pearl2k

Mitt Romney's NY Times Op-Ed On the Automakers: Dead On

If the car companies go, that's it. We fully cede our manufacturing base to foreign countries. GM & Ford have spent BILLIONS retooling in the last couple years to bring great cars with great technology to the market this year and next. Let's hope they can hang on.

However, N American operations for both GM and Ford are completely out of touch. Both companies do outstanding in Europe, and are successfully penetrating China, Russia etc. Amazing cars in other countries which leaves you scratching your head, why don't we get these cars. Well, NA can only make a profit selling high margin trucks. The union/labor legacy issue has to be dealt with. Where else can you go to work at 18, retire after 40 years, then have someone pay you to do nothing for the next 25? We live longer and our health care costs more. Defined benefit plans all across the country are going to be in the same boat. They have to go. It's a raw deal for workers, but that's a holdover from another era.

On Nov 20 11:51 AM John D wrote:

> Now that it's getting down to the crunch can someone explain ONE
> thing to me, in a country where the government spends TRILLIONs on
> WAR in other countries (I realize it's to protect the US as well,
> but) why would the government not do as much at home to protect democracy
> & the industry that has been supporting a VERY large part of
> the country for a century now. Is it fair to bail out Wall St. (they
> finally found the weapons of mass destruction - right on Wall St.)
> and not the millions of citizens that will lose the taxpaying jobs
> that would help contribute to the taxes to cover the financial system
> failure. I find that much of the resistance is nothing more than
> the arrogance of certain senators who's states are not affected as
> much. If they feel that Toyota & Honda will contribute as much
> to their country than GM - Ford & Chrysler they are seriously
> mistaken - those profits SUPPORT their countries - Americans are
> just paying for it. Perhaps the question they should be asking is
> why North American Auto makers are not allowed to sell freely in
> Japan & Korea, maybe it's because those governments are not blinded
> by arrogance. If the North American governments had sought an EQUAL
> trade deal instead of a FREE trade - dump what ever you want here
> - deal, the Big 3 would have been sitting in a much different position
> now and actually be helping to pull the economy out of recession
> - "Buy an import and drive North America into DEPRESSION"