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...That squeezes manufacturers and grounds exports, since a strong Loonie deprives Canada of a cost advantage it has enjoyed for years. The Canadian dollar has weakened recently, but now the financial problems threatening to push Detroit's auto industry over the brink have also gripped the Canadian subsidiaries of GM, Ford and Chrysler. See the 50 Worst Cars of All Time
...this year Canada has lost 5,000 vehicle-assembly jobs and 10,000 parts-supply jobs, almost all of them in the belt of southern Ontario that runs from New York to Michigan. GM Canada has been hardest hit, but it has yet to reap the worst of this whirlwind. The Oshawa, Ont.-based car company, which takes its marching orders from Detroit, expects to shed another 4,000 jobs with planned closures of a truck and transmission plant. This downsizing is needed to cope with overcapacity, but it's fostering bad blood between the car maker and its union...
...None of this can happen without the cooperation of the UAW, which is probably feeling better knowing that Obama is on his way to Washington. Although it hasn't shown its hand, the UAW may try to mitigate job losses in the U.S. by pushing GM and Ford to build fewer vehicles in Mexico, according to Sean McAlinden, chief economist at CAR. Obama might be sympathetic to that argument; he said during the campaign that NAFTA needed to be re-examined. The carrot for GM is that any new workers it hires in the U.S. will make...
...There's also a legitimate question as to who would do the restructuring. GM CEO Rick Wagoner has made the case that his crew is best placed to run the turnaround since it knows where the cost buttons are. But critics like Jim Schrager at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business say the wrong people are in charge: "I think you would only put money in GM if you had a complete change in the board and the current management. They are diligent. They worked very hard, but it just hasn't worked." In Schrager's view, GM...
...that's ultimately where Detroit ends up, is it worth the price to get there? Put another way, does GM deserve to be bailed out or left at the mercy of the market and almost certain death? "The University of Chicago training in me says the market should prevail," says Schrager. "But the Chrysler bailout was a success, and, gosh, I'd love to save it." That sentiment is not shared by everyone, and it goes to the heart of the central economic debate facing the country - between hard-nosed capitalists, who believe the market should decide, and public-policy...