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What model of car doesn't begin depreciating in value immediately after being sold? I'd really like to buy one.

Your letter is so last week Lowell, now the Big 3 want $34 billion.

My brother sent this to me:

A Japanese company (Toyota) and an American company (Ford) decided to have
a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard
to reach their peak performance before the race.

On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile.

The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the
reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior
management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action.

Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person
steering, while the American team had 8 people steering and 1 person
rowing.

Feeling a deeper study was in order, American management hired a
consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second
opinion.

They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat,
while not enough people were rowing.

Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent
another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was
totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 3 area steering
superintendents, and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager.

They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 1
person rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called
the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners, and free
pens for the rower .

There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes, and other equipment,
extra vacation days for practices and bonuses.

The next year the Japanese won by two miles.

Humiliated, the American management laid off the rower for poor
performance, halted development of a new canoe, sold the paddles, and
canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was
distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses and the next year's
racing team was out-sourced to India.

Sadly, The End.

Here's something else to think about:

Ford has spent the last thirty years moving 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 and begging Washington to save them
all!!!!

The End.

I might add that the Big 3 over the past decades have sucked up to UAW demands for high wages, benefits, etc. My favorite is the program where auto workers get paid $31/hr. plus benefits to sit around and do crossword puzzles.

This has contributed to their uncompetitive situation against Toyota et. al.

"unless the UAW, the CEO and the rest of the company figure out that they have to cut expenses, reduce benefits, eliminate unnecessary models and improve quality."

I agree with the above statement with the exception of reducing benefits unless those benefit reductions are in the way of non-health issues. I cannot imagine paying a CEO 25-30 million/year but cutting health benefits to workers. This really does put us in a third world category.

Here's one, rahrah, but you'll need a few spare million:
http://www.web-cars.com/gto/photo.php?photo=Chassis-4561_a.jpg

Less than 40 were made. And certainly not "environmentally friendly". Lessons in inflation...

(Watched Idiocracy, btw. Pretty funny.)

To the LTE I'd say "environmentally friendly" isn't the problem. Money management is. Be it too many models or jet flights or whatever else, let them run the company however they want. It's a private enterprise. But if it's "into the ground" then tough.

But the UAW got what they paid for:
Pelosi- Bankruptcy? "not an option"

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aBR5nQbuo1bU

Cool car, Roger.

==

I think it’s clear we cannot let GM close the doors; there would be a direct loss of perhaps a million jobs with multiple-millions more by the time it all ripples through the economy. Ten / Twenty years ago, when the UAW was getting all the fluff it was asking for, America could have tolerated a major collapse .. but not today.

I’m not sure that precludes bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is only a legal status that rearranges the billing cycles – and of course there are several kinds of bankruptcy – so maybe there is a way to do a chapter “_“ to force renegotiation of all the union contracts as well as elimination of golden parachutes without putting the entire economy into absolute shock. Perhaps the surplus middle level “managers” could go back on the assembly line to replace UAW workers lost through attrition.

Considering Dan’s post, and as a start – it would be appropriate if those that ran these companies into the ditch committed seppuku.