Oh that reminds me, when I was a kid we went to the drive in with my
Dad in an old Ford Econoline van. During the movie Dad slid his seat
back to be more comfortable. On the way out after the movie the
traffic stopped and he went for the brake which was now too far away
for his foot to activate. When he slammed into the back of the car
in front the engine mount in the old Econoline broke and the engine
fell out. Made shifting and clutching difficult. ;-)
Funny thing. The girl in the car he hit was named Lapierre. Not
related. She's from a different clan that doesn't know how to spell
LaPierre.
Mark LaPierre
A Cuban friend told me that when they got a ¨new¨ Russian car during
Soviet times, the first place you took it was to your mechanic. The
reason was to tighten every bolt in the car to make sure the doors
did not fall off or the engine turn upside down.
Dale Davies
The joke in USSR Russia was; "We pretend to work and the commie
government pretends to pay us:)
We are getting a taste of that in the US right now.
Paul Lamar
Gerald Klerman told me about the quality of US made cars: it look
pretty well in the dealers' showroom, but after one week, it start to
break apart. About the soviet system, a local joke said: What's
capitalism? -Men exploiting men. and socialism? -The reverse.
Somebody or something is destroying the minds of US workers, this may
be the reason why some US products for which the quality of manpower
matters are not that good. Best regards. Salut Jose
Gros-Aymerich Madrid, Spain
He is wrong.
That might be true of Chrysler as they are owned by Fiat. Could also
be true of GM as they are owned by the Union and the US Government.
Ford has excellent quality and several Japanese brands are assembled
in the US. Toyota is the best selling brand in Cal. Many parts for
all cars made in the world are now made by the Chinese now
enthusiastic capitalist.
The auto manufacturing world is truly an international biz.
For example Brazil makes BMW engines found in Mini's.
Socialism is close to communism. Socialism sucks and capitalism is
how the world prospers. Why do you think 20 million foreigners have
sneaked into our country across the Mexican border. They have
socialism in Mexico and the country is a disaster area.
Without robust capitalism there would be no money for poor people.
http://cba3.com/
You need to travel around a bit more and see for yourself.
Paul Lamar
Your right on Paul! After several trips to Europe, which is a great
vacation, it doesn’t take long to figure out that the USA is the
place to live. As much as I get pissed off at our government, we have
it much better than most. Unfortunately, I don’t think our current
government is through screwing up our country, but its still better
than anywhere else.
Bob Mears
Capitalism is designed to provide a profit to the [investors not
necessarily rich]. All businesses have stakeholders, people to whom the
business must provide their very best. It used to be that a business
considered employees and consumers in the highest regard as
stakeholders. Consumers wouldn't buy their products unless they got the
very best their hard earned money could pay for, and employees were
regarded as the company's best consumers. If a GM assembly plant worker
didn't buy GM it showed a lack of faith in his/ her product. That's all
changed, for the worse. Now companies have little regard for consumers
[at their peril]. They've found that consumers will buy on the
reputation of what once was. Chevrolet is a prime example. The company
has spent millions on auto racing to promote their name, while at the
same time cutting corners on their products. This began with their Turbo
350 transmission which was designed to fail at 60,000 miles in order to
provides increased sales in service departments. Once they sold these
transmissions and the consumer didn't raise any complaints, mainly due
to the fact the most new car buyers replace their cars every 3-4 years,
they began cutting costs across the board. This showed up in things like
smaller diodes in later alternators, smaller, [ down right puny], oil
filters! idler arms on Monte Carlos that were ordered with enough
clearance to warrant replacement off the showroom floor, etc..
Companies began a bottom line mentality in the '80s, possibly spurred on
by Reaganomics, of further cost cutting measures that saw stagnation in
employee wages below mid management levels and reduction in same through
attrition. The employee was also no longer regarded as an important
stakeholder. That importance had shifted to upper management [no the
bottom line to keep the investor happy] and now as companies went
public, to the stockholders. I was told while working at a prominent
member of the semiconductor industry that our only purpose was to
provide a profit to our stockholders [true but many people are stock
holders. You can become one too.]
This shift is what is destroying our country [not true]. Our morals have
shifted.
We [not every body] no longer care about the least among us, only the
wealthiest [ourselves?].
Ken Cohagen
And then competition came along from Japanese cars.
See what happened to GM. They failed big time.
Much of what you say is true but your economic understanding is weak.
Read Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to
Understand Basic Economics
by Henry Hazlitt
Paul Lamar
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A million copy seller, Henry Hazlitt’s "Economics in One Lesson" is a
classic economic primer. But it is also much more, having become a
fundamental influence on modern “libertarian” economics of the type
espoused by Ron Paul and others.
Considered among the leading economic thinkers of the “Austrian School,”
which includes Carl Menger, Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich (F.A.) Hayek,
and others, Henry Hazlitt (1894-1993), was a libertarian philosopher, an
economist, and a journalist. He was the founding vice-president of the
Foundation for Economic Education and an early editor of
/The Freeman/
magazine, an influential libertarian publication. Hazlitt wrote
/Economics in One Lesson/, his seminal work, in 1946. Concise and
instructive, it is also deceptively prescient and far-reaching in its
efforts to dissemble economic fallacies that are so prevalent they have
almost become a new orthodoxy.
Many current economic commentators across the political spectrum have
credited Hazlitt with foreseeing the collapse of the global economy
which occurred more than 50 years after the initial publication of
/Economics in One Lesson/. Hazlitt’s focus on non-governmental
solutions, strong — and strongly reasoned — anti-deficit position, and
general emphasis on free markets, economic liberty of individuals, and
the dangers of government intervention make
/Economics in One Lesson/,
every bit as relevant and valuable today as it has been since publication.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The TH 350 was not necessarily designed to fail at 60K. The design ethic
that caused the shorter longevity was a very smooth shift. One clutch
slowly engaged while the other slowly released. This caused accelerated
wear. Chrysler Toqueflite transmissions shifted in a noticeable manner.
If they all had been built like the Toqueflite, there would have been a
lot fewer transmission shops around. There is a basic "shift kit" that
vastly increases the GM transmission life.
Dale Davies
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