GM's Problems: Who's To Blame? You Tell Me

[t-rex]

Originally Posted by Uzzy

#1 UAW/CAW

#2 Dealer Network

/thread

Oh how I envy your gift of succinctness!

[Uzzy]

Originally Posted by t-rex

Oh how I envy your gift of succinctness!

I blew almost half of my lunch walking to Subway and back, so I gotta eat and respond.

Mmmm, 6" turkey on whole wheat and Chicken Gumbo.

[jlt0x]

This one's easy...

Blame both GM consumers and GM UAW workers.

GM consumers are the blame because they religiously bought GM products in the late 80s, thru the 90s and early 2000s when GM's products were blatantly non-competitive, badge-engineered, and lacked the quality expected of descent American-made products. If consumers stopped purchasing GM products then, GM would have had to take a serious look at their product portforlio and do the things they've been been doing lately 15 years ago. Why do you think the Olds brand folded? Why are people still affraid to buy a Saturn? Why is the Escalade so similar to the Tahoe/Yukon, but costs thousands more?

It took Cadillac to be on the brink of complete failure to make GM brass realize that their design and execution of products had to change. Ford's management moves too slow and they're paying the price...buy not making much money from 2-3 models.

Why did it take GM so long to realize that quality and design is king in the auto market? Why do you think Toyota and Honda are doing so well?

The UAW is dragging GM's bottomline thru some fowl stuff these days. At a time when the labor union should be doing its best to make GM a strong industry competitor, it OKs strikes and costs GM more money. GM will eventually de-unionize all its facilities (except for the professional positions - artists, engineers, designers). Laborers are supposed to be on the cheap-side of the salary scale. But when you have janitors pulling $50k or better to get their time before retirement, overhead costs tend to rise. Hiring non-union workers with certifications to do special tasks (welding, engine repair/builds, painting, etc) makes the workforce more competitive internally to do a better overall job thus making the overall quality better too.

There's a reason labor cost in other countries are lower than those in the US...they know the actual job is simple and are paid accordingly.

[K-1]

Originally Posted by VCDJ

They went after trucks and suvs because there was money to be made??? THat is funny. In last ten years how many times did gm produce profit?
I woudl expect it every year since there was money to be made in trucks and suvs.

What's really funny is how people like to spout off, as if they know everything, without data to back up their claims.

Directly from their SEC 10-K filings...

2007: $38.732bil net loss
2006: $1.978bil net loss
2005: $10.417bil net loss
2004: $2.701bil net profit
2003: $3.525bil net profit
2002: $1.736bil net profit
2001: $.601bil net profit
2000: $4.452bil net profit
1999: $6.002bil net profit
1998: $2.956bil net profit
1997: $6.698bil net profit
1996: $4.963bil net profit
1995: $6.881bil net profit
1994: $4.901bil net profit
1993: $2.466bil net profit
1992: $23.498bil net loss

Yep, GM hasn't made a dime in the past decade.

[GMC-70]

Originally Posted by VCDJ

I agree with everyting that you said. Plus to add to that. Those so called patriots are purchasing mexican made gm product over American made japanies cars. YOu are right, how can anybody support a company that does not give a s**t about you. Why would you buy their product. Or when they tell you Buy American hhr that is made in mexico? why would i do that? i will rather buy American made honda. GM will go out of business soon. Because of idiots who keep buying crap like aveo and cobalt. IF they told gm we will never buy this junk from you. GM would produce superior product. But they see there are idiots who will buy junk so why make anything better?

Do you think any company gives a ***** about you If so, you are just a freakin idiot!

I support American companies when I can for America --not the well being of the company.

[Buickman]

since Red Ink Rick became CEO

shareholder value

2000 - $66,000,000,000
2001 - $48,000,000,000
2004 - $25,000,000,000
2005 - $15,000,000,000
2006 - $10,000,000,000

today fast approaching
$9,000,000,000

you wouldn't even want to know how much long term debt has skyrocketed.

GMAC half gone, Olds history, and Buick on it's last legs (due to starvation of product and the worst possible marketing imaginable including constantly changing slogans).

maybe we need to bring in some more Keebler elves and toothpaste salesman.

how can anyone in their right mind think anything will change under Wagoner. as I called for resignation years ago, I will now state unequivically that if he remains, not only will we not make any bread but we'll be toast.

[VCDJ]

Originally Posted by K-1

What's really funny is how people like to spout off, as if they know everything, without data to back up their claims.

Directly from their SEC 10-K filings...

2007: $38.732bil net loss
2006: $1.978bil net loss
2005: $10.417bil net loss
2004: $2.701bil net profit
2003: $3.525bil net profit
2002: $1.736bil net profit
2001: $.601bil net profit
2000: $4.452bil net profit
1999: $6.002bil net profit
1998: $2.956bil net profit
1997: $6.698bil net profit
1996: $4.963bil net profit
1995: $6.881bil net profit
1994: $4.901bil net profit
1993: $2.466bil net profit
1992: $23.498bil net loss

Yep, GM hasn't made a dime in the past decade.

Add up all looses and profits and see if gm made any money. You are so smart you should be able to do that. And dont tell me that 38b loss was just paper loss because gm had to record as profit at one point of time. So in 15 years gm lost billions. Nice way to sell truck and suvs.

[lam]

Originally Posted by K-1

What's really funny is how people like to spout off, as if they know everything, without data to back up their claims.

Directly from their SEC 10-K filings...

