A world gone stark staring raving mad!
By Dennis DesRosiers, president of DesRosiers Automotive
Consultants Inc.
in Richmond Hill.
A Detroit Three Canadian auto worker arrives home early to find the spouse
in bed with a paramour.
The worker goes back to work
where the automaker files divorce papers for the worker and pays the legal
cost
– or at least part of the legal cost.
Why are the Detroit Three paying
for CAW members' divorces?
A world gone mad.
Car companies, finding it difficult
to maintain vehicle sales, embrace subvented lease financing.
With leasing, you make or lose money depending on the ability to sell the
vehicle when the lease expires.
So here we have dealerships
struggling to sell a vehicle the first time, then embracing a finance product
that
forces them to sell the same vehicle twice.
A world gone mad.
Scrappage programs are an effective
way to get older vehicles off the road and to stimulate sales, so the federal
government launches a scrappage program that gives a consumer $300 to get
rid of an older vehicle but they
don't get the $300 – instead they get a certificate to buy a bicycle.
And the feds wonder why the
market is not responding?
A world gone mad.
Pension funds of the Detroit
Three are underfunded by billions of dollars and governments may have to
make
up the difference. But CAW members don't contribute to their pensions.
Why should governments have
to bail out pension plans for workers who don't put into their own plans?
A world gone mad.
We have nearly identical vehicles
for sale in both Canada and the U.S. About 60 per cent of Canadians bought
a fuel-efficient vehicle compared to 28 per cent of Americans who did the
same – and this was with $4-per-gallon
gasoline south of the border for part of 2008.
Yet U.S. politicians claim car
manufacturers do not have a fuel-efficient product mix. If this is true,
then how the
heck did Canadians find these products to buy?
A world gone mad.
The Detroit Three, together
with their suppliers, have collectively asked Canadian and U.S. governments
for
more than $130 billion (Canadian) in financial assistance and, if the governments
give them this money, they
promise to fire more than 100,000 workers.
Doesn't government usually provide
financial assistance to create jobs?
A world gone mad.
In December, General Motors
and Chrysler asked for $30 billion (U.S.) to help them through their financial
problems.
By early February, this escalated to $60 billion (U.S.). How did they not
know they would need more?
A world gone mad.
Consumers are being asked to
spend an extra $3,000 to $5,000 for fuel-saving technologies that amount
to
savings of only a few hundred dollars annually in most situations.
They may never recoup their
investments but our government wants even more of these technologies to be
sold in the future.
A world gone mad.
Diesel vehicles are a proven
technology to reduce greenhouse gases. Yet two years ago, North American
governments
implemented Tier 2 emission standards that effectively prevent car manufacturers
from selling diesel-fuelled vehicles.
A world gone mad.
Diesel fuel is cheaper to make
than gasoline, yet diesel usually costs more at the pump.
A world gone mad.
CAW workers get 10 Special Paid
Absence (SPA) days each year. Indeed, with SPA days, paid vacation and
paid holidays, a high-seniority worker gets as much as 10 weeks off with
full pay.
A world gone mad.
The number of vehicles to driving
age population in the U.S. is 101 per cent. In Canada, it is only 74 per
cent. I believe
transportation needs here are being filled more than adequately with this
lower level of ownership.
How is it that Americans need 101 per cent ownership?
A world gone mad.
Governments are overregulating
the auto industry, costing original equipment manufacturers billions.
And then governments wonder why the industry needs billions to survive.
A world gone mad.
Governments view vehicles as
worse than smoking and treat consumers accordingly (tax after tax after
tax).
They then desperately try to save the 800,000 jobs directly tied to the
sector in Canada when consumers heed
the message and buy and drive fewer vehicles.
A world gone mad.
Ford in the U.S. says it is
in better shape than GM because its sales were only down 49.5 per cent and
GM's were down 53.1 per cent.
It's definitely a world gone completely mad.
