Socialism wins again - Detroit goes Bankrupt!

[glatt]

I never paid close attention to the Indy rules. Are car makers allowed to try to improve the MPG of Indy engines? One extra gas stop can mean the difference between 1st place and not even being in the top 10.

An improvement to 5 MPG would mean you could win the race. Especially if you can make your tires last longer.

[Undertoad]

They don't get to do anything to the engine. The sanctioning body selects what goes into the cars. Prior to 2011 they were all identical, now it seems there are two engines available, a H*nda and a Chevy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IndyCar...012-present.29

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Indy engines get 3 mpg, are rebuilt at 1200 miles, and cost about $1M a year per car to lease.

And do something like 500 hp per liter. We know that race technologies 20 and more years ago are technologies that end up in today's cars. Racing is one source of innovation. V-8s have long been crap. What was 'state of the art' in the 1950s is no longer desirable even in race cars - where innovation is desired.

Those engines must have less displacement than any car in today's parking lots. Not because of race track rules. Because tinier engines are necessary for innovative racing machines. Why did Honda dominate in race circuits? Because Honda innovated.

Why does Detroit suffer? Because Detroit industries were dominated by rich and dumb business school grads who thought the Renaissance Center (expensive offices for the rich) would magically revive Detroit. They spent big bucks on what they understood (ie corporate jets for all executives, crappy 1960 technology engines, cost controls, private elevators so that management need not see the riff-raff in the lobby, welfare for the rich). They were so mentally naive as to ignore what was important.

Even Ross Perot who was paid $billions to leave because he was predicting destruction so long ago. The ignorant hate reality. Which even explains the Rennaissance Center.

Michael Moore defined this problem decades earlier by documenting job destruction in Flint Michigan.

Unions did not create that disaster. Bean counters playing money games (with pension funds and 0% financing) and stifling innovation created that disaster.

Detriot is another example of how business school graduates enrich themselves by destroying jobs.

[Undertoad]

2011 specs around 186 hp per liter, 2012 specs around 295 hp per liter.

Maximized for efficiency in a very specialized application. Comparisons should not be drawn between engines for practical applications. 295 hp per liter seems efficient. 3 mpg does not. 1200 mean miles between failure does not.

[BigV]

OF COURSE, those engines are designed for a knife-edge-narrow purpose, to propel the vehicle containing it faster than the others just like it over the course of about five hundred miles, and other factors be damned, including fuel economy. 3 mpg is good/bad only in a given context. In the context of driving to work, that's berry, berry bad. In the context of a quarter-mile unlimited funny car, who gives a shit?

Even measuring hp/liter is a totally made up parameter. Let me ask you: which is "more efficient": a car with an engine that makes 186 hp/liter that wins the race or a car with an engine that makes 295 hp/liter that loses the same race? One puts all the resources into a winning effort, another puts all the resources into a losing effort. Which is more efficient? Context people, context.

[BigV]

Meanwhile, back in the real world, specifically Lansing, Michigan:

Lansing — Ruling the governor and Detroit’s emergency manager violated the state constitution, an Ingham County Circuit judge ordered Friday that Detroit’s federal bankruptcy filing be withdrawn.

“It’s absolutely needed,” said Judge Rosemary Aquilina, observing she hopes Gov. Rick Snyder “reads certain sections of the (Michigan) constitution and reconsiders his actions.”

The judge said state law guards against retirement benefits being “diminished” but there will be no such protection in federal bankruptcy court.

...

“It’s cheating, sir, and it’s cheating good people who work,” the judge told assistant Attorney General Brian Devlin. “It’s also not honoring the (United States) president, who took (Detroit’s auto companies) out of bankruptcy.”

Aquilina said she would make sure President Obama got a copy of her order.

“I know he’s watching this,” she said, predicting the president ultimately will have to do something to make sure existing city workers’ pension agreements are honored.

Pension board lawyers are contending federal bankruptcy proceedings shouldn’t put city workers’ retirement benefits at risk.

Southfield attorney John Canzano, representing several pension plan members, said bankruptcies of cities such as Stockton, Calif., have been handled in a way that didn’t compromise pensions.

From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...#ixzz2ZWijL6A6

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Comparisons should not be drawn between engines for practical applications.

