so lemme ges this straight.. wall street gets 700 billion with no strings attacked, yet we cant afford 25 billion for the automakers?
kinda fishy if u ask me.
BorninUSA
· 1 year ago
Chris, we need to start making people accountable. I would start with Paulson. He is a jerk and they should never have given him free rein with the 700 billion. Right now Paulson has complete control of who gets what and how much.
Until these CEOs start living in our world, which will never happen, we can't just keep giving them whatever they ask for. Someone has to account for every penny.
I blame the Bush administration for all of our economic woes. He was determined to leave the country in shambles and he is doing a damned good job of it. This economic mess was the present administration's doing. No doubt in my mind.
Chris From Maine
· 1 year ago
Yeah.. King Henry controls the country now. At least until Obama gets into office.
And yes, I understand that completely.. my point is that why is Congress suddenly outraged at 25 billion for the automakers (something far more important then financial fat cats) when they just gave away over 700 billion simply because King Henry asked for it?
The simple answer is that Congress hates the unions, and the Republicans are against it because they are union busters and Michigan is a blue state.
And yes, Bush is taking as much money as he can from America before he leaves office, and is giving it to his friends and putting it in swiss bank accounts for Bush family purposes for decades to come.. hardly surprising, he is a war criminal after all.
RIPWAMU
· 1 year ago
Exactly. I would like to get a list of all senators who were in these hearings the last few days and find out a way to recall them.
cab02149
· 1 year ago
I look at it this way: The legal wall between Government and business has eroded, On the business side of the wall, the foundation is banking and now, by Republican fuck up, Wall Street. Not the same. Wall Street became bank-like and croaked, taking the economy with it. Why bail them and not Detroit? Because product is a lower economic priority than pricing, and is the way our economy works. Pricing tracks to banks and is more important. Detroit should be reorganized by Chapter 11 procedures, in the courts. That what it was created to do on the business side of the wall. The government side provided the place to adjuducateit. The system works. If I had my way, One company would be created of three and the Government should only directly intervene in the support and retraining of the white and blue collar workforce. Maybe support relocation expenses as well. The downmarket businesses, from Pep Boys to your local service station don't give a damn if Detroit exists or not. Their businesses are supported by "Foreign" cars. As they last longer. they consume more after market goods and services over their longer service lives.
RIPWAMU
· 1 year ago
Actually they will be affected. Most of the suppliers supply to all automakers and auto parts companies. Additionally, there will be no US company building our tanks.
The US Government prefers that we import all items now apparently.
cab02149
· 1 year ago
Absolutely, they will be affected. The details are what the bankruptcy process is about discovering. Each have representation to present their cases. Fairness is a goal. I believe in the free enterprise system. As for tanks, they Defense Department has full rights to present their case as well. Chapter 11 is tough, complex, expensive stuff, but intended to preserve not punish. Intended to keep the very thing that is happening. A case for the government to make them loans. Our system of enterprise, has evolved, and continues to evolve. But that "Wall" between Government and private interests is inviolate. On a more practical point: Detroit will have completely abandoned domestic operations by 2020, according to industry publications. They will be based in Shanghai. Will ship product here. If you investigate you will learn the size of the enormous investment in plant and equipment already begun and planned for the future. We will have a domestic auto industry made up of German, Korean and Japanese manufacturers, and I expect Chinese brands here as well by 2020. These events are normal realignment when opportunities appear. The workforce will be gone. On their own. What then if not now? I know what it feels like. I had a 40 year career in manufacturing. If you really want to protect the status quo, you would advocate tariffs to increase the cost of competition. Tariffs built America. We could go back. Problem? Inflation. 70% of consumer goods are imported. All would cost more. In the years it would require to rebuild industries long gone to produce items here, their products will be more costly, not less. That is some of what I see.
Forty2
· 1 year ago
Baliouts are only for the investor and C-suite class who produce nothing and shove paper and money between themselves, collecting hefty fees for some reason. The working class who actually make stuff can go Cheney themselves.
anarchy
· 1 year ago
giving 700 billion to Paulson is like asking a monkey to guard your banana!
RIPWAMU
· 1 year ago
25 out of that 700. You are correct sir.
