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GM Regrets Employee Discount for all

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Originally posted by: iamwiz82
Originally posted by: JLGatsby
Originally posted by: Looney
Oh yeah, the fact that they made inferior cars had nothing to do with it:

# Of the 31 cars that earned top rating, 29 were Japanese. Of these, 15 were from Toyota and its Lexus division and eight were from Honda. Some redesigned or new Japanese models from Toyota and Honda, however suffered "first-year blues." The new Scion tC and the redesigned 2005 Acura RL, Toyota Avalon, and Honda Odyssey earned only average reliability scores, for example.

# Of the 48 cars that earned the lowest rating, 22 carry American nameplates, 20 are European, 4 are from Japan (all from Nissan and its Infiniti division), and 2 are from South Korea.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars...t-in-car-reliability-1005/overview.htm


http://money.cnn.com/2004/11/08/pf/autos/cr_auto_reliability/
Click to expand...

Ready for an economic lesson? Here comes.

When you pay your labor more average, in order to compete price wise (price of the cars compared to foreign cars), you have spend less on parts.

American cars fall apart because they use inferior parts because they spend too much on labor.

Make sense? Class dismissed.
Click to expand...

Actually, US and Foreign owned US plants have similar wages, and foreign automakers spend more on health care.
Click to expand...

care to back that up? pay might be equal...but I was ALWAYS under the impression that US healhcare costs/pension costs are the highest
 
Originally posted by: shilala
Am I to understand that stealing money from workers that they earned is an intellectual pursuit?
Okay, I can see that.
Anytime anyone sits for hours/days/years to figure out how to steal something without being imprisoned is technically an intellectual pursuit.
Click to expand...

I suppose you think anyone who makes a profit is "stealing" from the people who worked for them.

If you subscribe to that line of thinking, perhaps you should move to Cuba where no one makes a profit.

Like they used to say in the USSR, where people were not allowed to profit, "we pretend to work, they pretend to pay us."
 
In other new, anandtech.com now regrets opening "all you can post" Off Topic forum!

"Once they found out you didn't really have to say anything, they just went wild. WILD, wild I tell you, wild", said an AnandTech spokesman identified only as 'Brandon'.
 
Originally posted by: JLGatsby
Originally posted by: ElFenix
GM: A Case Study of How Twenty Harvard MBAs Can Run a Company Into the Ground
Click to expand...

Anyone who thinks the people running GM today are the reason it's struggling needs to open a history book.

Unions of the 1960s and 70s destroyed GM.
Click to expand...

You need to reopen your history book and turn to the chapter involving Roger Smith. This bullsh!t finger pointing at the UAW and singling it out as the root cause of GM's downfall is pure bullsh!t. Yes, the union costs GM an ass load of money, but that is not the main reason they are tanking. The MAIN reason lies at the top. GM is full of conservative old board members that won't let a good concept out the door. Why the fvck did GM even spend the money to build the Aztec? Do you know how much it cost to put a car into production? The fact is GM is losing money because they can't complete anymore. Not because of quality (which is also an issue), but because they can't produce a car that appeals to a large enough group of people. The Solstice and the Sky are a great step in the right direction, but they need to cut the sh!t lines like Buick SOON. That division should be bleeding out the ass by now. GM is doing pretty damn well in the SUV and truck department, but you can't put all your eggs in one basket, which is pretty much what GM did. They started to concentrate too much on their truck divisions and let up on their cars. So when the gas prices started to go up, the truck sales took a dive and they had nothing to fall back on.

