The American car companies are exactly where they are because they deserve to be where they are. And when I say the car companies, I mean not only the executives that were content with sitting atop perhaps the most uninspired and unresponsive corporations in history, but also the blue collar workforce that tried its best at every turn to cripple the viability of its employers. It was a partnership in futility that could exist only so long as the American consumer was held over a barrel.
The only possible market dynamic that could remedy this was the procession of foreign auto products onto the marketplace.
The American car companies were not going to offer a better product. Every year they stayed in operation they had the opportunity to increase the quality of their vehicles. Why didn't they? Their customers were screaming for them but without any competition, who in Detroit was going to listen?
Meanwhile, the cost of the junk we bought was going up and up due to the asshattery being agreed to between the UAW and the Big Stupid Three. With a handshake and a curt nod, each successive generation of the American consumer was sold down the river so that twice as many union goons as necessary could be employed while receiving salaries that belied their low skill levels.
Former NFLer, Brian Bosworth, bragged about how on his summer job he and his UAW compatriots would hang bits of metal inside the cars they were building so that the vibrations would drive the purchaser batty. (UAW members are still being caught getting drunk and high on breaks.) And lets face it, every one of us that was ever raised in Michigan can tell you a yarn about all the crap the union membership got by with on the job. Meanwhile, Ford was giving us the Pinto, Chevy was turning out the Vega, and Chrysler, well, they were giving us Chrysler.
America was manufacturing the disposable car with a bad rattle.
Of course, things are a bit different now. American companies have to build better cars because they do have to face Honda, Volkswagen, and Nissan on our turf. (Incidentally, these companies also happen to build here a lot of the vehicles they sell here.) This competition is good for the American consumer and it also keeps the predictable repercussions of protectionism at bay.
I do not shed one tear for the UAW membership or the Big Stupid Three, and I will not be guilted into buying any product from either a company or a workforce with such a legacy.
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