Sad, but oh so true!

Sad, but oh so true!

I certainly love America but here's something to think about:
Ford Motor Company has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US, claiming they can't make money paying American wages.

Toyota has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US.

The last quarter's results:
Toyota makes 4 billion in profits while Ford racked up 9 billion in losses.

Ford folks are still scratching their heads.

IF THIS WASN'T SO SAD IT MIGHT BE FUNNY!
:blink:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Prius The First @ May 15 2007, 08:40 AM) [snapback]442322[/snapback]</div>

Does anyone remember that movie (documentary) in the 70's by Michael Moore called "ROGER AND ME" ??
It was all about GM moving OUT of Michigan and other USA locations and "opening production shops" in Brazil, Mexico, etc. It showed all the "domino effect" this had on all the people it laid off as well as the area businesses. Detroit turned in (NO disrespect intended) a "slum" filled with unemployment and drug-use, etc. Saginaw and Lansing (made transmissions) were hurtin' too. Now I am NOT from Michigan so I may have not got all the facts correct, but I was a "teenage gearhead" the time that movie came out, with my '69 RoadRunner and it shocked the Hell out of me to see USA Corporations treat human beings the way they did.............. :angry:

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(dmckinstry @ May 15 2007, 05:42 PM) [snapback]442753[/snapback]</div>

No Dave you are NOT getting OLD..... I screwed up...... it was actually released December 1989. I don't know what made ME think it was in the 70's...............

ROGER AND ME is a feature-length documentary film chronicling the efforts of the world's largest corporation, General Motors, as it turns its hometown of Flint, Michigan, into a ghost town. In his quest to discover why GM would want to do such a thing, filmmaker Michael Moore, a Flint native, attempts to meet the chairman, Roger Smith, and invite him out for a few beers up in Flint to "talk things over". In between his efforts to see Smith, Moore, the son of a Flint autoworker, takes us on a bizarre journey through Flint accompanied along the way by Ronald Reagan, Miss America, Pat Boone, Bob "Newlywed Game" Eubanks, and TV evangelist Robert Schuller--all of whom show up to save Flint from destruction.
But, like a modern-day version of the "Grapes of Wrath," the situation seems hopeless--and the scenes from Flint are startling:
--20,000 people standing in line at one location to collect federal surplus cheese and butter;
--Large sections of the city filled with abandoned homes and boarded up stores, looking more like a war zone than an American town;
--28,000 people who have lost their homes and their life savings and have packed up and headed south in search of work;
--The social cost of 25% unemployment: record rates of suicide, spousal abuse, alcoholism, and, surpassing Miami and Detroit as the city with the highest rate of violent crime.
These are a few of the results of General Motors laying off 40,000 people in Flint in the past nine years. It is expected that GM will eliminate another 10,000 Flint jobs in the next few years. 50% of Flint's GM workforce will have been abolished by 1989, an event of unprecedented proportion in American history.

Yet, since 1983, car sales have steadily risen and GM has posted record profits of nearly $19 billion. So why lay off all of these people? Moore points out that he and his friends were raised on the American Dream which promised that if you worked hard and the company prospered, you would too. Now, it seems, GM has changed the rules: you work hard, the company prospers--and you lose your job.

The film shows that GM has used these profits not to create jobs, but to buy data processing companies (EDS) and weapons manufacturers (Hughes Aircraft), automate their current assembly lines, and build new plants in Mexico and Asia. In addition, GM has bought a controlling interest in Isuzu, entered into a joint operating agreeement with Toyota, and has become the second largest mortgage holder in the United States. Flint, Michigan, it seems, is no longer part of the GM plan.

