The US Automakers want a bailout - here's the conditions:

[LynneSin]

#1) The only people who lose their jobs are the owners of these companies and their board members along with all the lobbyists that pushed to keep CAFE standards low. These greedy cats have made a shitload of money so let's hope they still have some when they 'retire' because NO GOLDEN PARACHUTES!

#2) Change the thinking of how we make cars here in American by first and foremost investing in Green Technology. Change the CAFE standards to demand better gas mileage NOT bloated oversized gas guzzlers.

The reason why Toyota and other foreign car manufacturers are so successful is that they embraced new technologies from the get-go. Toyota was the first to come out with smaller cars during the 70s gas crisis and the first to push Hybrid technology into the market for the current one. And they built cars that lasted, which is why my last car purchased was a Toyota. I figured the market was going to get bad and I wanted a car that could last me thru these turbulent times. Sure, I drive a 8 year old car now but it's in good shape, gets the job done and I have no car payments. About every 2 years I'll put $500-1000 into some work on the car but that's alot cheaper than paying $300/month for the next 5 years just to be able to afford a new car. (and now that I live in a house with Street-Only parking, I have no plans to buy anything for awhile).

So while Toyota was giving us better gas mileage and Hybrid cars, what was Ford, GM and Chrysler giving us - more oversize bloated gas guzzling SUV. And convincing Americans that these were the cars we needed to feel 'safe' when driving. And when Congress tried to increase CAFE standards (that's the gas mileage average for all cars made by a manufacturer), the Lobbyists insisted that this could not be done and the bill was defeated.

If these companies want a fighting chance to compete in the market and survive they need to tackle new technology ABOVE AND BEYOND the Hybrid. Chrysler did that once by creating the Minivan, which was embraced by America as the new family vehicle until being pushed aside for the gas guzzling SUVs. There are still other technologies out there available such as Fuel Cells, Natural Gas and Electric Cars. If the Big 3 could get one of these cars on the market they could compete one again with companies like Toyota.

If we are to bail out these companies, and I'm not opposed to it because I realize that their failure will impact thousands of families across this country - working class families that do not deserve this - then they need to move into the future and embrace it. Clearly the vision of those who ran Ford, GM, and Chrysler have failed to do so these past decades.

[MikeNearMcChord]

1. American made parts only

Force the automakers to buy parts from American companies, none of the sh** from India and China. You are asking American taxpayers to bail out their sorry white a$$es then support the American Worker/Taxpayer.

[LynneSin]

2. Ok you could have suggested that without being hostile

And I find it offensive about "their sorry white a$$es" since there are people of all backgrounds that are union member auto workers. Bob Marley worked at the Chrysler plant in Newark, DE for a few years - yes that Bob Marley of Reggae legend.

[bean fidhleir]

3. I think the "sorry white a$$es" refers to the bosses' a$$es, not the workers

Or so I read it, anyway.

[ellenfl]

4. i think that 'hostility' was directed at the greedy higher-ups.

they deserve the hostility.

ellen fl

[MikeNearMcChord]

5. Yeah I meant the CEO's... Mea Culpa.

[LynneSin]

6. no problem

Anyhow I like mentioning that Bob Marley lived and worked in Delaware

:woohoo:

[Kalyke]

38. Except that the CEO of Ford - Bill Ford - wanted to go eco-friendly.

His board, after looking at the numbers, said, "No." The board said the price tag would be too high for the average American, who, at the time, wanted trucks and SUVs anyway.

So... that plan isn't exactly fair to those who tried.

[Jim__]

7. That would be a dramatic change from how the financial bailout has gone.

So far, Paulson and Bernanke seem to be handing the money to whoever they please and we don't even know who they gave it to nevermind what any conditions might be.

My fear is that a bailout of the auto manufacturers will be similar. If we demand that management be replaced, they will put on a large ad campaign calling it socialism. Unfortunately, the American people have been well-trained to reject anything labelled socialism.

I think the bailout will really amount to giving billions to the current management and letting them do largely as they please. Unfortunately, we are in such bad straits, that they may still be preferable to no bailout.

[blue_onyx]

8. I don't think we need to increase CAFE

We've increased fuel efficiency standards over the decades and gas usage kept going up. It wasn't until gas prices went over 3-4 dollars that people actually changed their driving habits. We need to keep the gas prices around 3-4 dollars through a gas tax if we want to really have an impact of the environment. It's just politically easier to put the burden on the auto companies.