MNUSA
· 1 year ago
Couldn't have anything to do with the fact that the workers are union members could it? They are actually paid decently and have decent benefits. Also they tend to support Democratic candidates.
BorninUSA
· 1 year ago
The Big 3 auto makers need to clean house; get rid of the present CEOs and start over. These guys only have themselves in mind and will take whatever is handed out to them. Do not bail them out. It will just be more of the same old, same old. These guys are so out of touch with the real world and only fixing to line their own pockets.
I am so disgusted with AIG and we don't need more of that which I am sure would happen if we just handed the auto companies a blank check.
RIPWAMU
· 1 year ago
You apparently did not hear the hearings yesterday and today. Before you throw these statements around do your research.
cosanostradamus
· 1 year ago
. The autoworkers have bent over backwards to save their companies, time and time again. They've given that last pint of blood, and will doubtless be required to give more. It should be plain by now that it is the "brains," not the "brawn" that direct the auto industry, and that it's these "brains" that have caused all the problems past present and future.
MBA's & bean-counters, lawyers and marketeers, efficiency experts and financial wiz's don't seem to know or care anything about the real world, the consumers, investors, and workers who live in it. We're all just a source of funds to them. They think they can just keep conning us, even after we've wised up.
They sold America on the "safety and security" of Suburban Assault Vehicles after 9/11, even though they are neither safe nor secure. They kept pushing them in direct defiance of all the outcries against their negative environmental effects. They STILL pushed SUVs to the exclusion of all else, even when a blind pedestrian could have warned them about the price of gas. They are beyond incompetent. They have committed gross malfeasance and misfeasance, and need to be removed and prosecuted, or at least sued into oblivion. Cash is all they understand or value: Take it all away from them.
It's not like they hadn't been through this before. Before Detroit's gas-guzzling 1970's debacle with OPEC, there were few if any foreign cars on the road in America. By the 1980's, a whole generation was growing up without ever owning an American car. Detroit exec's have had the warning on gas since then, and they chose to sleaze around it with these CAFE-free armoured trucks. Well, they should suffer for it, not us.
Nationalize the entire U.S. auto industry, wipe out current management, bring in managers from Honda, Toyota, Volkswagon, etc. Get it back up and running and sell it to the workers, designers & engineers. Let them own their own industry, and give it a real fight. THAT I would pay to see! Not the current boondoggle proposed.
Start with a hybrid 57 Chevy with GPS & more safety features than a Volvo. Maybe a fuel-cell-powered 1965 Mustang convertible with onboard internet & mp3 player. They damn sure know how to design & build great cars. They just need to do it intelligently & responsibly, if they want our money. .
RIPWAMU
· 1 year ago
Do you happen to know how Honda, Toyota, VW, etc got so far ahead with fuel efficiency? Research it. Those countries funded hundreds of millions of dollars for research and development. The car companies didn't have to find that money. Our country has never wanted to invest and wasn't there 19 times fuel efficiency related bills were rejected over the years in this country?
I'm going to call my aunt and uncle who will probably be unemployed for Christmas and suggest they Greyhound it down to Alabama and ask Mr. Shelby for bus fare.
cosanostradamus
· 1 year ago
. Detroit has had the technologies for years to build greener cars. It was just easier, and more profitable to keep cranking out gas-guzzlers, because they got exempted from CAFE standards so we could compete with the furriners. Instead of ACTUALLY competing with them, on economy, safety, style, etc.
Of course, the size of the average suburban ass has something to do with it. This could be the tipping point: They'll have to stop eating at Costco if they want to fit into Golf's and Priuses. Maybe THAT'S Obama's health-care plan.
Best of luck to your friends & family. Renewables, sustainables, green stuff will start doing well before anything else does. Solar hot water is relatively quick & easy to learn to install or sell, and it's something everybody has to do. Plus the Gov is already helping out with the dough. Tell your peoples to check it out. .
RIPWAMU
· 1 year ago
No offense, but if they fail then my "peoples" , or many others, won't be able to afford a loaf of bread let alone a solar water heating system. Tax credits mean nothing if you don't have the upfront money to get it.
cosanostradamus
· 1 year ago
. I wasn't talking about them BUYING solar. I was talking about them selling & installing it. That's one industry that is actually still growing, and they need installers and salespeople. The skillset is not hard to acquire, for people who've worked with their backs or their brains, and the pay is pretty good. This is a practical suggestion, not as right-wing nuts and oilco whores would have it, "pie in the sky." Or would your folks rather roll over & play dead?
