We're(USA) are  DONE.

Ford stock dropped 22% today to $2.08. They are DONE.

What impact did my (any everyone else's) $25 billion have on the industry?!?  None?!?  Can we put a stop payment on that check?

If we can manage to stop the credit freeze, the 25B would be put to good use. The credit freeze is now a global issue so hopefully international markets can recover from OUR mistakes so our automakers can make money off of them. :whip:

They will come out of this much smaller, but they will survive. I'd put my money on UAW buying at least one of the big carmakers.

Buy an automaker?!? With what? If the UAW doesn't have cash, they can't buy. And even if they could, you think that anyone can turnaround a multi-billion business, let alone run it in good times? A dose of reality is required here......

 

 

J.D. Power points to growing concerns around credit availability

Reuters

updated 9:56 a.m. ET, Fri., Oct. 10, 2008

 

DETROIT - The global auto market may experience an “outright collapse” in 2009 amid growing concerns around the availability of credit and general economic stress, an influential industry tracking firm said on Thursday.

 

J.D. Power and Associates forecast U.S. light vehicle sales would fall to 13.2 million units in 2009 after likely settling at 13.6 million units this year, adding that a pronounced recovery is more than 18 months away...

 

 

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27114183/

This is incredible. 

I guess Chrysler (Cerberus) have been in merger talks with GM. It is a crazy world out there.

The UAW controls great swathes of carmaker money throw the retirement system, plus much of the problematic debt is owed to UAW workers. There are ways to move the company into the hands of the employees and write off a lot of the debt.

This is not good.  I worked in the auto industry for a while, and I got out because it was a mess.  To this day I'm still glad I did.  At the same time, I'm terrified of seeing it fail.  It's too integral and we aren't ready to switch.  Give us 10 years.  I would love for someone to prove me wrong on this.  Please.

Just like the airline & banking industry, I say let one automaker fail and the market will "right size" itself.

Just like the airline & banking industry, I say let one automaker fail and the market will "right size" itself.

Just like the airline & banking industry, I say let one automaker fail and the market will "right size" itself.

266,000 works for GM. That's alot of people that may lose homes, lose their cars and in some cases lose their family.

Just like the airline & banking industry, I say let one automaker fail and the market will "right size" itself.

266,000 works for GM. That's alot of people that may lose homes, lose their cars and in some cases lose their family.

Thats the reality of the situation.  But this mismanagement by the industry as a whole has caused this. 

 

Now the middle and hourly workers will have to suffer, but that's corporate America.

It would have been nice if such a down-sizing could have been accomplished over 20 years rather than a matter of months. But as we see from history it is so much easier for once-unassailable institutions to collapse than it is to build them. Look at America's steel industry, railroads, textile industry, home appliances business, etc. etc. The need for these things didn't go away. But we do lose out by not being to able to provide them for ourselves.

 

As those of us who lived between Cleveland and Pittsburgh in the late 1970s and early 1980s can attest, collapse happens quickly. Consider the steel industry. It took less than five years (starting in 1977) for virtually every tired, aging, massive mill to go from producing steel to total shutdown. By the early 1990s, all but a handful of mills, or parts of mills, were still standing. It took 140 years to build that steel empire but just 15 years for it to almost completely disappear from the landscape.

 

Same deal with the U.S. passenger train industry. In the late 1950s, we still had very frequent train service on most rail lines of any consequence in this country. There were grand stations and small stations throughout Ohio, and any town with more 30,000 residents had train service. The U.S. had 15,000 passenger trains a day back then. By 1970, there wasn't much left (but a lot more than there is now). The federal government created Amtrak the following year and allowed the railroads to abandon the remnants of their passenger services. Amtrak kept fewer than 200 trains nationwide. That collapse took only 15 years. It's taken nearly 40 years for the passenger rail system to stabilize from that wreck.

 

There are other collapses and their speed always surprise me. I will be surprised again.

KJP.  Thank you!

 

Although I'm not surprised by what you've written, you still surprise me!

