  Patrick Member Username: Patrick Post Number: 4191 Registered: 10-2003 |
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs .dll/article?AID=/20070401/BUS INESS01/704010574/1014 So it seems the German shareholders are fuming at their American counterparts over the recent $1.5 billion loss. It seems that there is a sense of German nationalism…or perhaps anti-Americanism amongst the German shareholders. Could I be mistaken? Did German pride and sense of superiority mess things up for the Detroit automaker? My dad just retired from Chrysler and felt a bit bitter. I was told that many of the German managers thought the Americans were beneath them in every aspect. Is this true? Does anyone have any experience with this? | ||
Mikeg Member Username: Mikeg Post Number: 763 Registered: 12-2005 |
Those geniuses at Daimler bought Chrysler "high" and it looks like they will be selling it "low". Their shareholders should be fuming over the $34 billion loss their company it about to take on the sale of their American "merger of equals". | ||
Gistok Member Username: Gistok Post Number: 4018 Registered: 08-2004 |
No Patrick, it's just that in Germany any nutcase can go and make a spectacle at a Shareholder meeting... and they do!! One things Germans are not afraid to do... is open their mouths!  The German mentality (and that of much of Europe) is that if you are in middle or even lower management, you think you're hot shit! They are so title oriented over there, that it borders on the absurd. I was just about this with a friends mother, who was there in October to visit her cousin. He happened to be a retiring director at a company, and she said she saw more "titled" people than she has ever seen before! Over there it's "Herr Direktor" or "Herr Doktor" or "Herr Engineer". Once they get a degree they think they are hot shit! This mentality is nothing new, but goes back hundreds, if not a thousand years. Just look at the English "upper, middle and lower classes"... same crap. As someone born in Germany, I know wherewith I speak! Europeans get very confused by Americans... we are much less class oriented, and they can't pigeon hole us by class, like they do each other. Americans generally don't get into all that pompousness like the Europeans do. (Message edited by Gistok on April 02, 2007) | ||
Jerome81 Member Username: Jerome81 Post Number: 1335 Registered: 11-2003 |
Yeah, maybe we don't care about class, but we care about race instead.... Anyway, I spent a summer at Chrysler in 2003. I got the sense they listened, but all directives came from Germany. I think Chrysler benefitted from having Dieter as the Chrysler Group CEO. He was sorta that bridge in that he came from Germany but Chrysler was his baby. I wouldn't be surprised if when he went back to Germany that the power went with him. Anyway, DaimlerBenz has shown on more than one occasion it doesn't know how to lead a large, multinational corporation. Hell, even the Mercedes brand has been eroded to shit in their attempt to make a car for every person who wants to get into a Mercedes. The three pointed star used to mean an exclusive, ultra expensive, superbly engineered automobile. Now they're built to a price and for everyone. They are still decent cars, but a long way from what they were. Bottom line, DaimlerBenz just doesn't know much about what it is doing with anything. They've got a major identity and major shareholder crisis going on there. | ||
Cambrian Member Username: Cambrian Post Number: 892 Registered: 08-2006 |
And a case of long term memory loss. How many times since the 98 takeover has the fortunes of Chrysler carried the company while people stayed away from the boring boxy benzes of the late 90s and early 00s? | ||
Gistok Member Username: Gistok Post Number: 4025 Registered: 08-2004 |
When you're a shareholder, the bottom line is CURRENT value... Although I'm sure Ford shareholders get nostalgic over the time when they had something like 24 billion in cash on hand... Germans are not Un-American... they're just like half of Americans... Un-Bush! | ||
Jjaba Member Username: Jjaba Post Number: 5143 Registered: 11-2003 |
Mercedes owns Freightliner Trucks. They just moved out of Portland, Ore. to Mexico, except that Bush is waving some military truck dollars at the Portland plant and every anti-war Oregon congressman is getting huge heartburn. jjaba on the Westside. | ||
Warrenite84 Member Username: Warrenite84 Post Number: 71 Registered: 01-2007 |
I had to laugh when they complained that Chrysler sullied their good name. They would have a compelling argument if their quality always hovered in the upper quarter of the quality rankings. It is presently near the bottom, below Chrysler. | ||
Patrick Member Username: Patrick Post Number: 4193 Registered: 10-2003 |