The world is not coming to an end any time soon. We will be paying for Bushco's crimes and misdemeanors for many, many years. But life goes on. The current mess will get sorted out and we'll move on. There's just too much at stake for the rich to not get this fixed. They also know that the rest of us have already woken up, and the next step might just be socialism. That always motivates them, some.
The worst thing we can do now is nothing. "In chaos there is opportunity." Look at all the money the bankers just got for free by taking advantage of a crisis, and squeezing our politicians. We need to do the same. And all the doom and gloom is just making things worse. Consumer confidence is a big part of this. By not buying or selling, hiring or producing, lending or investing, we are accellerating and deepening the crisis. Part of the problem is psychological. Best cure: Get off your ass and do something.
Anyone who sits around passively whining only has himself to blame. I'm 100% for a bail-out of the auto-workers, not the CEO's or investors. If we'd given the Chrysler money to the workers in 1980, how many Apples, Hewlett-Packards, or Famous Amos's might we not have had by now? Anybody could see back then that Detroit was top-heavy and too fat. I'm surprised anybody since then has been willing to stake their future on the "Big Three." But the failures are not the workers' fault, and I hope our corporate lapdog Congress sees to it that they are not made to pay too much for it.
Thanks. I live in Chicago but I have sent emails to my representatives as well as Mr. Shelby. I do have a family member who has gone through certification and training classes for solar and wind. He is retired Army, and a truck driver. He has been in and out of work for years (automotive parts runs between Detroit and Toledo each night and now for Fed Ex Home). He is excited about the prospects, but does worry about the economy. At least he will be prepared when we move forward. My uncle hasn't decided what to do. He has spent his entire life working as a steel buyer. Luckily his company recently implemented a purchasing system that is used by more than just automotive so we will be more employable. Unfortunately there just isn't anything in MI right now. Even one of the largest hospitals in the Detroit area is laying off 300 people. All we can do is hope.
cosanostradamus
· 1 year ago
. Yeah. I hear you. Times is hard, esp in MI. They need to know that all of us are 100% behind them. They embody the phrase "work hard & play by the rules." If DC screws Michigan, then screw DC.
This is a defining moment. Obviously, the Repukes don't give a sh*t about productive American workers, except at dividend time. Michiganders just need to hang in there for eight or ten weeks. I know, that's Christmas-time and all. Maybe those of us who can afford it could give a nice new Ford, Chevy or Dodge for Xmas. Or at least a shiny new fuel pump made in the USA.
Come to think of it, where's all those Repuke rednecks that are always chanting "USA!-USA!-USA!" at their mini-Nuremberg rallies, now that we really need them? Prob'ly driving back to Alabama in their Nissan pick-ups. They ought to be out buying cars & car parts made in the Great Lakes State. Maybe they don't like the idea of blacks working for a living wage...
Anyway, solar will do well in a recession: It saves you money, and it's mostly paid for by the G & the utilities. Pays for itself in a couple of years. Obama promises to be very green, compared to W, so it's a good bet, esp. thermal. PV is still a bit pricey, but it'll come down. If you or your friends need any info, post a comment on my blog with an email addy. It's moderated: I won't publish it. My email addy is on there too, if anybody wants to write direct.. There will be many, many more jobs in solar in the near future.
We're all in this together. folks. Let's just act like it, hunh? .
Sage24
· 1 year ago
Why aren't the media talking about the fact that Cheney and Gonzalez were indicted for abusing prisoners in South Texas? Shouldn't they also be indicted for torture in Gitmo and Abu Ghraib?
Are these those sexual assaults of kids in protective custody in Texas?? Remember how that surfaced, and then got scuttled and then resufaced, and then finally got suppressed???
MaudGonne
· 1 year ago
The guys where in charge of the big three are not the ones who got the businesses in trouble. Nardelli is formerly of GE and Home Depot and defended the companies' petition brilliantly at today's hearing. If this goes under we are headed for third world status within months. One can only lament that these guys were not in charge when steel was being stolen.
