I’m going to try to keep this post as succinct and polite as possible, but it’s not going to be easy.
I’ve had it with the American auto industry. I’ve worked in dealerships most of my adult life, so I feel relatively qualified to address the situation.
Not only am I pissed off that our new President seems to think that it’s ok to have government owned automobile manufacturers, but I am utterly furious that these businesses, which in all fairness have historically built inferior products have received billions of dollars in ‘bailout’ money when it was obvious from the outset that bankruptcies were all but inevitable.
General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford are large employers, and have been major components of the US economy for a long time. That being said, things change, business changes, and the nexus of the capitalistic system is that underperforming, mismanaged businesses which are outclassed dramatically by an intensely competitive (and often lesser priced) market need to be allowed to fail.
Propping up a business riddled with poor management, poor quality, and uninspiring overpriced products is only postponing the only possible outcome, and in so doing, damaging the rest of the economy by siphoning off resources that could be deployed to more benefit elsewhere.
We are taught from childhood that actions have consequences. It’s the American way. Individual responsibility and accountability have been our historical underpinnings since the dawn of our nation, and is what sets us apart from the European ‘nanny-state’ mentality that the state is the ultimate safety net.
Americans have always been able to see one level deeper. We’ve always known that the safety net starts with ourselves. When hard-working Joe American makes some bad judgment calls and gets in over his head financially, does the government step in and bail him out? Of course not. Bankruptcy is the protection afforded to him under our system. That is the second chance. The clean slate. The last resort.
Joe American loses his ability to secure credit for a while, and pays the price for his bad judgment but through hard work, determination, and having learned lessons from his mistakes, he rebuilds himself and avoids the pitfalls that brought him down before.
In much the same way, the big automakers need to learn to get their economic house in order. Blaming the nebulous ‘economy’ is not enough to absolve them of responsibility for their part in their own collapse. Had they been lean, tightly run efficient businesses who listened to their customer base instead of building crap for the past 20+ years, we would in all likelihood be looking at a much different scenario. Instead, all over the news are things like this:
As thousands of General Motors workers await word on more U.S. plant closures, reports that the company plans to import Chinese-made vehicles to the U.S. have created a political problem for the automaker and the White House.
On Wednesday, Shanghai Securities News and other Chinese media reported that GM plans to begin exporting vehicles from China to the U.S. within two years, ramping up sales to more than 50,000 by 2014.
What is truly sad is that even in the midst of this auto-industry ‘crisis’, it has become clear that GM in particular has not only learned nothing, but also has no sense of corporate responsibility.
"What's more important, some jobs in a particular factory somewhere or the overall success of the company?" Cole asked. "That is really far more important."
That’s exactly the problem. What’s more important, the overall success of GM or ‘some jobs somewhere’.
This is the corporate attitude that has brought GM to it’s knees. The giant has fallen and is gasping for breath.
The big three have done this to themselves, despite the best intentions of thousands of hard working employees on the factory floor.
Sources: MyWay via Drudge Report
