s that he wanted to have a car industry, he chose me to start the project rolling. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. I knew nothing about manufacturing cars, but neither did anyone else among Ceausescu's top men. However, my father had spent most of his life running the service department of the General Motors affiliate in Bucharest.
My job at the time was as head of the Romanian industrial espionage program. Ceausescu tasked me to mediate the purchase of a minimum, basic license for a small car from a major Western manufacturer, and then to steal everything else needed to produce the car.
Three Western companies competed for the honor. Ceausescu decided on Renault, because it was owned by the French government (all Soviet bloc rulers distrusted private companies). We ended up with a license for an antiquated and about-to-be-discontinued Renault-12 car, because it was the cheapest. "Good enough for the idiots," Ceausescu decided, showing what he thought of the Romanian people. He baptized the car Dacia, to commemorate Romania's 2,000-year history going back to Dacia Felix, as the ancient Romans called that part of the world. In that government-run economy, symbolism was the most important consideration, especially when it came to things in short supply (such as food).
"Too luxurious for the idiots," Ceausescu decreed when he saw the first Dacia car made in Romania. Immediately, the radio, right side mirror and backseat heating were dropped. Other "unnecessary luxuries" were soon eliminated by the bureaucrats and their workers' union that were running the factory. The car that finally hit the market was a stripped-down version of the old, stripped-down Renault 12. "Perfect for the idiots," Ceausescu approved. Indeed, the Romanian people, who had never before had any car, came to cherish the Dacia.
For the Western market, however, the Dacia was a nightmare. To the best of my knowledge, no Dacia car was ever sold in the U.S.
Ceausescu, undaunted, was determined to see Romanian cars running around in every country in the world. He tasked me to buy another Western license, this time to produce a car tailored for export. Oltcit was the name of the new car -- an amalgam made from the words Oltenia, Ceausescu's native province, and the French car maker Citroen, which owned 49% of the shares. Oltcit was projected to produce between 90,000 and 150,000 compact cars designed by Citroen.
Ceausescu micromanaged Oltcit, but he didn't even know how to drive a car, much less run a car industry. To save the foreign currency he coveted, he decreed that the components for the Oltcit were to be manufactured at 166 existing Romanian factories. Coordinating 166 plants to have them deliver all the parts on time would be a monumental job even for an experienced car producer. It proved impossible for the Romanian bureaucracy, which pretended to work and was paid accordingly. The Oltcit factory could produce only 1% to 1.5% of its intended capacity owing to the lack of the parts that those 166 companies were supposed to furnish simultaneously. The Oltcit project lost billions.
Ceausescu was an extreme case, but automobile manufacturing and government were never a good mix in any socialist/communist country. In the late 1950s, when I headed Romania's foreign intelligence station in West Germany, I worked closely with the foreign branch of the East German Stasi. Its chief, Markus Wolf, rewarded me with a Trabant car -- the pride of East Germany -- when I left to return to Romania.
That ugly little car became famous in 1989 when thousands of East Germans used it to cross to the West. The Trabant originally derived from a well regarded West German car (the DKW) made by Audi, which today produces some of the most prestigious cars in the world. In the hands of the East German government, the unfortunate DKW became a farce of a car. The bureaucrats and the union that ran the Trabant factory made the car smaller and boxier, to give it a more proletarian look. To reduce production costs, they cut down on the size of the original, already small DKW engine, and they replaced the metal body with one made of plastic-covered cardboard. What rolled off the assembly line was a kind of horseless carriage that roared like a lawn mower and polluted the air worse than a whole city block full of big Western cars.
After German reunification, the plucky little "Trabi" that East Germans used to wait 10 years to buy became an embarrassment, and its production was stopped. Germany's junkyards are now piled high with Trabants, which cannot be recycled because burning their plastic-covered cardboard bodies would release poisonous dioxins. German scientists are now trying to develop a bacterium to devour the cardboard-and-plastic body.
