I think the US holds onto auto manufacturing as one of the last competitive measures between competing national economies. To your point, they aren't managing GM to be an auto manufacturer.. they've turned to finance which isn't sustainable. The unions seem to have gotten bigger as their insecurity has risen, and the inevitable needs to take place. Unions have beefed up their efforts for negotiating compensation to account for this insecurity but inevitably I believe bankruptcy is the only option. We're a service based economy and its about time they start realizing that.. We can't compete against foreign automakers who have governments that own the resources (and subsidize them) to manufacture the vehicles and cheap labor at their disposal. I guess my question is "Why are we trying to manufacture cars?" We've thrived on innovation... We should be developing the technologies and selling it to these manufacturers who are better positioned to manufacture.
jim
· 4 months ago
An Ed sighting :) And dropping some knowledge on us no-less. The only issue is manufacturing jobs. What will all the untrained / uneducated people do if we quit manufacturing?
erzenny
· 4 months ago
I don't disagree that that will be a problem. I believe that is the problem we need to be addressing, not trying to float auto manufacturers to avoid the problem . Some high end manufacturing jobs should be created as we develop alternative entergy sources and other technologies. We should also keep manufacturing jobs related to national security within the US. Plenty of technological advances are out there and will have manufacturing jobs tied to them. Passing legislation that makes these initiatives more successful seems like the best option to me.
I also believe GM can compete.. they just don't need to be manufacturing as much within the US. There are plenty of offshoring opportunities in several emerging countries. That in combination with some of the common sense things Ford implemented in the "Ford and the American Dream" book would probably put them in much better shape.
The US is a service based economy and manufacturing jobs are going to get slimmer and slimmer. I just think we need to focus on being the technological leaders as there are too many countries that are developing rapidly and they will be competing for these manufacturing jobs. We have to maintain our position as the technology leader.
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I also believe GM can compete.. they just don't need to be manufacturing as much within the US. There are plenty of offshoring opportunities in several emerging countries. That in combination with some of the common sense things Ford implemented in the "Ford and the American Dream" book would probably put them in much better shape.
The US is a service based economy and manufacturing jobs are going to get slimmer and slimmer. I just think we need to focus on being the technological leaders as there are too many countries that are developing rapidly and they will be competing for these manufacturing jobs. We have to maintain our position as the technology leader.