Socialism at work, GM style.

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pocketfullofshells said:
yes we all know the demand for Hummers is huge...while of course small fuel effecent cars...they cant make fast enough for some. But you keep thinking the H2 is the one that will save GM...people like you are why it is where it is.

And since you claim they are a success...care to tell me how much profit the Hummer line makes? I mean you say its a success...so how so? I drive by the lot and see a load of them on the lot....same ones from months ago. GM dropped Millions into that Hummer line...while Toyota was doing the same with the Prius...guess what one is the big seller and what company is doing better? I worked for Ford, and guess what, most of the people that came in...wanted the Focus...the fusion, escape, and the Hybred Escape that was so backorderd we never even had one on the lot for more then a few hours. Large trucks? very few, and most wanted used ones because they where not going to spend the money for them, with 4 buck gas. we sold very few regardless. The F-150 was a better truck, but we lost a lot of sales to Toyota tundra based on one factor...MPG...that was the main thing my f-150 customers said they did not like about the F-150, is they wanted better mpg. They knew it outdid the tundra in every other way...but 3mpg extra was a deal breaker often.

but go ahead, tell me what profitable cars the government is saying you cant make anymore ( not that GM itself decided to not make) and then tell me how much money that line made per year...since you know they are a success.

also one problem with GM, is it makes the same vehicle in about 5 lines,,with new names, and thinks that's variety...they could streamline it a lot more in many cases.
Click to expand...


As usual I don't believe a word you said. Especially the bit about working for ford, because if so you had to be the dumbest employee they had on the lot. Or were you the janitor that dreamed of one day making that big sale, and getting the polo shirt with the dealership logo on it.

Here are the facts to support my claim, and to completely blow your BS lies out of the water. The top selling vehicle in the U.S. for 2008 was the Ford F-150 for the 27th consecutive year, and not only that but it was the only model to sell more than half a million units. I can be counted into that because I bought a F-150 last year. In fact, GM would have won the honor if it hadn't sold its large truck under two different names. (Silverado and Sierra) If you were to combine sales figures for the second-place Chevy Silverado and its GMC Sierra sibling, which are nearly identical, you'd find that GM's large truck outsold Ford's by almost 160,000 units.

( 3 trucks in the the top 10 that can't be, people don't want them.)

* Ford F-Series
* Toyota Camry
* Chevy Silverado
* Honda Accord
* Toyota Corolla
* Honda Civic
* Nissan Altima
* Dodge Ram
* Chevy Malibu
* Honda CR-V

I don't see the Focus, Fusion, escape or hybrid escape on the list. That must have only been at your lot. As far as Hummer being out sold by Prius....I'm sure it was, but in the bigger picture hybrid sales were no where near traditional fuel efficient vehicles. And the Truck a larger evil vehicle only driven by evil rich people, and dirty capitalist, was the king of the mountain. I especially love how you hand picked Hummer out of the list. Couldn't base your argument on the total truck and suv line as I did, because you knew it was a complete load of crap. Better luck next time!
 
Ronaldus Magnus said:
As usual I don't believe a word you said. Especially the bit about working for ford, because if so you had to be the dumbest employee they had on the lot. Or were you the janitor that dreamed of one day making that big sale, and getting the polo shirt with the dealership logo on it.

Here are the facts to support my claim, and to completely blow your BS lies out of the water. The top selling vehicle in the U.S. for 2008 was the Ford F-150 for the 27th consecutive year, and not only that but it was the only model to sell more than half a million units. I can be counted into that because I bought a F-150 last year. In fact, GM would have won the honor if it hadn't sold its large truck under two different names. (Silverado and Sierra) If you were to combine sales figures for the second-place Chevy Silverado and its GMC Sierra sibling, which are nearly identical, you'd find that GM's large truck outsold Ford's by almost 160,000 units.

( 3 trucks in the the top 10 that can't be, people don't want them.)

