I think there has to be a guarantee of well-paid unionized labour. Think of all the good jobs that will be lost if GM dies...ripple effect for sure.

yeah cars are good and all
maybe the u.s should save its 8 year olds from killing their dad's

or maybe the 8 year olds are pissed off about the auto-industry

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Yesterday was history
Tomorrow is a mystery
Today is a gift - that's why it's called the present
- Babatunde Olatunji (and Kung Fu Panda)

I disagree. If you look through the financial statements of the auto industries going back at least 20 years, the numbers don't lie. It's a shitty business just like the airline industry. Virtually no sustainable long term rewards for investors, even in cyclical boom periods. This is not the result of the "rise and fall" of business cycles but rather the results of a deeply and systemically flawed business model coupled with the occasional "death kiss" of atrocious capital management.

The Airline industry survives when oil prices reach $130+ or labor talks stall or the debt from new jet leases based on (largely unfounded) optimism about the future..the airline industry survives ONLY because the general public (and specifically business travel) NEED them AND the bankruptcy courts in America (don't believe me just see how many companies are in incorporated in Delaware) just RUBBERSTAMP them. The courts probably give the airline execs gratis masturbatory massages to go with their rulings *rollseyes*.

now with that frame of reference in mind, a virtually identical situation appears with the automakers. Horribly run business, yet still necessary to the general good of the public. American car makers haven't produced an innovative or competitive product in 25 years or more. Japanese makers KILL American companies in production efficiency, fuel economy, worker productivity, even their damn personal philosophy about work. Detroit has been dictating to Americans what they WILL BE SERVED in terms of product offerings for too long. The auto industry is plain and simple an oligarchy and a welfare state all in one. The customer is not always right because the customer doesn't even matter. The execs know that the government will always bail them out and the oil companies will always uphold their right to produce less fuel efficient cars.

I for one think the American people have been emasculated by corporate America for a little too long. The first rule of a "well run business" (as opposed to the jokers outlined above) is "the customer is always right". The second rule is "when in doubt, review rule no 1)

so let me reiterate...fuck the 3-5 million jobs lost and the people losing them. They can go cry to the soup lines of the Great Depression or pay a visit to 20th century Europe or Post Stalinist Russia. If the American people and the Congress continue to allow Detroit to dictate not only their driving options but also their energy policy (to say nothing of an incessant need for bailout loans), They will find themselves very very very unhappy with their lives while the executives of GM and the rest of the silver spoon brigade party on the public dime like its 1959 ad infinitum.

Well yeah, the government doesn't just write cheques for a laugh (apart from to the military). They wouldn't be bailing the automotive industry out without a reason, and far as I can tell, the reasons are

1) they want the US to have an automotive industry.
2) they know that it will never be able to make money.

Does anyone have a reason to believe that this is wrong? I mean, I do, because I suspect that over-dependence on subsidisation has allowed the industry to rest on its laurels and not actually think "shit, we maybe need to try selling some cars soon", but I don't know to what extent that bears out. With public services, money is paid to provide a standard, unchanging service, but that's because few people would set up a public service with the intention of having it privatised (i.e. paying for itself) at any point; I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I don't think it's often the intention.

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He also insisted that Obama had "admitted" he was a Muslim, and then told us off for caring too much what his religion was when we asked for some evidence.

Well yeah, anything that's "too big to fail" really shouldn't be privatised, tbh. Private companies are profit-motivated, after all, so you can hardly blame them for not taking things like maintenance seriously; if they know what they're handling is "too big to fail", they're not going to waste money on making it succeed just so they can not get a big fat bailout for being crap at stuff.

But I don't think the US car industry is "too big to fail". Symbolically it might have some value, but in terms of anyone actually needing America to be manufacturing cars, sewiously, no-one does.

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The problem is that the economic needs of the market place have shifted in a major way.

