Management has made a lot of mistakes. But making big cars wasn't one of them. That's because they couldn't profitably make small cars in the United States. And the reason they couldn't is that their labor costs were too high. All in, Detroit was paying about $30 more an hour than other companies to make cars. At that kind of differential, you have to concentrate on large cars with big profit margins, not economy cars where consumers fight to save $15 on the headlight bezels.
It's hard to be against helping all of these folks - the workers that is; but the bottom line here is that labor and management conspired for years to the detriment of us. Should they be bailed out? And, certainly, a highly consolidated auto industry in this nation has got to come to pass - whether the unions like it or not. Sometimes you have to let the patient die, lest you wind-up with something that soaks up all of your resources down the line....
No comments:
Post a Comment