Congressman Supports Chapter 11: Honda Gives "No Comment"

Responses (10 total)

10. By Tom L | Posted: Nov 19th 2008, 07:28:29 PM

    Andrew needs to qualify his statement by telling us what an MCR is.

9. By Ed | Posted: Nov 19th 2008, 06:41:26 PM

   "Andrew
   November 18th, 2008 - 9:37 pm
   Honda may have the goods, now they just have to get there quality up to the level of the domestics. " (SIC!!!!!)
   are you auditioning for STAND UP COMIC???????
   Nah, more probably for a drug-inhaling delusional CLOWN...

8. By Andrew | Posted: Nov 19th 2008, 01:37:09 AM

   Honda may have the goods, now they just have to get there quality up to the level of the domestics.
   I have always wondered how Honda was able to do so well lagging so far behind the domestics in the quality department.
   Having engineering experience with both the big three and the import makers, if you think making money is secondary you are sorely mistaken. The Domestics where far more interested in building the better product than the bottom line, the import makers only cared about the bottom line, everything else was secondary.
   Having worked for both I know who builds the far superior product and its not Honda or Toyota for that matter.

7. By  jay | Posted: Nov 18th 2008, 05:02:56 PM

   Well finally we have someone making sense - Bankruptcy is the perfect option. Only the strong shall survive - Let's just assume Chrysler dies. Ford and GM Survive in some flavor. Is there something so wrong about them not having a huge share of the market? What if GM was an exceptional Truck, SUV and Crossover maker with a few mid-size cars thrown in there. What if Ford did the same? You're all bitching that the big three don't make great cars - well then stop making them - let Honda, Toyota, Hyundai and the europeans build the cars. VW never made a full size truck. Audi only has the Q7 because VW had the platform ready and they were responding to demand. Honda, same thing, Toyota/Nissan, failing with their new Full-size options. So let's all fit into the places we work best. Jobs may be lost at Ford or GM, but they would be picked up at Honda, VW, Hyundai or Toyota. You get the gist. Yeah, some jobs will be lost - better than all the jobs being lost. Not to mention that if we are producing too much, supply is too highj and demand too low, either demand needs to increase or supply decrease - simple as that and no Bailout will ever change that fact, just postpone the decisions from being made.

6. By jayko | Posted: Nov 18th 2008, 04:14:20 PM

   If you are looking at the point of North American buyers yes they prefer bigger cars but north america only represents a tiny portion of the world, the rest of the world is a bigger market and all of them like small cars as their roads are also small. Fuel is expensive in those countries from Europe, Africa, Asia and latin america. The big three has long exited those markets as they did not deliver what the consumer wants. Big cars in those countries do not sell. They tried to sell them only flies come into their showroom. The lack of market diversity is what is killing the big three. They used to own the car markets around the world back in the 50s but as more viable makers come into the market offering what the consumer wants and needs they eventually died off on their own.
   The problem with the US consumer is that it thinks he/she is the only representative of consumers around the world. Majority of the world from Europe, Asia, Latin America and Africa have more similar taste than the American consumer when it comes to buying cars. Last time I count Europe's population is already as large as the US population. Should I count the other continents as well?

5. By Ed | Posted: Nov 18th 2008, 02:12:03 PM

   Honda wants to make $, it is not secondary, but they also know that to do that, they got to have THE GOODS, ie, PRODUCT!!!!!!!! Which the Big 3 surely STILL DO NOT Have.
   Honda DEALERS have Always been exceedingly greedy and do NOT give even the smallest discounts, except lately where every automaker's sales are down (although theirs are down half as much as GM's)
   Speaking of Appliances, these are NOT Hondas but Toyotas (most of them, not much driving pleasure), Hyundais, Buicks and Saturns. Oh, and of course the stupid MERCURY which will be the first to go the way of the Dinosaurs.