Older_Wiser
· 1 year ago
Nardelli almost ran Home Depot into the ground and he himself was run off...he's slime.
RIPWAMU
· 1 year ago
The true slime are the AIGs, JP Morgans, BofA, etc who were given tens of billions (or hundreds in AIGs case) and are using it to buy other banks and give themselves bonuses instead of freeing up the credit markets so Americans can get a car loan, write down mortgages, or whatever loan to get this country moving again.
We need to demand that money back, investigate and prosecute for fraud, and give the automakers their request. And the rest of the money needs to be split between stopping foreclosures and giving every working American (not children) a tax free dividend to go out and stimulate the economy.
Indigo
· 1 year ago
It's beginning to smell a lot like ♫ Ayn Rand ♪
henrythefifth
· 1 year ago
Yep, the habit of the super-rich...blame the guy or gal on the shop floor trying to make an honest living.
lucky hussein
· 1 year ago
don't forget GM management killed the EV-1 - electric car of the 90's, see the movie: 'who killed the electric car' ? although I support a bailout, but w/major strings attached and maybe some ownership..
paulbe
· 1 year ago
I keep hearing about how the US automakers are in trouble through their own fault. I also remember the sales figures through the 90s into the 2000s of great big outsized trucks. The demand was there in truckloads, to which they responded. People could have said no and not bought trucks but they wanted them. The companies didn't put as much effort into their car lines because people kept on NOT buying them, and shareholders expected their profits. As has been the case in the US Auto industry for many years, quality small cars cannot be built profitably in the US at a price people will be prepared to pay. This won't change no matter what the carmakers try to do, yet this is what has to change.
Older_Wiser
· 1 year ago
Quiz! Who was the guy at the hearing today who asked the auto CEOs to raise their hand if they flew in on a commercial jet today? (None raised their hands, because they all came in on private corporate jets.) Then he asked, Who plans to sell their jet before they leave town? Not one hand was raised.
Such is the mentality of these jerks...but they don't want union workers who need retirement and health care.
RIPWAMU
· 1 year ago
Yes, I didn't get his name either. I wanted to send him an email. He might have been from NY. Totally missed the point. Was that asked of AIG? Another loser was the woman from MN who spoke towards the end. She had no clue and it was obvious she had not read (or had read to her) any of the material they were given before hand. I spent 4 hours yesterday and today listening to these hearings. I thought the Senator from MI that spoke early today was amazing. The female Senator from MI yesterday was also amazing. However, I don't think anyone really listened to them.
If this goes as badly as I fear then I will not be able to sit by and do nothing. Their refusal to vote on this is so shocking and cowardly I don't have words to express how I feel. I voted for these assholes and that makes me feel like one. First the Lieberman debacle and now this.
nova
· 1 year ago
Much of this discussion will be moot when Chinese automakers buy Chrysler and GM. One of the largest business papers in China are speaking as if this is a done deal. With current depressed stock values, Mattel would be more expensive to buy than GM. Watch for foreign shopping sprees of US industry, with China leading the way.
RIPWAMU
· 1 year ago
Are you saying this would be a good thing?
paulbe
· 1 year ago
They may well get a couple of GM divisions either in or outside America. GM needs cash, the Chinese still have cash, and they want to expand. Opel or Holden may be attractive to Chinese companies.
Who doesn't have a corporate jet nowadays? Do you really think that will make a huge difference in a profit margin?
Charlie
· 1 year ago
A few facts re the auto crisis. 1). Every time the unions got a benefit, it was granted to everyone in the company. Net: white collar and management benefited from the benefits unions got. So, if they take them away from the union members, they need to take them away from everyone else. 2). No one talks about the hourly costs of non-union employees. What are they in relation to other auto companies? 3). As Dean Barnett showed, actual hourly costs are $41 and hour, not $71-$73 an hour. The difference between the $41 abd $71-$73 is due legacy costs, which I imagine are part of the overhead burden of non-union employes (sic.--this is how GM spells employees because it saves a single keystroke!). 4). I do not understand why engineers get time and one-half over 40 hours. I know for a fact that many engineering groups scheduled meetings on Saturday to get the tine and one-half/double time pay. I worked in advertisng and if I got tine ando ne-half for more than 40 hours, I'd have a place in Carmel..