[wtmusic]

17. Wha? Before last year efficiency standards hadn't been increased since 1988

and guess what - America's best average fuel economy was in 1987. The fact is that without standards Detroit does nothing - just like they did on seat belts and airbags. Nothing.

BTW, CAFE has no direct relationship on driving habits.

"In 2002, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences wrote a report on the effects of the CAFE standard.<7> The report's conclusions include a finding that in the absence of CAFE, and with no other fuel economy regulation substituted, motor vehicle fuel consumption would have been approximately 14 percent higher than it actually was in 2002."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAFE_standards

[blue_onyx]

21. Standards have gone up but so has oil consumption

In 1978, the standard was 18 MPG and in 2000 in was 27.5. During this time, our oil consumption has gone up from 18.8 million barrels per day in 1978 to 19.4 million barrels in 2000. If the purpose of CAFE was to help get us off oil, then it's a failure. If you scroll down on that article you linked:

"As fuel efficiency rises, people drive their cars more, which offsets some of the gains that might be had in carbon dioxide emissions from the higher standards. The Heritage Foundation says that oil imports have not decreased as a result of the program and have instead greatly increased (from 35 percent of oil used to 52 percent) since the standards were first implemented in the 1970s."

The only thing that seems to have changed driving habits and the products we purchased is high gas prices. So I think gas tax would be a more effective way of decreasing oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

[wtmusic]

22. The standards rose in the first ten years after CAFE was implemented

and has stayed relatively constant since then.

No one has said the purpose of CAFE was to "get us off oil". The purpose was to get the most out of what we had, and it's worked well (we haven't even begun to discuss the increased productivity and standard of living that 14% higher efficiency has enabled).

Of course oil imports have increased since 1978, there are probably 100 million more people in the US. This is the kind of misleading statistic you can expect from a freemarket conservative think tank like the Heritage Foundation. BTW I'm all for a gas tax on "discretionary" driving coupled with an incentive for alternative-energy vehicles.

[blue_onyx]

23. Actually, a lot of people said CAFE....

should be used to get us off foreign oil. I remember this argument a lot from the last increase of CAFE standards. It may not get us completely off oil but part of the purpose is to decreae of oil usage.

What exactly is "'discretionary' driving" and how do we tax only certain parts of driving? I think a gas tax that would keep the prices around 4 dollars would work. For example, if gas is 2 dollars, there would be a 2 dollar tax. If gas is 4 dollars on its own, then there would be no extra tax added. It would help us pay off our debt and help us environmentally.

[wtmusic]

24. Of the ways to target discretionary driving

IMO the ones that make the most sense are tax breaks for trucking, livery, etc and a gas allowance for taxpayers in the lowest brackets, the bulk of whose driving is getting to work and back.

I see a potential problem with your tax scenario, in that if the price is always around $4/gal consumers won't complain if oil companies jack their prices up to $3.99. Call me naive but I do believe that consumer pressure can influence policy, especially when it's consumers getting hit in the pocketbook.

[blue_onyx]

32. A tax deduction for low income people would good

Yes, indeed, there could be problems with my tax scenario (I'm no tax expert, that's for sure). We could do a permanent $2 tax that wouldn't change based on the price of gas (so $4 gas would get the tax and cost $6). Or we could do some other tax proposal I can't even think of. I just don't think CAFE is the cure-all some people think it is and we should look at other fixes in addition to CAFE.

[ContinentalOp]

27. Your gas tax plan doesn't make any sense.

If all gas was $4 anyway, the industry may as well keep the prices at $4 and take all of that profit themselves. There would effectively never be any tax. Think about it for a second.

[blue_onyx]

34. Well, maybe if Bush is president and doesn't regulated the oil industry

The government could regulate the industry to make sure it's prices are market based. Additionally, I'm not trying to say my idea is perfect (I'm not a tax expect) but some sort of tax is needed. We could add a permanent $2 tax to all gas, regardless of prices. I was trying to propose a tax that would keep the price of gas high enough to change driving habits but not overly burden people (which is why I had it max out once gas hit $4).

[jakefrep]

19. The automakers shouldn't agree to any increase in CAFE...

unless the EPA shows willingness to clear whatever regulatory hurdles keeping their most fuel-efficient vehicles out of our market.

[wtmusic]

20. What regulatory hurdles might those be?

:shrug:

[jakefrep]

39. Emissions and to a lesser degree, crash testing.

We know the Big 3 can build more fuel-efficient cars, because they do offer them in Europe. But the EPA and EU emissions rules are different enough to preclude the sale of many of their most fuel-efficient engines here.

