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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (437091)	11/28/2008 11:47:18 AM
From: i-node	Respond to of 1573980

What I do see is that margins between GM and F which deal with the same union are considerably different. Working from memory -- but you can easily confirm it by viewing each company's most recent 10Q -- I believe you are entirely wrong here. If one adjusts for financing-related differences, both companies had about the same relative gross margin for the last quarter. F's finance operations are different, so that has to come out -- but both companies showed substantial losses in margin in the last quarter if you pull out the finance operations. Contrary to your post, it points to the same problem at both companies - they're selling cars for less than it costs to build them.

To: tejek who wrote (437091)	11/28/2008 11:57:13 AM
From: Road Walker	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 1573980

It's also my impression that US car companies sell equivalent models for less (could be wrong) than their overseas competition. A combination of inferior quality and inferior marketing that hits GP$s and %. Also, with the exception of Cadillac, they really don't have a good selling premium brand that ups margins.

To: tejek who wrote (437091)	11/28/2008 12:57:02 PM
From: SilentZ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573980

>Bottom line: I do not trust the conclusions promulgated by conservative Republicans.......grinding their axe on unions has been a long time tradition. And I certainly won't take inode's opinion at face value. Furthermore, I think GM's problems are as much about mismgmt as union problems. I look forward to reading a well done, non biased analysis of the problem. If you cut salaries of the factory workers in half, got rid of their health care and pensions, the company would be profitable. -Z