General Motors (Ford & Chrysler too) should spin-off each motor division as a separately traded stock with its own engineering department. The spun-off units, including Cadillac, would then be free to design and manufacturer their cars as they chose to, including bringing in German and Japanese engineers to elevate their cars above and beyond BMW, Mercedes, Lexus and Infiniti.
The historic General Motors, Chrysler, or Ford would be the contract manufacturers that each division could contract to build their motor cars to their STRICT SPECIFICATIONS. Part and parcel with this proposal, the Union workers would have to become more flexible in order to keep their jobs from being outsourced to India and China. This Country is going to Hell in a handbag quickly! The Rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer and the MIDDLE CLASS is getting ROYALLY SCREWED!
My humble opinion for making America a dominant manufacturing behemoth again!
Looking forward to the Cadillac Sixteen!
Happy Easter!
Eugene
Eugene,
That is an interesting thought. Seems to fly in the face of the modern day practice of mergers and acquisitions. Then again, since the heyday of that corporate phase or business philosphy we have seen corporate spin offs of divisions,all of which were for the benefit of filling executives pockets with money.
At any rate nothing is carved in stone and auto manufacturing is global now with very little nationalism or brand loyalty.
We dont manufacture TVs or toasters anymore, when push comes to shove auto manufacturing is no sacred cow either. We really only have Ford and GM as the last domestic manufacturers, they may well end up merging with a foreign brand like Chrysler did, who knows. The bottom line is profitability.
Perhaps all we will have someday are domestic defense contractors, that would be a matter of national security. Then again, they buy all the circuit boards and electronics from overseas if I am not mistaken.
Porters 2 cents FWIW
Actually we make a LOT of televisions and toasters in this country. The really cheap ones are from China but the expensive stuff is made here. By Japanese companies using American machines, not Americans. Of course Americans own huge stakes in all things Japanese (we own WAY more of Japan than they own of us) and Japanese cars are built MOSTLY in America.
American military equipment is also made here by us. It uses American chips from Intel and National Semiconductor, although those two companies also make cheap chips overseas on American made machines for consumer products. We still build an amazing array of products.
So what is American and what is foreign? Darned if I know! But for any given object I can use Google (American) to find out more or less. Hey, so long as Americans have good paying jobs, assembling Japanese, Korean, Canadian or American parts, I dont much care. I like a good product at a good price.
BTW, governments will never put an end to war. But there is a small chance commerce will. Not that Im holding my breath.
Quote from: Robert Koch 21150(we own WAY more of Japan than they own of us)
Not TRUE Japan owns most of the USAs National Debt, a/k/a Treasury Bills. Once Japan stops refinancing our debt, our economy will go under and the full faith and credit of the US Government will mean SQUAT!
1. Current National debt is a staggering $7,788,362,356 with $2 billon added each day; $46 trillion in federal obligations.
2. By 2010 the national debt will grow to $10.8 trillion
3.The recently passed precription drug benifit will add $8.1 trillion in debt in one generation.
4. We spent $660 billion more on foreign goods then they spent with us last year. This imbalance has driven the dollar to its lowest value in over 40 years. Meanwhile, foreign goverments hold $2.5 trillion in U.S treaury bonds. As the dollar dives, so does the value of the bonds-removing incentive to buy more and adding incentive to sell the ones the goverments hold.
5. The presidents 2006 budget will add at least $425 billion to the debit bill.
6. The goverment spends 19.8percent of the nations annual gross national product, slightly above the average of the past 40 years. The goverment takes in 16.3percent of the GDP- the lowest in 40 years.
7.In 2004, the Bush administration borrowed $155 billion from the Social Security Fund.
8. The known costs of Medicare-Social Security, veteran benifits,etc.,will create a federal obligation of $46 trillion over the next 75 years. Interest payments already cost $310 billion a year-nearly 4 times what the federal goverment spends on education.
The numbers are almost too huge to comprend, but if youre among those whom have a full time job, your current share is $350,000 and climbing.
Jeffo: - thanks for your interesting post info., this section of the CLC-forum seems fine for such posting, as it relates to Cadillacs future in the way that i have been trying to inform as well, although am getting silly "anti-semetic" barbs thrown at me (am not that at all, -having nothing against Arabs, except maybe the price of petrol, --and apparently thats largely a supply & demand thing resulting from communist-Chinas creating a huge new demand)....
~Bob vH
are you jewish or non jewish, cant tell
03-29-05
NATE, what difference would it make?
He/she could be MOHAWK for all I care, he/she will be paying off the debt same as all the rest of us.(if he/she/us lives long enough.
Good Luck, Jim
Jeff,
You are a troublemaker, the best we can do is enjoy our Cadillacs until the game of musical chairs is over, the smart money has their own chair, the rest of the "sheeple" will have one provided for them by the government, fabricated out of cardboard.
Porter
Who is kidding who ? With GMs current financial woes it will never happen. How many cylinders are required anyway for an engine, is eight not enough ? Is sixteen better than eight ? Guess it depends on how much money you have and how many cylinders you want. The sixteen does require a long hood, classy, just like the good old days, roaring 20s.