[underpants]

9. Let the Silicon Valley guys have a crack at it

60 Minutes had a god awful report a few weeks ago about how the former dotcom millionaires are trying to do just as you say. Leslie Stahl openly mocked them and had the head of GM or Ford (can't remember which one) on saying that "These guys don't understand how this is done". He had been on Colbert the week before and you could tell that he thought all this green stuff was nonsense, a sort term trendy thing, and that soon the Detroit boys would return to doing what they had always been doing--OH so successfully :sarcasm:

In the top three things he mentioned that they don't understand was "government regulation" which is right out of the Milton Friedman Chicago economics playbook. As if these new car makers have NO regulations that they have to conform to. The Detroit guy clearly spends more of his time cheerleading for the cause than just concentrating on his job.

They problem isn't on the production floor or in engineering it is in the top floors who tell the engineers what to make. Their decisions have been horribly bad for 30 years.

Let people with new ideas get in charge. We are basically buying GM Ford and Chrysler (recently dumped by Daimler) so let the dotcom guys buy these organizations with government underwriting of the loan and let them have at it. How bad could they do?

I still have no idea why no American car maker has produced anything close to the Honda Accura which is about the most perfect car ever made. Everything is a copycat business but Detroit just knew that they knew better so they went off with SUV's and let the Taurus wither away to nothing. The Taurus was a fanstastic fleet car and a cashcow.

[wtmusic]

18. Exactly. When you bail out Detroit, you bankrupt the real innovators

There is all sorts of room for auto manufacturing in the US, with American union workers. We shoot our own feet if we give the money to the wrong people.

[Romulox]

28. Ummm, who's stopping them?

:shrug:

[wtmusic]

35. The biggest hurdle is NHTSA crash testing

which for a new model can run up to $50M. Kind of takes startups out of the picture.

Subsidizing testing would level the field somewhat.

[Romulox]

36. Why not just lower safety standards to allow Silicon Valley into the game?

:sarcasm:

At any rate, your point is hard to follow.

Google's current market cap is about $96 billion. GM's is around $1.8 billion.

Why is it that you believe the cost of crash testing vehicles would be especially onerous for the Google, but not for GM? :shrug:

[wtmusic]

37. I doubt shareholders would approve it, for one

People who bought Google stock bought into a tech software/marketing enterprise, not a car company.

I think the silicon valley reference was to people like PayPal's Elon Musk who has invested his own money in Tesla.

[obiwan]

47. And let them build cars using the same build logic as computers and software?

Yeah, right.

[wtmusic]

50. Yes

Shai Agassi and Better Place will be selling electric cars for cheap and charging $$$ for the electricity.

Kinda like the printer/ink marketing model.

[ogneopasno]

10. Before any of these things can work, you have to figure out how "Green Technology" jobs won't be

outsourced, just like the first round of automaking was.

I'm all for recharging our economy with "Green Technology" -- but no one has showed me how we'll keep those jobs here, once they've become profit-making enterprises.

[ContinentalOp]

30. Just write it into the law.

If they don't keep jobs in the U.S. they don't get any funding. Pretty simple. :shrug:

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

11. Awww, That's So Cute How You Think It's Up To You To Propose Conditions.

Fact is, we don't get to make 'em.

GM needs a bailout, and it will be up to Congress to set guidelines, if any at all.

[LynneSin]

14. And I hope these are some of the guidelines

Sorry not sure what there is to mock of common sense ideas - we're here to help the workers NOT the CEOs & Lobbyists.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

15. Because So Many People Here Think What They Say Matters. It Doesn't.

Everyone can come up with their own little pet list of what their conditions are, but who cares? It's irrelevant.

Fact is, GM needs a bailout and it's up to congress to determine if they will get one. Our opinions on the hows and whys are irrelevant and silly. Everyone wants to declare their own conditions to make them feel smart or like they have some bright idea that a million other people wouldn't think of. It's hilarious. The conditions are dime a dozen and are nothing more than just liking hearing oneself talk.

GM becoming viable again will take a hell of a lot more than you and others here are suggesting. But everyone wants to think they're an expert and that their 'brilliant' schemes will save everything. Doesn't quite work that way. In order for GM to be viable, a whole lot of things need to fall into place and a whole lot of restructuring and restrategizing will need to be done; including a whole lot of changes in the UAW agreement.

But I just get a kick out of how so many on here want to give their silly little conditions as if they have a say in it or as if their ideas are anything more than dime a dozen idealisms.