One of the fundamental problems of the airline industry is that before deregulation airlines couldn't compete for any route they wanted and so they couldn't exactly put their money in profitless destinations the way they do now or send planes into the air half full.

The higher the price of oil goes, the more corrosive it is on the net worth of the nation because people HAVE to work and they need oil to get to work. so that's $3-$5,000 from someones paycheck that just evaporates simply because Detroit refuses to build more efficient cars and the oil industry tries at every turn to shut down the zero emission vehicle/alternative fuel advances because they would spell the end of the "utility" of oil's trillions of dollars in production investments and actual assets. Suddenly instead of drilling off the US and shipping to the US, oil would have to be transported on the companies dime to Europe or China or somewhere else. Suddenly, because electric cars have 85% lower "maintenance costs" autozone and jiffylube and the actual car dealership repair centers would become ghost towns. Oil and oil services firms would lose 15% of their worldwide revenues and profits, US auto parts retailers would probably go bankrupt, US automakers would go bankrupt and so would US oil change companies.

So that would be very very bad for the entrenched and symbiotic interests of the auto and oil industries...but then the real nightmare would be: what if most of the rest of the world followed suit?

Making $40 Billion every 3 months kind of agrees with Exxon Mobil and its executives at this point.

If the US doesn't take this moment to shift its energy policy and its attitudes towards the auto and oil industry in a radical reversal, it may never do it. This is their moment to rein in the unruly teenager in a big way or become a doormat forever. The Oil/Auto industry will always have customers. Airlines can't live without jet fuel (under any circumstances) and people in some parts of the world will never be able to convert solar energy, biodiesel, or drive electric cars. But if the people who CAN, simply make the switch, oil will be cheaper and supply will be higher and the air of the planet will be healthier for a long time to come.

The price of oil is coming down here. Is it not doing that over there?

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NO!! In fact we should be using less raw materials and making less cars. We dont need new makes of cars put out each year. Frankly some of the names are getting pretty tacky too what they are naming the new makes.
I reform the auro industry with hybrid only or a high tax for renweal each year.
There is no need for a new make of a mulititude of different cars that arent even taking avantage of new technoglys and using precious resourses only to end up in a wrecking yard a few years later.
Yes we need reform- Less cars made and hybrid techonolgy only. I have a motobike and two hybrids. I will never go back to a gas only car.

yes

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[ o ]==#

Yesterday was history
Tomorrow is a mystery
Today is a gift - that's why it's called the present
- Babatunde Olatunji (and Kung Fu Panda)

I think I'm misunderstanding you here... are you saying that airlines do send planes into the air half full these days? because this is not what I've seen. (not that my experience is everything)

yes. I saw gas for less than 2.00$ a gallon today for the first time in I don't remember how long.
so I'm buying an suv tomorrow. what color do you think I should get?

I agree that no one really needs american cars but I don't think the workers should get fucked just because their higher ups are corrupt and/or incompetent. that's the only real problem here as far as I can see.

Some of this stuff is just hooey. The good old USA land of milk and honey needs to put out less cars use less oil and be standard for an overhaul and make them all use hybrid or a heavy tax each year to renew if not hybrid.
Detroit needs to close shop and just rely on Motown and Aretha Frankin to draw visitors.

it's interesting that people outside of this country are actually paying attention to this.
YES. i was thinking about this worldwide economic downfall and wondering if this is capitalism finally eating its own tail. greed is motivating, but the drive to turn a profit is essentially the desire to cheat people of their money. take it a step further and you have fraud. fraud is a substanceless claim. it has no backing. nothing of value holding it up internally. and as we can see, when fraud collapses, it sucks the whole greed-fueled system into a vacuum. there's some kind of self-fulfilling destiny to that in my mind.

on the other hand, public services seem almost virtuous, because they exist without the bias of money and greed. they're principled like academia. just like the things we really value as a society shouldn't have price-tags put on them. they have value for other reasons than turning the economy. so.... following that logic, when a company becomes big enough to be a national asset, maybe it's time they become public property? public interest = public property. totally unamerican.

eh, maybe they're not too big to fail. i heard a pretty biting quote the other day... "the U.S. automakers have already failed, apparently no one has bothered to tell them yet"

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btw, this was General Motors first attempt at an electric car. back in '96. they claim they had to shut the program down because it wasn't profitable.

