Just as I thought you can't answer any questions.
You site no examples of state of the art manufacturing here in the US.
You site as bad management the decisions the auto makers made in contracts with the UAW. Yes that's true but what alternative did the Car companies have? The UAW would have gone on strike and destroyed the Auto Industry.
You give us the Pontiac Aztek as an example of a bad design. Fair enough but the absolute worst car I ever had was a VW Rabbit. It stayed in the shop most of the time racking up repair bills. So any company can have a stinker including the Germans or Japanese.
And as far as shoddy workmanship is concerned whose fault it that? Is it the UAW or management? You can't fire an employee who is lousy. The UAW protects the incompetent. I've worked in union shops and I know how the game is played. Unless and until you have been in that environment you can't understand the insanity of it all. But that's not bad management. The management team at each of the car companies would love for the UAW to go away but they can't wish it away.
This is why the transplants located in states in the South where they would not have to deal with the UAW. The UAW is a legacy of a past time in America. This is THE problem with the Auto Companies. Not bad management, not inferior engineering and design.
You can’t claim I didn’t answer your questions and then argue with my answers in the same post.
O.k, I’ll try again, more slowly.
The state of the art of U.S. industry is the aerospace industry, as indicated by Ford hiring Alan Mullaly.
A fundamental principle of business administration is treating the firm as a going concern. Agreeing to labour contracts one can easily see will bankrupt the company amounts to an endorsement of bankruptcy.
So now the moment has come; it’s time for bankruptcy.
Which is of course, the last thing the UAW wants, because it would reopen the whole corrupt bargain management struck with the UAW in order to gouge consumers throughout the post-war years when there was no significant foreign competition.