the real reason why GM and it's workers are screwed

[Soylent Brice]

GM was at war with it's union employees, and pushing gas guzzlers, and ignoring alternative fuel and fuel efficient cars for decades before Obama came along.

is it right that banks get a handout, and GM doesn't? NO.

is it suspicious that the company with unionized labor somehow gets the shaft? YES.

but...

stop blaming Obama for not bailing out a company that has been making very big mistakes decades before he took office. i want GM to succeed just as much as the next person here. i think we can all agree no one wants to see them fail, but let's be adults here and focus on where the real blame lies.


just sayin'.

[liberalhistorian]

1. I do agree. However, I do NOT agree with the double standard

here, because the same could be said for many, many Wall Street institutions; indeed, some of their mismanagemet goes back even further than Detroit's. And the auto industry has saved this country economically more than once. So I do not agree with this double standard and find it a vicious stab in the back to the very people who most strongly supported Obama and without which he may very well not be in the WH today.

And now for the annoying grammar nazi. It's "its" workers, and "its union employees", not "it's." Normally I wouldn't bother, but I've already seen too much of that this morning and can't take it anymore, lol!

[Soylent Brice]

2. double standard indeed, and again

i do not agree with it, but the decline of some of these financial institutions happened just in the last deacade.

the majority of which happened under *'s watch.


and don't worry about the grammar nazi deal. i fuck up all the time. not exactly a literary scholar if you know what i mean... lol

[liberalhistorian]

12. Actually, some Wall Street institutions have been badly

managed for much longer than a decade, they've just hidden it well. Too well, as too many retirees and investors are now discovering. And Dems don't have totally clean hands in that, either, it isn't just repubs and Bush.

[FredStembottom]

3. 'splain that to me.......

I would have put that possessive in there, too.
No apostrophe?
I must have been absent that day.:blush:

[Soylent Brice]

5. figures.

i post something about a heated topic, and the discussion revolves around my poor grammar.

this is a weird day. lol

[TahitiNut]

6. Pronouns. "It's" isn't a possessive any more than "Her's"

"It's" is a contraction of "it is" and the possessive pronouns are "his," "hers," and "its."

OK?

[FredStembottom]

19. Of course!

His - hers - its.
That makes sense.

Sorry Soylent Brice.......:blush:

Returning now to an important post.

[Soylent Brice]

21. right on!

lol

[liberalhistorian]

7. There are two "its."

It's: it is. It's snowy today, it's going to get bad for unions, it's eight o'clock, etc.

Its: for use when it's not used as a contraction, i.e., usually as a possessive: this has served its purpose, the company fired its employees, winter refuses to release its grip around here (true for me!), etc. When you use a contraction for the possessive, when the contraction means "it is", you can see how it doesn't work.

[Soylent Brice]

9. my grade for the day:

F


lol

[Hannah Bell]

49. memory aids:

it's is always for "it is".

its = possessive pronoun like: my house, your house, her/his/its house, their house, our house

none of those have apostrophes.

i used to make the same mistake; it's common because of the presence of the "s" - our brain sorts through the subconscious language rules & comes up with the wrong one:

"oh, it's possessive & it has an 's' so it needs an apostrophe"

instead of:

"possessive pronouns don't have apostrophes"

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. It's not a double standard.

1. The auto companies are getting bailed out.

2. The bank CEOs were fired months ago.

3. The banks have plans for recovery. Outside of the toxic assets, they're profitable. GM and Chrysler have been facing bankruptcy for years, even before the economic crisis.

[Zenlitened]

48. "Outside of the toxic assets, they're profitable."

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[Mike 03]

55. Superb post, excellent point. Spot on, IMO. NT

[blue_onyx]

4. "pushing gas guzzlers"

Yep...how awful that GM sold consumers the vehicles they wanted.

BTW, GM does have fuel efficient cars. The Malibu gets better gas mileage than the Accord or the Camry.