At any rate,
Porter
Porter,
I think, given GMs financial situation, that you are absolutely correct in believing that the new Sixteen will never happen. And you are also right about V-16 engines being overkill, but that thinking could certainly also have been applied in late 1929 when the OHV V-16 was introduced and even more so in late 1937 when the 135percent flathead Sixteen was introduced. A few years ago, "Collectible Automobiles" did an article on the sixteen-cylinder Cadillacs and it began with a statement to the effect that, in retrospect, there seems to be no rational need for sixteen-cylinder cars, but that there is also really no rational need for Corvettes and Ferraris, either. I saw a print ad today for the new twin-turbo twelve-cylinder Bentley sedan with a top speed of 195 MPH; now there is a car for which there is absolutely no rational need. In Houston-area traffic, I seem to spend as much time stopped or creeping along at 5-10 MPH as I do going 60 and outside of the Bonneville Salt Flats or a race track, I cant think of a place on earth where one could drive 195 miles an hour (and I dont want to be in a car going that speed even there). Still, all these cars are great dream machines and Im glad Cadillac went over the top in the 30s even if we never see the likes of them again.
Jeff, hi. I got to look at one of those photos and we lost the rest, as I have been struggling with a trogan virus. we had to delete a lot of stuff. Pleas send again at your convenience, as I wish to see those photos. Thanks Art
Oy vey, Ethel! These loser leftists are so crazy with Bush hate theyve even taken to ranting and raving on car sites with that same old scare stuff they said about Reagan!
DITTO !!!!!!!!!!
03-31-05
I ditto the DITTO!!!!
(Does that make us DITTO HEADS???
Good Luck, Jim
Rusty,
I am in 100 percent agreement with you, GM achieved all its glory and profits building cars that no one (other than the wealthy)really needed but the competition couldnt build. The Cord and Duesenburg cars are legendary, they didnt have the GM mass produced cars that make the real profits to sustain their existence, but look at what cars achieve the legendary status in the history books, including our rare Cadillac V 16s from the roaring 20s, 49 Fastbacks, Broughams, etc.
When they ceased to build these types of cars look at what happened to GM, a bean counter like Roger B. Smith drove the corporation into massive red ink and a bleak future (all of which transpired after he utilized his golden parachute). No surprise that Harley Earl, Charles Kettering, Zora Duntov, Bill Mitchell and John Delorean were long since gone, I apologize for whoever individuals I excluded.
Porter
In some recent discussions this was the point that Robert Vonheck was moreso attempting to make, IMO.
"The average American in the year 2005 lives a fragile existence, in a struggle for survival that can be ended by missing a few paychecks. The carrot at the end of the stick which was formerly known as "the American dream" has been replaced by a whip that can best be described as the American nightmare of homelessness, and slow, early death. You no longer work to achieve a better life for yourselves and your children. You work to keep a roof over your head, and you pray that you dont lose it. You became a slave when fear replaced incentive as your motivation to work, but I still suggest that you work while you can, because if the company you work for cant send your job overseas, the U.S. government is allowing 2000 people per day to enter this country illegally, because theyre willing to do your job for less."
http://www.rense.com/general63/newam.htmYou can throw stones at me too, no problem.
What does this have to do with Cadillac and GM ? Everything, it is all relative and on the General Discussion Forum I think acceptable, has nothing to do with racism.
Porter
Porter: -as usual, youve come across here with the stunning truth; --and the CLC-admin. delight in censoring(deleting) my commentary, so find them to un-American for my further participation.... ~Bob vH
Hi All!
Today, I received the newest issue of Motor Trend. May 2005, pages 22 & 23.
"World Exclusive" GM has built a full size clay model of a coupe that takes strong design cues from the Sixteen.
Theyre not sure if the $120,000 car is a go yet, but Bob Lutz is pushing for it.
Would use a stretched form of the Sigma platform or more likely, the new Zeta platform.
engine would be all aluminum 7.5 liter Northstar XV12. 750 horsepower.
The potential is exciting!
Peter
59 & 72 CDVs
The sad part of this is "The General aint making these for the masses"! And like the Bentleys and the Duesenburgs which also were not, will likely flounder. A middle ground is needed, we have concept cars nobody CAN touch, and production cars nobody WILL touch. Concept cars are a neat conversation piece but if less than 1/10th of 1percent of the driving public can afford the production model, let alone be inspired to buy one, whats the sense? IMHO the last truely practical "hot" car Detroit put out was the Eldorado. Now theyve dropped that in favor of a four door family truckster.
Considering whats coming out of Detroit these days, the crack epidemic must be worse than anybody imagined.
That is what we love, that is what we want, what we grew up with. Granted, GM and Ford are global and have been for many decades, they lead global auto sales, not on the run like today, losing market share every year.
