Tag: auto industry

May 27 2010

Technologically Advanced at One Thing

MAKING MONEY!!!!

And that’s ALL, that’s what the whole business economy is geared to and who pays when they aren’t regulated and that creates huge problems, like the criminal enterprises many have become, everyone does but them and their investors!

And it’s not only what’s going on in the Gulf and oil companies and their so called best of the best…………………………… executives, it’s across the board in every big industry and big business model, MONEY is their only concern and not long term growth, getting as much as they can as quickly as they can and hope for the best and when something happens blame everyone else for their extreme failures!

May 27 2009

On Cutting Dealerships, Or, We Examine The Costs Of Selling Cars

So there’s a lot of conversation out there about car dealerships being told they won’t be selling cars for Chrysler and GM any more.

The idea, we are told, is to save the auto manufacturers money by reducing the number of dealerships with whom they do business.

I don’t really know that much about the car business; and I really didn’t understand where these cost savings would come from, but I was able to have a conversation with the one person I do know who actually could offer some useful insight.

Follow along, Gentle Reader, and you’ll get a bit of an education at a time when we all need to know a bit more about these companies we suddenly seem to own…and about the closure of thousands of local businesses that will make the news about our bad job market worse.

Aug 08 2008

We’ve Been Played By US Auto Manufacturers On CAFE Standards

I am a County Delegate and when we met to give suggestions for the party platform, one of the things I suggested was that the European economy standards be adopted starting 2010. Did you know we, the United States of America has the lowest fuel economy standards in the industrialized world? Even China beats us by a mile. Follow me below the fold for the evidence of how we’ve been played.

Apr 29 2008

Bite Size Bad News 2 — Auto

[This is the second in a projected series of short posts I have inaugurated over at Fire on the Mountain. They will focus on one or another particular aspect of the economic situation and are designed as a corrective to the “out of sight, out of mind” approach of the mainstream media to the deepening meltdown. Feedback about the idea is solicited.]

The prospect of $4 a gallon gas, falling real incomes and the growing recession are obviously hitting the US auto industry hard. Other recent developments suggest things are going to get appreciably worse for Ford, GM et al, fast.

For one thing, the runup in commodity prices is sinking its teeth in. Netherlands-based AcelorMittal, the world’s largest steel company, has announced a $250-a-ton “surcharge” on steel it has contracted to sell its US customers. Other steelmakers, hit hard by higher raw material and fuel prices, are expected to follow. The spot market price of steel is up 40-50% from last year. (Hot-rolled sheet steel now runs about $1000 per metric ton at spot, to give you a comparison point). Supplies have tightened further as countries like Egypt, China and Brazil cut exports to ensure their domestic supply. (Need I mention that Hugo Chávez is renationalizing Sidor, Venezuela’s largest steelmaker?)

Oct 04 2007

Should John Dingell be primaried out in 2008 or 2010?

Tom Friedman writes about how Michigan automakers and Toyota have consistently fought against rises in auto emissions standards. What Friedman doesn’t get is what he calls empty-barrel politics — or the practice by Detroit automakers of constantly fighting against higher and higher MPG standards, even though they have been brought to the verge of bankruptcy by those standards.