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    Vauxhall/GM/Germany/UK

    I wonder what the OTF view of this is. One man's investment is another man's corporate welfare. Of course, the argument's been changed somewhat by all the money spent on banks, but one might equally say that good money shouldn't follow bad.

    I'm very much in the sceptical camp. While I'm not Milton Friedman re manufacturing, is it that important that cars are manufactured in Britain/Germany rather than, say, Spain? Could the 6bn Euros loaned by Germany to these car companies not be better spent on something else- something perhaps that doesn't cause so much damage? GM are not a highly regarded company but is there any reason to expect British and German produced cars to turn in a profit in the future?

    #2
    Vauxhall/GM/Germany/UK

    Well, I do think it's interesting - and a little bit exciting - that a couple of really bright car guys now own car brands: Frank Stronach and Magna have been given the Opel nod, and Roger Penske now owns Saturn. I can't say they'll succeed, but they probably have more car-smarts than the bums who've run it all into the ground so far.

    I see no reason that cars produced in the UK, Germany or Switzerland, for that matter, can't be produced profitably. If the playing field is fairly level from a wage and non-wage obligations point of view, any country has a fairly equal shot.

    Is it that important, though? Ask they men and women who build them. And then figure out a viable, immediate way of replacing all those massive salaries if it were all to move to Spain or Romania or Zimbabwe.

    As for 'not so much damage', I dunno. You've got one of the better rail networks in the world, yet people drive cars. People in London have a brilliant public transit system, yet they drive cars.

    And so on. Now, picture the US and Canada where we have virtually none of that.

    Comment


      #3
      Vauxhall/GM/Germany/UK

      Well, there are 5,500 employees in Britain. Let's say half of those work at the threatened plant, Luton. Do I have to come up with something that employees all of those people in the same town? Could we not employ them on railway infrastructure- which is poor by European standards?

      Comment


        #4
        Vauxhall/GM/Germany/UK

        What I really mean is "oi, that's my fucking tax cut", eh, YATR?

        Comment


          #5
          Vauxhall/GM/Germany/UK

          Your thread title is clearly inadequate. It needs to be changed to make greater reference to the fact that once again, we in the NPS are taking over the world.

          The ice hockey lessons begin immediately.

          Comment


            #6
            Vauxhall/GM/Germany/UK

            Tubby Isaacs wrote:
            Well, there are 5,500 employees in Britain. Let's say half of those work at the threatened plant, Luton. Do I have to come up with something that employees all of those people in the same town? Could we not employ them on railway infrastructure- which is poor by European standards?
            That'd be great. Do they have skills that will transfer directly, or will they need training on the government's tab? Will you be buying their houses from them, as the resale market in Luton will be tanking? Will you be relocating their families? Finding jobs for their employed spouses? Are there provisions for the secondary workers and pub owners and lorry drivers and landlords who all depend on the factory in their own ways?

            I dunno, though. It's a tough call when you're spending other people's money. I heard the Luton union rep on the CBC tonight and he made the usual "If you want to sell cars here you should build cars here" point. Which is a good point, but has roughly nothing to do with the current state of car companies around the world. There is utterly massive overcapacity with no need in sight for it for years.

            Comment


              #7
              Vauxhall/GM/Germany/UK

              So you are tying me down to creating like for like jobs in the same place? That's obviously going to be pretty tough. If I said spend x on the health service there, would that not be acceptable?

              The plant is going to be open at least 4 more years. That's a while to get something worthwhile going. There's no reason why the town has to collapse (though it isn't the most prosperous, there are lots of worse places) like early 80s manufacturing centres. If I was the union man, I'd be arguing like him to keep the plant open. The choice isn't likely to be some forward thinking investment, but, well, early 80s style collapse.

              Comment


                #8
                Vauxhall/GM/Germany/UK

                I'm just busting your balls. I don't know the answer. It's tough: if you're talking about closing down one of four factories in an auto town - like Oshawa, here - it's one thing. But if you're talking about shutting the only plant in a fairly one-industry town, it's quite another.

