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- Unions. There was a time in this country when there were sweatshops and dangerous working conditions. Those days are (mostly) gone, but the pendulum for unions has swung the other way. Unions now extract and exort concessions from companies with a significant clout. In reality, the companies really have very little choice in the matter - either give in to the unions, or they will strike and put the company out of business. In order for big Detroit iron to survive, they will need to extract significant concessions from the unions. This won't happen until they are in bankruptcy, or almost near to there. The model for this is the airline industry. Years of bloated union contracts have melted away in the sea of bankruptcies that we've recently seen. These companies that have emerged from BK are now healthy, competitive, and paying a market wage instead of an artificially inflated one. There is a time and place for unions, but right now, they seem to be their own worst enemy.
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Agreed.
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- Reliability. US cars have been notoriously crappy over the years. Getting rid of that reputation has been very difficult, despite many advances in quality recently. The stigma still remains - Toyota and Honda are rock-solid in the reliability dept, but anything out of Detroit is may be a crap shoot. Recent studies have shown that the US car makers are close or on par with some of their models as the Japanese, but the reputation from past mistakes is a difficult one to shake.
-Wayne [/B]
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This point i dispute.
I've personally blown up twice as many Toyotas as American cars.(yes, that's all american cars vs ONLY toyotas- and i've only ever owned 3 toyatas!)
As an ex-auto tech, it is my humble opinion that japanese cars are overpriced junk, as opposed to amercian cars, which are underpriced junk.
Is it really any wonder why i drive German?
