board77

Well, either they are supported on government money channeled through the company (with CEOs taking their cut) or they are supported on government money directly as a substitute for the job. Either way it appears I'm going to be paying them.

One thought if the Big 3 go belly up, where do those people with American made cars and trucks get parts? Sure they will be somewhat plentiful in the next little bit of time, but say in 3 years if no one is making parts how do those who own American made fix their vehicles?

Excellent point Ara-anna.

Working right with that is the fear Americans will have of buying a US car with just that in mind. Which is why it has to be resolved in a decent amount of time here.

When Volkswagon and Toyota buy the plants they'll continue to make replacement parts for currently existing vehicles.

Even the old Trabant factories have current use.

Cenedril_Gildinaur wrote:

When Volkswagon and Toyota buy the plants they'll continue to make replacement parts for currently existing vehicles.

Why should they do that, since they would make more money selling a new car to the person. These are car dealers after all.

Predicting the future actions of anyone is a very murky business and I do not think the American people are willing to bet on anyones message board speculations.
I think Ara-anna has a valid point. Let the US cars turn into expensive lawn decorations and sell them a new Honda.

That is where the big money is going to be.

Because there's an opportunity for profit that if they don't someone else will make instead of them.

Well that certainly is a possibility.
I wonder if that theoretical prediction of the future would soothe the fears of American car buyers? In an ideal world - maybe it would work like that. But we have seen over the past decade that the ideals of the free marketplace did not turn out the way the theorists predicted.

Ara-anna (I suspect) is onto something. The big profit is in letting the US cars rot and in selling their owners a brand new Honda or Toyota.

Of course we have not seen that over the past decade the ideals of the free marketplace did not turn out the way the theorists predicted - because we haven't had a free marketplace over the last decade and the theorists were quite blunt about how we haven't had a free marketplace over the last decade.

We have seen the theorists for the free marketplace predict that what we do have instead won't work, and the recession we are sliding into agrees with their predictions.

The theorists who led us here, never seeing where they are leading us (not the free marketplace theorists) all agree that the profit is in letting US cars rot.

"Nothing ain't worth nothing when its free."
Kris Kristofferson said that.

When you deal in the real world of 21st century America, of course you will not get any completely 100% Adam Smith free Markets. But its our version of 'free markets". So that is what we deal with.

I said that.

"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows".
Robert Zimmerman said that.

The whole parts thing could indeed turn out just like you predict. However, it also could not. I am not a car guy but have a good friend who is and rebuilds cars asd a hobby. He will not use parts made by any company other than the original manufacturer even if they are licensed by the Big Three. He claims there is a qualitative difference.

We will see.

Adam Smith is as much the most recent authority on capitalism as Galileo is the most recent authority on Astronomy.

The PBS show Frontline had a program called HEAT that gives some insight into the failings of the US car companies and their hard headedness with regards to more efficient vehicles.

This is the specific segment that talks about the industry. It is 12 minutes long.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... iew/5.html" target="_blank" target="_blank

I agree with much of what was said, including the US automobile needed to begin thinking of higher gas effiecency 32 years ago. 32 years ago is a while back, I remember when all those tree hugging hippies were commie loving nut cases.

and the worst thing was we keep hugging and loving those trees all day and all night long and all we got was splinters.

I will not likely ever buy another American made car. The last American made vehicle we bought is such a piece of crap it's soured me forever. Don't care what changes they make or promises, either. My husband has always been a GM guy. No more. Never.

And that's how capitalism works.


Now, if only schools worked the same way, we could see massive improvements there...

Except private businesses are just that and public services are an entirely different organsim.

Apples and cinder blocks.

Unless they weren't entirely different, and thus you could weed out the low performing ones, and more greatly reward the high performing ones.

Of course, you have to deal with the unions, who protect low performers, and hurt high performers, so that is a problem...

Mr. Halplm
Are you presenting this statement

Quote:

Of course, you have to deal with the unions, who protect low performers, and hurt high performers, so that is a problem...

as merely your opinion or as an authoritative statement of fact?

I read it as opinion, and I think that's the most acceptable way to read it. Forgive me if I'm wrong.