Automobile manufacturing and government do not mix in capitalist countries either. In the spring of 1978 Ceausescu appointed me chief of his Presidential House, a new position supposed to be similar to that of the White House chief of staff. To go with it he gave me a big Jaguar car. That Jaguar, which at the time had been produced in a government-run British factory, was so bad that it spent more time in the garage being repaired than it did on the road.
"Apart from some Russian factories in Gorky, Jaguars were the worst," Ford executive Bill Hayden stated when Ford bought the nationalized British car maker in 1988. How did the famous Jaguar, one of the most prestigious cars in the world, become a joke?
In 1945, the British voters, tired of four years of war, kicked out Winston Churchill and elected a leftist parliament led by Labour's Clement Attlee. Attlee nationalized the automobile, trucking and coal industries, as well as communication facilities, civil aviation, electricity and steel. Britain was already saddled by crushing war debts. Now it was sapped of economic vigor. The old empire quickly passed into history. It would take decades until Margaret Thatcher's privatization reforms restored Britain's place among the world's top-tier economies.
The United States is far more powerful than Great Britain was then, and no American Attlee should be capable of destroying its solid economic and political base. I hope that the U.S. administration, Congress and the American voters will take a closer look at history and prevent our automotive industry from following down the Dacia, Oltcit or Jaguar path.
Lt. Gen. Pacepa, the highest ranking Soviet bloc official granted political asylum in the U.S., is the author of the memoir "Red Horizons" (Regnery, 1987).
Just for fun...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz9q3uPmeGw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1Fj_8fMcE4&NR=1
The only thing I'll add is that 80b is a pile 'o cash. Considering the "new GM's" anticipated market share, they will be hard pressed to pay that back.
Best regards,
Frank C
Interesting reading
From yesterday's WSJ"
What I Learned as a Car Czar
History shows government and automobile manufacturing don't mix.
By ION MIHAI PACEPA
They say history repeats itself. If you are like me and have lived two lives, you have a good chance of seeing the re-enactment with your own eyes. The current takeover of General Motors by the U.S. government and United Auto Workers makes me think back to Romania's catastrophic mismanagement of the car factories it built jointly with the French companies Renault and Citroen. I was Romania's car czar.
When the Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu decided in the mid-1960s that he wanted to have a car industry, he chose me to start the project rolling. In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. I knew nothing about manufacturing cars, but neither did anyone else among Ceausescu's top men. However, my father had spent most of his life running the service department of the General Motors affiliate in Bucharest.
My job at the time was as head of the Romanian industrial espionage program. Ceausescu tasked me to mediate the purchase of a minimum, basic license for a small car from a major Western manufacturer, and then to steal everything else needed to produce the car.
Three Western companies competed for the honor. Ceausescu decided on Renault, because it was owned by the French government (all Soviet bloc rulers distrusted private companies). We ended up with a license for an antiquated and about-to-be-discontinued Renault-12 car, because it was the cheapest. "Good enough for the idiots," Ceausescu decided, showing what he thought of the Romanian people. He baptized the car Dacia, to commemorate Romania's 2,000-year history going back to Dacia Felix, as the ancient Romans called that part of the world. In that government-run economy, symbolism was the most important consideration, especially when it came to things in short supply (such as food).
"Too luxurious for the idiots," Ceausescu decreed when he saw the first Dacia car made in Romania. Immediately, the radio, right side mirror and backseat heating were dropped. Other "unnecessary luxuries" were soon eliminated by the bureaucrats and their workers' union that were running the factory. The car that finally hit the market was a stripped-down version of the old, stripped-down Renault 12. "Perfect for the idiots," Ceausescu approved. Indeed, the Romanian people, who had never before had any car, came to cherish the Dacia.
For the Western market, however, the Dacia was a nightmare. To the best of my knowledge, no Dacia car was ever sold in the U.S.
Ceausescu, undaunted, was determined to see Romanian cars running around in every country in the world. He tasked me to buy another Western license, this time to produce a car tailored for export. Oltcit was the name of the new car -- an amalgam made from the words Oltenia, Ceausescu's native province, and the French car maker Citroen, which owned 49% of the shares. Oltcit was projected to produce between 90,000 and 150,000 compact cars designed by Citroen.