* Ford F-Series
* Toyota Camry
* Chevy Silverado
* Honda Accord
* Toyota Corolla
* Honda Civic
* Nissan Altima
* Dodge Ram
* Chevy Malibu
* Honda CR-V

I don't see the Focus, Fusion, escape or hybrid escape on the list. That must have only been at your lot. As far as Hummer being out sold by Prius....I'm sure it was, but in the bigger picture hybrid sales were no where near traditional fuel efficient vehicles. And the Truck a larger evil vehicle only driven by evil rich people, and dirty capitalist, was the king of the mountain. I especially love how you hand picked Hummer out of the list. Couldn't base your argument on the total truck and suv line as I did, because you knew it was a complete load of crap. Better luck next time!
Click to expand...

actually I was in sales, and your show you have zero clue what you are talking about. PROFIT , understand the word...all you did was bring up name tags that have been around a long time and sold well. Profit is making money not sales volume or how long it has been around. Next you forget there are 2 other lines that have the ford f-150 as well mercury and Lincoln ..but that's not the point.

Next Show me that the silverado was told to be not made. You said Hummer was a profit maker for them...show me. Show me that the government said get rid of one vehicle..and then show me how much profit that car made last year and year before...You claim knowledge to make these judgements, back it up.

also did you notice most on that list, where good mpg cars...and not large SUV's? Trucks are not the same as SUVs. Trucks are used for work, and people with practical needs...you know why most people got big SUV's...to haul kids or because they just wanted something big. You see the Toyota tundra is not on that list...bug Toyota seems to be doing a lot better...why because it can actually sell cars. Only GM car on there...a Malibu...one of the least inspiring grocery getter's I had seen in a while..made that old taurus look good..and that car has the same issue ...But again the question is, post one car line, show the goverment told them to get rid of it, and then show me it was profitiable...sales do not equal profit..I could make any car the best seller and take losses on it all day.
 
pocketfullofshells said:
actually I was in sales, and your show you have zero clue what you are talking about. PROFIT , understand the word...all you did was bring up name tags that have been around a long time and sold well. Profit is making money not sales volume or how long it has been around. Next you forget there are 2 other lines that have the ford f-150 as well mercury and Lincoln ..but that's not the point.

Next Show me that the silverado was told to be not made. You said Hummer was a profit maker for them...show me. Show me that the government said get rid of one vehicle..and then show me how much profit that car made last year and year before...You claim knowledge to make these judgements, back it up.

also did you notice most on that list, where good mpg cars...and not large SUV's? Trucks are not the same as SUVs. Trucks are used for work, and people with practical needs...you know why most people got big SUV's...to haul kids or because they just wanted something big. You see the Toyota tundra is not on that list...bug Toyota seems to be doing a lot better...why because it can actually sell cars. Only GM car on there...a Malibu...one of the least inspiring grocery getter's I had seen in a while..made that old taurus look good..and that car has the same issue ...But again the question is, post one car line, show the goverment told them to get rid of it, and then show me it was profitiable...sales do not equal profit..I could make any car the best seller and take losses on it all day.
Click to expand...

That is profit numb nuts. When you sell a car you make money the top seller wasn't a hybrid, and neither were any of the other cars on the list. You are exactly right, they were good mpg cars, but not high dollar not at all worth it hybrids. You help make my argument with your silly little response. Again the big money makers for GM were larger vehicles trucks and suvs. Not smaller cars. What does the Obama want them to make? The smaller ones. :rolleyes:
 
Ronaldus Magnus said:
That is profit numb nuts. When you sell a car you make money the top seller wasn't a hybrid, and neither were any of the other cars on the list. You are exactly right, they were good mpg cars, but not high dollar not at all worth it hybrids. You help make my argument with your silly little response. Again the big money makers for GM were larger vehicles trucks and suvs. Not smaller cars. What does the Obama want them to make? The smaller ones. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

again you show a complete lack of understanding. And cant do something so simple as back your claim up,

Name a car/SUV or Truck.....

Show that the goverment said it should be not made anymore

Then Show a PROFIT> Profit does not = sales. If you think that, dont bother trying to respond anymore, becuse you lost already.

Now again, its a simple request since you stated that this was in fact that case, so show us.
 
pocketfullofshells said:
again you show a complete lack of understanding. And cant do something so simple as back your claim up,

Name a car/SUV or Truck.....

