How the American worker-consumer caused the loss of jobs at GM...

I could not disagree with you more. By blaming US consumer for choosing a better value you are completely ignoring how market works. Market forces obey certain laws like forces of nature obey laws of physics. You can blame US consumers all you want, but at the end of the day consumers (in any country) will choose the best value. Period. The fact that GM's (and other US car manufacturers') products sucked from 70' until late 90's has a lot to do with why US auto industry is in trouble. There are other reasons, I am sure, but they all obey laws of the marketplace and have nothing to do with the fact that US consumers refuse to buy overpriced crap product.

Same goes for TVs and other things. You can not shame anyone into buying crappy expensive stuff when there is better quality and cheaper product on the shelf next to it. That is preposterous.

 

there is a balance to all of life, precarious as it may be. bad decisions sometimes lead to bad consequences.
if we are going to point fingers, we have to start with washington.

 

Most of the people I know who drive GM, do so because someone in their family works for GM and takes advantage of an employee discount. After hearing that story a few times, I started to wonder if GM ever sold cars to anyone other than their employees' families and Hertz.

I'm certain that isn't truly the case, but it was curious.

The last 3 cars I bought were all Japanese brands with major and growing investments in US manufacturing. I don't care if the ownership is overseas. No GM board members live or shop in my town either, so there's little distinction between them in my mind.

Meanwhile all the USA-owned brands are pushing work overseas.

Switching brands for context: Henry Ford figured this out- his employees were going to be his customers.

With the average selling price of a pickup truck now over $48k, the classic 20/4/10 rule suggests that the average Ford employee should be earning around $107k per year.

Plain and simple, American labor compensation has not kept up with the times.

 

Buy American does mean nothing. Americas have many countries. North America alone has three countries in it. If you mean "Buy US-made", then it is meaningful and most people would do so IF US-made represented competitive value. Given the choice of equal value items I personally would choose domestic made every time. But I will not buy a GM product as long as there is a better car for less money available. Would you? what do you drive? I see a Prius V on your profile. Why didn't you choose a GM product?

 

we are partially to blame, especially when voting

 

All of my personally owned vehicles are GM products, and I will say without hesitation that my next one will probably be one as well.

However (comma!) the idea that some jingoistic notion of "buying Merican!" would save GM jobs is 100-percent balloon juice and it is a beautiful example of the vast difference between classroom economics and real-world economics.

The reason that there is a lingering perception that GM=poo is that, as mentioned previously, in the 60's,70's and 80's they WERE poo!
This poo-ism was EXASERBATED by both jingoism and real-world market forces.
Remember when the only real competition for 'Merican iron either came from Japan or Germany - two nations that we were in a total war with just a few decades before their funky little cars started arriving on our shores?

In case nobody noticed, and it would seem that.........nobody noticed, the vehicles that are getting thwacked by GM are damned good cars.
The REASON that these previous pooey cars are very highly regarded in the automotive industry is the VERY FACT that people stopped buying American in the 70's and 80's for 2 very important reasons:
1. They were poo.
2. GM failed to respond to external forces in the marketplace two of which almost killed them off more effectively than competition (Unions and gas prices)

After all......it's one thing to have a hangar queen towed to the repair shop bi-monthly for expensive repairs, but having to over pay for the piece of poo, AND not being able to afford to keep the tank filled are contrary to building brand loyalty.
COULD IT BE....that GM is trying to dodge a punch this time?
Remember....
People don't want to buy really good CARS.
They want to buy really REALLY good crossovers, at bargain basement prices.

Lastly....
There's the WORKER end of this alleged "worker-consumer" relationship.
Ever open up a new Mac product?

I did.
Just yesterday I became the proud owner of a brand-new i-thingy (G6 iPad.)
Review to follow.
(Don't Judge me)

Right there on the box, emblazoned in proud hipster-font for all of the world to see is the proud phrase:
"Designed in California, Made in China"

Leaving aside the communist nation slave-labor, and the offshoring in the EU aspects of this proud little statement, there is a little appreciated fact that nobody wants to do the WORKER part of the equation....... (theory to practice exercise: look up the word "equation.")
I'm not at all saying that American workers are lazy or inefficient, but rather that nobody wants their crotch-fruit to be successful in life by earning union wages, slapping wheel covers onto 2019 Chevy sedans for 30 years.

They want their lil' darlings to earn six-figure wages, standing at their Gucci little raised desk-treadmill-espresso dispenser workstations...designing the wheel covers so that some person in another nation can be successful in life by earning union wages, slapping wheel covers onto export edition Chevy crossovers for 30 years......

 

Wish for?
HARDLY!

Most people MY age have no problem at all with passing the septre of "world Leader" off to another nation - or having it taken from us.
I think that it would be a BLAST to join the usta-great nations (Germany,UK, France, etc....) on the front porch at the retirement home and throw shade at the folks who are making all of the tough calls!
.....just be sure that you know what you're getting for a new boss.

As far as the European empires "losing their dominance in both political, economic and military power after WWI".....you'd better re-check your lecture notes!!
Europe still had enough stroke after the "Great War" to change the name of one of our federal holidays from "Armistice Day" to Veteran's Day.

