The industrial earthquake of PSA in France

[chatelot16]

there is no essential technical reason why the big size is essential to be profitable

of course to make the cast with a blast furnace, a small blast furnace like there was near me in 1700 has no chance

but for a lot of activity, the progress of the machine and the automatism allows to make profitable even in small quantity: so technically there should be more possibility to multiply the small manufacturer to do what the customer requests

alas there is a problem of trade that deliberately favors the big and blocks the system

the commercial practice favoring big and prohibiting small existing exist could be understood when it favored big French company ... but continue when it benefits the kid foreign company is stupid

[Did67]

Remains full of obsolete genre epub campaign on TV or in the mass media. It works, but is depreciable only on a large production ...

Ditto for R / D on lots of products, processes, drugs, etc ...

So according to what o speaks, the small or the big has advantages.

[chatelot16]

it takes a lot of R / D to do the car piggy that does not sell

it would be simpler to do the car that people like me want: just choose the best piece from what has already been made

[Ahmed]

Chatelot16, you write:

There is no essential technical reason why the big size is essential to be profitable.

Except that the concept of profitability in no way concerns the technique, it is above all a question of balance of power; if you develop a small production in a niche market that doesn't bother established companies, you can hope to survive and maybe better, but if there is "potential", as they say, your case is quickly settled ...

I saw some who did not understand these basic marketing issues put up interesting projects, competition to observe and after a while to grab the bets (ie the market painfully set up).

[Janic]

when a system is foolish, it is intended to break the figure at one time or another. The economy began to dominate the human, not the profitability. The crises that our modern societies show that they bore in themselves the seeds of their destruction. The myth of modernization and automation (intended to relieve man of difficult, dangerous or degrading tasks) has ended up replacing him almost definitively and thus removing his labor power; whatever the size of the companies. We slip slowly, but surely, towards a model like Terminator with artificial intelligence.

[Ahmed]

There are of course two levels to a system: that of the ideology that provides the justifications and serves as a screen and that of the mechanism itself, which ends up becoming autonomous if it is too complex, by confusion, and therefore inversion, ends of means.
You say, Janic, than:

The crises of our modern societies show that they bore in themselves the seeds of their destruction.

Not so pithy! Crises are first and foremost ways of adjusting to specific contradictions; it is a fairly normal operation of the type tests, errors, corrections.

What is special in our case is that it has several unfortunate features:
- It is a generalized model, totalizing, which is not regulated by the coexistence with other systems.
- It is a fundamentally unstable model since it is based on growth.
Finally, as you point out, its major contradiction is that, resting (sic!) On work, it is constantly forced to reduce its base (without questioning it ideologically => schizophrenia).

Like any system, it tends to go to the end of its logic and that's where it spoils ... and where I join you:

... he is destined to break his face at one time or another.

"Mors certa, ora uncertain"

* The implosion of the former USSR, far from limiting tensions, as one could naively hope, has only exacerbated conflicts, eliminating what now appears as a regulatory element.

[Ahmed]

Obamot, you write:

"If at least ..." the economic world was sticking to the fundamentals of the theoretical model by actually applying the laws that are going well ... Concerning the preservation of the common good in the face of private interests ... I believe that is that which gives meaning to the non democracy ...

In this case, it's more about the political world, but who cares?
the theoretical model is only a rhetorical facade intended to mislead the public.

I do not believe that the state (any state called "democratic") through its laws, is disinterested in the "common good": the whole problem is to know what is meant by "common good" .
The role of the state is to ensure a framework favorable to the creation of value (of "wealth", as P. Schutt, but there is an important nuance!), but the particular interests of the companies are antagonistic between them and left to their free play would provoke a rapid collapse from the whole; that is why eg. a state (Italian in this case) imposes constraints on this plant in Taranto, because if the short-term interest of the plant is not to consider investing to preserve the health of its employees (it can find easily others), we understand that this reasoning does not work if it is generalized, that is why the state must intervene, not out of goodness of soul, but because it is necessary to maintain a level of health good enough to allow the correct operation of the economic machine.
This is why a compromise will be imposed between the costs incurred by the modifications and an "acceptable" level of pollution: the standards directly reflect this "learned" mixture.
In addition, it must take into account social antagonisms and by "appeasement" measures, release a little ballast to preserve the essential: it is a consideration which, by nature, is also not part of the vision. of the company in question.

It is therefore not an exaggeration to see that the state is fighting against the immediate private interest in order to better favor it in the long term, and that, without it understanding it most of the time.
This is also why the subsidies and bailouts of companies and everything that is cataloged under the "social" label, although separated in their immediate recipients, in reality work together for exactly the same end.

[jlt22]

Business does not work out for our French car manufacturers:

The French car market, still hard hit by the crisis, continues to fall in August. French manufacturers have once again suffered more than foreign groups. Renault lost 20,6% and PSA Peugeot Citroën 10,6%.

Source:
http://www.lesechos.fr/entreprises-secteurs/auto-transport/actu/0202243988959-le-marche-auto-francais-plonge-de-11-4-en-aout-358087.php

[Ahmed]

What you report, Jlt22 is to nuance strongly: the hexagon is a saturated market and most of the sales development is now done outside of Europe (source: the official website PSA).

PSA Peugeot Citroën has chosen to focus its international expansion on China, Latin America and Russia. Its development strategy is bearing fruit as 42% of the Group's sales are now generated outside Europe, compared to 39% in 2010 and 32% in 2009.

This is obviously a short-term vision, the automobile can not be generalized because of the direct and induced consumption that this mode of transport implies.

[chatelot16]

peugeot has started to make coffee grinders ... he has had to change several times to become what he is today

the price of oil will not stop climbing ... we will end up consuming less car

it may be time to make something else so that it does not depend solely on a losing business

and as long as it is necessary to continue in the car, it is urgent to make cars light and simple that a certain number of customers ask desperately

it's hard to see a manufacturer complaining about not selling enough, and still ignoring some of the potential customers!