This morning had a call in about what is better foreign or domestic cars and a bunch of different ideas floated across the scene. One significant notion held by many that the bailout of GM should not have been done because they wanted desperately for the unions to go broke. To lose their jbs and their pensions because unions are the reason that cars are so expensive.
In fact, the reason cars are so expensive is because we buy them. We vote every time we sign an order. That we think the prices are reasonable or we would refuse to buy. The same decision that automakers make when they sign a labor contract. You and GM have nobody to blame but yourselves.
Your negotiation skills are sorely lacking or you don't really beleive that vehicles are over priced. Unions don't set the price of cars. Companies do and they price them according to what they think the market will bear. A chevy a cadillac a mercedes are priced according to the market demand. They and they alone decide what the market will bear and what pricing it takes to compete with the competitor. They don't sell an $80K mercedes for $70K if the demand is adequate at $80k. Consumers determine that by their willingness to pay that.
Like your $400 cash rent. You're competing with your neighbors not with the landlord. He may only have a $1000 per acre in his land but prospective tenants determine what value the use of that land is for the next year. So cost of the asset has little to nothing to do with sales prices. Those of us that passed up $6.50 corn learned that lesson well.