Show that the goverment said it should be not made anymore

Then Show a PROFIT> Profit does not = sales. If you think that, dont bother trying to respond anymore, becuse you lost already.

Now again, its a simple request since you stated that this was in fact that case, so show us.
Click to expand...

Also I forgot to add....if all the big profit ones are trucks....and they are going under....means they are lossing alot and I mean alot on the cars....and guess what...there is a limited market for big trucks and SUV's at high prices and low mpg. Your thinking just like a GM manger did for the last 20 years...look where that got them.
 
Acording to articles I have seen on MSN, it appears that the American public still loves SUVs, in particular in the Fly-By states.
 
pocketfullofshells said:
Also I forgot to add....if all the big profit ones are trucks....and they are going under....means they are lossing alot and I mean alot on the cars....and guess what...there is a limited market for big trucks and SUV's at high prices and low mpg. Your thinking just like a GM manger did for the last 20 years...look where that got them.
Click to expand...

This is amusing. Why can you people not figure this out. You keep bickering back and fourth about how GM made the wrong car, or didn't make a car like whomever. Why aren't they more like the imports. Why don't they blaw blaw blaw.

Then you claim other people are not using facts?

Here's the facts.
2008, US auto sales by manufacture.

General Motors 2,980,688
Toyota 2,217,662
Ford, 1,915,274
Chrysler 1,453,122
Honda 1,428,765
Nissan 951,350
Hyundai 401,742
Volkswagen 313,581
BMW 303,190
Kia 273,397
Mazda 263,949

Now I don't give a crap if you are in sales.... When GM is selling 3 MILLION autos, and 800 thousand over the next largest seller.... the problem isn't that they are making bad cars, or the wrong cars, or whatever stupid theory.

And don't give me this bull about how they need to start making cars like the imports, because which import would you suggest? Every single one of them lost sales last year, and by a fairly large percentage.

There was only manufacture that actually gained sales. Want to guess? Subaru. Want to know what their top seller was? The Forester! What? Not a 50 mpg hybrid? Not a 35 mpg Civic? Not even a 25-30 mpg mini van, but a 20 mile per gallon gas guzzling hybrid was the top seller of the only car company to actually gain sales last year? Should we GM follow their example?

And then this theory about how limited the truck market is. Once again, here's the facts.
In 2008 the industry sold
6,458,431 Trucks.
6,785,587 Cars.

Does 49% of the total sales for the entire US auto market seem limited to you?

In 2007, the industry sold:
7,571,843 Cars.
8,577,804 Trucks.

How about 53% of the market? Oh but wait! I mean only really big gas guzzling trucks and SUVs!

Really... let's look at the "Top Sellers" and see. I only had total year sales for the first three. All are in order of highest sales.
F Series pickup sold 515,513 mpg 14/19
Silverado pickup sold 465,065 mpg 14/19
Dodge Ram pickup sold 245,840 mpg 14/20
GMC Sierra pickup mpg 14/19
Toyota Tundra mpg 15/19
Toyota Tacoma mpg 20/26
Lexus RX 350 SUV mpg 18/23
Chrysler Town & Country MiniVan mpg 17/14
Toyota Highlander SUV mpg 18/24
Jeep Wrangler mpg 15/19
Honda Odyssey mpg 16/23
Dodge Grand Caravan mpg 17/24

Out of the top 20 light truck / SUV / MiniVan sold, only about FOUR (Escape, Rav4, CRV, Rogue) had city gas mileage above 20, and highway mileage above 25. Now for comparison, the Hummer H3 mpg is 14/18.

So can we dump all this garbage? Here's the bottom line. Because of Union contracts, GM was spending too much on labor to make a profit. That's it. There's nothing else. No they did not focused on the wrong thing. None of this 'they should have copied an import' crap. Flat out, the cost of production, was higher then the revenue from selling the autos. That's all there is to it.
 
pocketfullofshells said:
becuse you dont understand the point or tech behind it? thats why you dont think it seems safe.
Click to expand...

It's an established fact that smaller cars are less safe than larger ones. If you need help with that, read up at Edumonds.

