First, we hear that GM is having problems and cutting back. Now, about a month later, we hear the same or worse news from Ford. Huge cuts and changes affecting tens to hundreds of thousands of employees.
I feel very bad for these folks. While in my field, IS/IT, jobs can be had just about anywhere, the same is not true for auto workers. Many towns literally revolve around the plants located in or near them. This will ultimately affect more than just those who work at the plants getting shut down. They might even take whole towns down with them. NPR had a worker on who was just moved from one state where a plant closed, now he is facing the same thing again… even IF he could get moved to a plant in yet another state.
One has to ask how this could happen. Sure, the American auto makers are competing on a global scale now. But, many of these companies now own some of the foreign car makers, or have partnerships on many of the models. The problem is much deeper than that.
I typically am not a big fan of unions. My story on this goes back to personal experience within my family while growing up, watching how the union interacted with my father’s work situations. Then, I had more direct interaction with a couple of the large national unions on a project I worked on later in life. They have become very self-interested entities that I believe are out of control in many ways. Yet, even the UAW hit it square on the head on NPR today. Ford had simply not kept up with the times on what people want to buy. BINGO!
I still come back to the question of, how and why??? If just about every person in the country can figure it out… and has had it figured out for several years… how can highly paid people who have for their primary job watching the industry mess up so badly? I just can’t fathom the stupidity of it. Sorry I can’t be more diplomatic about it…. but it is just that, stupidity!
How long have gas prices been going up? How long have we known people were beginning to become more aware of the environment? How long have other companies like Honda and Toyota had hybrid models? How long has flack been growing against the popularity of SUVs?
I suppose SUV sales haven’t drastically declined until the super high gas prices of the last year or two. But, couldn’t they see this coming? Again, I just don’t understand. If I were the share holders of these companies, I’d clean house of all the upper management. You could hardly pick worse people to run things. Heck, just go randomly pick folks walking down the street and they are likely to have better judgment for what the market wants and needs.
I really hope one day the American car companies ‘get it’. America is a country that seems to be able to be on top of technology in any area that we put our minds to it. The auto industry should be no exception. American autos have come a long way on build quality, and the workers should be proud of that. But the workers and unions can’t do a lot about poor design, market research, and planning. This time, the fault falls squarely on the management… shame on them!
Well Christmas and the Holiday season were going nicely this year… busy but I got some actual time off and I was really enjoying that. I’m certainly behind in my posting and editing the Intelligent Design article I had planned. But, 2005 went out in a bit of a wild way here in the Bay area. We got rain… lots of rain! It was the start of a rather different New Years event than I have experienced before.
I had come home around midnight from a day playing Gran Turismo 4 with a friend and parked Trixie (hey… you folks didn’t come up with a better name… don’t you feel bad now?) in her usual parking spot on the street curb by our apartment.
About 4am on Dec 31st, we were woken by doorbell and pounding on our door. Fortunately, it was a neighbor who had got up for some reason and noticed that things were being flooded. At the time, there was no water in our actual parking lot, but street was beginning to flood. Several of us ran to our cars to get them out of the street… the parking between our buildings is space limited, but on a bit higher ground.
Well, soon we realized that it was coming up into that area too, but the street would have been over Trixie’s dash for sure! As the water level got higher, we soon realize that our cars might still be in trouble… but there was no where else to go. Then we began to be concerned about our actual apartments. Our apartment is on the 2nd floor, but many of our neighbors were in possible trouble. We were house sitting the 1st floor apartment below us.
We watched the water level closely and it crept up steps, step by step. It was about 1 inch from invading the 1st floor apartments, when it stopped rising. It slowly began to drop. Some people had actually started to move 1st floor things to 2nd floor. We were all pretty tired from the excitement, yet no one could sleep as it was still raining, but it had slowed for sure.
In a couple hours, the water had dropped another inch or so, and it was beginning to get light. We could see more damage at this point and debris floating around. We were certainly lucky compared to many others in our community who lost homes, business, and lots of cars. I think 170 businesses in San Anselmo were badly damaged or destroyed. I heard a number of $50 million in damage being mentioned in this small town while I was out the other day.
Trixie did take some damage. There is about 2 inches of height difference between the door sill of the Miata and our Civic. The Civic was fine, but the Miata got an Inch or so of water on its floor. It initially started fine, but after driving a bit, wasn’t running so well, and the engine and ABS lights are on. I’m hoping after it is dried out, it is just something simple like water splashed in the spark plugs, or O2 sensor and brake pad sensors for ABS. Time will tell… she is at the shop now.
So, while this is not the start to the New Year I had been hoping for, I still have to be thankful for what we have. It could have been MUCH worse. Gave us just a small glimpse into what so many have gone through over this last year. Let’s hope this year is much better for the world in regard to natural disasters.
Here are some photos I snapped when it got light out. It was at least 3 inches higher at its peak level… maybe more.