The US car makers have been paying their employees way too much for way too long.  I was talking to someone this week who was making $50K in the 1970's working for Ford -- while he was in college full time.  30 years later he probably makes around $80K.  My dad put doors on Camero's 3rd shift while he was in law school.  That he graduated #1 from his class shows just how much time he had so sit and study while the line was shut down!

 

People defending these companies and the unions need to get out there and understand how furious everyone making $10-12/hr working in non-union warehouses and manufacturing is that these clowns get to make so much money for doing easy jobs, then act like their work is so profoundly difficult.     

^Didn't you benefit from working a unionized boat job? I think thats how you said you paid down your college debt.

Detroit frets amid GM-Chrysler merger talks

CEOs of both companies have looked at a proposed deal, according to a source; Renault, Nissan consider Chrysler bid.

CNNMoney, October 19, 2008

 

DETROIT (AP) -- In the doomsday scenario raising anxiety around the Motor City, General Motors Corp. makes a deal for Chrysler, keeps Jeep and the minivans, and vaporizes the rest of the company.

 

Tens of thousands of Chrysler's 66,409 employees lose their jobs as cash-desperate GM swiftly cuts redundant operations and sheds unprofitable models. Factories and dealerships are closed, and the lights go out at Chrysler's gleaming corporate headquarters campus in the northern suburb of Auburn Hills.

 

It's not something Andre Thibodeaux wants to think about. The general manager of Lelli's, an upscale steakhouse and Italian restaurant near Chrysler's 15-story tower, gets about half his lunch business from the automaker and related businesses....

 

http://money.cnn.com/?postversion=2008101913

 

 

>Didn't you benefit from working a unionized boat job?

 

No it wasn't union.  They paid the captains around $500/day, engineers $350, mates $250, senior deckhands and cooks $170, novice deckhands $115.  A "day" was two 6-hour watches.  Meanwhile, union maritime workers made ridiculous money over that, sometimes double for easier jobs, more times off, etc.  What's worse is you need family connections to get into a lot of those jobs.  So there exists this whole country club thing amongst professional jobs, but then the same thing with a lot of unions.  For example, Mississippi Port Captains, the guys who pilot ocean going ships on the Mississippi between the delta and Baton Rouge, make $300K+.  The day their sons are born, they register them with the union to put them in the cue for those jobs.  There's no way to get one of those jobs unless your dad did it. 

 

>Walk into a working class bar in Detroit or Toledo, make those same statements, run. Most union workers have been seeing pay cuts and hour cuts, not to mention losing their jobs.

 

No kidding, because they aren't man enough to make it out there on their own.  All they have to stand on is their own hype and the sympathy of the press.  I've been laid off four times, three times in the last two years including this past Feb when I was making upwards of $1K a week part-time.  Every time I've been laid off I had another job so I was never just out cold.   

The US car makers have been paying their employees way too much for way too long. I was talking to someone this week who was making $50K in the 1970's working for Ford -- while he was in college full time. 30 years later he probably makes around $80K. My dad put doors on Camero's 3rd shift while he was in law school. That he graduated #1 from his class shows just how much time he had so sit and study while the line was shut down!

 

People defending these companies and the unions need to get out there and understand how furious everyone making $10-12/hr working in non-union warehouses and manufacturing is that these clowns get to make so much money for doing easy jobs, then act like their work is so profoundly difficult.

 

One can't really blame the unions. Their members are just getting what the corps and the CEOs agreed they would get.  Those union contracts were signed in better times when GM-Ford-Chrysler had better profits and a larger market share. 

 

Another thing that hurts the US companies is that they have legions of retirees to support. Newer companies such as Kia and Hyundai don't have that same burden.

Getting a job at (Delphi)Packard in Warren means winning the lottery.  There actually is a lottery, and having a family connection just gets you entered in it.  A friend who worked there told me he spent his last months there (before layoff) in something called the "job bank," which entailed clocking in, playing chess and waiting for something to come up.  It never did.  His impression was that the job bank had been management's idea, as a comparatively cheap concession that reinforced classic arguments against the union.     

^ Did they get paid at all? Minimum wage?

