Chrysler Closing Down Production for 4 Weeks

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   auto expertposted 15 years ago

   In the announcement made on Wednesday, Chrysler announced the closing down of its 30 factories for one complete month. Will the factories resume production on 19th of Jan, '09. Is this 4 weeks long closure of factory - mere holiday?

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      pgrundyposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      They close down for two weeks every Christmas, so it's just an extension of what they do every year. If they don't get some money though, yeah, maybe the won't reopen. I guess we'll see.

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      countrywomenposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      It can slow down production but closing announcement isn't a good idea I feel. As it may affect the confidence of the buyers who may feel they won't get the after sales service if the company isn't around.

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   pgrundyposted 15 years ago

   Bush just announced that he is considering putting Chrysler & GM through bankruptcy but keeping them afloat through January. I don't understand why they are letting them dangle in th wind like this. Another week and they'll have to file bankruptcy on their own.

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      Mark Knowlesposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      If he lets them dangle until Jan 20th - It becomes an SOP.
      
      Some One else's Problem

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   pgrundyposted 15 years ago

   I think that's the plan, Mark--SOP.
   
   Since I live in Michigan it's hard to be impartial. I'm frankly scared to death right now. Things are bad here, really bad. On the up side, I still have a house in Indiana that I can't sell, plus this house in Michigan, so we have a couple of houses and lots of relatives to go through before they make cat food out of us.
   
   Still, it's getting ugly.

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      Mark Knowlesposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Yeah I know. Unemployment over 20% in the Detroit metro area.
      
      And that before they close anything. I feel for you. Went through a similar thing in London during Maggie Thatcher's reign.  Never seen anything like it before - riots in the streets.
      
      Look out for yourself....Indiana sounds good.
      
      Oh, and if you can possibly afford to hang on to both houses - do so. Not going to get better for at least 5 years.

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         pgrundyposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         I think you are right--five years is a minimum as far as turn around, and who knows what that neighborhood will be like in 5 years! I have to hang onto the house--my son-in-law's mother is living in it now, and if I lose the house and she has to leave then she moves in with him and my daughter and I never hear the end of it for the rest of my life! lol!
         
         Seriously, I'm trying to hang onto it just because it's the right thing to do. It will never come back. It was the cheapest house I could find that wasn't in drive-by shooting land in 2004--I bought it at the height of the housing bubble for $39,900. At least half of the houses on that block have been repo-ed and are now NOT selling for four figure prices--no one will buy them. Still, it was cheaper than rent while I lived there, way cheaper, and now my son-in-law's Mom has a cheap place to live too.

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   Mark Knowlesposted 15 years ago

   Ouch!
   
   Well, if you have any cash - offer the banks $1,000 a piece, take it or leave it. And wait 5-7 years. In fact, if they say yes, I will send you 10k and we can buy 10. You look after them and we split the money in 7 years time? Seriously

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   pgrundyposted 15 years ago

   Wow, what a shrewd guy you are! No, I'm so broke I can hear the wind whistling through my wallet. If you saw the city in Indiana, you might want to hang onto your $1000 anyway--Ever heard of Flint, MI? That's where it's headed, seriously. Very sad.
   
   But if someone DID have cash--yeah, they could buy those up. I'm sure the banks would be thrilled to dump them on somebody, anybody. My daughter & Son-in-law lost a house in the same neighborhood. They had a $40,000 mortgage on it--it sold at auction for $6,000. The investor hasn't done a thing to it in over a year--hasn't rented it, improved it, is just holding it. He probably thinks like you do, that he'll sell it down the road at a profit. I think he may be stuck with a house full of crack addicts and a bunch of trouble, but I've been wrong before.
   
   The houses probably all have tax liens too, big ones. That happens when this happens, and the city is so hungry for revenue they don't care that they're helping it to eat itself.

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      Mark Knowlesposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Oh well - next time

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   Lissieposted 15 years ago

   The BOOM price was under $40,000??? That's extraordinary - Perth had a boom which pushed the median prices from around $150k in the early 2000's to around $450k now - they are saying that prices may not move for 5 years here too - because the resource sector has collapsed but I cant think of anywhere in Australia you can buy a house for that price. Whats the avg wage there ours is around $45k I think- so average house about 10x average annual wage - which is historically about right though it may drop as low as 7X Oh and our interest rates are waay higher than the US too

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      Mark Knowlesposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      I would put money on it dropping to 3.5x

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      pgrundyposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Northern Indiana was heavily industrial and heavily dependent on the U.S. auto industry. The average wage the last I looked was around $28K annually, but that's deceptive as there are LOTS of people who make $6 or $7 an hour, lots of unemployed people and people who work sporadically, and very few white collar jobs. As the good blue collar jobs vanish, the community is disintegrating fast. Lots of boarded up, vandalized houses like in Detroit & Flint, the roads are a mess, bad problems with crack and prostitution, and whole neighborhoods that look like something out of "Mad Max." So I'd bet the average wage is lower now.
      