Americans need to wake up and see what is happening to OUR automotive manufacturing economy. If they need to be subsidized like the foreign competitors that are taking over our markets then so be it. Im not advocating Americans buying inferior domestic American cars, just fair trade, not free trade, whatever that is supposed to be or mean. Apples to apples, not apples to oranges, the foreign companies build plants here and have no labor unions.
GM and Ford are overburdened by massive pension and health care costs from the past system, are we so supposed to just sit here and let the German,Japanese and Korean manufacturers take over our automotive manufacturing industry, once the proud "standard of the world" ?
GM is my first choice, I would begrudgingly and proudly own a Ford before I would own any foreign make. Im hard pressed to consider a Chrysler product American at this point.
Porter
Heres a list of so called American built cars and trucks.If you buy a Chevy truck with a diesel it is built in the USA but the engine is made by Isuzu.The big three buy their supplies from all over the world. My Kentucky built Ford truck has parts that are stamped "Made in Mexico" :( and this is nothing new,GM has been buying parts and building cars in other countries for over 30 years.
http://www.uaw.org/uawmade/cartruck2005.cfm
"Oy vey, Ethel! These loser leftists are so crazy with Bush hate theyve even taken to ranting and raving on car sites with that same old scare stuff they said about Reagan!"
Ed,
You totally lost me on this one. I havent seen the leftist loser here or the Bush hater, nor the Reagan scare stuff.
What we are concerned about is the survival of GM and Cadillac autos, the downfall of GM is symbolic of the downfall of America and our once proud industrial base, "The Standard of the World".
If the die has been cast and the foreign countries and corporations will now own America with all of our debt they are holding then perhaps it is too late to salvage our future, our independence and former greatness, not to mention our freedom.
If this subject is too hot to handle for some people here then we will drop it like a hot potato. I tend to think most of us here have above average intelligence and that is why we prefer autos like Cadillac, that were engineered by the best the American automotive industry had to offer.
It is our preferred brand and that is why we belong to the CLC and want our marquee to be acknowledged as the finest in the world.
Porter
Oy Vey Hey Porter.
Maybe this is the reason the "Minutemen" are amassing on our southern border come Monday, as George Bush Jr turns us into a 3rd world country without blinking an eye= very strange indeed.
49 fastbacks rule
:<)
"Oy Vey Hey Porter. Maybe this is the reason the "Minutemen" are amassing on our southern border come Monday, as George Bush Jr turns us into a 3rd world country without blinking an eye= very strange indeed. 49 fastbacks rule :<) "
Jeff,
They would be American citizens with courage, sick and tired of what the ruling class has done to and is letting happen to America.
I applaud their effort to put a stop to the illegal migration of foreigners into America to steal our jobs and our money from us, the benefits that we paid for and were promised to us by the politicians, which are slowly being taken away or given away to foreigners.
It is high time for Americans to wake up and see that the crooked politicians have sold us out, before it is too late.
Porter
I STRONGLY have to disagree. Competition is the cure, not the disease.
Lets face it... GM and Ford have made their beds and now they have to lie in them. For many years, they were content to make bigger and bigger Bubba trucks that sold like hotcakes while their competitors continued honing their entire product lines. Now the chickens are coming home to roost.
The last thing I believe we should do is give them subsidies (which the government has no business doing anyway) to continue to be fat, complacent, and too lazy to help themselves.
Wow, this thread really brought back some memories! I dont know what age you are, or if you remember just how bad American cars got during the 70s.
I remember my father buying a brand new 76 Plymouth Volare - Motor Trends "Car of the Year"! A loyal UAW member, he worked for Chrysler for 30 years, and always drove Chrysler products. One of the first things I noticed was that the paint was too orange-peeled to reflect the misaimed light from the ill-fitting, cracked parking lights that glowed two different shades of amber. One day, while on a fishing trip, with six hundred miles on the odometer of this brand new "Car of the Year", the front crossmember broke and the front wheels pointed in opposite directions. Luckily, the car was at a stop when this happened, and it just spun its tires in the grass.
Things with that car only got worse from there, and it was followed by some other doozies of varying American brands.
After being stuck with junk after junk after junk after junk, even my father started buying Mazdas and parking a few blocks away from his UAW meetings!
Take a look at the UK. We used to have Austin, Morris, Rover,Triumph,Hillman,Rolls Royce, yes and English Ford and GM Vauxall.
The whole British car industry was sold down the river by British politicians. The people who worked in the UK car factories, all unemployed. Heed what Porter is saying, it will happen to you.
Ah, yes, each country had their own Auto and Shipping industries so that they had a "war-ready" industry enable the manufacture of fighting machines.
Now that wars are mostly fought from the air with planes and rockets, there isnt the big necessity for controlled automobile production.
In the 1800s and 1900s, each Passenger Liner that was constructed, had a second set of blueprints that enabled it to be easily converted to wartime use. The gun mounts were actually built into the structures and were easily accessable. That is why the shipbuilding industry was so heavily protected by Governments
Bruce,
The Tassie Devil(le),
60 CDV