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Will GM's problems ever end?


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"You either believe in a free-market system, or you don't."

Why does everything have to be one extreme or the other. Laissez -faire free-market capitalism will lead to one person owning everything and the rest as 'subjects" in abject poverty. Communism was doomed from the start because people just aren't that noble or well-behaved. It was corrupted by gangsters immediately after creation.

I like capitalism and I like aspects of socialism. What's wrong with a hybrid? That is essentially what we have now.

I had mixed feelings about the bail-outs. I thought it was economically necessary but I loathe the way GM does business. They took the pride of the auto-manufacturing world and turned it into garbage. They should have sold all the assets to Toyota !

And the government picks winners and losers all the time in military contracting. How about buying multi-million dollar planes with no warranty on them and then they drop from the sky. I haven't heard of any recalls of fighter jets!

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To think we live in a world where a "Free Market" is unfettered is to ignore hundreds of congressional acts, regional laws, international trade agreement pacts and blockade-style tariffs since the beginning of the 20th century. Almost every "regulated" industry is prohibited from participating in some types of "free trade" in the marketplace.

While a bailout is something we CAN do, what I've mentioned are things we CAN'T do. But it's ALL part of a supposedly free market system. Want to sell Parmesan cheese in a free market system? Not if the current lawsuit against Kraft and others, brought by the guild of Italian producers from Parmigiano-Reggiano, have their way. Patent and copyright/trademark laws also limit "free market" trade -- as do a million other influences

Edited by sjordan2
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My wife mentioned something she heard this morning and I just "verified"(Googled) on CNN money( or whatever .com) - Chrysler recalled 696,000 minivans and SUVs for ignition switch problems that are similar to those in the GM 2.6 million vehicle recall. Now, I did not do any more research on this situation so I don't know any particulars, but I wonder if the manufacturer/supplier of those switches in question is the same- and I wonder what is the geographical origin of the switches.

It is ignition switch hysteria time! Recall every car ever made!

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It is ignition switch hysteria time! Recall every car ever made!

Or limit it just those with the ignition on the column. I don't think such an issue would affect cars that have the on-dash ignition (my favorite spot, like Benzes and Porsches), on the console like Saabs, or push button style as more and more automakers are using...

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Military contracting has nothing to do with the government choosing which private companies are "worthy" of taxpayer bailouts. A completely separate issue and nothing to do with the GM bailout.

The government has to contract civilian companies to produce the material the military needs, as the federal government is not a manufacturer of military hardware. But awarding military contracts to suppliers is not the same thing as the government bailing out companies.

True that there is a lot of waste, corruption, and general ineptness involved in military contracting... but it's a completely different issue than government bailouts.

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It is ignition switch hysteria time! Recall every car ever made!

Actually you can blame NHTSA... they are now looking at all automakers in regards to the problem, due to GM's mess. Chrysler had actually already recalled certain 2010 models for this problem; this new recall is a NHTSA-based expansion of that recall and now covers models between 2007-2009 also.

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To think we live in a world where a "Free Market" is unfettered is to ignore hundreds of congressional acts, regional laws, international trade agreement pacts and blockade-style tariffs since the beginning of the 20th century. Almost every "regulated" industry is prohibited from participating in some types of "free trade" in the marketplace.

Oh, man, how I would love it if we had a "Politics" section... ;)

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NHTSA's number for the new Chrysler ignition recall is 14V-373 - Their part 573 defect information report to NHTSA can be found on NHTSA's web site.

One of the GM ignition recalls is in the list in the post a couple of pages back - the link works there for NHTSA's number 14V-355

similar issues, different designs

will let you do the research and draw your own conclussions...

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"You either believe in a free-market system, or you don't."

Why does everything have to be one extreme or the other. Laissez -faire free-market capitalism will lead to one person owning everything and the rest as 'subjects" in abject poverty. Communism was doomed from the start because people just aren't that noble or well-behaved. It was corrupted by gangsters immediately after creation.

I like capitalism and I like aspects of socialism. What's wrong with a hybrid? That is essentially what we have now.

I had mixed feelings about the bail-outs. I thought it was economically necessary but I loathe the way GM does business. They took the pride of the auto-manufacturing world and turned it into garbage. They should have sold all the assets to Toyota !

And the government picks winners and losers all the time in military contracting. How about buying multi-million dollar planes with no warranty on them and then they drop from the sky. I haven't heard of any recalls of fighter jets!

No, we don't hear of combat aircraft being recalled. But, while lives can be involved, those are lives of people who (like myself) voluntarily accept the possibility of losing one's life while performing your daily duties in the line of serving your country. Not many civilians consciously consider the fact that "Well, my car might $%^ up on the way to work and I could buy the farm but that's what I signed up for". And, while it might not be true today, the DOD used to squeeze out the less-desirable manufacturers- when was the last time you heard of a Curtiss, Brewster or Wright-built military aircraft?

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So... if a convicted rapist or murderer that hurt or killed your loved one is the victim of a failed airbag, is it OK? :o

My god you are out to lunch pal. Give it up, you are far too dense to get my point.

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All I am trying to say is percentages do not matter, human life does. Get it???? And I GET your point about rapists, etc, but that is NOT what this is about.

Edited by midnightprowler
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I disagree, percentages do matter.

