American Cars
Bush says the American worker can compete with anyone. Which American worker - the one with stupid management or the one with smart management. Take automobiles for example (since I am shopping for one. Honda and Toyota get good reviews while most of the others have strings of complaints). Local sentiment about the layoffs at GM and Ford is that the unions brought it on themselves. Now I don't see how the unions caused the car companies to design crap no one wants to buy. Actually, buying "American" is pretty hard when they are us and we are them. Here are a few facts I found:
Approximately 80 percent of the Honda's cars and light trucks sold in North America are produced here as well.
Ford has plenty of money to expand to China.
Japan’s automakers
investment in the U.S. has climbed to $17.5 billion since 1987. Nearly 50,000 Americans are employed directly by the manufacturers, while more than 230,000 sell Japanese-branded vehicles at 7,000 dealerships, according to the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association (JAMA). At the same time, US is investing in foreign car companies. GM holds a 20% equity stake in Fuji Heavy Industries Limited; GM holds a 49% equity stake in Isuzu Motors Limited; Ford holds a 33.4% equity stake in Mazda Motor Corporation; DaimlerChrysler holds a 37% equity stake in Mitsubishi Motors Corporation; Renault holds a 36.8% equity stake in Nissan Motor Co. Ltd; Renault holds a 22.5% equity stake in Nissan Diesel Motor Co., Ltd; GM holds a 20% equity stake in Suzuki Motor Corporation. Would they be better cars if American management didn't have large interests?
Japanese plants are run much more efficiently because of better management.
The number of Japanese auto plants in the United States has grown. There were 11 in 1993; 28 are expected to be operating this year, according to the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association. Although foreign companies employ less than a quarter of U.S. autoworkers, their growing presence looms large over the strategic decisions of both the corporate managers and the union officials at their U.S. rivals.
posted by Flimsy Sanity @ 4:52 AM
3 Comments:
At 12:22 PM,
Anonymous said…
Flimsy, I watched the televised session of the auto execs explaining the need for the 30,000 layoffs. I drew pictures, made lists, did a diagram...at the end, it boiled down to, "It's you or us. Drop dead, American workers...and try to do it out of sight somewhere that won't hit a photo op!" I note that United Airlines, emerging from bankruptcy and almost 30,000 layoffs, has managed to find $420million with which to bonus executives -- argument: we need that kind of incentive to attract people competent to run the business. If they were competent to run the business, what was it doing in bankruptcy?
Hello?
At 7:32 PM,
R J Adams said…
The car industry in America is a perfect example of sheer, unadultereated mismanagement by the directors. For years they have refused to invest in R&D to keep pace with Japanese competition, preferring to feather their own financial nests until the bubble burst - as it now has due to falling salaries in the consumer sector coupled with escalating fuel costs. The Japanese recognized the trend years ago and developed smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles that perform better than the 4, 5, and 6 litre leviathons still churned out by GM and Ford today. I'm a bit of an old sports car freak, and in Britain I owned a 1987 Toyota MR2 sports car. It had an aluminium 1.6 litre, twin overhead cam engine, and sported electric everything. It was capable of over 125 mph and returned around 40 mpg. In America, I bought a 1987 Pontiac Fiero - because it was almost exactly the same shape and style as the Toyota MR2. In fact, Pontiac stole the design from Toyota. It has an old 2.5 litre, cast iron four banger of an engine that max's 85 mph, returns around 25mpg, and boasts electric nothing. Japanese cars were streets ahead of their American counterparts in 1987. It is now 2006, and they have continued to accelerate away for the last twenty years. I will never buy an American car again - ever!
At 9:45 AM,
Omnipotent Poobah said…
Dub made similar comments about how the US is losing its high tech capabilities. He blamed it on poor education (like teaching ID I suppose).
I blame it on the fact that he's allowed his buddies at US companies to export every job worth having, so even if people were well-educated there would be nothing for them to do.
Fast food workers can't afford cars, domestic or otherwise.
Nice post.
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