[Soylent Brice]

8. that's funny, not according to this:

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/Feg/bymodel/2008_Chevrolet_Malibu.shtml

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/FEG/noframes/24901.shtml

:shrug:

[blue_onyx]

23. Check again....

Seems to me the Malibu does beat the Accord...

http://www.fueleconomy.gov/Feg/noframes/24367.shtml


http://www.fueleconomy.gov/FEG/noframes/24825.shtml

[liberalhistorian]

10. That's kind of circular logic. Yes, it's true that consumers

wanted the SUVs and other gas-guzzlers. But a large part of that is due to Detroit pushing them so hard and focusing on the manufacture of gas guzzlers and not the more efficient cars, not to mention their resistance to any suggestions that they focus more on fuel-efficient cars.

[Soylent Brice]

11. and BINGO was his name-oooooo!

[blue_onyx]

24. Then you could say that about ANYTHING

Companies make a product they think consumers will want to buy. The company then pushes the product because they want to make money. People are responsible for what they buy. If people didn't want SUVs, no amount of advertising would've made them buy one.

[amandabeech]

25. No. A lot of people just don't like small cars, and I know plenty of them.

I used to drive small cars myself, but I don't like them anymore.

I drive a mid-size and I like it much better.

Try fitting two adults, two current-sized teenagers, grandma and the dog into a Saturn ion. It doesn't work.

Oh, and watch a video of a small car hitting a commercial truck. Truck 10, small car 0.

Small cars work in cities and for people who think that they are immortal.

The rest of us tend to go for mid-size if we can afford it.

[Romulox]

30. Your logic is also circular, and by the same token.

:hi:

[Kalyke]

46. Oh - so NOOOO American could possibly think for his or herself.

GMAFB!!!

:eyes:

[acmavm]

13. Your arguement is ridiculous. You talk about bad management

in Detroit? What the fuck kind of management was running Wall Street?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

16. They're the same group of people.

[acmavm]

18. Oh whatever. The beneficiaries of bailing out Detroit are millions

of regular Americans (because Detroit supports more than just the assembly lines).

The beneficiaries of bailing out Wall Street are a bunch of thugs who gamed the system and brought it down.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

35. Bailing out wallstreet is the same as bailing out detroit.

In fact, systemic failure from wallstreet is the major issue facing Detroit.

[acmavm]

36. **snark** Okay, you're wasting my time now.

Adios.

[Soylent Brice]

20. and here we get to the meat of the issue

the answer is simple:

get rid of the executives who were in charge and are responsible. for banks, auto industry, etc.

no one should be above this or exempt. you run a bank into the ground, you should not be there. you run GM into the ground, you should not be there.

the problem is with those who are in power at the corporations and financial institutions.

people are forgetting who is responsible and taking aim at the person trying to fix shit.

[amandabeech]

26. The person trying to fix it is treating the auto companies differently than the financial companies.

I'm no fan of Wagoner, but I think that Vikram Pandit of Citigroup should have been gone last fall. He's still there losing money (but lying about it) and sucking in tax dollars with no supervisions, and so are the majority of the banksters.

The person currently trying to fix the automakers and the banks is trying to force wages lower for a very large number of employees of the automakers and is forcing the bond holders to take a big cut.

That same person is not forcing anything on the financial institution's employees or bondholders.

That same person is requiring detailed plans of future operations and may be forcing those companies to run their businesses with the investment bankers sitting at their elbows, a situation that I've seen force decent companies into bankruptcy because investment bankers can't run businesses. (yes, it was tried and failed in the '80s)

That same person does not have a representative of manufacturing, union or management, in his inner circle, and from what I've read, is not showing any interest in one now. However, that same person is surrounded by people from the investment and banking world, be it player or regulator.

[we can do it]

14. Bullshit- just sayin

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

15. That's one major part of it, yes.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/GM_Viability_Assessment.pdf

[smoogatz]

22. The difference, as I understand it, from Obama's POV is this:

Taxpayer dollars invested in the bank bailouts will, eventually, return the banks to profitability and return a substantial profit to the taxpayers. Krugman and other economists/critics of note doubt that those bailouts will succeed, but that's the premise Obama's operating under. For GM and Chrysler, the argument is that basically no amount of tax-payer assistance will succeed in restoring profitability: the product lines are too weak and the balance-sheets too far in the red as you project current trends forward for any further loans or bailouts to make a difference, except in keeping them afloat in the short term. More money for GM or Chrysler would be throwing good money after bad; not so, perhaps, with the banks. Also there's a matter of scale involved: if the banking system is allowed to collapse, the entire economy will basically shut down--no lending means no manufacturing, no mortgages, no consumer goods bought or sold, no crops planted, no transportation of goods, no fuel, no food, no communications, on and on. If GM shuts down a lot of people lose their jobs, but it's not armageddon. I'm getting more and more socialist as I get older, so I'd actually like to see Obama nationalize GM and let Al Gore turn it into a model for green car manufacturing, but the wingnuts would go apeshit if he did that.

