Bob, most exported crops are corn, wheat, soybeans, etc. all harvested by machine, conveyed and transported by machine. Small truck crops are picked by hand, but most of those stay in this country.

W.

Wayne, you still need manufacturing. Our politicians don't think so either, that's why we are in a mess.

And all those little flags and magnets are made in China. Yay patriotism.

If they have 500,000 workers alive now and collecting pensions they must have had millions on the payroll and contributing money every week over the last 58 years.

GM workers and GM have supposedly been contributing to a pension fund since 1950. Every week more money goes in and supposedly gets invested to pay future obligations.

That money should be huge by now. Warren Buffet started his investment company with $160,000 in 1954 and it is now worth $35,000,000,000.

Not everyone does as well as Warren Buffet but still. They started with more than $160,000.

So what happened to all that money? Did they keep it and invest it like they promised or didn't they? If they don't have the money, what happened to it?

It's my belief they have the money and all this crying about their huge obligations is eyewash.

Jimmy Hoffa had nothing to do with it. He was the head of the Teamsters not the Auto Workers Union.

What's more, anyone who invested in Las Vegas in the 50s and 60s has done very, very, very well.

So once more. If they don't have the money, what did they do with it? If they do have the money, what are they crying about?

It's just another attempt to cry the blues and sucker the public if you ask me.

Rusty, you're kind of mistaking a pension plan with a 401k. It's a common mistake--people figure that if they're contributing to a pension, that money just goes into a bank account and sits there until they need it. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. Although greatly simplified, here's the situation:

It's like the lottery--they simply invest the amount required to equal the payoff in x number of years (that's why you get a lot less if you take the 1-time payout). They don't just throw all the money in there and forget it until it's needed. A lot of things can affect that number. In a pension, the money wasn't always there, and never was.

Like Social Security, the money going in now is paying the claims of today. You won't be getting your original dollar bills back, you'll be getting someone else's who is contributing at that time. This is why the system will probably go belly-up. The people drawing SS will eventually outnumber those contributing and the investment growth and, well, you can figure out for yourself what will happen then.

Pensions, since they pay a fixed amount as long as someone is alive, also must take into account life expectancy. Since the 50s, people have started living longer, sometimes decades longer, which stretches the funds. Sure, you put in your money, but if you live longer than the actuaries figured (not your fault, by the way), then there obviously won't be enough of "your" contribution to cover you for, say, 35 years instead of the expected 20. But the company is still obligated to pay you, so that money starts to shrink faster than it is growing. Multiply that by half a million workers or so, and you can see how it could really put a hurt on a pension plan.

You could face the same problem if you are investing in your 401k expecting to live 20 years after retirement, and end up living 40. Where's the money going to come from for those extra years if you didn't put it in?

And like Social Security, pension plans can be, ah, diverted to other issues. Again, it isn't the employees' fault, it is 100% management's, but the money in the plan is often used for other things--like keeping the company afloat during lean times. It shouldn't happen, but it does.

There's no scam or deciet, just big numbers and a fair amount of really poor planning. But that doesn't affect the reality of being saddled with these costs today. Asia and South America don't have these legacy costs. If GM didn't, think of how good and inexpensive their cars could be...

So am I the only one here who has had recent experience with imports and domestics and finds little or no quality gaps?

We have two 2003 Explorers, each with just shy of 90,000 miles. I am a little upset at Ford for not handling a heater control switch repair that both vehicles had, it was pricey and they were out of warranty, but that's it, for two domestics with a combined 200K for miles. On the one hand, I am telling Ford if they don't want to pay for one of the repairs(I think a fair request, obviously not a fluke and the dealer admitted that also) I may buy my next SUV elsewhere, on the other hand, I honestly cannot complain about these vehicles. That is a statement of what we can expect from just about any new car today - utter reliability that will go well north of 100K miles.

We just sold a 1996 VW with 90,000 miles, granted a bit older but it had many electrical issues, PW cable issues, etc. etc.
In relative terms this car was a much more expensive proposition at those miles than the Fords were.

Just bought a CTS recently I would stack up against any of the comparable imports I drove that were nice cars also. First newer GM product I have owned in a while but I believe the quality totally matches the competition in its class.

Not trashing buyers of imports - we drove a few during the mid 80s and much of the 90s - it has just been my experience that the gap has closed and I don't find imports to be a better deal really, at any level comparable model to comparable model.

I just find this thread interesting, I see lots of interesting cars coming out of Detroit & abroad these days so, maybe the intense competition is not a bad thing at all.

Has this been anyone elses experience or is the Big Three really that far behind the eightball?

According to the most reliable surveys there is still a quality gap between U.S. domestic and Asian based "import" cars. European makes trail both by a considerable margin (generally), even many of the high-end models.

My experience has been reasonably consistent. U.S. quality improved markedly in the early 1990s, but as the cars age and acquire 100K miles+ the differences become more profound. This is especially true of lower echelon 4 cylinder models.

"Asian based" is too broad a category. Say Japanese if it's what you mean. Japanese, Korean,Chinese, Indian are all Asian. Korean quality is much improved but not equal to Japanese (more an issue on ancillary components.

What is the "ethnic background" of an Isuzu with a GM badge, a Mexican built Chevy, a Canadian Ford, a Kentucky built Toyota, etc? This origin thing is not so simple anymore.

Simple, If it has a Japanese name...... it's Japanese

But if it has an "Amurikin" name like Chevy attached, it's not? I'm not that easily fooled.

A Toyota made in Kentucky is designed in Ann Arbor and Japan. The profits flow to the Japanese parent. The assembly workers are American. The suppliers are a mix of American, American-Japanese joint ventures, and Japanese. That's factual.

A Buick made in Shanghai, designed in Warren and at PATAC Shanghai, with profits back to Warren. American or Chinese?

The "labels" can be made simple, but the reality is not.

Excellent Autoextremist rant this week!!!

http://www.autoextremist.com/