Why should I buy an American car?

[bigslim]

Originally Posted by silverknight

meh. i still think UAW is to blame on a large part. the unions were needed a long time ago to organize stuff. but now its there and taking advantage of the companies. some people are overpaid. and i know this sucks for the employees. but gettin paid full at times when the plant is closed. is kinda. um, yeah. i mean, paying them 1/2 ok. but payin them in full for time they dont go in. not my kinda stuff. and the retirement packages for people. a bit much. execs are makin like 100k a year retired. plus still gettin insurence and crap. plus. in some cases unions make people lazy. i dont see honda/toyota having issues due to not having unions, do you? and what about the fact ford is doin well in other parts of the world, but not in the US. in europe where they have lots more competition than just Gm and Chrysler they are still doin very well. but in america even the people who build them wont support them. why, cause they know that either them or thier coworker are slacking. who builds the vehicles? who buys them? if the people that build them dont trust thier work then why should anyone else? if u build a bench, and know u did a shitty job, and dont trust sittin on it, are u goin to tell others to sit on it? why are the jobs goin to other countries? cause the workers dont demand $30 american an hr, plus crazy benifits and retirement packages to do some tasks.

oh. and people suing ford for stupid reasons like this.. linky

sorry, i read reponsed on mm and im somewhat pissed at some americans.. go to some other countries and see how lucky u are u even have a damm to go to everyday.
/endrant

First off, watch what you say about the union here. There are a lot of union workers on this site. Second, we are all tired of hearing how the union has messed everything up. It is the press that tries to make us out to be bad guys. We don't make bad decisions and still get our million dollar bonuses and leased cars. We don't get the fat expense accounts when we mess up. I am sure that if you look back into your family's history someone worked for the union and you or your's benefited from it.

The reason Ford was not profitable here is because they were still selling old Taurus' and Focus'. The Taurus has been around since BC and the Focus got a new platform in Europe but not here. With the new Focus and other exciting cars like the Falcon and Ka, Ford can offer cars people want there. We got stuck with old cars and big trucks. Ford took a gamble with it's trucks instead of investing in new cars quicker. It came back to bite them in the azz.

Now I ask you, who did this? Was it the union workers that decided on what we should sell or the overpaid executives? I know no one came to me and asked what we should sell or what was needed in our car lineup.