[LynneSin]

16. I could have probably coached a better game than Andy Reid did for the Eagles too

but isn't that the point of being a discussion board - playing armchair QB?

[ContinentalOp]

33. Well hell, we might as well shut down DU right now then.

Heaven forbid people actually discuss ideas on here. The next time somebody complains about some war or corruption, I'll just have to remember to tell them that it's not up to them so they don't get to talk about it. :eyes:

[ellenfl]

12. totally agree . . .

lynne, my camry is 13 years old.

i had this discussion with a gm retiree. he tried to convince me that the car companies were only doing what the buyer wanted by building and selling gas guzzlers. my response to him was that the buying public would have liked the fuel efficient cars that the car companies built because they would have had no choice! he was concerned with profits (of course, he was management). the companies would still be competitive because they would all have had to follow the same rules. now he's concerned with his legacy health insurance and pension.

i understand that american car manufacturers are now making reliable cars. prior unreliability is the main reason i usually buy japanese. if they HAVE improved reliability, i may buy an american car when the time comes. however, the camry is made in america. some fords, dodges and chevy automobiles are made in mexico and canada.

the american car companies can and will, if they hope to survive, produce fuel efficient cars that run on bio-fuels. they already sell them to brazil. there is already a reserve fund set aside for the auto companies. management needs to be kicked out (without golden parachutes, of course) or their salaries need big cuts.

i would think that the car companies would be in favor of universal health care.

ellen fl

[KharmaTrain]

13. That's Not A Bailout, That's An Investment

My first question is do we need 3 auto companies? Would reorganizing them into smaller companies be better suited to the long-term interests of the industry by being more efficient and competitive? It wouldn't put the jobs and livelyhoods of so many people in so few hands.

I definitely don't want to see the government get into the auto business...nor should these jobs (more than the company themselves) collapse. The last thing I want is to throw money at the people who saw short-term profits over long-term company survival being the ones who try to "fix" the problem.

[salguine]

25. Also, before any financial assistance is forthcoming, the extent of the

unholy alliane between the automakers and Big Oil has to be exposed to daylight. They didn't fight improvements in the CAFE standards so hard for no reason.

[MadHound]

26. Given the track record of both Congress and the President, we're not going to get that

In fact we're probably not going to get anything that actually forces the auto industry to change. So then what? Do we go ahead and throw billions at them anyway, chasing good money after bad?

[Greyhound]

31. Given the track record of both Congress and the President, that's exactly what we'll get. n/t

[Romulox]

29. These threads read as if written by someone entirely ignorant of current events.

Why haven't you been agitating for the removal of the Boards of AIG, GE, or American Express? :wtf:

[LynneSin]

40. I have

:D

They don't listen to me

:cry:

[Romulox]

41. Link??? nt

[LynneSin]

43. DU has a search button - you want to find it help yourself

the point is I am hoping that if we do this bailout then we don't make the mistakes that were made with the financial bailout.

As for what I've said in the past - I've got close to 70k posts and it was probably said a month ago. If you want to be that anal retentive and find it then knock yourself silly!

[Romulox]

45. I don't have access to search.

"the point is I am hoping that if we do this bailout then we don't make the mistakes that were made with the financial bailout."

My point is that this is an exceedingly odd place to "draw the line" since the amounts we're talking about ($25 billion to the Big 3 vs. over $3 TRILLION to the Financials makes the amount of attention people are giving to the former a little suspicious when so little attention has been given to the latter.

" If you want to be that anal retentive and find it then knock yourself silly!"

I'm going to take this as a tacit admission that you have not started any threads with detailed demands for Wall Street governance to be restructured.

[LynneSin]

48. And I'll take your reply as a tacit admission that you're being as ass

:D

[Romulox]

49. LOL. "Everything looks bad when you remember it!"

If sticking to my guns and demanding consistency is "being an ass", then I'm guilty as charged. :hi:

[Bake]

42. Toyota and Nissan build some behemoths, too.

The Nissan Titan and Armada (truck and SUV), e.g., or the Toyota Sequoia (full-sized SUV). Beware of generalizations.

Bake

[LynneSin]

44. I know but their reputation was already solid

and at least in the NE, you were more than likely to see one of the Big3 than the Japanese Behometh. The difference between us and them is that the Japanese built their base on solid, fuel-efficient reliable cars and added the behomeths to their line-up of vehicles. Whereas the BIG3 put their money on the fact that the Behometh SUV was the future for cars.

[Hubert Flottz]

46. Oh it's all the union auto worker's fault...

they dared to dream the American Dream...The pie is not for the hired help...