^If it's like Ford's GEN pool (guaranteed employment numbers), you get your regular salary and benefits for sitting at a table all day, but some workers will still complain because there's no overtime, no sleeping, no wifi, and limited smoke breaks...

 

How Do You Fire an Autoworker?

Ford's elaborate scheme for disemployment.

 

By Daniel Engber

Posted Friday, Sept. 15, 2006, at 6:40 PM ET

 

Ford will have closed 16 plants and cut about 30,000 jobs by the end of 2008, the company announced on Friday. This year, General Motors has already eliminated more than 34,000 hourly workers to save money. But no one's getting fired, and no one's getting laid off. Then how do they get rid of their workers?

 

Pay them to leave. Because of their contracts with the United Auto Workers, auto manufacturers can't kick a unionized employee out the door without a good reason, like theft or drug use. Whenever Ford and GM want to close a plant or shrink the workforce, they must negotiate a system of buyouts. Right now, Ford is inviting its 75,000 blue-collar workers to walk away by choice—in exchange for a big cash payment...

 

Post edited 9-4-09 to comply with terms of use

Explainer thanks Arthur Wheaton of the Cornell University Institute for Industry Studies.

 

http://www.slate.com/id/2149695/

^ Did they get paid at all? Minimum wage?

 

They got most if not all of their regular pay.  And tuition assistance.

Getting a job at (Delphi)Packard in Warren means winning the lottery.  There actually is a lottery, and having a family connection just gets you entered in it.  A friend who worked there told me he spent his last months there (before layoff) in something called the "job bank," which entailed clocking in, playing chess and waiting for something to come up.  It never did.  His impression was that the job bank had been management's idea, as a comparatively cheap concession that reinforced classic arguments against the union.     

 

Well, i can tell you everything you want to know about that place. I was the 3rd and last generation in my family to work there!!! Getting a job at Packard used to mean "winning the lottery", not anymore! New hires working there now make around $10.50/hr, but i'm pretty sure they quit hiring. In fact, i would be surprised if anyone is working at Packard in Warren in a couple of years.

 

Yes, people did get hired through a lottery system, just like they have at GM. Basically, employee's (both hourly and salary) SSI #'s were put in a raffle and if yours was pulled you could recommend one person for a job. I must state that Packard did hire through One Stop (unemployment) as well. Anyway, I got hired through the lottery when my cousin got her number pulled. When i was hired in 1999 there was a 4-step process to get through before one was approved for hiring (in the past people were pretty much hired if they were able). I had to pass a written test (reading comp. and math if i remember correctly) and a manual dexderity test. Then, if you passed those they put you into a small group to see how well you worked w/others. Then, if they thought you worked well in a group they would interview you. Finally, you would have to pass a medical exam and drug test. After several months of testing i finally got the call.

 

As for the Jobs Bank, i was one of the people sitting in there, so i know all about it. Basically, management came up w/this idea in 1984 when they agreed to give Warren "Lifetime Job and Income Security" (it's a long story, if you want to know more ask). In exchange for allowing some jobs to be sent to Mexico the union was guaranteed "Lifetime Job and Income Security" meaning everyone in Warren would be able to keep their jobs. Temporary layoffs were allowed and they happened sporatically over the years due to lack or work, etc.

 

Unfortunately, by around 2004, the company had sent so many jobs to Mexico and China that there weren't enough jobs in Warren for everyone who worked there. To give you an idea........when i was hired in '99 there were 6,500 hourly employees, by 2005 there were 3,850 or so. So, within six years hourly employment was practically cut in half. This reduction in employees was due mostly to retirements, along w/some deaths and a few people quitting (very rare, we made good money and had great benefits). With the help of these hourly reductions things were ok for a short time. Unfortunately, management kept shipping jobs out and soon things were leaving so fast that the number of people w/out a work station grew and grew.

 

This is when the "jobs bank" part of the contract was put into action. Instead of keeping the jobs here, management chose to continue to send jobs to mexico knowing full well there wouldn't be enough jobs here, which they agreed to in 1984 as well as the many contracts after that. How does it make sense to pay the employees in Mexico to do what was previously our work, then pay us on top of it?????? Most of the business in Warren was making money at the time and we also had to preform re-work on the crap the chinese messed up. Because the rest of Delphi was failing (Packard and Delco were their top divisions and they were making $$$), management had to make it look like all of their american operations were terrible.

