Progressive control for decades... Detroit is a wasteland

[Caster]

Much of Detroit's problems stem from the city's dependence on one manufacturing base.

Yup! It's a wonder Pittsburg ain't right there too.

[Jonnin]

I'm always amazed by the number of people who've never played the game, but know how to run an auto company.

Its not rocket science in this case. A well trained monkey could produce better cars and more profits than GM at this point: they have nowhere to go but UP (and if you F it up, Obama will rescue you anyway!). Now, if I had to improve the business models for a functional car company, that would take some management skills and know-how, sure. Its the difference between armchair QB for the local grade school team vs the superbowl: a lot of us could improve the tactics for the kids, and almost none of us could do better for most of the big teams....

Edited July 11, 2012 by Jonnin

[Guest Lester Weevils]

I've driven mostly GM vehicles in my life. A total of four GM vehicles managed to tote me around for 38 years requiring minimal maintenance expense. Maybe could say the same about Fords, Nissans or Mercedes had those been the brands I had driven instead of GM. Just sayin the GM vehicles worked fine for me. That said, I never owned a Vega and wouldn't have ever owned a Vega.

Except for the 1967 Camaro, the other three were 2 vans and 1 truck.

Autos nowadays-- Took high school daughter car-shopping in the late 1990's and it was alarming how plain and doggy were the domestic product inexpensive enough for me to purchase for daughter. She didn't like any of them and I couldn't blame her. I wouldn't have wanted any of those plain-jane junkers either. It reminded me of the scam at glasses stores-- A $500 set of frames most likely doesn't have substantially more manufacturing expense than bargain-basement birth-control frames, but unless you want to look like a nerd you have to fork over big bucks for maybe $5 additional manufacturing expense, just to avoid looking ridiculous. Maybe its better nowadays but they kinda have you over a barrel. They could make inexpensive good-looking glasses, but they don't. Seemed the same with the USA autos. GM could have made inexpensive cars that looked just as good as the jap cars, but as best I could tell they were just making all the cheap ones ugly as sin in order to upsell into higher-profit better-looking vehicles. And the japs were making nice-looking inexpensive cars and taking away all that biz that Detroit apparently didn't want. So anyway we found a GM Olds Achieva off-lease from a rental car company that was a fine car for what I could afford, lasted a long time, 10,000 miles odometer, one year old and half off showroom retail price. So she got a nice-looking, great driving, reliable GM for what I could afford, but no way I would have bought that one new.

Wife went car shopping in 2010 and I tagged along. It was about the same dealie. Wife has a short attention span but we managed to stick to it long enough to visit all the various brands. There wasn't anything in the Ford, Chrysler or Chevy lots that wife or me would even take a second look at, and even the $40,000 product didn't rattle our cage.

If I needed an affordable service truck/van, that Ford small van looks near the top of the heap, but as far as I know it is designed in Europe and manufactured in Turkey. Doesn't necessarily do Detroit any good.

Got a Wrangler a couple years ago and so far nothing has fallen off. I like it fine and the price wasn't any worse than anything else. Dunno where the thing is made. But I was just looking at all the different brands and its the only thing that struck my fancy. Whoever designs the USA vehicles, other than trucks, doesn't seem to do a very good job of striking people's fancy, as far as I can tell.

[Guest CCI]

Government welfare programs created to buy the votes of those who want someone to take care of them?

Japan does not have a welfare system.

Work for it or do without.

[Guest ThePunisher]

Government welfare programs created to buy the votes of those who want someone to take care of them?

Japan does not have a welfare system.

Work for it or do without.

Eventually when our country is bankrupt, then people will work for their needs or starve or do without.

[Garufa]

Eventually when our country is bankrupt, then people will work for their needs or starve or do without.

Unfortunately, a large segment of our population does not know what work is or how to go about it. They will just take.

[gjohnsoniv]

Unfortunately, a large segment of our population does not know what work is or how to go about it. They will just take.

^This. Unfortunately Garufa is correct about a lot of people not knowing what work is.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Unfortunately, a large segment of our population does not know what work is or how to go about it. They will just take.

^This. Unfortunately Garufa is correct about a lot of people not knowing what work is.

If we could figure out how to trick people into doing something useful, while under the illusion of having fun playing video games. In that case we could actually charge people for the privilege of working 12+ hours per day.

[gjohnsoniv]

If we could figure out how to trick people into doing something useful, while under the illusion of having fun playing video games. In that case we could actually charge people for the privilege of working 12+ hours per day.

Tell 'em to go beat their heads against a wall and the Mario coins will pop out the top.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Tell 'em to go beat their heads against a wall and the Mario coins will pop out the top.

Tis most likely unworkable, but was thinking along the lines-- Some flavor of computerized reality-mapping. For instance a player thinks he is playing a fun fantasy game but the rules and imagery of the game have been mapped so that actually the player's actions control a remote mining machine or perhaps an assembly line robot.

Or perhaps the player thinks she is playing a game of unicorns, dwarves and elves, while in actuality she is allocating accounts receivables receipts to bookkeeping categories.

Jobs which on the one hand might require vigilance, attention to detail and dexterity. Or other kinds of jobs which require the memorization of thousands of trivia items and then compulsively repeat a hypnotic cycle of game-play ad infinitum in order to play the game assign the accounts receivables.

[wjh2657]

Detroit, and by that we mean the auto industry because you can't separate that industry from the city, failed for multiple reasons.

• Auto manufacturers misread and and misunderstood Market driven sales. They quit making cars people wanted and made cars they thought they could make huge profits on.
  

• Unions got greedy and priced American Labor right out of the market.
  

• The Industry executives showed lousy leadership and worried more about their own fortunes and less about real profit from sales.
  

• European and Asian factories, bombed out during WW2 finally rebuilt and offered quality competition, American Auto Manufacturers did nothing to respond and compete.
  

The Auto industry, the unions and the workers themselves brought on their own doom. Quit blaming politicians, from either party. This was a free market failure (where somebody didn't pay attention to the market), and it went down without government intervention. The later bail outs were just a weak attempt to pick up the pieces and were too late to do any good.

If I buy another American car (and I probably will) it will be a Ford, they know how to meet the market.

Edited July 21, 2012 by wjh2657

[Guest 270win]

Detroit is like a big Memphis. Same type of clowns running the place taking up for the clowns that like to steal, rob, and hurt.

[hornett22]

Detroit started it downhill spiral in the early 60's when they elected Coleman Young as mayor.

They had a chance in the late 90's with Dennis Archer. He quit mid second term when he finally realized they wanted HIM to fix the city while everyone else continued the behavior the got them to where they were.

[Guest FIST]

Traded a Toyota a while back for a brand spanking new 2011GMC. Lowered my payment, more interior room, and better gas mileage. Happy as a pig in ####!

Fast forward 3,000 miles. That's right, from 0-3000 on the odo the truck had to have all the brakes (Drums and Rotors) replaced twice. GM dealer says to me "It's normal". Is that so? Needless to say I replaced it with another Toyota and the funny thing is, I'm still running the same brakes! Maybe they messed up with assembling my new Toyota?

[Guest ThePunisher]

Traded a Toyota a while back for a brand spanking new 2011GMC. Lowered my payment, more interior room, and better gas mileage. Happy as a pig in ####!

Fast forward 3,000 miles. That's right, from 0-3000 on the odo the truck had to have all the brakes (Drums and Rotors) replaced twice. GM dealer says to me "It's normal". Is that so? Needless to say I replaced it with another Toyota and the funny thing is, I'm still running the same brakes! Maybe they messed up with assembling my new Toyota?

Those union workers were still high from there pot break when they assembled the brakes.