Glancing at the car boards and apparently Ford will be next. Similar burn rate as the other two but secured credit lines before the SHTF, so they are still good until around the end of 2009.
It’s too bad, would’ve been nice to see one of them survive.
I was commiserating, as Mordrak said. And I am aware that the whole town doesn’t look like that. But even taking into account that this is a specifically-selected handful of buildings, it is still incredibly shocking to me.
Of course, after what I just posted above (in agreement with Mordrak), I’ve probably pissed off everyone enough that nobody will care what I’m saying here. :)
This seems to be a pretty condescending attitude to take about an entire swath of the country. You must realize that there is a lot more at stake here than the livelihoods of the line workers. If GM, Ford, and Chrysler are The Mill, they’re certainly The Mill for the entire country. If we stop making cars, we stop making anything of significance. And then what? We’re left with a service industry economy with less employed people able to pay for said services and essentially no marketable goods to sell to the rest of the world. We need to continue to make things here and the auto companies are the last bastion for that.
Edit: I apologize for being raw about the picture link you posted Rimbo. I’m just so used to cheap shots I defend from all sides, even where there’s no attack.
That may be, but a great first step to making that transition easier is to have the mechanism that allows someone to transition out of those jobs and in the many unavoidable scenarios where people won’t find jobs paying as much, to have the social safety nets in place to catch them (strengthening social security and universal health care). There’s still the psychological issue of overcoming the job defining their existence but at least then they wouldn’t have the added burden of society literally treating them like they are worthless. That’s a much better solution than putting the companies on permanent life support.
If there’s a way to salvage the industry, I’m all for it. But if we do it, we should have the kind of tough stipulations that are being put in place. These motor companies (especially Chrysler from the accounts from this thread) are partly (and possibly even mostly) because of poor leadership. I’m not sure how anyone can argue for keeping the leadership when the problems just trickle down from there. But I’m certainly not one who thinks the market will solve all our problems.
I think this mischaracterizes what’s going on. I wouldn’t advocate permanent life support. All I’m saying is that it’s worth helping these companies get through this current rough patch. They can be a big part of turning it around or they can be another massive casualty that makes things even worse.
Psychologically, it may be the mill, but we’ve long gone past being a manufacturing society. Saving the car companies isn’t going to bring it back for the nation. I agree it’s an issue we’ll have to address eventually, but clinging to a couple of companies like our blanky isn’t the solution.
So the solution is to dump the last remaining manufacturing industry this country has? I don’t think I’m being Chicken Little when I say that that scares the crap out of me.
No worries, MSUSteve, and I apologize for sounding supercilious, but when you make statements like:
“If we stop making cars, we stop making anything of significance.”
This kind of attitude is exactly what I’m talking about.
There are at least 3 things wrong with the above statement. One, cars are the only thing the USA makes of significance (or that building a physical thing is required for a thing to be significant). Two, that cars are even significant. Three, that the failure of GM, Ford and Chrysler would end American auto manufacturing (e.g.).
Your response illustrates my point.
So no one is going to call out FineHamAbounds on saluting the auto manufacturers for doing their part after 9/11?
Dunno if it’s an alt for this forum, but the last post gave away who it is. :)
Whoever he is, he could learn to read a little more closely before calling me out for my rhetorical use of the word stupid. Sorry for my part in turning this thread into a turd though.
I also mentioned this. So go ahead and call me out if you wish.
Simply disagreeing with you doesn’t make me wrong. I mean, I’d love for you to disabuse me of my failings here. I’m more than happy to admit I’m not an expert. But what else do we physically manufacture in the U.S. besides cars? Maybe it’s a value proposition regarding the merits of making anything. I might be a dinosaur, stuck in a prehistoric age where I think it’s important to have the ability to make physical goods lest we be up a creek should the time come where sources of said physical goods become hostile and/or not viable. Software and movies aren’t going to cut it in such a circumstance, to address my “failure” to appreciate the value in the non-physical goods we produce.