Indigo
· 1 year ago
I guess they really do have to file Chapter Eleven. Well, alrightie then . . .
gwpriester
· 1 year ago
And who was that executive VP at GM who said fuel efficient cars are not profitable?
I bet they are more profitable than bankruptcy.
RIPWAMU
· 1 year ago
Actually during the hearings today it was stated by the panel (an economist I believe) that Toyota has lost money on the Prius every year it has been around.
It was also said during yesterday's hearings by several people that China, Japan, and other countries have given their automakers upwards of $400 billion for research and development of fuel efficiency. It is not cheap and that is why they have been so far ahead of us. They believe in financing their countries futures, ours only cares about fleecing us and padding their friends coffers.
paulbe
· 1 year ago
Its true. The purpose of the Prius was to buy market share and image in a growing niche segment, with the hope that this segment would become the mainstream and the Toyota name would be the first to come to mind. Brand building in its purest form.
jeff
· 1 year ago
I know Ford at least was on the road to recovery before the credit crunch hit. They are still saying they do not need the loan unless the market continues to sink. The CEO is new and from outside the auto industry. They are making cars people want to drive and bringing a large number of small cars from Europe in the next few years. The company is much smaller than it was even a year ago. The car quality is rated right up there with the imports. The new union contracts kick in in 2010. People are operating under the false assumption that this company is not doing anything but asking for a loan. I think it is on the right track and hopefully won't need the loan, but it shoud be available if needed. Giving a blank check is fine for all of the GOP wall street buddies, but throw the auto industry a bone? Forget it.
Jeff
DorothyGale
· 1 year ago
I think I spotted the problem, they're making Studebakers!!
The problem may be that they aren't making Studebakers. Such a great old car.
Bubbles
· 1 year ago
Ninja-fy the auto industry.
Change GMs Charter to make them Japanese like in behavior.
take this opportunity to introduce some structural reforms.
We should force them to alter their corporate charters to cause them to look and behave more like Japanese companies.
Japan provides wide scale tenure for employees. In essence this makes them quasi public jobs projects. But when this occurs it forces the company to plan long term and put workers interest on one of the front burners - it moves executive pay to the back burner.
Workers are better proxies for shareholders.
If you don't believe me ask any GM shareholder if they wouldn't trade it straight up for a share of Toyota.
In the 1990s Toyota was developing hybrid technologies because it needed to safe guard or hedge itself from a market shift in that direction. Meanwhile, at the exact same time, Ford was abandoning cars for Trucks and SUVs. Ford made more in the short run and their execs took home the bonuses. But the market shifted towards the hybrid technologies and Toyota and Honda were there ready and waiting. In retrospect Ford was taking bigger risk, not Toyota. Toyota couldn't they have to provide jobs for their workers 20 years from now. While we're at it, I wish we would break the auto companies up.
Chop Ford in two, and GM into 3 or 4. Japan has five or six independent auto companies at half the market size and one tenth the amount of paved roads. There is no way that a nation that consumes 14 million cars and has millions of miles of paved roads should have only 3 car companies, let alone one or none.
I expect ideology out of Republicans, and pragmatism out of Democrats.
You need multiple companies to have healthy domestic competition. I would do this and inject 3-6 years of some kind of a protection scheme to provide for re-adjustment with tarrifs and quotas to the foreign imports, and a bias towards those companies that had plants in the states already. It's time for structural reforms. I assume that will include health care. The healthcare system is so inefficient now that medicare for all would release enough purchasing power to turn the economy around in two or three years.
250 billion for to support the gambling den on wall street and they can't cough up $25 billion to save the entire midwest?
The Republican party is on a head long march to extinction. To paraphrase Lyndon Johnson's "we just lost the south for two generations" - The Republican party just lost the Midwest for two generations.
It's the South getting revenge on the Midwest for the out come of their succession movement 150 years ago.
K Ols
· 1 year ago
Ha! Bush would do anything to get rid of one of the last major unions in this country if he has to let the automakers go belly up to do it. It was Reagan who got rid of the Air Traffic Controllers and replaced them with nonunion workers. Republicans have always hated unions because they help people earn a living wage with benefits.