[Soylent Brice]

27. i love this:

"I'd actually like to see Obama nationalize GM and let Al Gore turn it into a model for green car manufacturing"

i would so be on board with that!!!

and i think everyone should read your response for a reality check of the situation.

thank you!!

[amandabeech]

32. I disagree completely with Obama's premise.

I also think that part of the problem is that he seems to be listening only to people who come from the fiancial world or who regulated it. I am not aware that anyone from manufacturing, whether they be management or labor, is someone that he consults every day or any day. I think that it skews his perspective and the people he knows from his years in school aren't doing him any good either. I went to a grad school in the same league with the ones he went to and I did not meet one soul there in four years who had anything good to say about manufacturing or the people involved in it, let alone anyone from the lower middle or working classes. I also have never heard of Obama consulting with the sacrificed Steelworkers that he was supposed to be helping on the South Side of Chicago. I wish that he would have called some of them up, at least the ones who feel confident enough to tell him things that he doesn't want to hear.

As to the current banking system. The big players are not doing much to help currently. They're not doing much lending. Instead they are calling in loans. They're not buying commercial paper, which is short-term debt of good-sized companies. They're going after credit card holders by jacking up interest rates whenever they can for little or no reason, and looking to lay on huge fees whenever they can possibly get away with it. You only have to talk to a few people and read about the problems around here to find out. We're giving the banking institutions trillions, and they refuse to help. You say that we need them and we have to support them.

Some people complain about Detroit's products. Well, what about the financial weapons of mass destruction that the financial institutions have been producing and selling since the mid-80s? Those are the things that have caused the problem. They have been shown to be made of smoke and mirrors, and are much worse than anything that detroit has put out including the exploding pinto. It's just that they are harder for most people that understand them.

Please post some figures on the banks and unimployment. The failure of GM and Chrylser, and that's where I think that Pres. Obama is going, will cut 2 million, and a lot of that is in parts of the country where unemployment is the highest.

I say we don't give the banks who are not helping any more money. If we give money, we control the banks in the same way that Obama wants to control GM and Chrysler. We approve the business plan and they do what we want. Take it or leave it. I can't believe that there are no banks in the world who wounld't step up immediately to start lending here in the U.S. if we gave them some seed money. Let's start with Lulu's Brazilion banks. The Canadian banks have been very prudent and I say we ask them to come in and run prudent banks here. Even the Germans have been smart and they have banks not involved in producing or purchasing too much of the poison products of Citibank and Goldman and AIG. Bring them in. We helped build them up after WWII. Now it's their turn to return the favor. Send us some competent bankers, and let us help them.

[Urban Prairie]

28. In 1991, I decided to buy a pickup truck

I looked first at the GMC Syclone and the truck, although fast as hell, was waaay too small inside for my 6' 5' frame. GM did not make an extended-cab version, although the prototype Syclone was an extended cab. So instead, I bought a GMC Sonoma extended-cab 4x4 that looked very much like the Syclone, but not anywhere near as fast. Living in Michigan, though, I probably was better off with the 4x4. It was over $10,000 less sticker priced as well. I could have bought a full size Sierra, but a regular cab in that model, while wider, was still too cramped. When I drove my new truck to work, a lot of my co-workers came over to look at it. Within two years, the ENTIRE parking lot was loaded with SUVs and pickup trucks, and very few cars. Don't blame the domestics for building what people WANTED to buy, they can not force consumers to buy fuel efficient, low emission vehicles, and if gas prices are "low", neither can our government. If gas prices stay low for several more years, and the economy recovers, it could happen again, consumers wanting large vehicles, or sports cars with high-powered engines and not econo-boxes.

[Gregorian]

29. We were lazy.

And by we I mean those who bought into their hype of big cars.

