I agree with you that unions are not all bad nor all good. I think the worker would be in a bad place if unions did not exist.

My mothers family is from Detroit so I saw the city when it was boom and now when it is bust. So most of my relatives up there either work for the auto companies or in a company that supports them. My one cousin works for Saturn and he is totally disgusted. Part of it is the changes they made and part of it is how much excess and lazy labor they have in the plant down in Delaware. Said you could get rid of two out of three of them and the work would get done.

As far as changes to the car goes perhaps it is just like the chicken and the egg quandary. The high legacy costs and cost of labor requires that the cars are built more cheaply in terms of workmanship and materials which makes sense but I think the auto industry leaders live in a bubble where they seem oblivious to what the consumer wants. The older Saturn's are very good cars according to my cousin, the newer ones not so good. So he told me if I get one do not get one after a certain year that I do not recall now.

I think one of the key aspects of Japan besides their heritage where it is a cultural thing that the good of everyone is more important than the good of the individual, which is related I guess is that they work as a team.

When unions and management get together it is like a battle to the death. If management had more concern for the welfare of the worker and the worker understood what was needed for the good of the company perhaps they would be more competitive.

In terms of the auto industry I think they suffered both from having too smug an attitude and from govt regulations that make doing business far harder than it needs to be.

Overall, I think if congress could think like you seem to think about things I think we would be already headed in a much better direction. I really fear that they suffer from the same smugness that has destroyed the auto industry.

The USSR exerted a high level of government control and in some areas they were at least equal to the US and I suspect at time superior and they collapsed under their own weight. I do not think that the US is immune from having a collapse of its own and wish they would not make decisions based upon we always got through this before.