70 Hp per liter engine that is standard in all minimally acceptable cars was racing in Indy in the late 1940s. Specialized functions today are standards for future products. To define innovations using real world testing.

Why is Detroit bankrupt? Look at the region's major product. Its engines remained lowest performance. It stifled innovation throughout the product (not just the engine) in the name of cost controls. It feared fundamental product thinking advocated by innovators such as W. E. Deming. Its products would even rust out in two years. So they invented myths about 'more salt on today's roads' rather than paint those interior steel surfaces.

To coverup their lies, they even underfunded the pension funds. And invented more lies to mask that fraud. So of course so many employees had to flee Detroit. Detroit's major industries were even blaming their employees rather than ignorant and corrupt management. Another example of 85% of all problems directly traceable to top management.

Since that top management said there was plenty of blame to go around, then 99% of all problems were directly traceable to those people educated and acting to destroy American jobs.

Bankruptcy is only reporting today on a problem that existed even 20 and 30 years ago. Same problems so accurately defined by Michael Moore's "Roger and Me". Problems continued because the problem makers - corporate leaders who stifled innovation - denied a problem even existed. They even said GM had no problems in 2007. That the only problem was the economy. These job destroyers blamed government, Japanese, the economy, education system, unions ... and even United and American Airlines for being too unsafe for corporate executives to fly on.

Detroit is simply another victim of what is taught in the business schools. Those low performance V-8s still found in crappy products are but another reason for Detroit's bankruptcy.

[BigV]

meanwhile, back in detroit engine land:

tw, calculate this one, if you will, please.

maestro:

[Adak]

You bring up two important points:

1) The unions role in the US car makers.

2) The role of the upper management and directors.

I believe it's clear that upper management and directors were incredibly stupid and short sighted, on the whole.

The Ford Mustang for example, was planned to be the Ford "Carnation", and built something along the lines of the old "Cosmopolitan".

If memory serves, it was Lee Iacocca, when he was at Ford, who was able to kill the "Carnation", and bring in the support for the Mustang.

Because he knew cars, and he knew drivers, and what they wanted.

But I was focusing on the role of the unions in the destruction of the US car makers - and to the socialist policies of Detroit, that drove them to bankruptcy.

Originally Posted by tw

Detroit was heavily unionize in the 1950 and 1960s when Detroit was so innovative, became productive, and was profitable. What changed? By the 1970s, all top management was replaced with business school graduates. Top management in Detroit (ie Henry Ford) did not even have a driver's license. Top management was so ignorant that 2x4s were placed under the accelerator of the first Saturn. So that Roger Smith could not press that accelerator. Smith also did not know how to drive a car. So we should blame that on the unions?

In the 1950's, the unions were certainly popular in Detroit, but they weren't that strong. They weren't NEARLY as aggressive, or as organized, as they became in the 1970's and later decades.

Since 1981 the average number of days lost per worker each year to disputes was just over 9% of the number lost in the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_Japan

When the UAW joined with the AFL-CIO, and finally found out they could, through careful targeting and close cooperation with all other AFL-CIO unions, close down ANY car maker that failed to yield to their wage + benefit demands (regardless of the sales and profits of that year), then it didn't matter WHO was the President of the car company.

Even Lee Iacocca, could BARELY keep Chrysler in the black - primarily helped in those years when he had concessions from the unions, AND had a good model car to sell.

When the unions can dictate what their salaries and benefits will be, to management, the company is doomed. Perhaps their greed will be restrained for a little while, but before very long, it will rear up, and swallow the company.

No doubt.

When the unions can strike, and close a business that is vital to the industry or the country, it's time to change the laws regarding unions.

I'm reminded of the FAA flight controllers strike in the 1970's. They were going to shut down every major airport in the country, if they didn't get their demands met. We had just had a disastrous 4 years under the Democrat Jimmy Carter, so our country was a complete mess - gas lines, our Embassy personnel held hostage for a year by Iran, etc.

And now the flight controllers want a raise, or they'll completely cripple airline traffic. Airline mechanics, pilots, etc., wouldn't cross their picket lines, since they were unionized, as well.

So Ronald Reagan fired every one of those flight controllers who wouldn't return to work. Support for them disappeared, almost overnight. Problem solved!

With the city of Detroit, it was their giving into their workers unions, instead of the UAW, but they were all AFL-CIO.