 

This next part is what really irks me..........they filed for bankruptcy the day before the law changed. Let me explain...........the day they filed bankruptcy was the last day that a global company could file bankruptcy on just it's American operations. The day after the filing they would have had to file on their entire comany (global). Well, they weren't bankrupt globally, just had some bad business here in the U.S. (aka divisions other than Packard). They just wanted an excuse to move more work overseas and break their union contracts.

 

So, here we are in 2008 and most of Packard in Warren in gone. Since 2005 they've closed the administration building in Warren, plus they've closed at least 6 plants that i can think of (3, 8, 19, 46, 14, and 15). They are also going to close their Cortland plant soon (plant 45 i believe). This plant is a high tech plastic molding plant that was one of the most efficient in the world. Currently there are maybe 650 houry employees and over 800-1000 salary people left. Nice to know that our trade deals are working out for Ohioans!

"Buckeye1:^If it's like Ford's GEN pool (guaranteed employment numbers), you get your regular salary and benefits for sitting at a table all day, but some workers will still complain because there's no overtime, no sleeping, no wifi, and limited smoke breaks..."

 

As someone who sat in a Jobs Bank i will tell you that none of us wanted to be there. We wanted to work. The Jobs Bank was supposed to be temporary and the company was supposed to have us do community service or offer us some sort of training (these were things in the contract). Well, Delphi Packard refused to do these things.

 

I'm insulted by Buckeye1's comments that some of us would still complain of no overtime, etc. In my almost 8 years at Delphi i only got a weeks worth of overtime when i was working on the floor. After all the layoffs i'd been on I was just happy to have a job and be getting a paycheck.  When we first got to the jobs bank they told us we were allowed to walk around in a certain area and read, that's it. Well, that didn't last, local management thought it was as ridiculous as we did. Soon people were doing crafts, playing games, watching movies, etc. I don't know what you expect 500-800 people to do when they are required by the company to show up everyday for 8 hours and do nothing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Here is an interesting article from a few years ago on how efficient the Cortland plant is/was:

 

 

America's Elite Factories These plants have taken many paths to quality and efficiency, from special pay incentives to kaizen sessions that grind out steady improvement.

By Julie Creswell

September 3, 2001

 

DELPHI AUTOMOTIVE SYSTEMS HUMMING WITH STATE-OF-THE-ART MACHINES

The first thing you might notice about Delphi Automotive Systems' newly renovated injection-molding plant in Cortland, Ohio, is that the parking lot is nearly empty. Tucked behind a flag-lined main street in a small town about ten miles west of the Pennsylvania border, the plant has spaces for 550 vehicles but only 40 or so are filled. Step inside the climate-controlled, 160,000-square-foot facility, and you won't see many workers scurrying around either.

 

That's surprising, given the fact that the plant has 120 presses churning out a billion plastic housings a year for electrical connectors used in motor vehicles and telecom equipment. "The advantages in this plant are invisible," says sandy-haired John Stefanko, the superintendent. "You'll see lights blinking, and you'll see automatic guided vehicles moving around, but what you don't see is just as important as what you do see."

 

more at:

 

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2001/09/03/309282/index.htm

 

Cgirl - I'm not trying to insult autoworkers, but just as in any industry or profession, there is a subset of people who can find fault with anything, even getting paid to sit in a room.  That being said, I wouldn't want to be in GEN pool for eight hours a day either, and I'm sure it's mind-numbingly boring.  I have friends who were stuck there for months when Ford's Lorain Assembly closed, and they would have rather been working than sitting there.  Given the choice, I'm sure many would have preferred to volunteer their GEN time at a social service agency or do something to benefit the local community.  I had a friend request to spend his GEN pool hours at the local food bank, and this was denied (previous contracts had allowed this option).  I guess the company would rather have the workers in a room because it was easier to supervise/police. 