Everyone I know was aware of this in the early 70's. The early seventies! But then I'm not from some bumfuck backwards town, like much of this country seems to be comprised. And I'm angry about it. Some saw this coming. Cringing, we just stared in amazement as we let the metric system fly by us. Whoops, that was a signal. Hell no, we won't grow.

Well now what do we do? It's kind of like smoking until you get cancer. Then what? Spend your life savings for medical treatment, and live out your unhealthy days in an apartment? Or keep what you have and die in your home with some modicum of dignity? Either way is ugly.

I'll say it for the last time- I went to my first electric car show in 1964.

The bottom line is, we let the world pass us by. While we were fiddling with Reaganomics and Nicaragua and Iraq, places like China were eating us alive.

So now that I've been cathartic, I will say that there are two forums where I spend most of my time that are examples of what we were, what we can be, and what we are. A machinist's forum, and a bicycle forum. The machinists are still digesting what is and has been happening in this country. Ie., the dissolution of our manufacturing. However, there are still places where the biggest machining happens. And there are still plenty of guys like me and others who have machine shops in their garage, and who can do the work. In the bike forum there are people all over this country who are building fantastic bikes out of a love for it. It may seem trivial, but it's far from it. The Wright brothers were bicycle mechanics. It's more of an indication that we have millions of people who can do fantastic work. I've never been more optimistic.

It's not too different than punk. Yes, punk rock. What we had were some fatcat producers who took the old blues men and essentially shafted them. And the same for the next group of musicians. Then came diy. The punkers were pissed. Fuck the corporations. They put out music with their own help. And this, I believe is how we have to take this country back. Not Ford and his assembly line. Not Schwinn and their factories. But people like Steve garro of coconinocycles. Check him out. Hit by a truck while cycling, he's now building frames from his wheelchair. And he's successful. Or Ibis. They sold their company to some venture capitalists who drove it into the ground, after which the original owners bought it back. And today they are one of the most successful bike companies anywhere. It's just a few guys in Santa Cruz who now have a new warehouse full of bikes their selling all over the world. And importantly, I want to add that Ibis has their frames laid up in China. There can be a symbiotic relationship. Assuming it's ecologically viable to even ship stuff around the world any more. But that's another subject. We can exist in harmony, and profit.

We can do it. If we rely on them to help us out, we're screwed. This is what made this country great. And this is still available. It's not a guaranteed paycheck. It we want a monthly income, then we're at the mercy of the man.

In a word I can sum up the problem. Fear. This is supposed to be the land of the brave. I tried it once. I was scared shitless. I roofed houses with a bad back. I remember lying up their in spasms with a wide open roof, wondering if I'd get it done in time for the rain. I remember wondering if the phone would ring, because I had a 13.1% mortgage. Due in 5 years!

It's sad to see people who are now in freefall. We cannot allow that. I cannot second guess Obama. But looking at the past, and looking into the future, we also cannot allow this to happen again. There is a place for mass production. But we lost sight of what is important. And in the process we lost out on freedom, happiness, diversity. And I'll add that this allowed us to ruin the country, if not the planet.

[No.23]

31. Lazy may be too kind. Gluttonous may be more accurate.

You also used two words, fear and freefall, that triggered an observation for me.

When we first learned how to walk, we feared falling.

Only to realize, later in our lives, that falling is an integral part of learning how to walk.

You can't learn how to walk without falling.

Oh sure, it's caring and loving to want to minimize the pain that comes with falling.

But you shouldn't try to prevent the act of falling.

You won't learn how to walk without it.

Fall prevention is counter-productive.

Attending to the bruises that come with a fall, on the other hand, is compassionate.

[amandabeech]

34. You should send that to Geithner and the banks. n/t

[amandabeech]

33. So goes Mendocino, so goes the world.

You should get out more and insult people you do not know less.

I've heard lots of people say that California isn't very nice anymore and they wouldn't go back.

I guess they were talking about you.

Oh yes, and I went from the small car I had in the '70s to the mid-size I had today with no help from Detroit. I'm comfortable and safe and I'm not going back unless I can't eat because of it.

[Gregorian]

38. It wasn't meant to be insulting.

I'm expressing what I've experienced. We went from reasonable to unreasonable. Today people are driving around in 500 horsepower idiocy. And we're still using the pound system. The world passed us by.