General Motors EV1 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

i want to see the 'Who Killed the Electric Car' documentary there

GM has/had plans to release a new hybrid electric car called the Volt:

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While I agree, this generally applies to stuff that you want to spend money on - the arts, free transport, basic universal healthcare etc. - rather than stuff that could turn a profit but doesn't. And I guess, as a symbol, it's worth America spending some money keeping its automotive industry afloat. But I gotta be honest, universal healthcare would be a far better investment, as seriously, I cannot stress enough how few people outside the US give a shit about American cars. I really think it's time to let this one go. You can't justify running a private company off public money unless the public are going to reap some benefit from it, and I don't really see what that benefit would be if the cars are still going to be expensive and inefficient.

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Unfortunately that's capitalism. It sucks when employees don't have the choice of working for a competent employer, since the idea of surrendering a certin amount of the reward for one's work is that one shouldn't have to worry about things like markets and so on.

But on the other hand, I don't have quite so much sympathy for someone who knows the market for what they do for a living is slumping and hangs on in the same job for the best part of two decades waiting for it to pick up, rather than looking for more stable work elsewhere. You know, I don't want to belittle people's situation or anything, but why wait to be pushed before you jump?

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well what I mean is that the airlines are extremely inefficient in their business model but they have been bailed out so many times since 1978 that they have become accustomed to working the system to get what they want from Congress or their unions etc. In economics it's called moral hazard. For example, a route between Raleigh NC and London might be unprofitable by virtue of the airline only getting so many passengers in Raleigh and thus being forced to make another stop elsewhere to "fill the plane". Rather than abandon the Raleigh market or the Raleigh-London route, the airlines will continue service simply because there is "a market" there as opposed to "a great and economical market".

The automakers do the same thing, they tell the American people what their options are rather than letting the marketplace dictate the quality of their production. Most of the time it works (like a true welfare state) and then something happens and the public wises up and then the jig is up for the airlines/automakers so they run to congress to save them from the wrath of their customers.

The post 9/11 operating environment nearly killed the entire aviation industry because people were afraid to fly AND they were tired of the airlines treating them like fish in a barrel which is precisely what was illustrated by those attacks. The aviation industry had paid no attention to repeated warnings, installed no security, had no background checks or even concern about less dangerous passengers than the hijackers...why?..because all they cared about were profits. And when the American people finally woke up and digested this realization, they were very very angry and the aviation industry still has not recovered from their wrath.

Well yeah, in cynical terms, it's good PR to be running that service, and bad PR to withdraw it. It's not dissimilar to a loss leader, where supermarkets sell one product at a loss to entice people into the store, where they'll likely buy other things with a high-enough mark-up to compensate for it.

The thing is, people like the idea of car manufacture, and they like the idea of good infrastructure, and they like the idea of free healthcare. The fact that most of them won't buy an American car, won't travel more than about 5 miles from their home, and won't deliberately injure themselves just to get their moneysworth is irrelevant. The point is, the idea of having these "perks" of living in the Land Of The Free is appealing enough that they don't mind paying for the service when they don't need it, because it means that it'll be available if they do need it.

It's not foolproof, of course, and some services truly are too big to be allowed to fail purely because people don't appreciate them (and this is why we get pissy at Libertarians). I think, in the case of GM, it'll be a serious uphill struggle to persuade people that the idea of a car industry is worth it, when any of them can buy a non-American car for less money and more miles to the gallon, and when there's no evidence that the bailing out of the industry is actually helping it get back on its feet.

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