Let me let you in on other GENIUS moves GM has made. Anyone remember the Sunfire? Yes that crap car. Well, when the car was a concept car, it was featured on Road & Track and looked AWESOME! Side tail pipes, 300hp, front intake, big fat tires, side mirrors located at the top most part of windshield with the blinker on the front. AWESOME looking car! Well guess what GM did? Yep, by the time it made it through all the conservative execs that checked off on the model, it looked like the crap that came out. I'd like to let the GM execs in on a little secret that can save them an ass load of money. Use the freakin' autoshow to gauge the audience's reaction to your concept car! If it is a great reaction, freakin' put it out with NO changes. Chrysler did it with the Viper, what the hell is the problem with GM doing it? No, what GM likes to do is, get a great reaction from their concept car and then totally fvck it up when it goes into production. And then the execs will scratch their heads and say, "hey, why are people not buying our car? It had a great reaction at the autoshow." :roll: Fvcking morons. :|
 
GM has also managed to sucker ford and chrysler into it's discount BS.

that program further cheapened the already cheap image of the domestic cars. at least the japanese weren't stupid enough to follow these tools.
 
Originally posted by: ElFenix
GM: A Case Study of How Twenty Harvard MBAs Can Run a Company Into the Ground
Click to expand...

Or "Why an MBA is No Substitute for Common Sense, Smarts, Real Experience in the Trenches, and Never Becoming Complacent."

EDIT: Or, instead of "Never Becoming Complacent," Dollar Sign Investor "my book smarts trumps your experience" Gatsby Guy might say "Staying Paranoid." The words "only the paranoid survive" can be credited to Intel CEO Andrew Grove, but the words are sickeningly pessimistic to me. I prefer "complacency kills" or "innovation wins." Something like that. And the American Big 3 automakers were the epitome of complacency, not innovation.

BTW, Union, Schmunion, there's nothing wrong with taking care of your workers, because without workers, no work would get done.
 
"In some ways we are turning back the clock," LaNeve was quoted as saying. "The Japanese made their mark by making good products at a lower price. So to some extent, we are going to underprice them."
Click to expand...
Too bad they arn't going to lower their prices AND make a better product. GM is fvcked.

On a side note, this is another thread where JLGastby comes in and proves once again what a pompous jackass he is.
With gem statements like:
And I am an investor well versed in finance, my knowledge trumps yours.
and
Thousands of people graduate from Ivy League schools every year, most of them don't amount to nothing but cubicle drones.

Though he does redeem himself with statements like:
The American healthcare system is the most wasteful in the world.

Overall he's 1-3 in the regular season. Let's see how the post season goes.

 
Originally posted by: JLGatsby
Originally posted by: shilala
Am I to understand that stealing money from workers that they earned is an intellectual pursuit?
Okay, I can see that.
Anytime anyone sits for hours/days/years to figure out how to steal something without being imprisoned is technically an intellectual pursuit.
Click to expand...

I suppose you think anyone who makes a profit is "stealing" from the people who worked for them.

If you subscribe to that line of thinking, perhaps you should move to Cuba where no one makes a profit.

Like they used to say in the USSR, where people were not allowed to profit, "we pretend to work, they pretend to pay us."
Click to expand...

No, I don't think that at all.
I think that when a company contracts to fund a pension for 60 billion and only funds it to 20 billion, that's stealing.
I also think that risking the worker's pension fund to play the market and fund other schemes is also criminal, but that's just me.
 
Originally posted by: Queasy
GM Regrets Employee Discount for all
Click to expand...

That's like Red Lobster saying they regret all you can eat Crab. Sure, it sounds like a good idea until you realize that consumers will really take advantage of your generosity.
Click to expand...


wasn't it all you can eat shrimp that did them in?
 
LOL at this thread, IMHO, it was a perfect storm of all of the reasons listed

Inferior parts made inferior cars
Poor negotiating with the unions made for less profits
Health care costs make it difficult for any company providing them
The legacy of poorly built/designed/marketed cars caught up with them
Cutting prices after 9-11 was a stupid move
Rising gas prices led to the contraction of the pickup/SUV market

Now, the big question is, will they survive? The government bailed out Chrysler, will the government bail out all 3? Is it important to have domestic (and I use the term losely when referring to the big 3) manufacturers? Should we bail out Chrysler since they're owned by Daimler?

PSA, US workers are more & more dependent on federal bail outs of our pension/retiremenet plans, we're looking at some serious Enron type scandals with retirement $ in the next decade...
 
