GM and its impact on FIRST

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Mr. Pockets

Just thought of something. A large portion of GM will now be owned by the government (over 50% if I'm not wrong). If that's the case and GM continues to support FIRST (in whatever way it does) then technically wouldn't that mean that the federal government would be supporting FIRST? Yes? No? I don't know just a thought. Sorry for straying off topic.

<off topic rant and personal views, feel free to disregard>
Yes, you have hit the nail on the head to why I simply CANNOT purchase a GM manufactured car as long as the Federal Government owns a majority share in the company. These are deeply held beliefs in the way capitalism is supposed to work, to have a company owned by the government is something that I cannot support.* To purchase a GM car would go against many of my core beliefs should they emerge from Chapter 11 as a government owned company. I apologize if this offends any of you, it makes me sad, every GM car my family has had has served us well. When I got my first car 2 years ago I only looked at American cars and GM was number one on my list, I ended up with a Saturn, a Saturn I enjoy driving. I don't dislike GM, Ive never had anything but wonderful experiences with them. I will consider Ford for my next car purchase because I consider them the last American car company.
</rant>

While I do greatly appreciate the support from GM I personally believe that GM support for FIRST should have been among the first things shed in order to help preserve jobs. I would rather see a dozen FRC teams fail than to see one American job lost. Of course I understand that even 100 teams with $20,000 budgets would have been a drop in the bucket compared to the losses GM was taking. However, understand that often perception is more important than reality, imagine the response of a GM worker when he just got told he couldn't come in to work for the next week because it was too expensive to pay him when he sees a dozen kids using GM owned equipment to build what is essentially (to him) a glorified remote control toy. If I had to worry about how I was going to feed myself or my family so some kids can play with their toys I would be pretty ticked off. We have to be careful about what we ask for, teams will need to cut back and trim the fat out of their teams. I expect this year will be one of the slowest growing years for FIRST, most of the growth that does occur will NOT be within the United States either. Many old GM powerhouse teams will be struggling this year because some of them will have to radically change how they do things. Many other teams will struggle because their primary sponsors are suppliers to GM, Delphi springs to mind as another major sponsor here. One downfall of our current system is that everything is linked into everything else, you would think that being a software programmer I couldn't be jeopardized by a failing in the manufacturing industry but I produce systems for GM suppliers. My point is GM is huge, this will affect our everyday lives for years to come.


Sorry for the novel, now if you will excuse me I am going to put on my safety glasses (Why does he not have a construction helmet on too?) and ride out the comments...

*There are exceptions, obviously some things are just logical to have government run (or at least controlled) Roads, Telecommunications, Utilities are a couple that come to mind.