Ok so the government is proposing to bail out Ford, GM and Toyota in Australia. Do you think this a good, bad, or otherwise?

Interesting read on the subject here http://business.smh.com.au/business/...1110-5l7m.html

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Funny looking German Subaru

I understand that the industry directly employees 60 000 people and indirectly 200 000. I also understand that the us government is handing out USD$25b and the Germans EU$12b to their car industry but what I dont understand is the following.

1) none of the companies are australian owned i.e. if they do suddenly become profitable etc all of the money will flow overseas anyways. These companies are not going to develop green technologies alongside their parent companies so why bother trying. i.e. let toyota japan develop it and then patent / copy / steal the technology for a local car.

2) if I am complacent and incompetent in my business and dont adapt with the times will the government come and help me out? I dont think so. The car industry should not be any different.

3) The writing has been on the wall for a bloody long time about global warming etc. I still fail to see why I can not buy a ford falcon or a commodore (either sedan or ute) with a diesel motor in it.

4) The cars being offered by holden / ford and antiquated and almost irrelevant in the current environment. Gone are the days of sales reps driving around in commodores. Those that cant conduct their business over the net are driving around in corrollas et al. Surely the dwindling number of sales for falcons might suggest that perhaps they need to go in a different direction. i.e. something significantly smaller.

5) Our tax system. I have several managers that I buy Toyota Hilux Dual Cab SR5's for because I dont have to pay Fringe benefits tax. Thats right. It works out cheaper for me to spend $52k on an imported 'commercial' vehicle than it does to go and buy a brand new commodore for them. Our tax system is trying to stop me from supporting the local car industry.

6) Have you driven a bog standard commodore lately? The sooner the thing rusts to pieces the better. Whilst they continue to serve up unreliable / poorly built machinery why would I buy it? Been there done that, never again.

We need to use our competitive advantage. I am not trying to be racist but let the countries with cheap labour build the bloody things and we should focus on the technology side of it i.e. using our expensive but well trained labour to do thing like design gearboxes / suspension etc.

Having mentioned competitive advantage I think the whole thing needs a more united approach. i.e. Let the US build SUV's and 4x4's. Let japan build well designed and built small cars. Let Europe build exotics and high end performance cars. Let the koreans / malaysians / indians / chinese build cheap / unsafe / unreliable heaps of shit for the peasants.

Choice is a great thing but in these times of uncertainty I think people need to stop and go back to what they are good at. Clearly Australia is not good at building cars. Great. Let someone else do it.

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Losing is worse than death. You have to live with losing....

If the government took away some/most of their tax percentage in order to decrease the price wouldn't GMH/FrOd etc sell more cars as they are cheaper?

Or they'll both have to smarten up and start making a shit load more small cars as the Falcon/Commodore become more and more un-economical to buy & run

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No more GC8, sad face.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

Thank you mate, you saved me the time. If you are too incompetent to run a god damn business, you should not have one. Its simple, unfortunatley peoples jobs are at stake.

I disagree. Even if they slashed 10k off a GTS out of the 20k they have on the tax, thats still a 10k profit going to holden, but the consumer has notice a reasonable decrease in purchase price and will be more inclined to purchase it.

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Honda Hannspree Edition CBR 600 RR - SOLD
Yamaha FZ1N - Purchased

The new car market has been heading for disaster for a couple of years now but for some reason everyone stuck their heads in the sand and ignored it.

The car market has boomed for years all on the back of rising house prices and easy credit. Suddenly people saw their houses worth more than double and used the equity to get into a new car. Great for people who got in the house market early enough.

Then we got the situation where to buy a home you had to spend an average 60% of your income instead of 30%! Somethings got to give, and for most it will be the new car. We now have a generation of people who can barely afford their houses let alone new cars.

Rising house prices have ruined the economy, encouraging unsustainable growth levels around the world, people thought they were richer than they actually were and jumped on the easy credit bandwagon.

Its all about disposable income. If your pumping it into a house loan your not buying cars, boats, tv's, blah blah blah. end rant.

Luckily i got in early

save our shit jobs!

reminds me of this:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=-PFY-Zm8j0E


the car industry can go to hell and die, they have been holding back electric cars for 100 years now because it would destroy their service industry with nearly unbreakable cars.

Sounds like they are helping everyone out...

Until you remember they have to get the money from somewhere. So I guess that means more taxes or 'charges' somewhere along the line.

Personally I'd like to see how much loyalty these companies have to Australia before giving them more money. How about making them use more Australian components or something?

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[COLOR="Gray"]550Nm off a 2L... Just wish it was in the dak dak...[/COLOR]

Just a thought but maybe if they removed the luxury tax for Australian manufactured cars you would see more Australians actually have a reason to buy them.

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Funny looking German Subaru

Would be good to have a reason to buy Australian apart from "dad had one" because reliability, quality, features list, handling, economy and resale value are all reasons not to by an Australian Car

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Arguably my Automobile is Awash with Alliteration - Subaru Sti S202

Such a simple idea... Let's successful Aussies buy a high end HSV / FPV without the 33% LCT tax.

I'm sure it would sway a lot more people into them too.

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[COLOR="Gray"]550Nm off a 2L... Just wish it was in the dak dak...[/COLOR]