"As GM Goes, So Goes the Nation"

[NYBiker]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/-As-GM-Goes--So-Goes-the-N-by-David-Glenn-Cox-080708-937.html

"As GM Goes, So Goes the Nation." Such was the conventional wisdom in
the 1960’s when GM churned out Chevelles, Camaros, Cutlasses,
Catalinas, and Cadillacs by the millions. Maybe the saying "runs like
a Cadillac" will outlive the company; maybe "As GM Goes, So Goes the
Nation" has never been truer. GM’s future is bleak, analysts predict
that GM may soon go broke as new car sales stumble.

Did the American market run out on GM? Or did GM run out on the
American market? Maybe they were too busy investing in China and
wondering how to make the translation, "The heartbeat of China, that’s
today’s Chevrolet!" GM is the number two foreign automaker in China
behind Volkswagen, and GM’s plans for the future are dependent on
success in China and not in the good old USA! GM’s number one concern
has been showing US workers the door, and while that looks great on
the bottom line, it doesn’t help to sell cars.

The problem for GM has been whether to build high-profit big cars that
few can afford or low-profit small cars that don’t help their bottom
line as much. GM’s answer has been to build the high profit SUV’s and
import rebadged small cars from Asia. Oddly, no matter how many
workers they cleave from North American payrolls, their market share
still shrinks. I wonder why that is? Maybe their focus has shifted
from building good cars and making a lot of money to just making money
and screw building cars.

GM has spun off subsidiaries for the sole purpose of breaking unions;
they have pressured suppliers to do the same. GM’s axle supplier,
American Axle, just resolved a strike by buying out almost two-thirds
of their workforce and reducing the prevailing wage from $23.00 per
hour to $14.00 per hour. Now they can be competitive! Now they can
expand overseas! Now they can give the CEO an 8.5 million dollar bonus
on top of his 1.5 million-dollar salary! CEO Dick Dauch was awarded a
hell of a lot more than forty pieces of silver, but then again, he
sold out more than just one man.

The board's compensation committee cited the executive's
''accomplishments and commitment during a period of significant change
in our industry.'' He must be famous by now; if you say Big Dick at
American Axle they’ll know just who you are talking about! Funny
peculiar, not funny ha ha, the new, lower paid employees at American
Axle can’t afford to buy any new GM products. American Axle lists 90%
of their profits as coming from sales to America’s big three
automakers, that’s spelled Irony. Maybe Big Dick will help them out
and buy a couple of Chevys, but I bet he won’t.

He’ll probably go for that flashy import, GM products are so "middle
class." The valets at the country club might even give Big Dick the
eye in a Chevy or Pontiac as they don’t see too many of those these
days. Mercedes and Lexus are today’s status symbols. If he showed up
in a Cadillac they might suspect his regular car was in the shop.
Caught in the jaws of their own making, the rich don’t want them and
the poor can’t afford them; that’s today’s Chevrolet!

With seven-year car loans and leases, GM reaches out to the working
poor they helped to create and asks, "why don’t they love us anymore?"
Remember when Pat Boone used to sing, "See the USA in your Chevrolet!"
Now Bob Seeger sings "Like a Rock" as Chevy sales do just that:
plummet, like a rock. GM has invested four billion dollars in their
China operation. Now cars sales for GM in China have stalled and cars
are piling up in inventory as Toyota joins the Chinese market. They
can run but they can’t hide; no matter how many times they cut the
board, it’s still too short!

But, "As GM Goes, So Goes the Nation," and the pundits will tell you
again and again, "consumer spending is 70% of the economy." An economy
strangled blue by lower wages and pushing the customers GM needs to
survive under water. The Wal-Marting of America, of reducing costs by
reducing wages has come full circle to bite them on the ass.
Prosperity lost is not easily regained. One wage earner with ten
million dollars might buy half a dozen cars but a thousand wage
earners at the old American Axle wages bought a thousand cars.

GM’s stock price fell to $10.00 a share, a level not seen since 1954.
However in 1954, $10.00 would buy a tank of gas, a bag of groceries or
a night at the movies. Today? Not even McDonalds for two, two gallons
of gas, or milk and bread. In actuality GM’s stock price has never
looked worse. GM’s new plan is centered around firing white-collar
workers and eliminating another GM brand name. Maybe that will work;
it didn’t work last time when they eliminated Oldsmobile, but if at
first you don’t succeed, fire and fire again!

"As GM Goes, So Goes the Nation." GM goes to hell on greed and not
paying attention to the company's primary business, building cars.
America as well goes to hell by ignoring her people to focus on
corporate profits and tax breaks. But without a prosperous people the
corporate profits all go away, and "As GM Goes, So Goes the Nation."



I who am I? Born at the pinnacle of American prosperity to parents
raised during the last great depression. I was the youngest child of
the youngest children born almost between the generations and that in
fact clouds and obscures who it is that I am really. Given a front row
seat for the generation of the 1960's I lived in Chicago in 1960. My
father was a Democratic precinct captain, my mother an election judge.
His father had been a Union organizer and had been beaten and jailed
for his efforts. His first time in jail was for punching a Ku Klux
Klansman during a parade in the 1930's. I never felt as if I was
raised in a family of activists but seeing it print makes me think,
yes. That is a part of who I am. We find ourselves today living in a
world treed by the hounds of madness, a complicit media covering
contrite parties. Multilevel media, giving more access to
communication yet stunting actual communication. More noise, less
voice, more sound less music, more law less justice, more medicine
less life.

[wthom...@aol.com]

Nice article but it was the Chevette. That's when Detroit Gear started going downhill when we lost the Chevette. The next small car model went to front wheel drive and was made in Korea. We weren't always dependent on trucks. We made brakes too.