It's the same deal with the problem of illegal immigrants and why our government doesn't do much about it. It's another plot to lower American wages because illegals will work for less pay with no benefits. Why aren't people shaming the employers who hire them as unpatriotic like the Republicans got by always calling Dems unpatiotic as if they have a corner on patriotism.
The automakers need to make huge concessions before we bail them out. They lobby to keep CAFE standards low when they should have been working on more fuel efficient cars that people actually want to buy. I don't feel sorry for them but we have to keep them online to avoid millions of people being unemployed. They should have been using their resources to lobby for help producing fuel efficient cars instead of lobbying to have bare minimum CAFE requirements.
All Comments
kinda fishy if u ask me.
Until these CEOs start living in our world, which will never happen, we can't just keep giving them whatever they ask for. Someone has to account for every penny.
I blame the Bush administration for all of our economic woes. He was determined to leave the country in shambles and he is doing a damned good job of it. This economic mess was the present administration's doing. No doubt in my mind.
And yes, I understand that completely.. my point is that why is Congress suddenly outraged at 25 billion for the automakers (something far more important then financial fat cats) when they just gave away over 700 billion simply because King Henry asked for it?
The simple answer is that Congress hates the unions, and the Republicans are against it because they are union busters and Michigan is a blue state.
And yes, Bush is taking as much money as he can from America before he leaves office, and is giving it to his friends and putting it in swiss bank accounts for Bush family purposes for decades to come.. hardly surprising, he is a war criminal after all.
The US Government prefers that we import all items now apparently.
bankruptcy process is about discovering. Each have representation to
present their cases. Fairness is a goal. I believe in the free
enterprise system. As for tanks, they Defense Department has full
rights to present their case as well. Chapter 11 is tough, complex,
expensive stuff, but intended to preserve not punish. Intended to keep
the very thing that is happening. A case for the government to make
them loans. Our system of enterprise, has evolved, and continues to
evolve. But that "Wall" between Government and private interests is
inviolate. On a more practical point: Detroit will have completely
abandoned domestic operations by 2020, according to industry
publications. They will be based in Shanghai. Will ship product here.
If you investigate you will learn the size of the enormous investment
in plant and equipment already begun and planned for the future. We
will have a domestic auto industry made up of German, Korean and
Japanese manufacturers, and I expect Chinese brands here as well by
2020. These events are normal realignment when opportunities appear.
The workforce will be gone. On their own. What then if not now? I know
what it feels like. I had a 40 year career in manufacturing.
If you really want to protect the status quo, you would advocate
tariffs to increase the cost of competition. Tariffs built America. We
could go back. Problem? Inflation. 70% of consumer goods are imported.
All would cost more. In the years it would require to rebuild
industries long gone to produce items here, their products will be
more costly, not less.
That is some of what I see.
is like asking a monkey to
guard your banana!
I am so disgusted with AIG and we don't need more of that which I am sure would happen if we just handed the auto companies a blank check.
The autoworkers have bent over backwards to save their companies, time and time again. They've given that last pint of blood, and will doubtless be required to give more. It should be plain by now that it is the "brains," not the "brawn" that direct the auto industry, and that it's these "brains" that have caused all the problems past present and future.
MBA's & bean-counters, lawyers and marketeers, efficiency experts and financial wiz's don't seem to know or care anything about the real world, the consumers, investors, and workers who live in it. We're all just a source of funds to them. They think they can just keep conning us, even after we've wised up.
They sold America on the "safety and security" of Suburban Assault Vehicles after 9/11, even though they are neither safe nor secure. They kept pushing them in direct defiance of all the outcries against their negative environmental effects. They STILL pushed SUVs to the exclusion of all else, even when a blind pedestrian could have warned them about the price of gas. They are beyond incompetent. They have committed gross malfeasance and misfeasance, and need to be removed and prosecuted, or at least sued into oblivion. Cash is all they understand or value: Take it all away from them.
It's not like they hadn't been through this before. Before Detroit's gas-guzzling 1970's debacle with OPEC, there were few if any foreign cars on the road in America. By the 1980's, a whole generation was growing up without ever owning an American car. Detroit exec's have had the warning on gas since then, and they chose to sleaze around it with these CAFE-free armoured trucks. Well, they should suffer for it, not us.