2007: $432mil net loss($38.3 billion non-cash charge)
2006: $1.978bil net loss
2005: $10.417bil net loss
2004: $2.701bil net profit
2003: $3.525bil net profit
2002: $1.736bil net profit
2001: $.601bil net profit
2000: $4.452bil net profit
1999: $6.002bil net profit
1998: $2.956bil net profit
1997: $6.698bil net profit
1996: $4.963bil net profit
1995: $6.881bil net profit
1994: $4.901bil net profit
1993: $2.466bil net profit
1992: $23.498bil net loss

Yep, GM hasn't made a dime in the past decade.

By the way I fixed the last one , $38.3 billion non-cash charge.

[Uzzy]

Originally Posted by GMC-70

I support American companies when I can for America --not the well being of the company.

"What's good for GM is good for the country and vice versa."

[VCDJ]

Originally Posted by GMC-70

Do you think any company gives a ***** about you If so, you are just a freakin idiot!

I support American companies when I can for America --not the well being of the company.

Yes i do. Company that produces high quality cars gives a S*** about me. Company that produces junk does not.

[GMC-70]

Originally Posted by Uzzy

"What's good for GM is good for the country and vice versa."

True---I didn't phrase that well

[K-1]

Originally Posted by VCDJ

Add up all looses and profits and see if gm made any money. You are so smart you should be able to do that. And dont tell me that 38b loss was just paper loss because gm had to record as profit at one point of time. So in 15 years gm lost billions. Nice way to sell truck and suvs.

They have 20-something billion in cash on-hand. Obviously, over the course of history the gains have outweighed the losses. Since when is cumulative net income(loss) a valid financial analysis? You're way off the mark, pal.

[agman25]

It is simple
- Going away from Sloan's dictum "a car for every purse and purpose." GM ignored too many segments for too long. Performance oriented luxury, small CUV, class leading small cars, the list is long. What is the point of have 8 divisions if you cannot cover every niche in the market. These niches over time have become larger and GM had no products to compete.
-Ignoring the importance of technology. Sticking with OHC v6's for example. Yeah they might work all right but so does a 1'st gen iPod. People want the latest stuff.
-Pre-Lutz too much reliance on market research and not enough reliance on instincts to make cars. No great car ever came out of statistical market research. Harley Earl and Bill Mitchell did not design cars that way. Luckily Lutz has changed that.
-Reliance on the "put enough cash on the hood and people will buy any ****,we will make the money on the APR on the loan" model for selling cars.

An organization's problems are almost always internal. As long as GM and apologists for GM continue to blame everyone and everything else for them, things will never get better. Luckily the present management has stopped doing that. As long as GM keeps on track things should go OK. The Volt is an example of that. I like the "we will have the first mass produced and affordable EV in the market and we don't care if every other car company in the world thinks that it cannot be done" attitude. Sloan would have liked that.

[K-1]

Originally Posted by VCDJ

Yes i do. Company that produces high quality cars gives a S*** about me. Company that produces junk does not.

If said company cared about you, they wouldn't be making a few grand of profit off your back. They'd sell it at cost. Connect the dots and you'll see that the company only cares about your money.

[dratnol]

Originally Posted by skylark68

I blame Dubyah and unfair trading practices among our rising sun friends.

We have a very free and open market and our so called allies do not.

This has been going on for much longer then the past 7 years. Look what happened to our electronics industry in the 60s and 70s.

Originally Posted by t-rex

Not that Detroit was producing anything of remotely decent quality (in comparison) in those days.

Then of course we had the "Reagan Revolution" where Joe American became completely ignored as a political system began to systematically dismantle this country's production base, and shifting our economy to what effectively became a huge numbers racket. Of course to obfuscate the public's realisation that this was happening, they were spoon fed a media diet of every panic-inducing scare imaginable: AIDS, the homeless, and let's not forget heating up the Cold War, funneling trillions into a bloated military (and just who profits from that?) while our steel industry collapsed completely and the family farm went the way of the Dodo. Of course Joe Q. Public let it all happen, since he was oblivious to reality, instead getting an artificial warm fuzzy patriotic feeling from joingoistic hokey Lee Greenwood songs.

It's not GM management's fault. Nor the UAW's. It's the fault of the bulk of American people who, for all reasons not-practical, bought Detroit's festering piles of **** for so many decades. Flag-waving Midwesterners, defacing import cars with eggs and other sundry goodies, most vehemently stuck to the notion of the superiority of the raggedy Detroit junkmobile, and representing a pathetical mentality that still pervades to this day in most of the country: the fat, lazy, notion that instead of getting off your a** and producing something superior, you simply outlaw the superior product so you can continue producing garbage. Funny how the most ardent flag-waving "Amurricans" most closely parallel the Soviet mentality of how things should be produced.

Okay so Red-Ink Rick and his twirling band of merry fartknockers surely have done their perfunctory job of dismantling GM bit by bit, slowly enough that nobody'll notice, while their Ivy-League brethren make fortunes on the desiccation.

Wow, I don't even know where to begin. First off nice use of stereotypes and prejudices against people based on nothing less then the area of the country that they live in. To call home the moral high ground you live at must be great.

Secondly to say that Detroit couldn't make a quality car in the 80s is a joke and perpetuation of false stereotypes. To this day I still see more H-bodies on the road then any other car of the same vintage. The Japanese cars all rotted away or can be easily spotted by the noxious cloud of blue smoke behind them.

I won't even go into the media based "panic" and other interesting twists on the 1980s.