The auto industry is a disaster. I've lived in southeast Michigan my whole life. My father was with GM hydraulics my whole childhood. I have more that a few drunk relatives that make near six figures on their 30th+ year at one of the big three.
My buddy owns a union employed steel company. He pays $78 per hour, per person for union employees. $78 an hour for people that barely graduated high school and live on vicodin and pocket vodka lunches.
There are people begging for jobs in Michigan. He could hire out full staffs with an hour notice at $15 an hour.....the problem is, running non-union crews in a union guarded business is impossible. The entire industry will make it their goal to bury your business.
I had a friend in high school that would work 110 hr weeks for Ford all summer. His father was an engineer there.
110 hour work weeks....the kid didn't put in 110 hours of "work" the entire summer. He wouldn't even be near the plant 110 hours a week.
My father is still in the Auto industry. He's in sales now and the stories you hear about the auto plants is mind boggling.
The stuff they find when a plant closes is ridiculous.
Janitor closets decked out with beds, TV's, mini fridges....
Tool shelves with hidden sleeping shelves.
There's a story everyone loves to tell about a "hidden room" that was found in one of the plants....the plants are so huge that there are essentially an unlimited amount of places to "hide." One of these rooms supposedly stored a mountain of empty beer cans and bottles that amounted to around $1,000 in return deposits......
The auto industry as it stands in America can't survive. You can't pay non-skilled labor that kind of money and expect a profit. You certainly can't run the kind of profit margin they run when it's nearly impossible to sell your cars in foreign markets.
Try to buy an American car in Japan and see what it costs you after the import tax mark-ups.
Buy Japanese in America and you get a better car with better gas mileage and PAY LESS for it.
You can't afford an American car in the overseas markets.
They foreign markets protect their own industries. I'm not necessarily for upping tax fees on foreign cars, but with the situation as it stands, something has to change.
The big 3 bring in an insane amount of money. The cash flow with them is absurd. It's always on the radio talk shows here....it's amazing the money that flows in and out. They make A LOT of money, but because they spend SO MUCH money, the profit margin is nothing.
They'll never be a good investment because of that profit margin. There is such a small margin of possible profit that the difference between a great quarter and a quarter of billions in losses is just a small percentage change.
