Re: Query: Ford/General Motors

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>General Motors put on the back burner for a moment its new production facility design of modular produced vehicles . .. where the modules are shipped to a central point for assembly. By the early 1970 General Motors already had the blueprints for a 90 - 95% automated engine assembly plant . . . and I remember their statement that such a plant would destroy the labor market and their consumer base. Even without utilizing the advance technology available per unit labor input has still dropped at least 40% in 30 years.   What next . . . trying to make money at big stakes crap tables?<   Melvin P.   Comment   A per unit drop of labor input of 40% in 30 years is running at an annual improvement factor of more than 10% and what is built into the union contract is an annual improvement factor of 3% increase in wages. The 3% annual improvement factor (AIF) was actually lost during years of concessionary contracts - 1980-1993,  and "re-won" in the mid 1990s.   If you were hired in the auto industry in 1972 and retired 2002 - after 30 years, what you experienced was a revolution in production that defines the meaning of downsizing. The increase in production was not accomplished just on the basis of speed up. Speed up is very different from a deep going intensification of the production process itself.   There is another process of revolution in the material power of the productive forces taking place. The physical toil of a man's muscles can get easier as he is deployed to do the job of 25 people . . . due to advanced robotics and computers.   Ford is slated to build its 3rd plant in China . . . in partnership with local manufacturers and these new plants are always built on the basis of a quantitative expansion of the intensive dynamic - quality, of the configuration of the production process. Unlike the Ford Motor Company's dealing with the Soviets in the 1920 and 1930 where they sold the USSR old tooling and antiquated production equipment . . . vehicles from China can only be profitable on the basis of not just cheap labor but revolutionizing the production process itself.   Auto seems to be in the process of catching a cold . . . although the expansion of credit and debt has taught me a real lesson about consumption and production. I thought we would crash in 1996, 97 and 98 . . . only to see the expansion of credit and then in the wake of 9/11 . . . 2001/2202 cycle . . . zero interest rates. I did not predict zero interest rates and 60 month car notes. I actually come out of a historic 36-48 month credit and production cycle.   What next . . . the ten year loan . . . with a guaranteed free upkeep - scheduled maintenance of ones vehicle? The Koreas makers are setting the pace on maintenance.   And no . . . Marx did not predict this. Wasn't Marx dead when the gasoline automobile came on line? He did predict the process as the general law of capital accumulation in its absolute sense.   Nevertheless when auto catches a cold the economy goes into withdrawal from consumption . . . and is driven to the emergency room for blood transfusion and pumped up with dope.       Melvin P.