For example: If the odds that you were going to get in an accident that killed someone were .0000008% on any given day, would you opt to not drive that day to save that potential victims life? It sounds like a good enough reason to you that GM should heed it to save a life. Maybe using your logic and that equation you shouldn't drive anymore?

Actual odds are 0.000133% chance in any year.

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I don't see how it's a politics thing, without having had any partisan preferences. What we're discussing has gone through many administrations, with no singling out of anything, and no one has brought any of that up. All of our discussions have been very general, even the historic political environment has been part of it.

Edited by sjordan2
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I disagree, percentages do matter.

For example: If the odds that you were going to get in an accident that killed someone were .0000008% on any given day, would you opt to not drive that day to save that potential victims life? It sounds like a good enough reason to you that GM should heed it to save a life. Maybe using your logic and that equation you shouldn't drive anymore?

Actual odds are 0.000133% chance in any year.

My point is GM pulled this BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH knowing full well the issue at hand. 1 life lost because of it is 1 too many. How can you not understand that??? I do not care if it is 1 billionth of a percent. Edited by midnightprowler
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.........Harry I think its kinda headin' towards a "politics" section ^_^ .........

It's tiptoeing around the edges... but like Skip said, we're really not making any blatant Republican-Democrat posts. Yet.

I'm watching it... if it gets too blatantly ideological I'll have to close it... but so far so good, I think.

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Wow, what a conversion you guys got going.

I also worked for General Motors in the past, I quit froze my pension and sold cars for the rest of my working career, pretty much all GM dealerships of course, I also did do 5 years with Chrysler. Hey I thought highly of Chrysler, Ford, and the now defunct American Motors also, they all made some great cars. In my opinion GM was the Greatest Corporation to ever grace this planet and the largest for many years. I don't believe anyone will ever be able to come near what they've accomplished. I learned a lot from them through the years, I think they were the most professional ever in the car business.

It truly saddens me to see the jackpot there in now, I just can't believe how there management could run this Mighty Corporation into the dirt the way they did.

You know they really stooped pretty low to go to the white house cut a deal and sell out with Obuma and form the new "Government Motors", Cash For Clunkers, Oh Man and the stock holders that got screwed, I don't want to get started. And they put the Berra lady in the CEO position to purposely soften the blow for the corporation from the heat there going to receive.

You know it sounds like to me they really aren't as car oriented as they used to be, it was there main stay, I heard they wanted to be more into the banking business.

If this how there going to operate "with a crutch" and "being unprofessional", ( there probably wanting another bailout ) THEN THEY SHOULD GO OUT OF BUSINESS !!! 'cause it's sure as hell not the General Motors I once knew !

Edited by Customman
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My point is GM pulled this BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH knowing full well the issue at hand. 1 life lost because of it is 1 too many. How can you not understand that??? I do not care if it is 1 billionth of a percent.

Actually the number being used for the percentage calculation are not meaningful. The part in question was changed and GM doesn't know how many switches have the problem. So to use the total recall numbers creates a meaningless number.

Second the percentage is irrelevant. The is a thing in law called "guilty knowledge ". When the issue was brought up and ignored by GM was where the legal issues happened. With the law the statistics have no meaning. If GM had acted responsibly and taken ownership of the problem we wouldn't have over 22 pages talking about this.

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Actually the number being used for the percentage calculation are not meaningful. The part in question was changed and GM doesn't know how many switches have the problem. So to use the total recall numbers creates a meaningless number.

Second the percentage is irrelevant. The is a thing in law called "guilty knowledge ". When the issue was brought up and ignored by GM was where the legal issues happened. With the law the statistics have no meaning. If GM had acted responsibly and taken ownership of the problem we wouldn't have over 22 pages talking about this.

Bingo! That's it exactly. The number of recalls or number of cars recalled is not the issue.

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GM is not the only issue out there How about the medication and Surgical recall's that are coming out almost weekly? So many death's or life threating outcomes! Bladder swings, T- gels, Anti depression drugs, Metal hip replacement, Tylinol, Avandia, just to mention a few. Even the newer drugs If you listen to some of the sideeffcts things like kidney or liver damage can happen? heart problems ect. and Just like GM these companies knowingly sell these things. As I said before Recall's happen. After seeing what Dialysis can do to people first hand and there are still lawsuits pending for bad drugs used for that treatment. How many people died because medications ? or from bad surgery? To many far more than the 13 death's in the gm car recall's yes death is death but mass death from medication's that are ment to save live's?

Edited by ranma
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GM is not the only issue out there How about the medication and Surgical recall's that are coming out almost weekly? So many death's or life threating outcomes! Bladder swings, T- gels, Anti depression drugs, Metal hip replacement, Tylinol, Avandia, just to mention a few. Even the newer drugs If you listen to some of the sideeffcts things like kidney or liver damage can happen? heart problems ect. and Just like GM these companies knowingly sell these things. As I said before Recall's happen.

Yeah, but none of those things you mentioned have any relevance on this forum. We're here to talk about cars and car-related topics... models and the real ones. Not medical devices or "Big Pharma." That's a subject for a different forum.

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As I said before Recall's happen.

And as we've said countless times... it's not about the recalls.

It's about knowing there's a problem and deciding to not do anything about it.

Recalls didn't get GM in trouble. Knowing there was a problem and doing nothing about it is what got GM in trouble.

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