Ceausescu micromanaged Oltcit, but he didn't even know how to drive a car, much less run a car industry. To save the foreign currency he coveted, he decreed that the components for the Oltcit were to be manufactured at 166 existing Romanian factories. Coordinating 166 plants to have them deliver all the parts on time would be a monumental job even for an experienced car producer. It proved impossible for the Romanian bureaucracy, which pretended to work and was paid accordingly. The Oltcit factory could produce only 1% to 1.5% of its intended capacity owing to the lack of the parts that those 166 companies were supposed to furnish simultaneously. The Oltcit project lost billions.
Ceausescu was an extreme case, but automobile manufacturing and government were never a good mix in any socialist/communist country. In the late 1950s, when I headed Romania's foreign intelligence station in West Germany, I worked closely with the foreign branch of the East German Stasi. Its chief, Markus Wolf, rewarded me with a Trabant car -- the pride of East Germany -- when I left to return to Romania.
That ugly little car became famous in 1989 when thousands of East Germans used it to cross to the West. The Trabant originally derived from a well regarded West German car (the DKW) made by Audi, which today produces some of the most prestigious cars in the world. In the hands of the East German government, the unfortunate DKW became a farce of a car. The bureaucrats and the union that ran the Trabant factory made the car smaller and boxier, to give it a more proletarian look. To reduce production costs, they cut down on the size of the original, already small DKW engine, and they replaced the metal body with one made of plastic-covered cardboard. What rolled off the assembly line was a kind of horseless carriage that roared like a lawn mower and polluted the air worse than a whole city block full of big Western cars.
After German reunification, the plucky little "Trabi" that East Germans used to wait 10 years to buy became an embarrassment, and its production was stopped. Germany's junkyards are now piled high with Trabants, which cannot be recycled because burning their plastic-covered cardboard bodies would release poisonous dioxins. German scientists are now trying to develop a bacterium to devour the cardboard-and-plastic body.
Automobile manufacturing and government do not mix in capitalist countries either. In the spring of 1978 Ceausescu appointed me chief of his Presidential House, a new position supposed to be similar to that of the White House chief of staff. To go with it he gave me a big Jaguar car. That Jaguar, which at the time had been produced in a government-run British factory, was so bad that it spent more time in the garage being repaired than it did on the road.
"Apart from some Russian factories in Gorky, Jaguars were the worst," Ford executive Bill Hayden stated when Ford bought the nationalized British car maker in 1988. How did the famous Jaguar, one of the most prestigious cars in the world, become a joke?
In 1945, the British voters, tired of four years of war, kicked out Winston Churchill and elected a leftist parliament led by Labour's Clement Attlee. Attlee nationalized the automobile, trucking and coal industries, as well as communication facilities, civil aviation, electricity and steel. Britain was already saddled by crushing war debts. Now it was sapped of economic vigor. The old empire quickly passed into history. It would take decades until Margaret Thatcher's privatization reforms restored Britain's place among the world's top-tier economies.
The United States is far more powerful than Great Britain was then, and no American Attlee should be capable of destroying its solid economic and political base. I hope that the U.S. administration, Congress and the American voters will take a closer look at history and prevent our automotive industry from following down the Dacia, Oltcit or Jaguar path.
Lt. Gen. Pacepa, the highest ranking Soviet bloc official granted political asylum in the U.S., is the author of the memoir "Red Horizons" (Regnery, 1987).
Just for fun...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz9q3uPmeGw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1Fj_8fMcE4&NR=1
I have a problem with loosing business in Boston because certain buildings are union only, their attitude is if your not union you don’t deserve to make a living, in most cases I just higher a union sub, add a few points on top of the bill, so the customer is paying close to double what they would if they were in the building next door.