But it doesn't take an article to allow a thinking individual to consider what would happen if any real car, larger than Moped, were to hit that thing, you'd just... die.

A while back a friend of mine was hit by a city bus in downtown Columbus. Since he was in an 80s BMW, full metal (imagine that!) all it did was dent his bumper. Now what do you think will happen if a bus hits that motorized wheel chair? Oh but it won't happen right?

But ya-know, that isn't even the point. Do you think that GM is going to turn around the whole company selling motorized chairs? How many people do you think are going to be interested in PUMAs? I've only seen a Segway used twice in my life thus far. Once by a mall cop, and the other time at 4th of July celebration with a clown riding on it in a parade. (very fitting, and funny by the way)

"It's not necessarily a chick magnet, but it does attract retired engineers, because they do want to talk about the gyroscopes." -Robert Pietrykowski, a recent Segway buyer.
 
pocketfullofshells said:
actuly no he did not take over GM..

actuly no he did not fire anyone, he asked someone to step down and they did. he did not have to. He was asked to do so becuse it was felt that under him GM was not going to make the changes needed to stay afloat, and therefor not worth bailing out again. You dont give bailouts to companies if the CEO shows you he still does not get it...and yes shocking that they should have to shut down some failed lines...you know ones that are not making profits and not making cars people want...what a radical idea.
And news flash, They did not come up wiht that concept in the last 2 months while Obama was in office...

so any day you guys want to try facts...let me know.
Click to expand...

When you have 79% controlling stock in a company, you might not have 'taken over' in a literal sense, but by virtue of the fact you can propose and vote anything you want with your controlling stock, yeah... you did pretty much take over.

And perhaps he didn't actually fire someone... but when the president of the US asks you to do something, it isn't exactly just a helpful suggestion. The federal government can, and has, done many things to people who didn't do what they wanted. But in this case, it's way beyond that. All Obama would have to do, is propose for the CEO of GM to be removed, and bring it to a stock holders vote. What do you think the other 21% of stock holders are going to do?
 
Agnapostate said:
It's a fallacy that government intervention in the economy constitutes "socialism." For instance, consider progressive taxation, often mendaciously attacked as "socialism." In reality, progressive taxation merely factors in the rather obvious principle of the diminishing rate of marginal utility. It's therefore able to minimize poverty traps for the working class, thereby improving their physical efficiency and upholding the continued functioning of capitalism.
Click to expand...

There is a difference between "socialistic" and "socialism". Socialism, generally includes a theory of having a more equal society. A progressive tax when used as a tool to attempt to make society more equal, is not a form of socialism, but it is a socialistic ideal.

That said, Capitalism and Free-Market principals, are antithetical to socialism and government intervention in the economy. The whole point of "FREE" market, is to be free of government intervention. Government intervention, and socialism, go hand in hand.

I'm afraid I don't "generalize" socialism with Stalinism, precisely because Stalin and Lenin were not socialist, but state capitalists. Indeed, the USSR was fundamentally state capitalist at its core because it consolidated ownership and control of the means of production into the hands of a party elite that constituted an effective equivalent of the combined U.S. financial and coordinating classes. Socialism necessitates collective ownership of the means of production, and any meaningful form of "ownership" incorporates the right to rule over one's property, which obviously must constitute managerial control. Such conditions were not present in the Soviet Union.
Click to expand...

Ah, you are one of "those" people.

So Socialism requires collective ownership.
Ownership incorporates the right to rule over one's property.
The right to rule over one's property means managerial control.
So all industry in a nation is under a collective. Does that mean we all get together and vote on it? Well we can not all do that, now can we? So we have to elect people to go determine what to do with our collective property.

Now if we do that, obviously there is going to be parties that via for our vote. Usually the ones that are in politics for a long time, and gain more control and power via our voting, end up being the party elite. And you end up with USSR.

Eminent domain is utilized either for the construction of public infrastructure that has the effect of ultimately upholding capitalism or for the direct facilitation of commercial development, and is thus a facet of a capitalist economic structure.
Click to expand...