You simply can't give in, and you can't defer payments of the agreed upon pensions, etc. and hope to stay a viable city or company. We've seen that in city after city, and in company after company.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Adak

Even Lee Iacocca, could BARELY keep Chrysler in the black - primarily helped in those years when he had concessions from the unions, AND had a good model car to sell.

Lee Iacocca replaced much of Chrysler's top management. Then let engineers design the cars. He then scrapped most of an existing design subverted by corrupt (bean counter) management. And let the unions design much of a new assembly line. He did what even W E Deming recommended. By eliminating the only problem - top management, then Chrysler repaid all their loans in less than three years. Followed by record profits. He fixed the only reason for financial hardship - top management.

Marchionne did same in heavily unionized Italy. He fired all management in 60 days. And no employees. He quickly made Fiat so profitable that he could buy Chrysler and almost bought Opel.

Extremist rhetoric wants to blame the victims - the employees.

Exactly what happened in Hostess. Unions took wage cuts. Then scumbag management secretly gave themselves record bonuses on top of salaries that were increasing something like 10% every year. After all the purpose of a company is profits to top management.

How did Fox New report those realities? The political agenda often blames the victim. Be it immigrants, gays, women rights, minorities, employees, Muslims ...

Same exists with Martin. A victim is blamed by lies that say he was inside his girlfriend's house boosting he was going to 'get' that creepy ass guy. Another example of blaming the victim for a political agenda. We know where that myth came from because of what Fox News and other extremist propaganda machines (ie Limbaugh) are designed to do. Lie.

[tw]

Originally Posted by BigV

meanwhile, back in detroit engine land

I don't have any spec numbers for 1963 models. That is a completely different technology - a turbine. Its performance numbers (like numbers for Diesels, Wankels, turbo charged, and supercharge engines) would be completely different.

However sometime in that period, Corvette (for a short time) released a 70 Hp / liter engine. The famous expression was a 350-350. That's about the time that bean counters began replacing car guys. Stifled innovation began with a new top management tool - cost controls.

We know why Honda engines more often win races. Higher performance across a wider range. In a short stint with Nascar, every Ford mechanic would brag about their higher performance engine. The number was routine with many Ford cars. Due to superior performance, Fords had 50 more horsepower.

BTW, performance and efficiency are not same. And are not orthogonal.

Why are Detroit designed products so unprofitable? They even still manufacturer V-8 engines. Detroit products are that technically obsolete. Due to cost controls, Detroit products are some of the most expensive to build. Why would anyone make a hybrid where its gas motor cannot even recharge its battery? A classic example of how widespread stupidity is in and around the Renaissance Center.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by tw

I don't have any spec numbers for 1963 models. That is a completely different technology - a turbine. Its performance numbers (like numbers for Diesels, Wankels, turbo charged, and supercharge engines) would be completely different.

However sometime in that period, Corvette (for a short time) released a 70 Hp / liter engine. The famous expression was a 350-350
.

That's OK, I just wanted to hear you say 70 Hp / liter again.

[tw]

Originally Posted by BigV

That's OK, I just wanted to hear you say 70 Hp / liter again.

70 is a good number. 75 is even better. After all an illegal immigrant named Superman is 75.

[Undertoad]

FYI, the Germans seem to be running V8s in Mercs and BMWs and even a few Audis.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

FYI, the Germans seem to be running V8s in Mercs and BMWs and even a few Audis.

Even Toyota makes a V-8. But look at who they are marketing to. Notice so many pickups (from all manufacturers) make so much noise. Noise tells the naive he has a high performance engine. Reality, that noise is gasoline wastefully burning in the exhaust. A bigger (and obsolete) engine is necessary because it performance is so low. But it makes noise meaning the driver's penis must be bigger.

In many cases, V-8s only exist to market to fools who associate more noise or a bigger engine with personal superiority. An ego thing.

What was a worst engine in Toyota's domestic history? That V-8 found in the Tundra.

Companies that are profitable are not selling 1960 technology products. Detroit is a victim of four automakers who stopped innovating. Only Ford recently restarted innovation.

Detroit has no choice but to downsize. What choices were left other than bankruptcy? Renaissance Towers were full of Detroit's rich who remained in denial. They destroyed American productivity while blaming the employees (using socialism myths). Those who destroyed Detroit were practicing classic communism.