With all the attention focussed on the Big 3 and their impending 17-billion dollar bailout, not enough people have noticed a rather astonishing announcement: the president of Honda just announced that he intends for his company to be profitable in 2009.
Let me say that again, in a slightly different way. In the same year that we propose to hand 17 billion clams to OUR auto companies to stop them from exploding, the Japanese ones plan to make money.
Of course Honda makes the Accord, the Civic and Accura brand, while GM made the Aztec, the Hummer and the Chevy Cobalt, and the Oldsmobile Diesel V-8. (Good lord, guys. What were you thinking?)
Friday, December 19, 2008
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4 comments:
I find the whole thing disgusting. Why should I be forced to subsidize what is clearly a dead-end industry in America? Let those workers be forced to retrain so they can put their energy into something more productive and let the rest of us save money on taxes AND cars.
i see this sentiment across the political spectrum. it makes me wonder, who is *for* the seemingly inevitable big 3 bailout?
toyota just posted a 1.7 billion loss in the year through March. first loss in 71 years. the US sales, toyotas most profitable market dropped 34%.
honda just cut its earnings outlook too...
i am not in favor of a big 3 bailout and i echo cnicks sentiments above. this recession should winnow out the weak companies, sort of a corporate darwinism and be a catalyst for these companies to makes something useful.
softening demand is not localized to us car cos
Hey Jack -- well, the congressmen from Michigan are for it, as are a lot of the UAW members.
This is more significant than it sounds.
The UAW turned out in force for Obama, and some say they delivered the state of Michigan for the Democrat Party (not that they really needed it).
Still, the UAW believes the incoming president owe them, and I've heard more than one pundit (even on NPR) say that the unions will try to cash that check asap.
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