[fabsroman]

GOB,

Both Big 3 management and the Big 3 EMPLOYEES are to blame for the Big 3's position. I thought I already covered this, but the UAW, United Auto Workers Union, has demanded plenty in the way of health insurance and retirement from the Big 3. Ford's health care costs for its employees was $6 BILLION in 2004. Recently, Ford had a short fall in its defined benefit pension plan to the tune of over $1 BILLION, and that shortfall was because investments hadn't done as well as forecasted. Without doing some additional research, I don't know exactly what Ford's yearly funding requirements are for the pension plan, but I am willing to bet that they are in the BILLIONS. So, EMPLOYEE BENEFITS cost Ford OVER $6 BILLION a year. You have to sell a lot of cars/trucks, etc. to make a $6 BILLION+ profit just to cover health care and pension costs and break even, thereby not giving the stockholders a thing.

I also agree with Lonewolf. The issue with GM and Ford isn't the quality of their vehicles or the price of their vehicles. Three years ago, my dad bought a Ford Focus 4 door in manual with power windows, power locks, A/C, and a couple other bells and whistles for under $15,000. I think it was just over $14,000, but I cannot remember even though I negotiated the sale. He gets 31 mpg with it, and his Crown Victoria stays in the driveway most of the time. The new Ford Focus gets 35 mpg. I bought my Taurus in 1998 with barely any accessories in it and it cost me $18,000 and it gets 27 mpg highway. Granted, with 191,000 on it right now, i'm only getting 25 mpg, but I'll live with that. Not having power locks on it bugs me a little nowadays, but I can live with that in lieu of buying a new car. The fully loaded Taurus would have cost me $24,000 back then, and I was broke because I was in my last week of law school when I lost my old car. So, I picked that one.

I will agree that American automakers are behind on Hybrid technology, but that technology isn't supposed be main stream for very long once the plug in cars become available, and GM has the volt slated for 2010. Ford and GM have both been doing R&D on fuel cell vehicles, and I believe there are a couple of government fleets out there using fuel cell technology.

Regarding the 100 mpg carburator, I agree with Longwolf on that. Can people even argue that the oil companies are in cohoots with the Big 3 anymore. The Big 3 were selling SUV's like hot cakes and then Big Oil decides to go and raise the price on gas. Yeah, they are really cooperating. Plus, it isn't really Big Oil that decides the price of oil, but the futures traders. Don't you think that if one of the Big 3 had a patent on a carburetor that could produce 100 mpg, they would use it instead of begging for a bailout and praying that they do not have to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Same goes for all these additives that can increase gas mileage. If they were any good, don't you think one of the Big Oil companies would buy the patent, add it to their gas, and drive everybody to their gas stations to crush the competition? All of the conspiracy theories really kill me. Wouldn't there be a person or two that might have spilled the beans over all these decades?

Most Americans blame the Big 3 for the Big Truck/SUV that they are stuck with. Americans always have to blame somebody for their short sightedness instead of taking responsibility for it themselves. People bought houses 50 miles away from where they worked and bought SUV's that got 12 mpg. The price of gas went up, and now they want to blame everybody for it but themselves because they didn't take that variable into account when they bought.

As far as the gun to your head, I have no idea why you were stuck with what a single dealership had to offer. If you waited until the 11th or 12th hour to replace your vehicle, that isn't the dealership's fault. If you had planned the replacement, you could have gone online, done plenty of research, found a dealership with the exact car you wanted (i.e., Ford allows you to search dealer inventory for vehicles that come close to your online build.) I know this because I used this feature when I bought my 2003 F-350. I found dealers within 100 miles of my residence with trucks close to what I wanted. Then, I sent e-mails to the 5 that had what I wanted so I could negotiate the price before I even got there. It didn't work out exactly as I had planned once I got to the dealership because I saw an F-350 that they had just gotten in inventory that I wanted in lieu of the one I had been negotiating on, so the process started all over again and I ended up getting PO'ed. However, you get my point. With proper planning, people should be just fine. Kind of like Katrina. If you didn't plan for that, don't blame others. Same goes for vehicle purchases.

Lonewolf is also correct about the demand for SUV's going right back up now. The GM plant in Texas that builds SUV's and trucks has been running on overtime the past several weeks and they believe it will go on for a couple more months at the minimum. The Americans that are buying these vehicles right now that gas is cheap, will be complaining this upcoming summer when gas is $4 a gallon, and they will be saying that they got duped over the winter by the Big 3. Almost like all the people saying they got duped by their mortgage broker and their real estate agent when they signed on the dotted line. Hardly anybody didn't know what they were getting into. However, they were reading the fine print with their rose colored glasses on that were telling them that house prices would always be increasing, gas would always be cheap, and the stock market would always be booming. I have all of a handful of clients that were very conservative during the good times. Everybody else spent money like it was water.

It all boils down to responsibility. If anybody had been responsible at any level (e.g., bank execs, Big 3 execs, or the American public), we would not be in the pickle we are in. However, to allow the banks and the Big 3 to implode would result in grief beyond any level imaginable. Wth our careless spending and careless use of credit, we have pretty much assured a tough road ahead for not only us, but our children, AND our grandchildren. Honestly, it makes me sick.

In lieu of the bailout for the auto industry, maybe we can put management and the UAW officials in a room and put a sensible American in there with a baseball bat to make them arrive at a fair agreement for everybody. I don't think allowing the Big 3 to go under would be a good idea, but that is just my opinion of course.