I understand what you are saying and i agree with you. It just rubs me the wrong way when people think union workers or people in manufacturing are lazy or just want more, more, more.

 

When things were going bad at Packard many outsiders in the area were almost laughing about it. This is because most of us had wages and benefits much higher than other members of the community. I chalk this up to jealousy since most people around here make around $11 or $12/hr. It's never good when high paying manufacturing jobs leave and i bet a good percentage of those hating on us would have given anything to have the jobs we had. I'm not trying to sound snotty saying these things, it's the truth. Our jobs supported so many other jobs in the community that it's ridiculous. Now people wonder why school levies aren't passing, businesses are closing, etc.

 

I know i was lucky to have my job and i felt blessed everyday walking in that plant. Now i'm about to graduate w/my BBA in Business Management and i'm beginning to realize that i may have to move away (not something i want to do) just to make $25k or $30k.

cortlandgirl, interesting stuff.  With so many people here skilled in the machine trades, it makes no sense to me that we would let it all go in the space of one generation.  What a ridiculous waste of human capital.  No economic theory could sensibly condone that.  We need to revitalize heavy industry here and do it quickly.  The whole country needs new infrastructure and that used to be our speciality.     

>Based on my experience, that's not exactly how the jobs are on the Great Lakes ships. But keep in mind, the largest Great Lakes shipping lines are ran by Canadians, not Americans. Perhaps Canadians have a different structure.

 

I don't know much about the Great Lakes shipping culture, other than it shuts down for the winter, something that definitely doesn't happen on the Mississippi & Ohio, despite miserable conditions.  I know some of those guys seek out work on land during the winter and others hibernate.  Interestingly each of the different areas in and around the US have different shipping companies and cultures.  The east coast and west coast companies have nothing to do with each other, the Great Lakes and Mississippi system have nothing to do with each other.  There is some overlap between the Mississippi and Gulf of Mexico operations, but not much.  There is for example a run of six barges of aluminite pellets between Corpus Christi, TX and Pittsburgh that takes something like 25 days.

 

Speaking for the barge industry, it was cleaned up in the mid 90's, which means that thanks to the lawsuit culture companies stopped hiring felons and others with extensive criminal records.  It also got very serious, 100% serious, about no alcohol and no drugs on the boats.  Previously you literally had drunk deckhands and captains shunting around hazardous cargo.  Famously the captains used to literally pull over on the Ohio, tie up to a tree, and let the crews descend on unsuspecting river town barrooms.  That doesn't happen anymore.  Thanks to GPS captains can't make up bullshit stories about why they're 6 hours late with 15 coal barges to a power plant.  As a result of all this they had to start paying more -- in fact double -- in order to retain a quality work force.  Now everyone gets paid a very fair wage and any temptation to unionize has subsided. 

 

 

When things were going bad at Packard many outsiders in the area were almost laughing about it. This is because most of us had wages and benefits much higher than other members of the community.

 

You see a lot of that here in the comments section of the newspaper about that big GM Moraine Assembly plant closing. A lot of glee or schadenfreude that these union people were losing their jobs.  I think the new hires at that GM plant weren't making that much as the plant was on some sort of three tiered wage scale, with lower wages, benefits, less regular hours for the new hires.

 

 

We get those comments about GM Lordstown employees too. I'll tell you what, i've been out to the assembly plant there and those people work a heck of a lot harder than anyone did at Delphi. I'm not saying we didn't work hard, but the jobs at GM are much harder on the body.

 

Jeffrey, was Moraine UAW or IUE/CWA??? I can't remember, but my Trailblazer was made there :(

 

I know UAW plants have a two tier pay scale. I believe the second tier makes about $14/hr.

 

When i worked at Delphi Packard we were part of the IUE/CWA, same as the Delphi plants in the Dayton area. We had a three tier system. The third tier made 55% of top wage and the second tier pay increased every year. Once a second tier employee reached 10 years they would finally reach parody (aka top rate). The lower tier also had cheaper healthcare plans and we didn't qualify for pensions until we had 10 years.

GM signals more cuts

Automaker will meet or top target to reduce salaried employment costs by 20%, but signals that additional cuts needed due to worsening sales.

