Another Engineering firm struggling.....

The UK government is procrastinating over saving Jaguar/Land Rover - however it is now owned by India. Should they be left to sink?

Rover went to the wall a while back, some people may say so what. Where does the line get drawn between bailing out banks & engineering firms?

Argument for Jaguar could be that one year ago they were very much in profit - however all that profit stayed in America when Ford sold it to India. Could be argued Jaguar is a victim of the recession and not a poor product. There is skilled trained workers within Jaguar, which in normal circumstances is a viable product, albeit a bit of a gas guzzling one.

So how long does Jaguar have left.....?

Haven't you even noticed what's happening? The answer too uncomfortable? It certainly is that's for sure.

Funny how they'll save Jaguar, and God knows how many banks etc, yet they're happy to let Woolworth's go down the plughole and put 30,000 people on the dole.

Yeah, it's almost as if banks and expensive luxury cars are more relevant than Woolworth's to the wealthy politicians who make the decisions on which companies to save. Nah, that can't be true.

Having said that, I'm not sure if governments should go throwing tax payers money at private businesses. Mass redundancies are terrible, but sometimes it is healthier in the long-run for weak and failing businesses to either reform themselves or die. Survival of the fittest and all that. Not that this is any consolation for the unfortunates who find themselves out of work.

It's a tricky situation, and one that only really harms the poorest members of society.

No, they shouldn't. I'm just a bit puzzled as to why they'll save one, but let another go down the tube.

Maybe because they all drive around in Jaguars, and don't shop at Woolworths.

Perhaps Woolworths should start selling Jaguars. Problem solved?

If they do bail out a car manufactures (and as most if not all major manufactures are foreign owned) then why didn't they step in when the building industry was hitting the wall and there are a hell of a lot more people in that trade. No I think if they have a problem riding the storm then it's there problem not the tax payers (unless any company becomes fully nationalized with no string attached ). Hell I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft and Intel will be begging next (just to keep this thread I.T related).

a company that manufactures things is far more valuable to a country than a retail chain.
Foreigners buy Jaguar cars and that helps the economy greatly.

Yeah, I did mention Woolies initially in my thread - but I took it out as they've been struggling for a while now, Jaguar made a signifcant amount of dosh up to Ford selling them to TaTa (no joke intended - but maybe that should've given them a clue) but TaTa have had the misfortune of starting with a clean slate just as the recession was kicking in.

I think if a business can prove it has been viable/prosperous even over a protracted period prior to the recession there may be just cause to help it out - or else at the end of the recession there won't be any firms around to produce goods for the country to export. And i think it is somewhat harder to start an engineering firm from scratch than to help it through the recession.

What has Woolies been exporting of late? Yes, I feel for the 30,000 workers that are employed there - and if Woolies can prove they actually made money up to the recession then why not help them? Although, I think Woolies (maybe) were struggling prior to the recession.

Then theres always the argument about the goverment putting the taxpayer in hock up to his eyeballs.

The auto industry still supports about 300,000 people in the UK which is a lot more than woolies. I was a bit shocked and disappointed to see that no one wanted to rescue woolies though. The one store we all associated with christmas in my hometown, Haslemere. It's was the only decent sized general store within 14 miles till tesco came along, and christmas as a kid wouldn't have been the same without it. :(

When I was younger (showing my age...) the Co-op was quite a large store which sold all sorts, it has downsized to a supermarket chain now though - and is still surviving.

One argument on a show today was that if Jaguar embraced some 'greener, more fuel efficient engines' that would make it more likely to be eligible for assistance, Jags have always been gas guzzlers, in fact one of our managers at work had a jag for a short while, but exchanged after a short while for a Saab - why - the Jag cost too much too run!

It's just communism. They're taking money from the firms who made good decisions and giving it to the firms that made bad ones. If you don't believe in the free market when a business makes stupid decisions, you don't believe in it at all.

If Jaguar in the UK is anything like General Motors in the US then it is unfixable.

There was a golden age about fifty years ago when the auto companies could pay very high wages for semi-skilled assembly line workers. The legacy of that age lives on in the labor contracts of today. GM pays about twice as much for labor as it should. The worst part is their obligation for health care. There is no limit to how high this can go.

I think pumping money into Jaguar is stupid, they will just lose that too and come whineing back for more. Private businesses have to make money or go to the wall, that's how it works. The longer they spend trying to stop the market correcting the longer and harder the recession will be.

Jaguar have lost money (a LOT of money) every year since 1989, why should the taxpayer give it to them when the company that owns Jaguar / Landrover is posting profits of £6 billion?

Darkheart

if indeed they have lost money every year then if the government gives them more, then the govt. should be held to account. they won't though.

Jaguar, and volvo were both a part of ford. Ford sold off jaguar who's cars were basicly a mix of ford, volvo and mazda tech. Ford sold most of mazda back to mazda last month and are currently selling volvo.

Seems like the auto industry is all intertwined. One nice thing is that many of the smaller economical cars are coming from EU ford and GM models to the US. Tata who own Jaguar got their stocks obliterated a couple of months back and are in a lot of trouble. They lost almost $400 million on Jaguar so far.

I was hearing the other day that the average GM worker made close to 80K including benefits Ford 60k and Toyota around 40k. The crazy thing is that if you were laid off by ford or GM you were entitled to 90% of your sallary so a lot of people lived off of that, sometimes for decades.

Chrysler should go their market share is almost nonexistant and doesn't really warrant any kind of bail out.

Truth is people don't need new cars, so when theres a downturn it's not surprising they are one of the first things to be set back. Most cars are good for 15 - 20 years. And used ones only a year old can sometime cost 30% less than new.

True -- except there won't be very many "one year old used cars" around unless someone else just bought a brand new one instead...

There has to be something in the tap water.