As for current cars: it kinda sucks that my '05 Excursion has a retail resale value of about half of what I paid for it, even though it has less than 20K miles on it.
If you go look at a European or Japanese SUV with of the same vintage with three times the mileage, it will have a resale of at least 2/3 of the MSRP.
Well, I can answer the problem right there. One, it is an Excursion, the largest SUV ever produced by an American automotive manufacturer. Two, it is said to get the worst MPG in anything outside of some outrageous supercar, thats going to kill resale value, big time.
...If Toyota made an SUV that large that got 10-14 MPG on a good day, trust me, their resale values would be in the dumps too...
On a similar side-note to counter-example, the value of my Volkswagen ('96 Wolfsburg) shot up by nearly a $1000 during that $3.00+ per gallon 'gas crisis' we had last summer, and I was so tempted to sell the car. I would have been able to push it off for nearly $2000 more than I bought it for, but I didn't. Oh well...
But, IMHO the UAW is pretty much responsible for American Auto companies needing to "outsource" production to stay even slightly competetive.
I don't think there are too many people who would argue against that outside of the UAW members themselves. I can recall a report not too long ago that the average UAW worker was making roughly $27 an hour versus that of the $30 per hour at Toyota, and those few remaining UAW members were upset. I belive the funny part was that the new-hires at GM that were non-union were also making more money than the average UAW worker, which beggs the question, why be a member?
...Its an old tradition that has outlasted the benefits, and beyond that, the UAW has a whole represents little of what it once did. With teachers unions, banking unions, and even grocery unions now a part of the UAW, how can it truly represent the workers that they are supposed to?
Get rid of the UAW, pay workers a fair-wage, give them a reasonable pension and medical option, and most people will be happy. Beyond that, make employees responsible for their own job performance, and maybe we'll see quality improve as well.
Personally, I've always found it to be ironic that GM gets blamed for a lot of problems, and yet out of all the American companies, they build the most cars they sell in America, in America. Sure, 100% of the parts aren't made here (technically, thats almost impossible to happen anymore), but the fact that the cars we drive are built by our fellow citizens is indeed important enough.
But as Blazin' said, Michigan is getting screwed in the process. Without a competent government that guarantees certain economic protections, without a reasonable collection of business directors in Detroit, without sympathetic leaders at other global companies, and more importantly without a citizenry that will tough-out these changes... We're doomed to failure.
Business and jobs will continue to head south where taxes are cheap and labor (by comparison) is low. Until then, Michigan will remain connected to the automotive industry in large part, but a greater shift will be made towards high-tech production, innovation, medical research, and service sector jobs. We have to accept change, it was bound to happen sometime...