I'll probably get yellow-carded for this, but the only reason that those crusty old nations didn't upend the whole card table AFTER World War First, was that a certain far-left US President absolutely TRASHED the US Constitution (as amended) and blatantly broke many laws....saving us almost single-handedly......twice.
The first time he saved us, we were circling the drain in the toilet of Communism during the Great Depression.
The SECOND time FDR saved our collective backsides was when he, again....almost single handedly dragged us kicking and screaming out of our isolationism in the early 30's and left us (barely!) able to deal with threats that arose in 1939.

France lost their world leader card in 1940 when they signed a hunk of paper in a rail car.
The UK lost theirs in 1941-42 when they had their PAC fleet destroyed by aircraft and couldn't defend important colonies like Singapore.
Germany might be temporarily getting theirs back, but they have to feed 27 unemployed bums living in their house, and their security guards are threatening to walk out on them.
Oh....yeah....and they all live next to some really REALLY poor neighbors, one of which is kinda crazy and is taking pot shots at some of the others from his front porch.
And we're not even yet THINKING about the religious freaks that live in the sandbox around the block!!!

Oh...Yeah....
You can give THOSE world leader problems to somebody else as far as I'm concerned!!


Finally....the US didn't come into "world dominance" or really even into world importance until about 1939.
Unfortunately....things like the nine-dash plan will probably tilt the table another way after I'm gone......and people will still be earning their college degrees by agreeing with, rather than challenging the beliefs of their 'professors."

SSDD (same stuff...different decade)

 

Speaking for this worker consumer, my last GM - the LeMans - was something of a death trap. I let it go when the rust got bad and had zero desire to get another one. I was well aware when I started buying these - how do you pronounce it? Do they really work?- Priuses that I was going all the way to Japan to buy something that Detroit *could* have built years ago but they just didn't want to.

Buying foreign was the *only* thing I could do that had any chance at all of waking up anybody in Detroit. From my point of view they've been asleep at the wheel for years. The same thing has happened to them twice in my lifetime, but OK, let's blame the guy on the line some more...

 

The other element is pollution control. China is making goods cheaply in part due to weak environmental regs.
We in USA are sort of NIMBY's. We want cheap goods and ZERO pollution here. Also we want (and have) very low overall tax rates.

USA has some of the strongest enviro regs, yet many strongly feel only ZERO emissions is acceptable here. We have the conviction that modern technology is properly applied allows for ZERO pollution, and anybody who does not agree with that is free to relocate their industry in a different country who may not be as angry about even the slightest trace of pollution, like we are. And whereas ZERO pollution is not-attainable, therefore industry is not welcome here, although we might make some exceptions for iPhone manufacture, farming and other poltically acceptable endeavors .

 

Laying this entirely at the consumer is overly simplistic, there are many factors.
Bigger causes, IMO, include the shift of buying. NOT to non-GM brands, but towards SUVs and trucks.
The next issue is the apparent difficulty of swapping production at those plants from cars, to SUVs or trucks.

In addition, the Billion dollar loss at the hands of the tariffs isn’t helping.

 

gm and others will be fine as long as gas prices are low and the economy is decent.

consumers are a part of the puzzle that manufacturers have to figure out, not the other way around.

when gas goes up, and/or the economy falters, we'll know who made the right long term decisions and who didn't.
until then, workers suffer at the hands of corporate boards as is always the case.

 

Back in 1981 I ended up with a Volvo because what I saw in the GM showrooms was total junk. I was seriously looking at a Z/28 or Trans Am. You know it's bad when the body panels and doors are not even straight. Even the consoles were not installed straight. My family was buying GM's from the 1920's and my sister (68) is the last of us to be a GM owner. If someone had told me in high school that I'd be owning a Volvo four years later I'd have laughed at them. Owned Volvo's since 1981 when I bought my first one a 242 Turbo 5 speed. Today the last Volvo I'll probably ever own is a garage queen a 1997 960 with 128,000 miles on her. She is my dedicated highway car.

In 2009 I traded in my daily driver, a modified Volvo 1987 740 Turbo wagon five speed with 370K miles for my present 2010 Prius. Modified as in power as well as fuel mileage. Boosted the HP from 160 to about 220 with the addition of a SAAB APC boost circuit to the Volvo waste gate. Rocker switch on the dash off, 7 psi of boost for fuel economy, on it gave me 14 psi of boost for performance. Various mods including automatic to manual transmission, changed out the rear end from a performance unit (3.90) to fuel economy rear gears (3.31). Aero mods included lowering the car and ripping off the roof rack. Threw in Bilstein struts and shocks and larger sway bars to add to the handling factor.

Bottom line 325 miles per 15.8 gallon tank on the highway stock, to 425-440 after modifications. This was the beginning of my transition from being a gear head, to running a car for fuel economy. After the fuel price jumps in 2005 and 2008 I said never again would I get caught with a fuel sucking pig as my DD. In 2009 there really was a limited number of cars that were getting the fuel mileage I wanted and GM, Ford, Chrysler or Volvo weren't offering anything close to what I wanted. The Ford Fusion Hybrid has just been introduced but wasn't on the dealers lots yet.

It was the new third gen Prius, Diesel Jetta, and the Honda Civic Hybrid. The diesel Jetta was high on the list until I started to have people telling me the horror stories on the repair costs associated with the diesel motors. This was when Honda had the beginnings of the Hybrid battery problems in the Civics, leaving only the Prius as the only suitable car for me.

GM only got on the quality bandwagon because they had to. They actually build a decent car the problem is people remember the last 30 years of them building junk.

 

You should ask Japan if they feel the China pollution issue is solved.