4. By  Bert Behrens | Posted: Nov 18th 2008, 06:49:10 AM

   First I must say that I am thrilled to hear a small voice of sanity in the US government. Chapter 11 is a quite reasonable way to get priorities back in line for the US car companies. Many companies have gone through bankruptcy and done just fine.
   On the subject in the comments here of healthcare and retirement costs being so much greater in the US than they are in other countries. Sure companies have to pay for their own coverage and some other nations cover the cost for them. That does not make it free, nor does it reduce the overhead of the company. Taxes in those nations are considerably higher when you take into account the corporate, personal, and consumption or "value-added" taxes these companies operate under. Add too that an attitude that everything is better (insert any random nation) than they are here and people get this idea that government paid healthcare will just fix everything. I will ignore the constitutional questions that most probably wouldn't understand and just cut to the real point of it all. Looking for excuses why you can't win do not make anything better, they just drag the entire argument lower and lower until you wonder why anyone would want an auto industry at all.
   So why don't we argue about what needs to be done to make people WANT the products again? Do we waste our free time reading and arguing about cars so that we can discuss healthcare or is it to talk about cars? I think it's about cars and what makes us love them. GM, Ford, and Chrysler did put all their engineering eggs in the SUV basket which is fine, that's what they are all good at and they still make the best trucks you can buy. Most other parts of the world have been forced to make small cars due to roads, parking or economic reasons. Every one of those companies makes their cars bigger and faster every chance they get so anyone claiming that they have some sort of moral high ground for making small cars is, to quote an odd British writer, "speaking a load of rabid badger spit" - Douglas Adams.
   Every company out there is working it's ass off to sell cars people want and for quite a number of years that has not been smaller and more efficient, it has been bigger, faster, stronger, and filled with more electronics. The VW Rabbit/Golf has never gotten smaller, it has gotten larger every time it was revised due to customer demand for more comfort and space as well as the ever increasing government pressure to implement safety features and meet environmental regulations.
   And to run off on yet another rant. If you like cars as anything other than an appliance you want the government as far away from them as possible. They never found a problem yet that they haven't found a way to make worse and don't know the first thing about building a great car. Hell, half the experts building cars don't seem to know how to build a great car. I want my cars built by people who spend all their free time and money racing around tracks or screaming down dirt roads sideways. Not a bunch of idiots that won personality contests without requiring any sort of specific qualification or even grasp of the given subject matter. Its like hiring an assistant manager from a McDonalds to design jet fighters and bombs, its just stupid.

3. By geoff thomas | Posted: Nov 18th 2008, 03:47:19 AM

   A Much Better Bailout Plan
   For years now, the Big Three automakers have been unable to produce cars competitively, largely because they have to buy their employees’ and retirees’ healthcare through private insurance, whereas workers in all other industrialized nations are covered by cost-effective national healthcare plans. Even the foreign manufacturers who produce here undercut Detroit by recruiting a younger, healthier workforce.
   Now that the bottom has dropped out of the market for SUVs and light trucks, the Big Three are facing certain bankruptcy and need a bailout, possibly for loans to fund the $51 billion they owe to the VEBAs they promised to set up for their retirees’ healthcare. However, the VEBAs will purchase health insurance through private, for-profit providers, which skim off up to 30% from the top, as compared to Medicare, with only a 3% overhead. It would be far better for Congress to allow the UAW workers and retirees to be the first to enroll in a program based on the Conyers-Kucinich Bill (H.R. 676), an expanded Medicare with no premiums, no deductibles, no co-pays, and no hassles. Like Social Security, the H.R. 676 program would be funded by a payroll tax of 4.5% from employers and 3.3% from employees.
   Will this save money for Detroit? You bet. If we’re going to bail out the Big Three, let’s do it in a way that solves a real problem that is strangling U.S. manufacturing: the burden of private health insurance

2. By Tom L | Posted: Nov 18th 2008, 01:36:02 AM

   The Honda Engineers that I personally know state that Honda's primary goal is to build a quality car, making money off it is secondary.

1. By Ed | Posted: Nov 17th 2008, 10:10:28 PM

   "Fukui was at the plant dedication, where he (tongue-in-cheek?) commented that "at Honda we always understand challenging times represent opportunity." "
   For HONDA, these comments are 100% True and correct. It has a huge opportunity and it has grabbed it too, look at its 2008 market share, Honda as always has the right products at the right time.
   And Pence has courage, he is absolutely correct, the Detroit 3 need to go under to reorganize with a far more efficient labor force and realistic labor costs.

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