[Mr 5 0]

Originally Posted by RBatson

I'm absolutely loving this thread! The whole matter of the fact is that the executives are making WAAAYYY too much and less attention is going towards the product (as with most US corporations). Well, that's conservative capitalism, isn't it. Whatever the market will bear, make as much as you can. Capitalism absolutely gives people motivation to work harder while giving others a license to steal. Its not right and could be the downfall of America. It's all about the profit, which is what I despise about the extreme right wing(giving everything I've worked so hard to obtain away to the lazy is what I despise about the extreme left wing).

Oh please. Stop the Marxist nonsense, Rick.

Capitalism is the engine that has made America the world power it is and has been since WWII. It allows anyone to start a small business and with hard work and some luck, be financially successful. Almost every big corporation in America - from Ford to Microsoft - were started by an entrepreneur with just an idea and lots of ambition. Those entrepreneurs - from the guy who owns the local auto repair shop down the road to the millionaire factory owner - hire and pay other people looking for work and thus, make the economy grow, as ours has, in stark comparison with europe and other western nations that have foolishly embraced socialism. These entrepreneurs often start by borrowing money from banks to start their business. Money that they pay back with interest, just as people have always done. Even the bible mentions bankers..and they are not condemned. Meanwhile, wage-earners choose to work for their wages and I don't think that $60,000. per-year auto workers are all that deprived.

To mindlessly state, as you did, that 'capitalism could be the downfall of America' is beyond ridiculous and speaks to a profound lack of understanding of economics on your part. Grumbling about executive salaries is nothing new but it has little bearing on the financial woes of domestic automakers. While the six and seven-figure salaries of top auto execs may look bloated to the average person (you and me) , they simply mirror what other high-level execs get in other industries. I hardly think that the salaries, no matter how large, of a few dozen top-rank auto executives working in a multi-billion-dollar industry is the reason Ford and GM are sinking. As Kell and I have noted, the lack of quality in many U.S. automobiles and resulting sales drop-off is a large part of the reason for their slide in the market.

Let's be accountable for our products. I have a 2004 Ford and a 2002 Chevy sitting in my driveway right now.. Chevy gives better customer service, hands down. I don't even want to deal with Ford anymore, seriously. Their customer service is crap, total crap. They absolutely don't care about your problems while GM gives you a rental while your car is in the shop. This isn't just locally either, its everywhere I've taken my cars. The Mercury dealership(locally) is better than most though. I don't even want to talk about Dodge, though they have some vehicles that appeal to me.. I'll never own another Dodge.

Fair enough. However, Honda customer service - including the free use of a low milegae, 2005-model loaner car - is also excellent, as I outlined in an earlier post. Maybe GM is catching on.

I say put more attention towards the product and cut back on the excessive pay.

Would you include the 'excessive pay' of unionized factory workers, too? 'Excessive pay' is a relative term and can be used against anyone who you happen to think makes more money than you personally think they should make. In any case, if GM and/or Ford do go under (unlikely) all those highly paid executives will be out of a job, right along with everyone else in the company. Now there is equality of outcome for you, something liberals seem to love.

While we're at it.. lets put more farmers to work and grow corn to make ethanol fuel.

Ethanol, last I checked, had a net negative energy balance. It actually takes more fuel to create the ethanol than you get out in ethanol. With the government 'help' you seem to admire, it sounds like another welfare progarm for farmers, financed by the already over-burdened taxpayer. No thanks.

Why keep paying the outrageous prices for oil, we don't need it but... someone is making a dollar off it so let's capitalize on it! Right? WRONG! We don't need it! America has more natural gas than it knows what to do with yet we keep using oil... why?? SOMEONE IS MAKING A DOLLAR OFF OF IT! A car can run off of nature gas can't it.. YES! I say more ethanol, more solar, more wind. Heat houses with natural gas. We don't need all the oil we use but we keep using it.. WHY? Because someone(BUSH/CHENEY/SAUDI) is making a killing off of it. Absolutely ridiculous!(And some wonder why I despise the illiterate self serving president).

Geez, I feel like I just stumbled into a looney leftwing website or something. Bush/Cheney and the Saudi monarchy are part of some conspiracy to 'force' Americans to consume oil they 'don't need'? That is simply anti-Bush paranoia manifesting itself and is not connected to any kind of rationality. Where do you get this kind of rubbish?

Here's a clue: it's not just cars but homes, business and many kinds of machinery that are designed to run on oil or oil byproducts, as they have for over 100 years. They cannot be 'converted' overnight and the conversion costs would be huge, so no one is jumping into it without real proof that the so-called 'alternative fuels' are actually feasible in the long term. Solar? Wind power? How very PC....and how equally devoid of reality.

Your anti-capitalism, anti-business and trite anti-Bush hysteria demonstrates the Marxist, anti-capitalist mindset that apparently drives 'liberals' these days and it is not pretty to watch, as your uninformed rantings here prove. Grow up and get real.