The most important thing to understand is that by keeping the last sector of manufacturing alive in the united states will bring more jobs to the country.
If the big 3 are left alone to fail, and as this recession grows deeper, the millions of people who would be out of jobs from the auto industry could put the country into a DEPRESSION.
I have read all the posters points about the goverment reducing their inputs on safety issues and mileage regulations, but this is silly. All the other companies have to meet those standards and they are all still in business.
Here is an accessment of the current auto industry:
Auto Sales Tank
Wednesday, October 01, 2008 | 01:55 PM
The recent data has been nothing short of astonishing. Auto sales, which were weak over the
past 11 months, simply went into freefall in
September:
• Ford Motor posted a 34% drop. Their truck and van sales fell 39%, SUV sales plummeted 57% and friend-series truck sales dropped 42%.
• Honda reported a 24% decline in sales;
• Toyota U.S. Sept. sales drop 32.3%, light truck sales dropped 38%
• Lexus sales -- Toyota's luxury nameplate -- fell 37.7%;
• Chrysler U.S. September sales fall 33%
• Volvo sales slumped 51.8%;
• Porsche tumbled 45%;
• General Motors sales down 15.6% (better than the expectations of -26%)
• Nissan Sales down 37%
• BMW U.S. sales dropped 25.8%
• Mercedes-Benz reported sales off -16.4%
• Volkswagen sales for September fell 9.4%;
• Hyundai Motor's U.S. sales fell 25%;
• Kia U.S. sales slide 27.8%
• Audi U.S. sales are down 5.4% (but they are a low volume marquee, selling 7, 584 units, vs small Korean mfr KIA, which sold 17,383)
This means the bog winners were VW, (-9.4%), GM, whose sales were better than expected (-15.6%), and Mercedes Benz (-16.4%).
I cannot recall
ever seeing Toyota sales down 32% . . . According to the
Detroit Free Press, the seasonally adjusted annual SAAR for the past decade has ranged between 14 million and 17 million vehicles. Since December, the SAAR has been in a free-fall, and September now looks like its going to hit 13 million annualized sales.
Edmonds.com noted that the last time fewer than 1 million new vehicles were sold in a month was February 1993.
In a related
Reuters story, a new study says that nearly 1 in 5 car dealerships could fail:
"As many as 3,800 U.S. car dealerships could fail this fall and into 2009 -- nearly one in five -- because of weak sales, increased operational costs and the credit crunch, according to a forecast released on Wednesday. "An increasing number of dealers are simply closing their doors because sales have plummeted, credit has dried up, the overall retail environment is increasingly challenging and potential investors are sitting on the sidelines," said Paul Melville, a partner with Grant Thornton LLP, which issued the forecast."....................
This new administration can no longer follow the BUSH policy of letting the infrastructure of this country fail. Bush has done NOTHING over the last 8 years to protect any jobs in this country. He has encouraged and enticed businesses to take their businesses overseas.
We need these jobs and the products they make. They just have to make the kinds of products that will sell in a declining economy.
Simply making millions of large SUV's so soccer moms can drive 1 child to school everyday is no longer practical.
The domestic car companies allowed the japanese to take over the luxury car markey both here and abroad. Our big gas guzzlers are no longer liked in europe and passed over for the toyotas, hondas and Nissans.
The larger luxury cars that are re-branded here as Lexus, Infinity and Acura's are still Toyotas, Nissans and Honda's abroad. They only exist by those fancy names in the States.
If the big 3 want to recapture the market in any way, they have to re-tool and follow the japanese lead and make more fuell efficient cars. Its that simple.