Nationalize the entire U.S. auto industry, wipe out current management, bring in managers from Honda, Toyota, Volkswagon, etc. Get it back up and running and sell it to the workers, designers & engineers. Let them own their own industry, and give it a real fight. THAT I would pay to see! Not the current boondoggle proposed.
Start with a hybrid 57 Chevy with GPS & more safety features than a Volvo. Maybe a fuel-cell-powered 1965 Mustang convertible with onboard internet & mp3 player. They damn sure know how to design & build great cars. They just need to do it intelligently & responsibly, if they want our money.
.
I'm going to call my aunt and uncle who will probably be unemployed for Christmas and suggest they Greyhound it down to Alabama and ask Mr. Shelby for bus fare.
Detroit has had the technologies for years to build greener cars. It was just easier, and more profitable to keep cranking out gas-guzzlers, because they got exempted from CAFE standards so we could compete with the furriners. Instead of ACTUALLY competing with them, on economy, safety, style, etc.
Of course, the size of the average suburban ass has something to do with it. This could be the tipping point: They'll have to stop eating at Costco if they want to fit into Golf's and Priuses. Maybe THAT'S Obama's health-care plan.
Best of luck to your friends & family. Renewables, sustainables, green stuff will start doing well before anything else does. Solar hot water is relatively quick & easy to learn to install or sell, and it's something everybody has to do. Plus the Gov is already helping out with the dough. Tell your peoples to check it out.
.
I wasn't talking about them BUYING solar. I was talking about them selling & installing it. That's one industry that is actually still growing, and they need installers and salespeople. The skillset is not hard to acquire, for people who've worked with their backs or their brains, and the pay is pretty good. This is a practical suggestion, not as right-wing nuts and oilco whores would have it, "pie in the sky." Or would your folks rather roll over & play dead?
The world is not coming to an end any time soon. We will be paying for Bushco's crimes and misdemeanors for many, many years. But life goes on. The current mess will get sorted out and we'll move on. There's just too much at stake for the rich to not get this fixed. They also know that the rest of us have already woken up, and the next step might just be socialism. That always motivates them, some.
The worst thing we can do now is nothing. "In chaos there is opportunity." Look at all the money the bankers just got for free by taking advantage of a crisis, and squeezing our politicians. We need to do the same. And all the doom and gloom is just making things worse. Consumer confidence is a big part of this. By not buying or selling, hiring or producing, lending or investing, we are accellerating and deepening the crisis. Part of the problem is psychological. Best cure: Get off your ass and do something.
Anyone who sits around passively whining only has himself to blame. I'm 100% for a bail-out of the auto-workers, not the CEO's or investors. If we'd given the Chrysler money to the workers in 1980, how many Apples, Hewlett-Packards, or Famous Amos's might we not have had by now? Anybody could see back then that Detroit was top-heavy and too fat. I'm surprised anybody since then has been willing to stake their future on the "Big Three." But the failures are not the workers' fault, and I hope our corporate lapdog Congress sees to it that they are not made to pay too much for it.
Have you written your Congress-people? A million emails might help.
.
Yeah. I hear you. Times is hard, esp in MI. They need to know that all of us are 100% behind them. They embody the phrase "work hard & play by the rules." If DC screws Michigan, then screw DC.
This is a defining moment. Obviously, the Repukes don't give a sh*t about productive American workers, except at dividend time. Michiganders just need to hang in there for eight or ten weeks. I know, that's Christmas-time and all. Maybe those of us who can afford it could give a nice new Ford, Chevy or Dodge for Xmas. Or at least a shiny new fuel pump made in the USA.
Come to think of it, where's all those Repuke rednecks that are always chanting "USA!-USA!-USA!" at their mini-Nuremberg rallies, now that we really need them? Prob'ly driving back to Alabama in their Nissan pick-ups. They ought to be out buying cars & car parts made in the Great Lakes State. Maybe they don't like the idea of blacks working for a living wage...
