What's Good for GM is Good for the Country @ 04:52 pm

Let me see if I have this straight. GM is asking 74,000 to take early retirement becasue they are losing their ass. Granted, what Atrios calls "the Big Shitpile", or the subprime mortgage problem is good for a couple of billion in losses (remember GM is as much of a bank as they are a manufacturer in the US, or why their cars look like they were designed by accountants.) But, 74,000 jobs now going to be lost. Wasn't this close to the amount of new jobs created in each of the last two months? So we need about 100,000 new jobs every month to keep pace with the new workers. Basically, we have been losing jobs regularly and now we will have 74,000 more on SS, manufacturing jobs (do fries come with that shake?) or basically jobless and many in the already hard hit Midwest. Yes, GM's troubles can partially be traced to the health care they have to pay their workers. Another section is the abyssmal designs from 1974-1985 or later. They lost their reputation. Even though many of their new cars have won awards, it is hard to get back that loving feeling from the buying public. When was the last time you heard someone get excited about a Nova. They do have some fun stuff coming out, like the HHRi (I think that is what it is called, but a high performance HHR, it is!) But nothing to get a hold of the public imagination like the Taurus did for Ford in the 80s. Or the Vette of the 60s. I hope the flexible fuel vehicles do them well. The US can ill afford to lose another major manufacturer.

rojo