It seems as if the Germans dont want to admit that they are partially to blame for the fuckup. hell, look at the quality of Mercedes these days. Total shiat! Off-subject, anyone know how much $$ Bob Eaton walked away with from the "merger?" | ||
Gistok Member Username: Gistok Post Number: 4031 Registered: 08-2004 |
Jerome81, I have to agree with you... Dieter Zetsche was a class act. He surprised a lot of metro Detroiters with his skills. I almost sensed that he wouldn't have minded staying on living in the USA. | ||
Danny Member Username: Danny Post Number: 5731 Registered: 02-2004 |
 " Who needs Chrysler! That company can't a make S&%#!" | ||
Waxx Member Username: Waxx Post Number: 128 Registered: 09-2006 |
Moral of this story is 2 things: 1) the Germans shold've left well enough alone-some of us saw this comin' that they were gonna get bit in the ass 4 their ULTERIOR motives-AND THEY HAD 'EM!! 2) If you're gonna lie about business merging have enough sense 2 cover your ass and KEEP A LOW PROFILE! Now Chrysler is somewhat in limbo and the German automaker Daimler-Benz is looking like a bunch of retards-serves 'em right. I don't know about y'all, but I knew that it wasn't going 2 last much longer with the billion-dollar cuts and fallouts between workers from different sides of the Atlantic. What would Dr. Juergen "Jumbo" Schrempp do about this? But then, he got out in GOOD time seeing the uproars HE caused in his 1st few years in office. | ||
Gistok Member Username: Gistok Post Number: 4149 Registered: 08-2004 |
Well Waxx now that we know your clairvoyant hindsight was right all along, what's the excuse you can come up with for Ford and GM? Gonna blame the Germans for their problems as well? | ||
Waxx Member Username: Waxx Post Number: 129 Registered: 09-2006 |
Well, Ford and GM STILL has their independence, Chrysler (I grew up on Chryslers), on the other hand, @#$%in' committed suicide by selling out. YEAH, I @#$%IN' SAID IT! If Iacocca can give the brass ring 1 LAST TUG (it may be impossible by 2day's standards seeing that we got a bunch of JACKOFFS running things, he may have a hard time with that one!) BTW, please excuse the expletive that I used just now. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 3059 Registered: 10-2004 |
Why is it that most everybody is so certain the DCX will dump Chrysler? Maybe one reason that the big boys at the other auto companies are not showing much interest in buying Chrysler is that they figure that DCX will probably hold onto it in the final analysis anyway. Doctor Z seems to have achieved his ends. He placates the irate Germans at DCX bent on selling Chrysler in his going through the motions of a sale. He puts extreme pressure on the remnants of the UAW/CAW for work-rules concessions. And Doctor Z himself is probably the biggest supporter at DCX for Chrysler. It seems strange that a firm set on being sold invests in new modern plants in Trenton and Marysville. This outlier doesn't fit into a typical divestiture scenario, even though it is conjectured that Mercedes will be using those powertrains made in Michigan. DCX could easily build that plant in Germany and have it closer to its European plants. (Message edited by LivernoisYard on April 19, 2007) | ||
Ccbatson Member Username: Ccbatson Post Number: 316 Registered: 11-2006 |
Very cogent speculation Livernoisyard....you may be onto something there. We will see soon I think | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 3060 Registered: 10-2004 |
One more thing... DCX is a potential takeover target. An extra $5 billion in cash makes it even more vulnerable. | ||
Warrenite84 Member Username: Warrenite84 Post Number: 80 Registered: 01-2007 |
Livernoisyard, I think you are on target. Those disgruntled Germans can now sell off their stock at inflated prices if they wish to. By using the potential sale of Chrysler, Dieter gets to squeeze the UAW for benefit and wage concessions. Here's the kicker. If the UAW bargains with DCX first, GM and Ford get pattern agreements also. The loss and the sale are contrived to run the old timers out so not as many low seniority gets the boot. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 3062 Registered: 10-2004 |
Detroit Axle will have buyouts for those not going elsewhere, as per a news blurb on WJR this week. Those making $13 or $14/hr will probably be retained (not offered buyouts). | ||
Gistok Member Username: Gistok Post Number: 4157 Registered: 08-2004 |
LY... sometimes you can be such a loathsome obnoxious brute.... and other times you have fits of brilliance! Keep up the latter... | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 3064 Registered: 10-2004 |
Gary, I don't seek to please anybody but myself or those I look up to or sideways with. |