                I really do wish there was some way to make those 4 years work for the good, but the unfortunate truth is that nothing will happen until the place closes. Nothing.

                I was watching - as I mentioned on another thread the other day - an HBO doc on a truck factory closing in Dayton Ohio. They had good notice of the closure; not four years or anything, but good notice. Six days before it closed, at a loss of thousand of jobs, some of the people in the doc were still saying "I truly believe we'll get another vehicle [to build] at the last minute. This place isn't really closing." If they'd had four years' notice, I don't think it would have made a bit of difference.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Vauxhall/GM/Germany/UK

                  WornOldMotorbike wrote:
                  ...and Roger Penske now owns Saturn.
                  Who? Saturn, I mean - not Penske.

                  I used to follow car stuff closely in my youth, but have taken my eye off the ball in the last two decades.

                  Were Saturn called something else previously? That's what I really mean.

                  There's bad things and good things in this. The bad is obviously a potentially massive wave of unemployment as a major manufacturing industry is simply switched off. The good - considerably more flippantly - is that a) it might get those fucking ugly Vauxhalls off our roads, and b) if Vauxhall do survive as a brand, but with different owners, perhaps they'll be less likely to instantly kill off any decent model they make. (See the VX220 and Monaro.)

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Vauxhall/GM/Germany/UK

                    Isn't this the type of thing that would have been considered a strategic industry? You know, handy if there's a war? Blimey, this is starting to sound like I have a bit of a hobby-horse.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Vauxhall/GM/Germany/UK

                      No, that's a fair point, but I can't really see another WW2 coming. And I was talking about production moving to elsewhere in the EU- the prospect of one of our allies in there turning out bombers and flattening us should be remote.

                      I do think it's important that there is manufacturing, but, Canadian expertise aside, I don't see the prospect of this doing particularly well.

                      WOM, balls are busted, and I don't know the answer either. But Luton (and surrounding urban area) has a population of 230,000. I don't know how many of the parts are made in the area, but you can see that the car plant is not as important as in Dayton. It's 30 miles from London, has an airport, if anywhere would repay investment, Luton would.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Vauxhall/GM/Germany/UK

                        The round black rubber thing is a puck. You use these sticks to steer it into the goal at the opponent's end.

                        You are allowed five skaters and a goaltender. Only the latter is allowed to use unfeasibly large sticks and pads.

                        Forward passes are allowed, but not across the opponent's blue line (unless to a teammate who was onside of the blueline at the time the pass was made).

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Vauxhall/GM/Germany/UK

                          WornOldMotorbike wrote:
                          I heard the Luton union rep on the CBC tonight and he made the usual "If you want to sell cars here you should build cars here" point.
                          This is the stupidest argument imaginable. Try inserting other words in there for "cars" and see what happens. For example, "computers" "bananas", or "soft toys".

                          America has two major technologies for making cars. One is located in Detroit, and it uses lots of machinery to make GMs, Fords and Chryslers. The other is located in Iowa, and its involves growing lots of wheat to earn foreign exchange to purchase Toyotas, Volkswagens, etc.

                          To suggest that one these technologies is superior to the other in terms of ensuring a people have access to automobiles has to do with politics and particular notions of modernity, not economics.

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Vauxhall/GM/Germany/UK

                            evilC wrote:
                            Who? Saturn, I mean - not Penske.

                            I used to follow car stuff closely in my youth, but have taken my eye off the ball in the last two decades.

                            Were Saturn called something else previously? That's what I really mean.
                            Saturn was an experiment by General Motors that started off brilliantly and was mismanaged to death, like virtually everything else under their command.

                            It was started as an arm's-length subsidiary to produce small cars in non-unionized factories to compete head to head with the best Japan was offering at the time. It worked. It was a hit. And then it was treated like a red-headed stepchild until it resembled all the other badge-engineered lookalike shit that GM produced over the past 15 years.