Anyway, solar will do well in a recession: It saves you money, and it's mostly paid for by the G & the utilities. Pays for itself in a couple of years. Obama promises to be very green, compared to W, so it's a good bet, esp. thermal. PV is still a bit pricey, but it'll come down. If you or your friends need any info, post a comment on my blog with an email addy. It's moderated: I won't publish it. My email addy is on there too, if anybody wants to write direct.. There will be many, many more jobs in solar in the near future.
We're all in this together. folks. Let's just act like it, hunh?
.
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/37772
If this goes under we are headed for third world status within months. One can only lament that these guys were not in charge when steel was being stolen.
We need to demand that money back, investigate and prosecute for fraud, and give the automakers their request. And the rest of the money needs to be split between stopping foreclosures and giving every working American (not children) a tax free dividend to go out and stimulate the economy.
although I support a bailout, but w/major strings attached and maybe some ownership..
Such is the mentality of these jerks...but they don't want union workers who need retirement and health care.
If this goes as badly as I fear then I will not be able to sit by and do nothing. Their refusal to vote on this is so shocking and cowardly I don't have words to express how I feel. I voted for these assholes and that makes me feel like one. First the Lieberman debacle and now this.
Auto CEOs flew private jets to seek bailout!
See: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/11/19/autos.ceo....
I bet they are more profitable than bankruptcy.
It was also said during yesterday's hearings by several people that China, Japan, and other countries have given their automakers upwards of $400 billion for research and development of fuel efficiency. It is not cheap and that is why they have been so far ahead of us. They believe in financing their countries futures, ours only cares about fleecing us and padding their friends coffers.
Jeff
http://www.dottygale.com/p1x/my_61_stude_06_sm.jpg
Change GMs Charter to make them Japanese like in behavior.
take this opportunity to introduce some structural reforms.
We should force them to alter their corporate charters to cause them to look and behave more like Japanese companies.
Japan provides wide scale tenure for employees. In essence this makes them quasi public jobs projects. But when this occurs it forces the company to plan long term and put workers interest on one of the front burners - it moves executive pay to the back burner.
Workers are better proxies for shareholders.
If you don't believe me ask any GM shareholder if they wouldn't trade it straight up for a share of Toyota.
In the 1990s Toyota was developing hybrid technologies because it needed to safe guard or hedge itself from a market shift in that direction.
Meanwhile, at the exact same time, Ford was abandoning cars for Trucks and SUVs. Ford made more in the short run and their execs took home the bonuses. But the market shifted towards the hybrid technologies and Toyota and Honda were there ready and waiting. In retrospect Ford was taking bigger risk, not Toyota. Toyota couldn't they have to provide jobs for their workers 20 years from now.
While we're at it, I wish we would break the auto companies up.
Chop Ford in two, and GM into 3 or 4. Japan has five or six independent auto companies at half the market size and one tenth the amount of paved roads. There is no way that a nation that consumes 14 million cars and has millions of miles of paved roads should have only 3 car companies, let alone one or none.
I expect ideology out of Republicans, and pragmatism out of Democrats.
You need multiple companies to have healthy domestic competition. I would do this and inject 3-6 years of some kind of a protection scheme to provide for re-adjustment with tarrifs and quotas to the foreign imports, and a bias towards those companies that had plants in the states already.
It's time for structural reforms. I assume that will include health care. The healthcare system is so inefficient now that medicare for all would release enough purchasing power to turn the economy around in two or three years.
250 billion for to support the gambling den on wall street and they can't cough up $25 billion to save the entire midwest?
The Republican party is on a head long march to extinction. To paraphrase Lyndon Johnson's "we just lost the south for two generations" - The Republican party just lost the Midwest for two generations.
It's the South getting revenge on the Midwest for the out come of their succession movement 150 years ago.
It's the same deal with the problem of illegal immigrants and why our government doesn't do much about it. It's another plot to lower American wages because illegals will work for less pay with no benefits. Why aren't people shaming the employers who hire them as unpatriotic like the Republicans got by always calling Dems unpatiotic as if they have a corner on patriotism.
The automakers need to make huge concessions before we bail them out. They lobby to keep CAFE standards low when they should have been working on more fuel efficient cars that people actually want to buy. I don't feel sorry for them but we have to keep them online to avoid millions of people being unemployed. They should have been using their resources to lobby for help producing fuel efficient cars instead of lobbying to have bare minimum CAFE requirements.