Auto sales 'unsustainably weak'; GM's fall 45 pct.

Every car manufacturer everywhere. I have a message.

Make a car that runs on a cheap renewable energy source and that cost in the 17-25,000 price range. Do that and you will be the most profitable car company on Earth.

Don't continue making cars and trucks that have 350hp and get 13 miles to the gallon. You will die if you continue doing this.

Take out the hatchet, chop off the umbilical cord connecting your company to big oil interest and "go rogue", if you will, by creating the vehicle of the future with zero carbon emissions and an affordable price tag.

You're welcome.

Why should we spend billions to bail them out? They were dumb enough to let this happen. The US Govt can't tell them what to do as far as building common sense vehicles, like maybe Korea. Now, the US Govt has been urging America's auto industry to build common sense. Maybe the the Govt. should urge them not to seek billions for not listening. Maybe the Govt. should give them only hundreds of millions to re-tool the industry for common sense vehicles. It's cheaper, and a smarter investment to re-tool the factories to build more economical vehicles.

Instead of giving them a fish, we should teach them how to fish. 

It's about time car buyers realized that SUVs suck and that buying a new vehicle every three years is a f'n stupid thing to do with their money.

Socialism for the rich.

More money won't pull the heads of GM, Ford and Chrysler out of their respecitve sand boxes. GM killed the EV1 Electric care because big oil told them to do so and filed suit  against California's zero emission law was repealed.

http://www.mindfully.org/Air/GM-Sues-CA-ZEV.htm

Ford and Chrysler have been living off of trucks and minivans that are gas guzzling machines. In other words, they have spent billions of dollars making vehicles no one wants to buy and millions of potential customers can't afford, so now they go cap in hand for som welfare bucks from congress because the sky has fallen.

Well I am perfectly OK with going back to horses and foot travel. At least the obesity rate will decline in lazy America.

The worst thing about it is that my argument for re-tooling probably wouldn't work, because the of a sissy a$$ problem like consumer confidence. There's too many holes in the market. I guess that's another symptom of the pussification of America.

truthtrekkers: I'm in a wheelchair right now, and I still go on long strolls, but the girls don't care much for walking where I  live. About 50% chub love.

Ohio job loss second only to Michigan since 2000

Posted by Frank Bentayou/The Plain Dealer October 22, 2008 17:02PM

The U.S. economy's eight-year roller-coaster run of decline, recovery then more decline has left Ohio with the second-worst record of job loss in the nation, a private economist says.

Of the 50 states, only Michigan, with its "unprecedented, Depression-level" loss of 496,900 jobs since 2000, or 10.5 percent of its work force, exceeded Ohio's decline of 213,300 jobs.

The Ohio total accounted for a 3.8 percent drop in employment between September 2000 and September 2008, according to Charles McMillion, president and chief economist of MBG Information Services in Washington, D.C.

MBG analyzed U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, including updated numbers the BLS released Tuesday reflecting state employment gains and losses in six major job sectors for September.

McMillion provides economic consulting to a range of companies and trade organizations.

"I've analyzed jobs data closely in Ohio and Michigan. These two states, especially, have just had eight awful years," he said in a phone interview.

"Even before the current downturn, a lot of people, including me, had become terrified about what's happening there, where you depend economically so much on manufacturing jobs."

His tally revealed that the nation added 5 million jobs over the eight years he studied, a 3.8 percent increase in overall employment. That might not seem too dreadful.

To put that figure into perspective, though, McMillion came to a startling finding in his national jobs analysis: "This 3.8 percent gain is by far the weakest eight-year gain in jobs on record back to 1939."

That was the year, in the latter period of the nation's Great Depression, when the government began tabulating jobs data in the manner it still uses. That makes the data comparable.

McMillion said the previous worst eight-year job market was from 1953 to 1961, when job creation grew 8.3 percent -- more than twice the recent rate.

In order for unemployment to remain flat, the country must generate an increasing number of new jobs each year. That's because the population grows two ways: Births outnumber deaths, and immigration accounts for a considerable number of new residents who often become job seekers.

Important to Ohio and other states in the Great Lakes industrial region, the U.S. manufacturing sector has lost 22.2 percent of its jobs since 2000. McMillion's analysis shows that the decline was 2.5 times the percentage loss for any eight-year period since monthly data began flowing 69 years ago.

The latest report shows how each of six job sectors fared in Ohio. Over the eight years, construction and manufacturing took the biggest dives. Construction shed 10.6 percent of workers, while manufacturing lost a whopping 25.4 percent, or 257,600 jobs.

Meanwhile, private education and health services grew to become the biggest sector, with 804,300 employees, up 17.3 percent since 2000. Government remained second, growing 10.2 percent to 787,600 jobs in Ohio. McMillion said much of that has been in public schools, colleges and universities.

Over these eight years, the country spent $5 trillion more on imports than it made from exports. "This represents lost production and, therefore, lost jobs," McMillion said.

The consultant has been studying economic ups and downs for decades, extracting job information from the bare-bones reports the U.S. government provides regularly. As it turns out, he said, the 21st century so far has provided some pretty unusual economic times.

It was in 2000 that the soaring stock market began a descent into the deep trough of 2002 and 2003. Then the three major Wall Street stock indexes shot up again until late 2007. This year, markets tumbled sharply again.

The recent collapse in the U.S. housing market and then in the financial markets rounded out the eight-year cycle.

"It's really been an interesting period to examine," McMillion said. "We're looking at a time of big change in the business cycle, and that's a good time to track what's happening in the jobs markets."

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We Can't take 4 more years of this. Mccain will not vear from the Bush Policy EVER!

This is very funny because despite their financial 'woes' I sure dont see them cutting prices to beef up business....if they want to sell cars they are going to have to come of the stickers...ALOT. The same for Circuit City and their store closings... They sure have reduced any prices...Not really sure why not, that would at least boost sales, it may decrease your over all profit margin but it would keep you in the "profit" zone! They need to help themselves alittle bit but they dont.. the Ram that was $100 last week is still $100... so guess what they arent going to sell any more, they mark it down to 50 dollars guess what they are underselling everyone and are going to bump their profit up becuase they are getting everyone elses customer....they must be used to their 500% profit margins...!! Ford is the same way.. if they cut their vehicles by like 10K people would flock there to buy cars..drastic times call for some unorthodox methods...

I hate it for anyone selling new cars right now and trying to keep the rent paid and food on the table.  It's got to be tough.