Do you know what they do to unions in a China? What a paradox. The arguement is that we are becomming socialist? There are no unions in China. China is socialist. If anyone tried to start a union in China they would disappear and become one of those Body Works exhibits. Fact: the bodies in Body Works are Chinese.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAVt7h0zdxs[/youtube]
I never thought it would be a good idea for China to buy GM until now.
Joined
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2,567 Posts
Believe me I'm at ODDS to say the least with the IAFF..... But and this is a big But...
I work for a Township with 35 career Firefighters..(I was the 3rd hired) governed by trustees... 3 trustees. and before we went union it only took 2 of the 3 to change my benefits and I had
a) zero say so in the matter,
b) only the assurances of my Chief that he would fight to preserve what we had and
c) FEDERAL restrictions on my ability to legally strike or "slow" down to make my point if needed.
One of the biggest mitigating factors to gaining my support as a Charter member of my Local was the fact the my union dues are Federally prohibited from being used for political action. That is what the PAC fund is for and I do not support the IAFF PAC... In fact I have shirts made each election year and physically handed one to President Bush at a rally that said Firefighters for Bush
Joined
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831 Posts
- Location
- Clarendon Hills, IL
UNIONS!!!!
As a small business owner for the past 35+ years, in construction, I have had my share of Union experiences.
I have been non-union, union and non-union over that period of time. Employing as many as 30 people, seasonally, but keeping the better part of 18+ year round.
I did my very best to make sure my people were taken care of during the slack periods.
Never once did our Union come to my rescue during bad times.
My biggest problem with Unions is the fact that they dictate to me, as the Employer, how much money I should pay my employees.
NEVER is it taken in to account that these employees need to make me a profit so that I CAN keep them employed!
Since 1989, I have downsized and rid myself of all of my hourly and salaried workers and have sub-contracted all of my work out. Some of my sub-contractors are union and some are non-union. that is up to them to determine. My bids are let on the basis of performance, previous work and sufficient insurance. No more no less.
My Equation for work is as follows:
Cost of Job - Labor - Materials - Time = Profit/Overhead/Customer Satisfaction
So far it works.
Unions were once viable. They have outlasted there usefulness.
NO ONE IS GOING TO TELL ME HOW MUCH I HAVE TO PAY AN EMPLOYEE IF THIS EMPLOYEE DOES NOT MAKE ME A PROFIT!!!!!!
WHY SHOULD I, BE IN BUSINESS IF THAT IS WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN??
I will get off of my soapbox now and sit back and be prepared to get battered!!
Thanks
Dan
Joined
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3,746 Posts
- Location
- Perry Hall, MD
And I never backed a Republican because he wanted to steal your job, take food out of your kid's mouths, or ship your job overseas. Which is what the unions preach. To the contrary, I voted for people who wanted to let YOU keep what you earned, instead of taking it out of your paycheck to give it away. I voted for people who wanted to give your kids better schools, free of things like teaching kids to put condoms on cucumbers, and teaching them that being great is a bad thing. I voted for people who wanted to make things better. Yet we have been scoffed at, lied about, and mocked for years by the Demoncrats, media, unions, and "educators". So, I am not going to take it any more.
And why exactly is it that all of these wonderful unions have NEVER come out against the illegals coming in and stealing your jobs? Shouldn't they stand up for you? Shouldn't you be mad at them? The Democrats are telling you that they are supporting you out one side of their mouths while aiding and abedding the people who really ARE stealing your jobs out the other side. How come the carpenters union isn't stampeding the White House complaining that 8 out of 10 of the workers swinging hammers on the job site aren't paying union dues, aren't paying taxes, and are quite frankly, taking food out of their kids' mouths? Why? Because they have been told over and over that It was George Bush. It was a fantastic diversion, that worked (and still works). Until you get past that, unions are what they are, a solid voter block of people that can be duped over and over again.
"Groupthink" always causes trouble....
Right back at ya'
(Not trying to single you out Kameroo... You just hung a curve ball out there. I'll buy you a beer if we ever meet (and won't talk politics)
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