greg334
Veteran Expediter
Maybe some of you can ponder on it and come up with an opinion
Today I was at Ford, having lunch with a few Ford people. We touched on the subject of Chrysler and GM and how it is going screw everything up. These guys are not stupid and one was clear that Ford was warned not to take a dime of the government money.
The conversation led into the opinions and thoughts on why the banking industry was allowed to do so much more fraudulent stuff and the auto industry was vilified when they asked for some help.
What came out of this lunch was simply an issue of not political ideologies but of cultural differences and these cultural differences led to what we have now, an industry that was forced into something for borrowing money while others were not.
See let me put it another way.
When I started working in the Pharma industry; I worked at a large company based in Michigan. From a hostile takeover, I ended up working for a large Pharma company based on the East Coast. I worked for a division that was just north of NYC and made up of mostly North Eastern people.
There were serious cultural differences, most of which the NY people looked down upon almost everyone from the other company because we were hicks. We were incapable of doing anything right, even produce the drugs we sold.
The prevailing attitude was if there were any disputes, the NY people were right. They were much smarted than we were and were enlightened. IF we were right and proven right by some miracle which made the NY people look bad, then we had the hell to pay. There was a lot of jealousy going on and a lot of backstabbing for political gains within the company.
So back to the auto industry
The people at Ford see it that these three companies are looked down upon by the people in power; the elites who are in the treasury department, in the White House and so on - we are a bunch of hicks who don’t really understand what it takes to run a business, especially an auto business. I thought about that for a while and then looked at some of the speeches and press conference highlights that Obama and his people have made over the issue and it seems that the Ford people hit it right on, their rhetoric has been such that they know better.
But let’s take this a step further.
The forced bankruptcy is not about helping the companies but punishing Detroit's success. All of this could be avoided if the companies are allowed to do what they need to do without a task force of unconnected people telling them what to do.
The creditors, the people who are legally entitled to take the stock are being told that the UAW is the new owners, not the creditors. The WH has stepped up their efforts to stop any release of funds that were already allocated for green cars and so on which makes it look like this has been engineered right from the start.
To add to all of that, it seems that the WH and treasury department has told a lot of creditors that they will either taker the deal or else the WH will use their power to ruin them.
It this the Wilson administration all over again?
Your thoughts and comments.
Today I was at Ford, having lunch with a few Ford people. We touched on the subject of Chrysler and GM and how it is going screw everything up. These guys are not stupid and one was clear that Ford was warned not to take a dime of the government money.
The conversation led into the opinions and thoughts on why the banking industry was allowed to do so much more fraudulent stuff and the auto industry was vilified when they asked for some help.
What came out of this lunch was simply an issue of not political ideologies but of cultural differences and these cultural differences led to what we have now, an industry that was forced into something for borrowing money while others were not.
See let me put it another way.
When I started working in the Pharma industry; I worked at a large company based in Michigan. From a hostile takeover, I ended up working for a large Pharma company based on the East Coast. I worked for a division that was just north of NYC and made up of mostly North Eastern people.
There were serious cultural differences, most of which the NY people looked down upon almost everyone from the other company because we were hicks. We were incapable of doing anything right, even produce the drugs we sold.
The prevailing attitude was if there were any disputes, the NY people were right. They were much smarted than we were and were enlightened. IF we were right and proven right by some miracle which made the NY people look bad, then we had the hell to pay. There was a lot of jealousy going on and a lot of backstabbing for political gains within the company.
So back to the auto industry
The people at Ford see it that these three companies are looked down upon by the people in power; the elites who are in the treasury department, in the White House and so on - we are a bunch of hicks who don’t really understand what it takes to run a business, especially an auto business. I thought about that for a while and then looked at some of the speeches and press conference highlights that Obama and his people have made over the issue and it seems that the Ford people hit it right on, their rhetoric has been such that they know better.
But let’s take this a step further.
The forced bankruptcy is not about helping the companies but punishing Detroit's success. All of this could be avoided if the companies are allowed to do what they need to do without a task force of unconnected people telling them what to do.
The creditors, the people who are legally entitled to take the stock are being told that the UAW is the new owners, not the creditors. The WH has stepped up their efforts to stop any release of funds that were already allocated for green cars and so on which makes it look like this has been engineered right from the start.
To add to all of that, it seems that the WH and treasury department has told a lot of creditors that they will either taker the deal or else the WH will use their power to ruin them.
It this the Wilson administration all over again?
Your thoughts and comments.
