“If the UAW gets a bailout I will never buy another big 3 car.”
I agree with you. There are many others I have heard say teh same thing. I think these pompous fools in D.C. are going to be surprised when the sales for UAW produced vehicles falls even further. I and many others will never buy from them again.
I live in the Mid West. As some of you know, I work for GM in management. The union was asked to do something it legally could not do-contractual law. This was a GOP plan to kill the bill...a car czar with the proper powers can break the contract and will;the union expects this. It’s a matter of complicated law and has to be done in this context.
As for not buying GM cars. It’s your choice. We in the Mid West will come back and will not buy cars made in transplant states-nor will we spend our tourist dollars there. This will hurt these states in ways that will become apparent in the years to come. Our feeling is the foreign manufacturers already received a bailout courtesy of taxpayer money (subsidies to lure them to these states which in some cases included federal money). So if you buy one of these cars, you are already buying into a bailed out industry in many ways. The financial channel reports that it cost about $100,000 per worker in order to get this business. Of course Toyota pay $1500.00 bonus for any car sold in the US- this is subsidy and perhaps could be seen as a bail out by the standard used for the big three. By the by, those of us in the business have heard that while Tennessee (very uncertain in the economic slow down) might still get another transplant, Georgia is out of luck. The foreign plant will not be built. Also, there is a push to make sure that no federal money is used in these transplant deals. Too bad you bet on the foreigner company Gov. Barnes and didn’t offer anything for the Doraville GM plant in way of incentives-your lose.
Of course the Mid West will play its significant card in 2012 as our voters will vote overwhelmingly democratic thus dooming the election of any GOP presidential candidate. I will go third party myself. But as I pointed out in my vanity a couple of days ago...anger against the GOP is almost palpable here. Some chimed in on the thread about their Mid Western states. I live in Ohio, but an Indiana poster said it’s worse in his/her state. Some messaged me not wanting to get flamed by big three haters. The big three may very well disappear. I still do not see how anyone thinks losing industry is a good thing. However, the GOP will be severely damaged by this in the end. It’s a sad day for the party and for America.