In the midst of this rapidly crumbling city, the town leaders have gone a little crazy. They quickly devise a series of desperate schemes that seem more like a Marx Brothers movie than serious urban planning:

--The mayor of Flint pays TV evangelist Robert Schuller $30,000 to come to Flint and hold a giant revival meeting, complete with live television coverage, to "heal" the city of its unemployment plague.
--The city, along with the Flint-based Mott Foundation, spends $100 million to build an amusement park tribute "to the glory and wonderment of the automobile" called "AutoWorld"--the world's largest indoor theme park. Over one million tourists a year are expected to visit Flint and AutoWorld. Few toursits show up and AutoWorld closes in six months.
--The city of Flint spends $13 million in tax funds to build a luxury Hyatt Regency hotel in downtown Flint, expecting to draw major conventions to the city. The place goes bankrupt in the first five years.
--The Flint Chamber of Commerce, spurred on by a survey that shows that 45% of Flint's residents say they would move out of Flint immediately if they could, installs a number of large billboards around the city to "help improve the citizens' self concept" (the signs read: "Tough Times Don't Last--Tough People Do!" "Flint--It Means So Much To Be Here" and "Visit Flint--And Leave the Real World Behind!").
--The city health department holds a press conference and announces that the rat population in Flint has surpassed the human census. The department blames it on the fact that the city can only afford to pick up the garbage twice a month and offers a bounty for every dead rat brought in by a city resident.
--A group of laid-off auto workers show up at the GM annual board of directors meeting with a Brinks truck and demand that GM return the millions of dollars in tax breaks it has received for promising to create new jobs.

All the while, the filmmaker, Michael Moore, has been trying to see Roger Smith. He arrives at GM world headquarters in Detroit and is immediately escorted out of the building. He then shows up at the GM board meeting and is removed from the audience's podium. He attempts to track down Roger's estate in Bloomfield Hills, but to no avail. From the Yacht Club to the Golf Club to the Hunt Club, Moore takes us on a tour of the havens of the rich and powerful in his seemingly futile, but finally succesful, attempt to talk to Roger Smith.

ROGER AND ME is both a dark comedy and a compelling indictment of an American Dream gone awry.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Boulder Bum @ May 16 2007, 12:22 AM) [snapback]443052[/snapback]</div>

The very, very sad part of this all is when GM (and the other big 2) in the late 70's had the chance to build a "small car" that was "quality" and NOT "junk & cheap", we all remember the Chevy Vega, they just put out small "crap" cars that were terrible in crash tests and actually "disposable" in just a few years. They kept their "bells & whistles" fully-equipped, "well built" (and I use this term loosely) technology to the LARGE, gas guzzling vehicles. When the MiniVan era died and the SUV came into the spotlight, GM was pumping out big Surburbans, Tahoes, etc. and the Hell with the "fuel-efficient", small vehicles !! Now, on the other hand during this same time TOYOTA did make some roomy, medium sized SUV's but it also produced the MAJORITY of fuel-efficient, small, but quality built, safe and nicely equipped vehicles at an affordable price to the consumer.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(anj48 @ May 16 2007, 11:00 AM) [snapback]443328[/snapback]</div>

Hmmmm....... something we will never really know the truth about I guess ??

I am 54 years old and the late 60's early 70's were MY "gearhead" days.......... by 1973 I had seen too many one and two year old Chevy's rust and rot (Connecticut) with the back windows almost falling out.... truthfully my Father had a '73 Impala (w/ 12K-12 month warranty) !! I decided to invest in a brand new '73 VOLVO 142EA at (brand new w/3 yr.-36K warranty STANDARD !!) $3,800 !! Way ahead of it's time for body strength, even fuel injection. Those were the days that people actually "protested" that I was driving a "foreign car" !! Really !! Worked in a real "All-American" factory in Milford, CT and in the third week I had that nice vehicle some "loyal American" keyed the Volvo ALL AROUND !! Walked around it TWICE !! Guess he (or she) wanted to teach me a lesson to BUY AMERICAN ?? After that I bought Honda's and Acura's and my present Wife (we didn't meet yet back then) was buying Toyota's .... SHE was way ahead of others with their big, 6,000+ lb. Caddy's and Lincolns !! So where did these oversized, gas guzzling, SUV's come from ???? More importantly, where are they going NOW with gas at over $3.25 per gallon ????

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Texas911 @ May 16 2007, 12:23 PM) [snapback]443416[/snapback]</div>

I was born and lived 48 years in CONNECTICUT.... talk about "Unions"...............

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Texas911 @ May 16 2007, 12:23 PM) [snapback]443416[/snapback]</div>

I am psyched now about seeing that crazy movie again.......... gotta rent it via Blockbuster ONLINE, doubt they will have that oldie in any local BB store...............