I’m not ignoring the fact that foreign auto makers would continue making things here, but again, I see value in domestically owned companies making goods for Americans. In that case, as much money as possible stays in this economy as opposed to being shipped overseas. I realize we’re in a global economy, but money here is money here, regardless.
Disregarding all that, and assuming I’m drop dead wrong on all of this, the fact that 3 1/2 million jobs are at stake is enough reason in and of itself for us, as Americans, to pull together and get through this. It’s going to be better with the auto companies and those 3 1/2 million jobs than it is without.
I assure you that GM, Ford, and Chrysler are not the Mill for me or any of my friends. Those companies are important to a wide swathe of the company, but they simply aren’t vital for a large number of us. I’m not saying that their disappearance won’t affect me & my friends, but their well being just isn’t all that (directly) important to us.
Besides, what Rimbo was getting at wasn’t how important they are, but rather how flexible the minds of the people involved are. I’m currently sucking at the teat of the Evil Empire (aka Microsoft), but if Microsoft were to suddenly disappear, I’d quite happily go find another software company, or switch careers entirely. Hell, software programming is already my third career, and my wife has had 5 completely different careers. And we’re both in our early 30’s.
I think Rimbo does condescendingly overstate the rust belt’s “Mill” mentality. But he is getting at a very real phenomenon; people from that part of the country do tend to be less flexible about career changes & retraining. Still, I think his characterization that the Mill mentality is the primary contributor to the doomsday talk is misguided; the Rust Belt & much of the Midwest really is going to be devastated by the closure of the auto companies.
If we stop making cars, we stop making anything of significance. And then what? We’re left with a service industry economy with less employed people able to pay for said services and essentially no marketable goods to sell to the rest of the world. We need to continue to make things here and the auto companies are the last bastion for that.
I don’t mean to be too harsh, but this is just plain false. Any kind of good can drive the economy, including non-tangible goods like “software”, “research”, and “management”. There is nothing sacrosanct about durable goods, and they are not the only things “of significance”. Of course, it’s always good to have as diversified economy as possible, but durable goods don’t necessarily have to be part of that diverse economic portfolio.
Who? I know of several dickhead conservative posters that take the “I’m too cool for this place” line. I also know of several dickhead liberal posters that do the same, but we have a different flavor to our dickishness.
And some of us are just a bit off kilter. >.>
Here you go: http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/G17/Current/table1.txt
(Note: 2nd column is proportion, the rest is % change)
By industry group, motor vehicles and parts = 4.28% of US industrial production
When 3 1/2 million jobs disappear overnight, there simply aren’t 3 1/2 million jobs waiting for new applicants to jump on in. It’s not a simple matter of switching software companies, so your anecdote, while interesting to help get to know you (Hi!) isn’t really on point.
Ah, I might’ve messed that up by the way I used the word signficance. I didn’t mean to imply that durable goods are sacrosanct and that services and non-durable goods aren’t important and can’t be what drives a successful economy. What I meant to say is that it’s important, at least in my view, to be able to make something. To have that capacity to make durable goods. Look, I’m dancing around it, but I’ll just come out and say, that I think it’s important to have some manufacturing base in the event such has to be mobilized for war.
The death of GM or Chrysler (or both) would be a very big deal, but it wouldn’t be the end of US auto manufacturing, and the idea that the auto industry represents all or even the bulk of manufacturing in the US is a VERY Detroit-centric viewpoint.
Thanks for digging that up James. VERY interesting stuff. Looking at the rest of the durable manufacturing numbers I’m wondering how much of that is occupied supplying the auto companies with metal, machinery, and electronic components. It doesn’t seem to me that the "parts’ portion of “motor vehicles and parts” would take that stuff into account, but I could be wrong.
Are you saying that we’d still have Ford, or are you saying that foreign companies would continue making cars here? To me there’s value in domestically owned auto companies, but that might also be a VERY Detroit-centric viewpoint.