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Blanche Africa Reilly Dark On The Proposed Auto Industry Bail Out-Part II
Here she is Clark Dark’s mother our own Blanche Africa Reilly Dark with her take on how to save the auto industry.
Former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Energy during the Clinton administration, Joseph Romm recently wrote an article published online at Salon.com asking if the Detroit auto industry is worth saving. Here’s an excerpt from the article which stated:
“General Motors and Ford burned through a stunning $14.6 billion in cash last quarter. *G.M.’s stock has sunk so low that you could buy the entire company for $2 billion. Bankruptcy seems all but inevitable.
In September, Congress authorized $25 billion to U.S. automakers to retool their factories to build fuel-efficient cars. But that money is slow in coming and Detroit wants more, including some of the bucks from the $800 billion Wall Street bailout. Last week, Barack Obama said he’d like to speed up the $25 billion and pursue additional policy options to help the car companies ‘weather the financial crisis and succeed in producing fuel-efficient cars here in the United States.’ “
As I read about the value of General Motors stock, remembering all the while that this is the company that had been talking about buying Chrysler, it occurred to me that G.M should be allowed to wither and die or be bought cheap by the government. We the people would own a car company that would build the kind of fuel efficient cars we’ve been begging for the last thirty years.
I thought we could even build the car that G.M. trashed and Toyota salvaged. That car today would be the hybrid Prius. We could have cars that are not only fuel efficient, green machines but moderately priced to compete with the new cheap cars soon to be coming out of India and China. We could build the promised 80MPG vehicle that was to be in dealers showrooms by 2004.
It’s like this. The big three automotive companies already received twenty-five billion of our dollars to be “bailed out” of a bad situation. If they want more money they’ll have to give American consumers more than lip service. They’ll have to follow through with making the fuel efficient vehicles we want to be come independent of imported oil. Detroit auto manufacturers must also make combustion engines that use natural gas. These engines would be used in the manufacture of trucking transportation vehicles. Costs for food, clothing and a host of others essentials transported by truck would be greatly reduced if the fuel were less expensive.
As our newly elected president is working with the Bush government to smoothly transition into an Obama government, while asking for relief for the unemployed. I’m expecting some federal legislators who are influenced by the automotive industry lobbyists to attach some car manufacturing money to the unemployment bill. Though I think pork-barreling is sleazy legislating, but is the accepted modality to help a representatives constituents, I say let’s make the big three car manufacturers accountable.
Attach some strings. Tell your legislators to include a stipulation in the bill mandating car manufacturers must produce fuel efficient, moderately priced cars, models competitive with the major foreign auto makers Toyota and Honda, by the fall of 2009. No re-tooling boondoggle; no we need time for R&D. As Nike says, “JUST DO IT!” or there is no funding and Ford, GM and Chrysler go the way of the dinosaur. The result is modern day America moves on to re-build a viable economic future. That’s what I think!
*emphasis added by BARD
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