Vienna

Automaker Bailout Fails: This Is Not Good

dg314

I fully agree with you. I am from Austria/Vienna where we consider ourselfs to be very social.

But don't mistake us for being stupid. We also know about this problem, and the system has adapted to it in a good way. Read the article about compromises above.

e.g. We have lower social insurance paying from GDP than the states, even though everybody is insured !!!! with higher live expectancy !!!
We heard, somebody once said to Schwarzennegger that he does not want to pay medical for some bum. Arnie said that the US constitution guarantees that everybody will receive medical treatment in the US.

We all work hard here, cause being social does not mean that somebody that is getting social wellfare lives good, it is the bottom baseline, nobody wants it. We also have 50% max Tax, so that the system stays in balance. I am sure that people that work hard don't want to pay tax, but I am also sure that normal people also have to work hard.

The problem with your system is, that at some people greed starts to grow over common knowledge.

Find a good way between both systems, it is the hard way, and not the way I encountered people in the US industry. US is NOT the high productive, high quality country you are always being told, which does not mean that it is bad.

Automaker Bailout Fails: This Is Not Good

This article reads more like the typical comments about other idiots.

I do not think that government is pig headed. I think they have a hard burden to carry, nobody wants them to intervene, but now everybody is blaming them for doing nothing, other are telling them to keep on doing nothing.

Fact is that the US has been screwing up many industries in the recent years, and (tries to) keep on forcing their system onto the rest of the world.

Surely the current situation id bad. In the forum I with my very socialist point of view am getting around 50% + votes, which is fine. This does not mean that all US are little capitalist that are screwing up the world with their system (democracy ?? haha )

As for many things in live (work, marriage, friends) one always needs a form of compromise to make things work - live and let live ( the US version is, lets live and screw everybody else).

I hope that due to the fact, that nobody trust anybody after many years of brutal capitalism, the people will get back down to solid ground.

Conclusion: Giving them money is probably not the best solution, not giving them is probably also not the best solution.

Jump over your shadow and find a median way - e.g. give them 15 bill to give the rest of the industry at least a few month to get things settled out before shutting them down.

Will Detroit's Loss Be Japan's Gain?

UH2L

Sorry for being so direct about the arrogant part, in fact I am not German, but have the same language, but we do not get along well with them due to what you mentioned.

It was rather pointed towards the fact, the this time needs quick heavy changes, and that there will be no space for any personal idealistic prospectives.

To the health care:

I do not know about it in Canada, in central Europe it works quite fine, and I dont feel that I am not treated fine.

Maybe at some point it will not be as good as the one in the states, but everybody will be sure to receive 98% of the possible medical treatment. since this risk is spread over all industries and all people, the threat of a single collapse in one industry is very unlikely. No one, simply no one can not be without it. it costs approx. 30% of net Wage, with max. of approx. 7000$/month as calculation baseline.

For a general baseline - from net wage to full cost for corporation, people with low income have approx. 70% additional cost, people with higher wages up to 100%. Highest tax rate is 50%. We drive BMW and Mercedes and have beautiful old style high cost decorated towns.

For US perspective, just call it a medical fund of fund of funds being operated by an NPO NGO.

I read a lot about the greed thing here, maybe the rich US got a little to rich and too greedy.

Half of U.S. Consumers Delaying New Car Purchases

I think that they partly deserve it yes - but how to deal with the secondary effects.

In Europe we always had very tight rules on which people where allowed to found a company. If you would want to be a constructor you would have to pass quite a few test. In the US you would shout government regulation, communism - remove it.

BUT - we consider it is better to have the people tested that work, than rather to have to fix a lot of houses and find out that someone was not performing.

This could be done with regulations, like higher tax for non fuel efficient cars, or higher gas prices since 20 years as in EU (we realized that oil is a limited resource). Well now this has to be fixed.

I hope that the US stop behaving like arrogant world leaders as they where doing while I was in the US working in Automotive Industry. Will you take the time available to adapt the production lines and technology (no it is not health or pension, in Europe we pay 1€ social cost for every 1€ the employer receives).

And do not do the same old procedure - hope that price of oil will go down to speed up economy - NO - you will need to do this with a lot of energy and now-how by the people involved, and not bet on any external force to help you.

Will Detroit's Loss Be Japan's Gain?

Thank you for the nice article. I am from Europe and have been auditing US auto plants for some time.

The cause is that the people from GM etc I have met where so arrogant and convinced about their system, that they would not listen to any thing. I was always being told about technological leadership and US world power.

I was always quite amused since to my opinion the production systems to my opinion where technological not very advanced and very inflexible.

e.g. the production lines from GM are built to produce one type of car. If you have 3 plants and 2 types of vehicles go down and one up then 2 plants lay dead and the 1 can not cope with production capacity.

Why is this: Well setting up a flexible line is more costly and requires much more coordination. It does not suit the John Wayne management style I encountered.

In fact I would like to join GM or Ford now, since I think this can be a very interesting time.

Obviously the US auto companies need new heads with different approaches, that people who are fix minded at the US corporations have a hard time to cope with these changes.

Don't look at Toyota, do it - this is probably the greatest challenge, telling people that what they have been doing was wrong and that the people copying them are doing it better.

On Dec 07 04:33 AM bs_o_meter wrote:

> A Japanese company ( Toyota ) and an American company (Ford) decided
> to have a canoe race on the Missouri River . Both teams practiced
> long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race.<br/>
>