      When I bought the house I'd been divorced about two years and was living in a 400 square foot apartment (the upstairs of a residential house near my job) and paying $445 a month for that. My mortgage payment on the $39,900 house was $395 so it was cheaper and I had about 800 square feet and a garage. It's not in the worst neighborhood--in fact there's a new school right across the street, but at the time I bought it there were only three other houses that were that cheaper--and all three of the others were in really bad areas. The average home price there used to be around $120K. I'm sure it's much lower now.
      
      When I found I was able to buy a house, I was really happy, but now I wish I could unload it, and likely I will never be able to unload it without taking a huge loss.

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   Amanda Severnposted 15 years ago

   Unbelievable house prices in the States, or at least your part Pam. Here on the South Coast of England, a three-bedroomed mid terrace house with next to no garden, and on street only parking will still fetch £230-250k! I guess you have space there whilst we're all crammed in.
   
   Still, wasn't it Mark Twain who said 'buy land, they're not making it anymore!' ?

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      pgrundyposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Hi Amanda. Yes I live in one of the cheapest places in the country for housing. Either of the coastal areas are much more expensive. I think California was one of the worst--median home prices approaching $1 million. $750K would get you a two bedroom bungalow an hour away from work in iffy shape. Now they've got entire subdivisions just rotting away, vacant.
      
      Mark Twain had a point, but the old saw, "Location, location, location," is pretty important too. Sure you can get a cheap house here, (I have two!) but who the hell wants to live HERE? You can't get a job. A foot of snow fell last night and now there's an ice storm frosting it off. Any minute here we'll lose power. It happens half a dozen times a year. So, you know, you get what you pay for.

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         countrywomenposted 15 years agoin reply to this

         Pam- My friend in UK  who finished PLAB ( for doctors it is similar to MLE here in US) but was still not making enough to afford a decent life style. He said he had to even work in super markets at some point. But since he is extremely smart and hardworking cleared the MLE to relocate to US. He says the gas is more expensive, insurance is high and houses are small. He says without a doubt for the standard of living the cost of living in US is the cheapest in the world. I guess if we only compare to US different parts we may feel bad. But world wide if we compare with similar countries we aren't in such a bad place at all. Just my two cents.

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   Amanda Severnposted 15 years ago

   Sorry pam,
   I guess I was being flippant. It's hard to grasp the size of the problem from a cosy house on the other side of the Atlantic. I really want things to get better, but it's hard to see how without some radical change.

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   Amanda Severnposted 15 years ago

   It is expensive to live here Countrywomen. Property is extortionately expensive, and even professional level jobs often don't compare with similar roles in the US as regards wages. As Pam said in one of her hubs, Britain is a foreign country. Our way of going on is as alien to an American, as an American's is to us. But at least we all speak the same language (well almost! LOL!)

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      countrywomenposted 15 years agoin reply to this

      Even for me since I have come from India just once in last 4 years that too when I was studying in midwest that we lost electricity for a few hours (which was nothing compared to the way we are used to back home).  I am glad that we all speak the same language(of course we all speak in accents and the English speak english the way it is originally supposed to be spoken).

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    pgrundyposted 15 years ago

    Well it's true that the standard of living is here is very high even at its worst. If you come here from a country where people can't buy houses or cars, then it is going to look very good, and really, compared to that, it is a good way to live even now. But you have to ask yourself how long will that last? It looks bad, seriously.
    
    People who have always lived here though are seeing their standard of living fall very fast, with not much hope that that will change anytime soon. If you've been living indoors all your life and suddenly that looks like it is in jeopardy, it isn't going to cheer you up to tell yourself, "People in other countries don't have houses." That's just going to make you think, oh great, soon I will be living on the street--and the street here is cold!
    
    You can always find someone worse off than you are somewhere else in the world. But from the perspective of the average American, we are in big trouble here. Our leaders are corrupt, we can't compete, and we are facing a long downturn, possibly of Depression era strength. Especially where I live, it's very alarming.

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       countrywomenposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       I hope it never happens to anyone to have to live on the street. I guess what I meant and how it is being perceived is different. I agree if a person who comes from lesser level it is great to rise to higher level of living but a person who has been used to a high level for very long then it is difficult to adjust to a lower level. When I was a student I had the opportunity to interact with Irish, UK and Australian students but when I heard even they want to settle in US I was surprised. Their is a saying that a country's greatness can be judged by how many people want to get into it and vice versa how many people want to get out of it.
       
       I hope the Bailouts reach the company's soon and the managers/top people who are responsible for this mess take a big pay cut or even relieved for their mishandling. We are in a crisis and it is not the time for doing root cause analysis but time for action. But eventually inefficiency should be rooted out and profitability should be restored.

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    Amanda Severnposted 15 years ago

    That depends where you live in the UK. We have a full range of regional accents too, plus local dialects, and parts of the country with their own regional language spoken interchangeably with English, such as they do in Wales. It can all get very confusing!

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       countrywomenposted 15 years agoin reply to this

       I am sure it differs from place to place. I was just saying it for fun

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    checabearposted 15 years ago

    i have been noticing on a few occasion these forums become discussions between 2 to 4 people. i wouldn't know what we would do without the internet. Telephone? maybe?
    letters.

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