How about a LOT of Grey Goose! When you gonna be in town??? Tony better show up this time, its his turn to serve up the Goose!
I'll leave the Grey Goose to you guys! My don't need my head feeling like this again..... :smash: http://www.allcanadashow.com/html/milwaukee/
I don't want to start anything with anyone on here, as it's a good group of guys, and the bickering is minimalistic here compared to over on HNI. Anyways, I will only ask this. Why has Toyota, Honda, Subaru, Nissan continued to sell well, when on average their prices are higher than that of the big three? I love America, and will support as much American products as possible. With that said, I WILL not invest lots of hard earned money into a product that I don't feel is the best bet for my $$. I belong to a nation wide Toyota offroad organization (TTORA) where guys drive their vehicles harder than most people could imagine. Many of those guys over there have 100K, 200K, and there's a member or two still wheeling in the 300,000 mile range. My 96 Tacoma was wheeled hard, and not a major thing wrong or replaced in it's 200,000 miles. I have two neighbors with 87 Toyota Pickups that are in the 250K range, and still running strong (although the bodies are in bad shape which Toyota is notorious for). I NEED a vehicle that will last 200K+ trouble free miles. I don't want to buy a new vehicle every 3-4 years. In all fairness, my dad has had GREAT luck with Ford trucks. He's owned a lot, and put a lot of hard miles on them, and they've done well. I was eyeing up the F150s when I bought my newer Tacoma, but the only reason I didn't pull the trigger was fuel mileage, because gas was above $3/gallon when I purchased. People want to buy American (in general). They just need a reason to do so. Now, with that said, I think the newer Silverados/Sierra's are going to be some great trucks, and in my opinion are the nicest looking trucks out there. I think there's more to it (I'm not going to delve into the union debate as I have very little experience there), but quality is certainly a major factor.
MGH_PA, in the late sixties when the Japanese companies first starting bring cars to the US in mass, they had to compete against many things, and the way for them to do that was with quality. And they did that very well. The Honda CIVIC was one of the first cars that would consistently go for 100,000 miles. It has taken many years for the American car manufacturers to grasp that concept and in recent years they have been doing just that. In fact, Ford had vehicles within striking distance. Consumer reports said that of the big three, ford was getting closer each year. GMC is also making great strides in Quality, however Chrysler has been a bit slower to respond, both with quality and gas mileage. I have driven nothing but Ford for twenty years, and I have had NO problems. Well none that I personally did not cause by getting off road. My wife is on her second Focus and we drove the last one 150,000 and only changed the oil, filters, brakes & tires and had to get an alignment when she slid it off of the road.
Just got this in my e-mail inbox... Very appropriate for this discussion. A Modern Parable. A Japanese company ( Toyota ) and an American company (Ford Motors) decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race. On the big day, the Japanese won by a mile. The Americans, very discouraged and depressed, decided to investigate the reason for the crushing defeat. A management team made up of senior management was formed to investigate and recommend appropriate action. Their conclusion was the Japanese had 8 people rowing and 1 person steering, while the American team had 7 people steering and 2 people rowing. Feeling a deeper study was in order; American management hired a consulting company and paid them a large amount of money for a second opinion. They advised, of course, that too many people were steering the boat, while not enough people were rowing. Not sure of how to utilize that information, but wanting to prevent another loss to the Japanese, the rowing team's management structure was totally reorganized to 4 steering supervisors, 2 area steering superintendents and 1 assistant superintendent steering manager. They also implemented a new performance system that would give the 2 people rowing the boat greater incentive to work harder. It was called the 'Rowing Team Quality First Program,' with meetings, dinners and free pens for the rowers. There was discussion of getting new paddles, canoes and other equipment, extra vacation days for practices and bonuses. The pension program was trimmed to 'equal the competition' and some of the resultant savings were channeled into morale boosting programs and teamwork posters. The next year the Japanese won by two miles. Humiliated, the American management laid-off one rower, halted development of a new canoe, sold all the paddles, and canceled all capital investments for new equipment. The money saved was distributed to the Senior Executives as bonuses. The next year, try as he might, the lone designated rower was unable to even finish the race (having no paddles,) so he was laid off for unacceptable performance, all canoe equipment was sold and the next year's racing team was out-sourced to India . Sadly, the End. Here's something else to think about: Ford has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US, claiming they can't make money paying American wages. TOYOTA has spent the last thirty years building more than a dozen plants inside the US. The last quarter's results: TOYOTA makes 4 billion in profits while Ford racked up 9 billion in losses. Ford folks are still scratching their heads, and collecting bonuses... IF THIS WEREN'T SO TRUE IT MIGHT BE FUNNY