[Soylent Brice]

39. to put it simply, yes. the world is was inching towards us for

the longest time. then we took a break. like the hare. and the toroise in this story turn into a cheetah, and we turned into pigs.

arrogance + apathy = death of U.S. industry

[TahitiNut]

37. As a Detroiter, born and raised, and former GM employee, here's my perspective.

When Roger Smith became the CEO of GM, the die was cast: the MBA 'abitrage' types took over. The "car guys" were told to STFU and do what they were told. What's that about? Simply this. There was a decades-long struggle within GM between the Guys Who Made Money and the Guys Who Made Cars. The GWMM crowd was all about trading paper and playing money games ... and the factory rats were mere window dressing for those arbitrage games. The GWMC crowd were all about cars ... big ones and small ones and cheap ones and expensive ones. The accounting guys were there to make it POSSIBLE to make cars. From the time Roger Smith became CEO, it was all about making money. ONLY. Close a factory and make money. Close down all of Flint and make money. Lay off workers and make money. Get rid of separate car line engineering (intrapreneuring) and make money. Get rid of separate assembly plants (forcing ALL car lines into the same mold) and make money.

The engineers were 'out' and the MBAs were 'in'.

The MBAs were in bed with the bankers. They lived in the same neighborhoods and belonged to the same country clubs and graduated from the same schools (Wharton and Chicago and Harvard Business Schools). They weren't smart enough to survive in the engineering schools. They harbored the resentment for being treated like the morons they were by the engineering students. The MBA/BusAd fraternities had good test files ... and the faculty cooperated by keeping the same tests and quizzes year after year after year. It was incest. When they became the bosses, they got even. They treated the "car guys" like shit. The engineering cooperative educational programs were shut down. The outreach into high schools to sustain 'auto shops' were terminated. After all, the MBA types didn't need them.

Roger Smith ONLY hired and promoted people like HIM. Inbreeding. MBA types ONLY hire and promote MBA types. After all, everyone knows that the greatest advantage of getting a Harvard MBA is NETWORKING ... being a member of the "club." Competence isn't required to "play ball" ... not their kind of "ball."


FWIW, Thorsten Veblen warned us about this 100 years ago.


In the interest of full disclosure, I knew Ed Cole ... one of the very last "car guys" to be CEO of GM back in the late 60s. Ed Cole was an extraordinary guy. I miss him.

While Roger Smith personified the MBA mentality, his mentor and predecessor, Thomas A. Murphy, is the one who said it all aloud: 'General Motors is not in the business of making cars. It is in the business of making money."

That's why GM failed. They forgot why they were in business.

[Soylent Brice]

40. i wish i could recommend a reply.

you should start a thread regarding all this, if you haven't already.

(and if you have i apologize i missed it)

[TahitiNut]

42. Thanks. I usually don't bother starting threads -- we have too many as it is.

It's gotten to the point that actual rational discussion sinks like a stone. Unless the DU rabble is roused to exchange insults and flames, threads just don't get attention. I have, of course, added this post to my Journal ... which is where I put posts that best reflect my perspective on a variety of issues. (It's remarkable how often the feces-flingers fail to survey a Journal before alleging an ability to read minds.)

[ColbertWatcher]

45. "we have too many as it is." True, but ...

... some of them are repeats of the same interesting story. Some are polls. Some are of the "hey turn on the TV" variety. While some are "I'm fucking pissed!" Throw in a bunch that are troll-y and others are attention-whore-y ("kick and rec if you agree").

The rest are original content, that is what your's is. People will find it.

[ColbertWatcher]

43. Kick and rec this post! Beautifully put. n/t

[Fumesucker]

50. Nice post..

I could tell by your comments on my thread in the Photography forum about the restoration shop that you knew a thing or two about cars.

Now I know you know more than that even.. :hi:

[Rabrrrrrr]

52. That's exactly it - it stopped being run by gearheads who loved making cars,

to being run by MBA types - and not just any MBA type, either - completely incompetent ones. They didn't just run GM the wrong way; they ran it the wrong way incompetently.

Roger Smith is the country's second biggest bastard after Ronald Reagan.

Interesting they were at the same time.

I think of what GM was when Charles Kettering was in his heyday, and think of it how it became under Smith and later ones, how it became almost impossible for the engineers and designers to go have creative fun.