By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney, October 23, 2008

 

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- General Motors expects to meet or exceed its target for a 20% reduction in the cost of its salaried workforce, but a worsening sales outlook is likely to force additional cost and staffing reductions, a company spokesman said Thursday.

 

Final numbers on an early retirement program announced this summer are not yet available, said GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson, as many who signed up are still within a window during which they can change their mind. The final figure is due on Nov. 1....

 

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/23/news/companies/gm_cuts/index.htm?postversion=2008102309

 

 

Chrysler to cut 1 out of 4 white-collar jobs

About 5,000 workers will be asked to leave the company by the end of the year.

By Peter Valdes-Dapena, CNNMoney, October 24, 2008

 

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Chrysler LLC plans to reduce its white-collar workforce by 25% by the end of the year, the company said in an announcement Friday.

 

The cuts, about 5,000 workers in total, will come from Chrysler's salaried and supplemental workforce. Chrysler has about 18,500 white-collar workers.

 

Salaried workers, which will will make up a majority of the job cuts, will be offered buyouts and early retirement packages, said Chrysler spokesman David Elshoff. Supplemental workers, employees of outside contractors who work at Chrysler, will not be offered packages, he said, but those workers make up only a small number of the cuts...

 

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/24/autos/chrysler_cuts/index.htm?postversion=2008102413

 

 

GM, Chrysler Ask for $10 Billion to Aid Merger

 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/27409944

 

GM, Chrysler Ask for $10 Billion to Aid Merger

 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/27409944

 

 

Let them both fail!  This is such a government set up.  Next Delta or United will ask for aid.

 

This sucks on so many levels.

 

Yes it will put people out of work, but to put a bandaid on a open wound is ridiculous!

I read in the Wall Street Journal yesterday that Dailmer wrote down the value of its 19.9% stake in Chrysler to $0.

GM, Chrysler Ask for $10 Billion to Aid Merger

 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/27409944

 

 

Let them both fail!  This is such a government set up.  Next Delta or United will ask for aid.

 

This sucks on so many levels.

 

Yes it will put people out of work, but to put a bandaid on a open wound is ridiculous!

 

You really should put a band aid on an open wound to prevent bleeding all over the place and possibly on other's belongings...not to mention it would look gross.  COVER IT UP!

 

Maybe you meant a closed wound  :wink:.

This merger idea sucks, but having either one close down would be even worse.  I reiterate that we cannot afford to lose the auto industry, specifically THIS auto industry.  Supposing others come in to fill the gap after one of the big 3 crashes, there is no way they'll be opening anything in the rust belt.  It'll be California, Alabama, Texas, etc... Our region is not forever tied to the big 3, but at this moment we definitely are.  Boot the management, scale back the brands, invest in efficiency, do whatever we have to do but they cannot be allowed to fail at this juncture.

I figure there are still about 1-2 million jobs in aggregate that will be lost directly or indirectly as a result of auto industry restructuring.

 

MTS, I don't think you have any concept of what the impact of letting GM and Chrysler fail would mean to not only NEO, but the country as a whole. Not only do you have the immediate employees, but the associated parts suppliers and services, not to mention the valuable knowledge base of manufacturing that would be lost.

 

There are an estimated one million jobs tied directly to Ford, GM, and Chrysler. There is a lot not to like about any government bailout, but I would rather see the money go to saving good jobs, than having the potential of inflaming and already impending recession, and possibility a depression. 

 

My brother-n-law is the CEO at Delta. Prior to that, he was CEO at Northwest. He had to go to the government for money after 911. There was no choice. It was either that, or see 40 thousand employees lose there jobs. When a large company goes to the government for help, it’s only as a lender of last resort.

 

 

MTS, I don't think you have any concept of what the impact of letting GM and Chrysler fail would mean to not only NEO, but the country as a whole. Not only do you have the immediate employees, but the associated parts suppliers and services, not to mention the valuable knowledge base of manufacturing that would be lost.

 

There are an estimated one million jobs tied directly to Ford, GM, and Chrysler. There is a lot not to like about any government bailout, but I would rather see the money go to saving good jobs, than having the potential of inflaming and already impending recession, and possibility a depression. 