The purpose is largely irrelevant to the basic premise that in a free society, in which people are the owners, the government should not have the ability to take ones property from them. If I own something, it is mine, and can not be taken from me for any reason. Under a socialistic government, everything is the governments, that is only on loan to the subject people, a loan which can be revoked at anytime.

It's a entirely different view point. On one hand, the ultimate power lies within the people. On the other, the ultimate power lies within government. That is why in every case where socialism takes over a country, normally the first thing to go is land rights. From Pol Pot, to Ho Chi Mhin, to Mao, the first thing revoked was land rights. Now all land is ours, and you may use it provided you do as we say.

Agnapostate said:
Not quite. If you wanted to maintain such a fallacious definition of socialism, you'd have to refer back to Reagan's unfortunate record of military Keynesianism.
Click to expand...

Military Keynesianism? lol Ok, due tell.
 
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Andy said:
This is amusing. Why can you people not figure this out. You keep bickering back and fourth about how GM made the wrong car, or didn't make a car like whomever. Why aren't they more like the imports. Why don't they blaw blaw blaw.

Then you claim other people are not using facts?

Here's the facts.
2008, US auto sales by manufacture.

General Motors 2,980,688
Toyota 2,217,662
Ford, 1,915,274
Chrysler 1,453,122
Honda 1,428,765
Nissan 951,350
Hyundai 401,742
Volkswagen 313,581
BMW 303,190
Kia 273,397
Mazda 263,949

Now I don't give a crap if you are in sales.... When GM is selling 3 MILLION autos, and 800 thousand over the next largest seller.... the problem isn't that they are making bad cars, or the wrong cars, or whatever stupid theory.

And don't give me this bull about how they need to start making cars like the imports, because which import would you suggest? Every single one of them lost sales last year, and by a fairly large percentage.

There was only manufacture that actually gained sales. Want to guess? Subaru. Want to know what their top seller was? The Forester! What? Not a 50 mpg hybrid? Not a 35 mpg Civic? Not even a 25-30 mpg mini van, but a 20 mile per gallon gas guzzling hybrid was the top seller of the only car company to actually gain sales last year? Should we GM follow their example?

And then this theory about how limited the truck market is. Once again, here's the facts.
In 2008 the industry sold
6,458,431 Trucks.
6,785,587 Cars.

Does 49% of the total sales for the entire US auto market seem limited to you?

In 2007, the industry sold:
7,571,843 Cars.
8,577,804 Trucks.

How about 53% of the market? Oh but wait! I mean only really big gas guzzling trucks and SUVs!

Really... let's look at the "Top Sellers" and see. I only had total year sales for the first three. All are in order of highest sales.
F Series pickup sold 515,513 mpg 14/19
Silverado pickup sold 465,065 mpg 14/19
Dodge Ram pickup sold 245,840 mpg 14/20
GMC Sierra pickup mpg 14/19
Toyota Tundra mpg 15/19
Toyota Tacoma mpg 20/26
Lexus RX 350 SUV mpg 18/23
Chrysler Town & Country MiniVan mpg 17/14
Toyota Highlander SUV mpg 18/24
Jeep Wrangler mpg 15/19
Honda Odyssey mpg 16/23
Dodge Grand Caravan mpg 17/24

Out of the top 20 light truck / SUV / MiniVan sold, only about FOUR (Escape, Rav4, CRV, Rogue) had city gas mileage above 20, and highway mileage above 25. Now for comparison, the Hummer H3 mpg is 14/18.

So can we dump all this garbage? Here's the bottom line. Because of Union contracts, GM was spending too much on labor to make a profit. That's it. There's nothing else. No they did not focused on the wrong thing. None of this 'they should have copied an import' crap. Flat out, the cost of production, was higher then the revenue from selling the autos. That's all there is to it.
Click to expand...

actually; this line is a hype to an extent (only one I can speak on since I own one):
Out of the top 20 light truck / SUV / MiniVan sold, only about FOUR (Escape, Rav4, CRV, Rogue) had city gas mileage above 20
Click to expand...
my Escape gets between 16 to 18 mpg and it only has about 20,000 miles so its not worn out.
 

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