I've stayed away from this thread 'til now. It's too easy to lump all union employees and all non-union employees into two camps. And that's just not the case. I work for an automaker that's "unionized". I also have no choice but to be a member of the union or find another job. I hope you can understand that given the choice to work for $17 or $32 per hour, I'm takin' the 32. You can bash the union for "high" wages, but it takes two to tango. The company agreed to the wages because they thought they could pay them. Doesn't that just mean that the union did their job? Not defending the unions at all because I think the unions have become what they were created to fight. One thing you notice right off the bat is the adversarial tone the UAW takes. Understand that there are unions in Japan also. It's just that they are very company oriented. Greg's post is too close to the truth for my company. And that's where I get frustrated. I can go to work and bust my rear, or I can lean on my tool box and BS. Pays the same. In my shop's instance it seems to be management's lack of will. When I hired in almost 13 years ago the union reps came in to talk with us "new hires". They told us the union didn't just protect the "lazy" workers... Since then that's about all I've noticed. One guy got fired after being caught sleeping -Mutiple times...after a year he got his job back.
Very true, as I said before I am originally from Seattle and I have seen this in the Boeing workers as well. In my opinion, this has been a destructive force in the attitude of the American worker, and it is sad. I do NOT blame someone for taking the job making more, or for one that has better benefits. But I do blame the union execs for their greed to perpetuate their position, just like any other bureaucrat. As for blaming the company, what option did they have. Were they to forgo the chance to meet customer demand and not agree to the contracts with UAW? They are regulated by law to not fire the employees who are on strike without the authorization of a federal judge, as happened to the air traffic controllers in the early 80s. And this authorization has only happened a few times for larger companies like it did for Tyson Foods. Quoted from Greg / Mo Here's something else to think about: Ford has spent the last thirty years moving all its factories out of the US, claiming they can't make money paying American wages. First they do not only blame the high wages, there is also the 35% tax that they pay that the Japanese automakers are not paying as they put factories in the US. We have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, and that has a profound effect on a companies ability to reinvest in capital. Second, the Japanese companies are paying the actual wages that are comparable to those of the American automakers, however there is a cost of an additional 40 dollars per hour that is for benefits, that the Japanese companies are NOT haunted with. consider this from the National Center for Policy Analysis: While automakers have enormous sales, they have losses rather than profits. The companies are worth so little because investors want to own profitable businesses. Lately, the losses have been frightful: * General Motors posted a $15.5 billion loss in second quarter of 2008 and is hemorrhaging money at the rate of about a billion dollars a month; the automaker only has roughly $20 billion on hand. * During the past five years, Ford's tax bill was on average negative, meaning its losses were so large that the company was refunded taxes paid in previous years. * Ford and Chevy products have regularly received lower-quality scores from J.D. Power and Associates than Honda and Toyota, and their less-desirable product is manufactured by an extremely costly unionized workforce. * To make matters worse, the main competitors that aren't Japanese all operate out of countries with much lower tax rates than the United States. Bottom line: any company that has a more costly product that offers lower quality than the competition will have trouble making a profit. A manufacturer could price the profit out of its product, but doing so would require both a radical improvement in product quality and a sharp rationalization of the production process, says AEI. However, if the U.S. stays a high-tax environment, then investors may decide that it is just not profitable to base an auto manufacturer here, concludes AEI. Source: Kevin A. Hassett, "Corporate Taxes Are Killing the U.S. Auto Industry," American Enterprise Institute, August 2008. Say what you want about unions and their effect on American businesses, they HAD their place, but they have taken their toll on the companies of America for too long. A truly hard working person in the manufacturing industry, cons
It should be noted that although I have a distaste for unions and what I believe them to be, I do believe that Ford, GM, and Chrysler have been three of the worlds greatest manufacturers. This is in part due to the men and women that have worked for them, and the pride they have put into everything they do while creating products that people wanted to drive. I have said my peace on the subject, but I have only one question that I would like to have the answer to, (for the union workers), where does you allegiance lie, with the company that employs you or the unions that you pay dues to? I would hope that you see that without the company, you would not have the job at all.