I have a lot of GM engineer friends, who started there in the 80s when we were in college, and they all complain of the stifling bean-counter bullshit, from the Proving Grounds down to the local factories.

"Hey - we could save a million bucks a year by redoing this machine so that it does blah blah blah"

"We can also save a million RIGHT NOW by cutting your position and your department. Bye."


All that amazing, brilliant, creative spirit that came out of General Motors Institute and the other engineering schools from the 1940s on, that were given free reign and the opportunity to explore and create and have fun, were all shit on by Smith and his replacements.

If not for Roger B., that useless fat fucking bastard, and his ilk, GM would probably have had electric cars ten years ago, and it wouldn't be in the position it's in now.

[TahitiNut]

53. Yup. I worked at Chevy Central Office when Pete Estes and John Z. were there.

Cruising Woodward Avenue from the Totem Pole to Ted's was the Rite of Passage when I was in high school ... just as poodle skirts became old. My family was union and blue collar ... and I was the nerdy kid on his way to college: a planned career in the Coast Guard as an officer. Yup. Life is what happens when you're making other plans. After leaving the military behind, I worked driving a forklift at Detroit Diesel. After graduating from Wayne State in inner city Detroit, and teaching for a year, I went to work for Chevy ... and learned a lot. After a sabbatical in Viet Nam, I went back to Chevy. I saw the bean counters starting to take over ... the slice and dice and play shell games with accounting and finance. By the mid-70s, and too many boom-and-bust cycles that jerked Detroit around, I saw the handwriting on the wall and left the area. Coming back here 6 years ago, I see my worst expectations have come true. It's tragic.

Each August, we have the "Dream Cruise" -- nostalgia along Woodward Avenue -- classic cars and gear heads. (I cringe to think of the number of gallons of gasoline burned that week.)

[Rabrrrrrr]

54. And so many other companies "balanced" their acounting sheets by cutting R&D

"We can make an extra 100 million dollars this quarter by cutting R&D!"

Yeah, and then ten years down the line, you'll still be selling the same shit - or TRYING to sell, really - to a public that long moved on to new products being made by the Japanese and other companies that didn't cut their R&D.

The great industrial strength of this country was that the companies let the engineers and scientists make shit solely for the sake of making shit, and then their workable discoveries would be used to make the company and the products better, or to spin off whole new product lines and industries, and their failures would help inspire new ideas for something else.

Now the creative types at the corporations have to answer to a ludicrously ignorant accounting manager for every fucking nickel they spend.

Now it's all "How half-assed can we make whatever the hell it is we sell, cars I think, right?, cars, yeah, well, anyway, whatever the hell we make, how can we make it cheaply with the most profit-sharing to us?"

Used to be "How can we make the most incredibly bitching car?" (or most incredibly bitching bicycle, or wagon, or Playschool toy, or Tonka truck, or garden hose, or whatever).

Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, Gates, Jobs, Vanderbilt, Chevrolet, Cadillac, Hewlett, Packard - none of those guys were accountants or "business" people. They were visionaries and leaders.

That's we need in CEOs.

[NNN0LHI]

41. That is all bullshit

What are these?

http://www.toyota.com/sem/suvs.html?cid=Google_toyota%20suv

Sure look like gas guzzlers to me.

These too.

http://www.nissanusa.com/pathfinder/

The real problem is people who talk a good game about being worried about all their jobs going overseas but when it comes time to actually support their fellow workers they buy vehicles made in another country. These are the same people who don't want me to go to Walmart as they drive their Toyota's around.

And in the long run they cut their own throats. And those are the people I blame.

Just saying ...

[Kalyke]

47. AMEN!

And, for the non-religious, RIGHT ON!

[DainBramaged]

51. Land Schooner, (Sequoia) 14 MPG City, 17 MPG Highway, YOUR millage WILL vary

And the jackasses here blame Hummer for despoiling the environment.

[Kalyke]

44. But no one wanted fuel efficient automobiles.

That is NOT why they're hurting.

Trucks and SUVs were and are still popular.

People on DU live in a la-la land where everyone wants to own an ugly Prius. The truth is, out in the real world, most people want a nicer looking car for their $32,000 - and one that gets OK mileage. Heck, most people can't even afford a $32,000 car right now.