the bottom line is michigan has hit rock bottom i think.

unfortunately i dont think we have hit rock bottom yet. the "down sizing" that the big three have been doing is only the tip of the ice berg. that cant just cut jobs to make everything ok anymore. its going to be a real paradigm change for those who survive. they all should invest in some 80/20 training. and again i dont have faith our goverment is going to make michigan/detroit a very easy place to do busniess with.

anyone else think we've hit bottom? i might just be a "glass 1/2 empty" kinda guy.

Michigan hasnt hit rock bottom. The Big 3 wont go out of business, the government will help them out just like they did with boeing, and all the airlines after 9/11. I dont think they'll ever be the companies they were 50 years ago.

i still have faith in GM, i was raised ford but i dont think they have much of a chance, the loan they just took out is outrageous and they simply arent putting out the type of vehicles that everyone else is. and as for DCX i heard though the grape vine that daimler isnt very happy with chrysler.

but i suppose the goverment saved chrysler once they would probably do it again.

I've heard that Diamler wants to sell Chrysler. Dont know who would buy them and I dont think they're doing well enough to buy themselves out. The government will help the auto companies. Michigan, in general, doesnt exist without the auto companies. Every business in SE michigan is directly or indirectly affected by how the Big 3 perform. Right now its hurting everyone. Ford only has a few good selling models but if they dont watch out those will tank also. Ford likes to buy struggling companies and make them profitable, but then Ford starts running out of money and then they look at selling them. (Land Rover, Jaguar, Astin Martin) There has been talk of selling those brands off, and they'll probably go to a German company.

I think we've only seen the beginning. With the manufacturing sector going to hell, all of those people will be tossed into the job market that is already experiencing extremely high unemployment. The next people who will be hit by this is everyone who relied on those manufacturing employees making purchases, for example retail sales, car sales, much of the service industry, etc.

This will have a ripple effect across the whole economy in Michigan. Just look around at all the houses for sale, especially the foreclosure market.

Granholm has to start trying to bring in some new sources of jobs, we just can't compete (atleast with the current union situation) in the manufacturing sector. Her talking of raising the small business tax is extremely dangerous.

chrysler and ford have layed off like crazy, gm is also doing the same. my dad worked for canon and was laid off. i was laid off when my collision shop when out of buisness. i have been out of work since april. and finding a job has been terrible.

We better hope none of the big 3 go under. Then we'll be stuck with little jap cars. But if ayone is going to go under it will be chrysler. Ford can downsize as much as they need but they will always be able to sell mustangs and trucks, those are to very american things the japs cant copy without looking like fools. Chevys truck sales are continually decreasing which is there biggest seller also. And the only thing holding chrysler afloat is all these pos's people are buying for some reason (pt loser,pacifica, all that ugly stuff) And chrysler wires everything so it breaks within 100k miles. My jeep was kind of a pos and it was a 96, and my buddy has an 02 and another an 05 and they're only getting worse.


I'm so tired of riceburners..whens this trend going to wear out, the muscle car area began and was gone in less time than these little 4 bangers with 120hp and a 12ft wing with the craziest most useless bodykits you've ever seen. and incase you couldn't tell I'm a proud american who likes the cars made here.

I think this thread has become a good canadate for the "Everything Else" section...

lol...x2

GM and Ford seem to have the strongest showing, I think. Around here, truck wise, it's probably 70% Chevy/GM, 20% Ford, and 10% Dodge. Just my guess, but I mostly see Chevys on the road.

the pooh is def. moving downstream. luckily my job isnt dependent on th auto industry but i do have a few customers who supply some of the tier manufacturers around detroit and all off them are feeling the pressure.

even if we do get some new manufacturing in this area, there isnt another manufacturing who can support the wages that the big 3 have been paying their line workers. thats going to be a big wake up call for a lot of people.

hey 5.0 willie, i just wanna say i've never heard anyone say pt loser but that made me laugh really hard, that was pretty funny. sorry i just wanted to tell you that.

and who cares if this thread should be in the everything else section or whatever. seriously? put it in the gto section. who cares.

michigan sucks. someone from michigan get me a job! careerbuilder just isnt cutting it

Glad to make you laugh. My buddy calls his moms the loser cruiser

You know what will save the big three? Some people are going to hate this but it's the truth. Lose the unions. Plane and simple. Look how many autoplants have opened up in the last 10 years. Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, Honda etc. etc. They don't deal with the unions. Do you realize a couple of years ago that on average $8,000 dollars of every new car sold was purely for health insurance? On average the foreign auto companys use 15 people per car to build and the domestics use something like 25. That's from floor sweeper to CEO. This is the age of doing more with less and people have pull their heads out of the sand and realize it. The auto biz isn't the jobs program it once was. Well guess what? Neither is the military (unless you wanna join the army) one of the biggest jobs program if there ever was one.