Originally posted by: Aharami
Originally posted by: iamwiz82
Originally posted by: JLGatsby
Originally posted by: Looney
Oh yeah, the fact that they made inferior cars had nothing to do with it:

# Of the 31 cars that earned top rating, 29 were Japanese. Of these, 15 were from Toyota and its Lexus division and eight were from Honda. Some redesigned or new Japanese models from Toyota and Honda, however suffered "first-year blues." The new Scion tC and the redesigned 2005 Acura RL, Toyota Avalon, and Honda Odyssey earned only average reliability scores, for example.

# Of the 48 cars that earned the lowest rating, 22 carry American nameplates, 20 are European, 4 are from Japan (all from Nissan and its Infiniti division), and 2 are from South Korea.
http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/cars...t-in-car-reliability-1005/overview.htm


http://money.cnn.com/2004/11/08/pf/autos/cr_auto_reliability/
Click to expand...

Ready for an economic lesson? Here comes.

When you pay your labor more average, in order to compete price wise (price of the cars compared to foreign cars), you have spend less on parts.

American cars fall apart because they use inferior parts because they spend too much on labor.

Make sense? Class dismissed.
Click to expand...

Actually, US and Foreign owned US plants have similar wages, and foreign automakers spend more on health care.
Click to expand...

care to back that up? pay might be equal...but I was ALWAYS under the impression that US healhcare costs/pension costs are the highest
Click to expand...

JLGatsby already got owned on that account, but rather than admitting it like a man he straw-manned into a different argument
 
They should really rethink the needs of the consumer. I really wish they would have cars with better gas mileage, instead of big SUVs and such.
 
they needa steal the designers from honda, toyota, etc like what google & microsoft are doing against each other
 
One thing that we all agree on is that GM needs to drop their operating costs. Because the American healthcare system is soo expensive that's safe bet to start where a chunk of costs come from. Correct me if I'm wrong, but many unions don't strike because of wages but because of benefits. The other question is why don't they move more plants to Mexico?

I'm pretty sure you all read slashdot--there was an article about how SUV are not more safe than a normal car. There are indications of changing market preferences from SUVs to CUVs that are built on car platforms and are more fuel efficient (so they say).
 
Originally posted by: Perknose
In other new, anandtech.com now regrets opening "all you can post" Off Topic forum!

"Once they found out you didn't really have to say anything, they just went wild. WILD, wild I tell you, wild", said an AnandTech spokesman identified only as 'Brandon'.
Click to expand...

hahahahah....
 
GM did not care what they did to the market at the time, or what they did to the dealers, for that matter. The markup between cost to manufacture and the final cost to the dealer on each vehicle produced, far exceeds a dealer's per unit profit. Translated, that means they did not care, because they still got their factory to dealer markup, which is as mush as $15k per vehicle on their mid to high end SUV's, as an example.

Also, that kind of pricing poisons the mentality of the consumer, as well as puts the used car values in the tank.

I've known some pretty good sales people over the years and when that pricing happened, many of them found themselves making only $2500 per month, instead of the six figuers per year, some of them had been making.
 
Humm, let's see.

I owe a lot of money to the pension fund
My cost of production is higher
I am losing sales to other companies and gas price surge.
I am not making enough money per car to make up for the lost sales volume

I know, let me lower the price of the car, lend the people the money interest free and that way I can be on top again.


HUH????

I don't need a degree in economics nor MBA to know this is messed up thinking.
 
Originally posted by: JLGatsby
Originally posted by: AgaBoogaBoo
I don't know much about this topic to be honest, but those twenty harvard guys could have found a way to avoid it in the first place I imagine. Someone along the lines made a mistake and the guys running it had many choices/options they could have used.
Click to expand...

When you're paying people $30/hour to screw on mudflaps and you owe $60 billion (and you only have $20 billion saved) to retired pension holders, you're going to need a lot more than a few Harvard MBAs.

I have read a lot about the issue and it was nearly impossible to avoid.
Click to expand...

Then how does Chrysler do so well with the Union?
 
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