 

My brother-n-law is the CEO at Delta. Prior to that, he was CEO at Northwest. He had to go to the government for money after 911. There was no choice. It was either that, or see 40 thousand employees lose there jobs. When a large company goes to the government for help, it’s only as a lender of last resort.

 

 

Umm, trust me I do.  And your BIL has been on his job for less than a year.  :wink:

 

The automakers should have thought of jobs when they started shipping them overseas claiming they couldn't make money, yet foreign auto makers came in and have been taking market share for years.

 

The airlines have been mismanaged for years and no offense but mr. anderson is a major cause of the problems.

 

Foreign automakers have a high number of temporary, low paid workers. It's hard to compete with that and not be subsidized.

I think the foreigners are getting worried that the U.S. will decide to seriously support the U.S. industry. This is why VW and Audi are talking about U.S. factories. If things get ugly I wouldn't be surprised to see Toyota and Honda create American holding companies that allow them to claim to be domestic manufacturers as well. The Euro's aren't big enough here to do that and Nissan probably wouldn't unless it gets some part of Chrysler. Personally, I think its a bad idea to get all protectionist at this point, but bad ideas tend to win.

Auto sales may be worst in 16 years GM sales plunge 45% while Ford's and Toyota's October sales also tumble as industry braces for the lowest number of sales since 1992.

 

By Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com senior writer Last Updated: November 3, 2008: 2:06 PM ET 

 

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The nation's top automakers all reported another month of sharply lower sales Monday, kicking off a series of October reports that are expected to show the worst industrywide auto sales in 16 years.

 

General Motors (GM, Fortune 500)reported that its U.S. sales plunged 45% in the month, worse than the forecast of a 41% drop from industry sales tracker Edmunds.com. Unlike some of its rivals, its sales even fell from what were weak levels in September...

 

 

 

http://money.cnn.com/2008/11/03/news/companies/auto_sales/index.htm?postversion=2008110313

They might as well fold now. It's not going to get any better, unless they fire everyone and rehire people making $18-$24 an hour instead of  $30-$45 an hour. 

Click for some scary graphics of just how far the "big three" have really fallen!

 

Automakers Report Grim October Sales

By Bill Vlasic and Nick Bunkley, New York Times, November 3, 2008

 

DETROIT — Sales of new cars and trucks in the United States plummeted in October to levels not seen in the auto industry in 25 years.

 

The stunning fall-off affected all automakers, as shaky consumer confidence and the inability of many eager shoppers to get loans because of tight credit drovesales down 31.9 percent during the month compared with the same period last year.

 

The grim results — particularly for General Motors, whose sales dropped by 45 percent during the month — raised new concerns about the chances of survival for Detroit’s troubled Big Three.

 

The auto figures add to the steady march of statistics that suggest the broader economy is grinding to a slower pace. A measure of overall manufacturing activity in the United States fell last month to its lowest level in 26 years, according to data released Monday. The Commerce Department also said that construction spending fell for the eighth time in 10 months in September.

 

For the auto industry, analysts said the annualized sales rate for the month was the worst recorded since 1983, and few saw any hope for recovery in the industry before 2010.

 

[see the URL for the rest of the lengthy article.]

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/04/business/04auto.html?_r=2&oref=slogin

 

 

Putting On The Brakes

Submitted by Julian Darley on November 5, 2008 - 12:57pm.

Teaser: News of contraction in the auto industry and beyond signals more than the end of an economic cycle

 

We are starting to grow used to reading about news of contraction, but the contraction is happening by accident instead of by design. For example, this week has brought more news of dramatic falls in the sales of new cars in the USA and globally. No matter what your opinion of cars and the wider car industry, this contraction undoubtedly means many people will lose their jobs. This will cause worry, sadness, and hardship on top of all the other news of an economic system in deep trouble. Yet knowledge of the future of global oil supply points to an industry which is about to undergo massive transformation and most likely painful shrinkage...

 

http://postcarbon.org/putting-on-the-brakes

 

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