Wendy

http://www.opednews.com/articles/-As-GM-Goes--So-Goes-the-N-by-David-Glenn-Cox-080708-937.html

"As GM Goes, So Goes the Nation." Such was the conventional wisdom in
the 1960’s when GM churned out Chevelles, Camaros, Cutlasses,
Catalinas, and Cadillacs by the millions. Maybe the saying "runs like
a Cadillac" will outlive the company; maybe "As GM Goes, So Goes the
Nation" has never been truer. GM’s future is bleak, analysts predict
that GM may soon go broke as new car sales stumble.

Did the American market run out on GM? Or did GM run out on the
American market? Maybe they were too busy investing in China a
nd
wondering how to make the translation, "The heartbeat of China, that’s
today’s Chevrolet!" GM is the number two foreign automaker in China
behind Volkswagen, and GM’s plans for the future are dependent on
success in China and not in the good old USA! GM’s number one concern
has been showing US workers the door, and while that looks great on
the bottom line, it doesn’t help to sell cars.

The problem for GM has been whether to build high-profit big cars that
few can afford or low-profit small cars that don’t help their bottom
line as much. GM’s answer has been to build the high profit SUV’s and
import rebadged small cars from Asia. Oddly, no matter how many
workers they cleave from North American payrolls, their market share
still shrinks. I wonder why that is? Maybe their focus has shifted
from building good cars and making a lot of money to just making money
and screw building cars.

GM has spun off subsidiaries for the sole purpose of breaking unions;
they have pressured suppliers to do the same. GM’s axle supplier,
American Axle, just resolved a strike by buying out almost two-thirds
of their workforce and reducing the prevailing wage from $23.00 per
hour to $14.00 per hour. Now they can be competitive! Now they can
expand overseas! Now they can give the CEO an 8.5 million dollar bonus
on top of his 1.5 million-dollar salary! CEO Dick Dauch was awarded a
hell of a lot more=2
0than forty pieces of silver, but then again, he
sold out more than just one man.

The board's compensation committee cited the executive's
''accomplishments and commitment during a period of significant change
in our industry.'' He must be famous by now; if you say Big Dick at
American Axle they’ll know just who you are talking about! Funny
peculiar, not funny ha ha, the new, lower paid employees at American
Axle can’t afford to buy any new GM products. American Axle lists 90%
of their profits as coming from sales to America’s big three
automakers, that’s spelled Irony. Maybe Big Dick will help them out
and buy a couple of Chevys, but I bet he won’t.

He’ll probably go for that flashy import, GM products are so "middle
class." The valets at the country club might even give Big Dick the
eye in a Chevy or Pontiac as they don’t see too many of those these
days. Mercedes and Lexus are today’s status symbols. If he showed up
in a Cadillac they might suspect his regular car was in the shop.
Caught in the jaws of their own making, the rich don’t want them and
the poor can’t afford them; that’s today’s Chevrolet!

With seven-year car loans and leases, GM reaches out to the working
poor they helped to create and asks, "why don’t they love us anymore?"
Remember when Pat Boone used to sing, "See the USA in your Chevrolet!"
Now Bob Seeger sings "Like a Rock"=2
0as Chevy sales do just that:
plummet, like a rock. GM has invested four billion dollars in their
China operation. Now cars sales for GM in China have stalled and cars
are piling up in inventory as Toyota joins the Chinese market. They
can run but they can’t hide; no matter how many times they cut the
board, it’s still too short!

But, "As GM Goes, So Goes the Nation," and the pundits will tell you
again and again, "consumer spending is 70% of the economy." An economy
strangled blue by lower wages and pushing the customers GM needs to
survive under water. The Wal-Marting of America, of reducing costs by
reducing wages has come full circle to bite them on the ass.
Prosperity lost is not easily regained. One wage earner with ten
million dollars might buy half a dozen cars but a thousand wage
earners at the old American Axle wages bought a thousand cars.

GM’s stock price fell to $10.00 a share, a level not seen since 1954.
However in 1954, $10.00 would buy a tank of gas, a bag of groceries or
a night at the movies. Today? Not even McDonalds for two, two gallons
of gas, or milk and bread. In actuality GM’s stock price has never
looked worse. GM’s new plan is centered around firing white-collar
workers and eliminating another GM brand name. Maybe that will work;
it didn’t work last time when they eliminated Oldsmobile, but if at
first you don’t succeed, fire and fire again!

"As GM=2
0Goes, So Goes the Nation." GM goes to hell on greed and not
paying attention to the company's primary business, building cars.
America as well goes to hell by ignoring her people to focus on
corporate profits and tax breaks. But without a prosperous people the
corporate profits all go away, and "As GM Goes, So Goes the Nation."



I who am I? Born at the pinnacle of American prosperity to parents
raised during the last great depression. I was the youngest child of
the youngest children born almost between the generations and that in
fact clouds and obscures who it is that I am really. Given a front row
seat for the generation of the 1960's I lived in Chicago in 1960. My
father was a Democratic precinct captain, my mother an election judge.
His father had been a Union organizer and had been beaten and jailed
for his efforts. His first time in jail was for punching a Ku Klux
Klansman during a parade in the 1930's. I never felt as if I was
raised in a family of activists but seeing it print makes me think,
yes. That is a part of who I am. We find ourselves today living in a
world treed by the hounds of madness, a complicit media covering
contrite parties. Multilevel media, giving more access to
communication yet stunting actual communication. More noise, less
voice, more sound less music, more law less justice, more medicine
less life.

---

The Famous, the Infamous, the Lame - in your browser. Get the TMZ Toolbar Now!

[Overfield]

The UAW is paid to support the Workers.  They support the company.  The good ol days are long gone.  Time for a reality check!!