Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, gentlemen.
First of all, I wanted to make a comment about something my colleague said earlier when he was talking about the benefits in the European countries. Indeed, the European countries do have significant benefits and significant holidays. They also pay significantly more taxes and they have far less personal disposable income. Having spent some time in Europe, I know that there is far less choice in their availability of cash.
But I want to just go back to talking about some of these concessions. I don't want to talk about them specifically or what the actual dollar value is, because I hear what you're saying, that it's only 7% of cost in a vehicle. However, I live in a community that has hundreds and hundreds of mom and pop shops. We have many small business people who have no benefits. They have no pension plans, they have no insurance, no dental plans. They don't have any of those benefits, and yet they are paying for all of those things for the union members every time they purchase a car. So they're subsidizing those things in a car. We know that the objective of production is consumption.
Do you think that part of what you're dealing with here is a perception by the consumer, who may be out there looking for a car, but in the back of their mind they know that they are subsidizing these things for the union? How do we overcome that perception in order to move cars off the lot, because that is what we have to be doing?