The Automobile Industry in 1970s

 In US automotive industry General Motors, Ford and Daimler Chrysler were the most conquering companies. But in the 1970's they ran into many problems including those of bad business negotiations, endangering of increasing health care costs and competition of foreign countries.

The Automobile industry was one that suffered the most through the rising of inflation and when there was a high demand for bigger cars there was a huge movement to making those but the backlash of the embargo on America was a fall back because of Afghanistan cut off the main oil supply of America. The US went through a drought on the biggest known fuel supply which was part of common folk life. There was not enough gas which was something that everyone used for their transportation. Like said in an article about the new in Automobile history, “In 1972, all import brands combined held just a 13 percent share of the U.S. market. That shot up to a then-record 15.8 percent in 1975.” Which made the desire for bigger and more fuel-consuming cars decrease and look toward the smaller and fuel efficient cars like the AMC Gremlin or foreign cars which were said to have a surprising starting push. As said in automobile article, “Washington insisted that automakers meet corporate average fuel economy standards but took no actions that would have encouraged people to buy the cars that automakers had to build to meet those The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards.” This shows that the government had a hard time in helping and supporting big business with the lacking of oil and led with productivity lower because everyone had little access to gas leaving no use for buying new vehicles in the US. This lead to thousands of people experiencing the loss of their jobs in the downfall of Chrysler Corporation.

The second problem companies ran into were the rising of health care prices. As said in a PBS Healthcare website, “Healthcare costs are escalating rapidly, partially due to unexpectedly high Medicare expenditures, rapid inflation in the economy, expansion of hospital expenses and profits, and changes in medical care including greater use of technology, medications, and conservative approaches to treatment. American medicine is now seen as in crisis.” Where workers demanded more benefits and began to be more part of a union's where the wanted better wages and better working hours and improvement in safety conditions. This mixed in with the inflation in the states should be expensive because of the increasing prices of medication/ treatments for people. When government regulation came into face this caused people to lose their jobs for they didn't have to pay for anymore benefits any longer.

The last problem the automobile industry ran into was its foreign competition where Germany and Japan were challenging the US in infrastructure and worker productivity surpassing the American productivity getting beaten. America was not caught up with Mechanizing the manufacturing. They were stuck in the past and every other country was modernize in the technology age. Leaving the country at a behind and standstill because they can't catch up with the other countries unless they take drastic measures. 

To conclude the automobile suffered much through those but had to move past those and with the administration with Reagan, they hope to rebuild and become better.




http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4630187

http://www.autonews.com/article/20131014/GLOBAL/131019959/10-ways-the-1973-oil-embargo-changed-the-industry

http://www.pbs.org/healthcarecrisis/history.htm