Why didn’t the Big 3 Auto Makers heed the signs years ago and re-tool to produce alternate energy vehicles?
They’ve seen this crisis coming for years now. Why didn’t they wise up and change their ways earlier? Why did they just keep building bigger and bigger gas-guzzling SUVs that sold for higher and higher prices? Now the market, the streets, and the parking lots are all flooded with them and it will be years before we work through this inventory with more fuel-efficient cars or public works for more public transportation.
Were these Detroit-dudes really just cigar smoking fat cats, arrogant in their old ways, and truly oblivious (or uncaring) as to what was coming?
Now their lack of foresight has caught up with them and so versus biting the bullet and accepting bankruptcy (which is what happens in a free market economy when you stop producing what the public wants or needs), they come crying to tax payers for a bail out, as if they had no idea this would ever happen to them for not keeping up with the times.
What is the insider’s knowledge of the Big 3 that would be more telling and insightful as to how this monstrous fiasco ever happened? If tax payers bail them out, we and our children and their children may be paying for it..for decades.
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February 13th, 2010 at 11:52 pm
30 years ago, to be exact. I worked at one of the first Honda Dealers. When we drove our demos past the Big Three Dealerships their salesmen would point at our little cars and laugh. Even then we couldn’t keep the cars on the lot. We would go for three weeks without delivering a new car because everything on the lot was already presold. And when the Accord first appeared we were selling them for $1200.00 over list and we still had a two month waiting period. We had customers offering salesmen bribes to be moved up the list. I purchased one – drove it for a year – and sold it for what I paid for it!
An the Big Three just ambled along as usual figuring that it was just a fad and would blow away. Well; who is laughing now? The Imports got better and the North American product stagnated. They have no one to blame but themselves. I say let them go. Other manufacturers will step in with jobs. Just because the Big Three go belly up does not mean people still won’t need cars. Offshore Brands will step in – build new factories – and sell us better built and cheaper cars. They learned their lessons decades ago and are very good at what they do. Satisfy the customer.