                            Currently, it produces nothing of its own. Rather, it sells an Opel, two Chevrolets and a Pontiac under the Saturn badge. Penske has basically purchased a very aggressive dealer network and the right to source cars from around the world and sell them under the Saturn brand. I have every confidence in his success, to be honest.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Vauxhall/GM/Germany/UK

                              Tubby Isaacs wrote:
                              WOM, balls are busted, and I don't know the answer either. But Luton (and surrounding urban area) has a population of 230,000. I don't know how many of the parts are made in the area, but you can see that the car plant is not as important as in Dayton. It's 30 miles from London, has an airport, if anywhere would repay investment, Luton would.
                              No, this is a very good point, and highlights my lack of knowledge about where and what Luton is. Clearly it's not a one-industry town, so it's certainly not apples to apples with Oshawa or Dayton. And a metropolis of 230,000 on the fringe of an exponentially larger one could absorb the losses fairly easily.

                              Perhaps AG's right in that much of this hand-wringing is political rather than economic.

                              But I also think there's a lot to be said - contrary to his computer comparison - for arguing against the wholesale demise of yet another industry. North America simply let go of the TV and radio manufacturing industries. Then computers. Then practically everything else that was considered low value-add. To just let the manufacture of something as high-value/high-cost as automobiles go without putting up a good fight would be foolish, I think.

                              And I know, for anyone who actually remembers anything I post, that this stands in stark contrast to things I've said regarding 'first world nations being better than devoting valuable resource to preserving industries where people essentially insert flap A into fold B', but I'm rethinking that position lately.

                              Comment


                                #16
                                Vauxhall/GM/Germany/UK

                                WornOldMotorbike wrote:
                                To just let the manufacture of something as high-value/high-cost as automobiles go without putting up a good fight would be foolish, I think.
                                Upon what evidence would you rest your assertion that manufacturing autos is high value? In North America, I mean. Very few things have destroyed value faster than the auto industry in the last ten years or so.

                                Comment


                                  #17
                                  Vauxhall/GM/Germany/UK

                                  High value in that it provides steady, well-paid jobs to people who generally haven't invested a lot of time or money in post-secondary education; in that there is massive secondary employment - usually estimated at 7 or 8 additional jobs per 1 hands-on automotive job; high value in the design, engineering, logistics, management and other white-collar jobs that contribute to the end product.

                                  I agree that the last ten years have hardly been golden in the sector, but now, post-bankruptcy, the playing field should be far more level and hopefully the future a bit brighter.

                                  Comment


                                    #18
                                    Vauxhall/GM/Germany/UK

                                    WornOldMotorbike wrote:
                                    High value in that it provides steady, well-paid jobs to people who generally haven't invested a lot of time or money in post-secondary education
                                    That's true of sanitation workers, too. Remind me, what was your position on the garbage strike?

                                    in that there is massive secondary employment - usually estimated at 7 or 8 additional jobs per 1 hands-on automotive job; high value in the design, engineering, logistics, management and other white-collar jobs that contribute to the end product.
                                    Every single one of which is contributing to the destruction of value. It's their *collective* product that can't compete.

                                    You seem to be under the impression that because people are paid well, they are adding value. This is not true. Go check out what lawyers are charging these days.

                                    I agree that the last ten years have hardly been golden in the sector, but now, post-bankruptcy, the playing field should be far more level and hopefully the future a bit brighter.
                                    Allowing companies to renege on their debts and pumping in billions of taxpayer dollars is making the playing field more level? Really?

                                    Comment


                                      #19
                                      Vauxhall/GM/Germany/UK

                                      I'm not sure of the value of these secondary jobs. Don't big manufacturers use just in time methods, whereby a lot of shite is pushed on to the suppliers?

                                      I'd be amazed in a rich country like Britain couldn't create better jobs than these with 6 billion Euros worth to loan out.

                                      Comment


                                        #20
                                        Vauxhall/GM/Germany/UK

                                        Whoa, Penske's pulled out of the deal and Saturn's dead.

                                        Comment

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