As the big three unionized automakers sales wane, they've got less than half the market and falling. Even once mighty GM has barely 20% of the market and is being passed by Toyota, Ford is trailing behind, and Chrysler or whatever they're calling themselves this week is headed for a single digit market share if not already there. You drive a japanese car, as do all your friends except the lovingly weird ones that drive german cars. American cars are for poor folks who can't get financed on a Corolla or Civic, so who cares if GM, Ford, or Chrysler goes under- serves 'em right for building those monster SUVs and refusing to listen to Ralph Nader.
It's late november, time to take your Toyota to the dealer for an oil change. While your car is in the shop, you look around at the new cars. There's lots of them, more than you've ever seen- they're even parking them in the field behind the shop. But they didn't have any of the Tacoma pickups like yours, or the little Matrix you've had your eye on. You check back with the shop, expecting the oil change to be done. The service manager tells you they're having trouble finding an oil filter, and the parts department is checking other dealers for one. Finally, the service manager apologizes, says the new oil will be free and they've put your old filter back on, and they'll call you as soon as they get one in stock. Your overdue for a filter though, so you stop at a couple quickie oil change places on the way home and get the same story- they don't have a filter in inventory for a couple hundred miles around. So you try your last resort- the old mechanic with the indie garage that doesn't want to work on your new Toyota because of all it's electronics. But surely he can handle an oil change. His shop is like a living history of the automobile- dozens of dusty fan belts hang from the ceiling, ready for any '53 Chevy that needs one. The oil stained "wrench" digs through his stash, but there's not an oil filter for your little Toy pickup to be found. He gets on the phone, and after half an hour the 4th parts distributor he calls has one left on the shelf. You ask the old mechanic what's the problem- as always, he freely shares his opinions... "Well, rumor has it that the outfit that makes the filters is worried that GM won't pay them, or GM may be behind already. So they quit shipping filters to GM, and that dropped the volume of that filter so much they haven't made any in weeks". But my truck is a Toyota, you say... The old mechanic interrupts "made in a GM plant in California".
Finally home with a fresh oil filter, you share your tale of woe with a neighbor. He's having trouble getting filters for his Ford pickup and his Harley. A couple days later you see your friend that works at the Ford plant. She's got the whole week of thanksgiving off and would love to go on a shopping binge, but she dares not run up any more charges- she just got hired last year and isn't covered by the union contract's continuation of pay clause yet. She says it's been crazy at the plant- they keep running out of different parts. Sometimes it's something non essential, so they just build the little pickups anyway until they run out of places to park them- they're renting a couple lots at abandoned factories nearby for overflow after they fill up the plant's lots. Sometimes it's something essential, and they sit half the day with no trucks built. Or some options are out of inventory- you can get an automatic transmission but they're out of manuals.
You get home, turn on the TV, and see that one of the biggest dealership chains in the region has just lost financing and closed their doors. They lost finacing for their inventory from an american manufacturer, but the doors of all their dealerships are locked, including the VW and Toyota stores. Like ghosts, hundreds of new cars sit on their lots for weeks- the transports never come to pick them up. Gas prices rise again after thanksgiving, so like seemingly everyone else, you start riding the bus again. The buses are old and decrepit- weren't they supposed to be getting new hybrid ones? But as winters winds blow, you're glad to see any bus show up, hopefully on time. But increasingly, the bus your waiting for never shows, and you end up jammed into the next one on the schedule. The drivers respond to complaints with mutterings about transmission shortages. A quick google search tells you that a division of GM builds the conventional and hybrid transmissions used in almost almost every american bus, fire truck, garbage truck, and highway maintainence truck.
November becames december. After a week back at work, your friend from the Ford plant is laid off for another week. Not that they were accomplishing much- they'd finally get in enough parts to build trucks, then fill up the waiting trains to haul them out, then wait while the railroad took there sweet time moving them. Not that the railroads were busy- intermodal business was disappearing. Even when the railroad took a loaded train out of the plant, they often moved only a few miles to the next railroads yard to sit a few more days. Perhaps the railroads were refusing to move the new vehicles until they were paid in cash? Meanwhile, cash customers waited and waited for delivery of the hot selling little pickup that got better than 20 miles per gallon.
Your friend's layoff was extended by week after week. Using the excuse that the week after christmas was the slowest of the year, many dealerships announced that they'd be closing from christmas eve through new years day. By Christmas week the only big three auto plants still running were Lordstown and Wayne, struggling to keep up with the demand for the 35 mile per gallon Cobalts and Focuses. UAW workers selflessly worked through the holidays, fighting to keep the plants running despite parts shortages and diffculty getting finished cars out of the plants. New years brought a blizzard that blasted the industrial midwest.
Many of the dealers never reopened as promised after new years day. Diesel shot up in price as the cold snap following the blizzard drew down heating oil stocks. The nations largest new car trucking company shut down - already battered by declining volumes and now the double whammy of $5 a gallon diesel, they couldn't afford to fill their fuel tanks, never mind make payroll. Undercapitalized and in some cases unpaid by the automakers for weeks, several short line and belt railroads in the midwest, dependent on auto parts, new vehicle, and steel freight shut down- they couldn't even afford to clear the locomotive high snowdrifts from their tracks. With these bypass routes blocked, rail traffic snarled in the midwest as even Amtrak and Metra commuter trains sat for hours in railroad traffic jams. Within days virtually every auto plant and most suppliers in the midwest were shut down, paralyzed by the inability to move raw materials and product even if they could pay for them.
But it was Nissan with it southern plants that was first to declare bankruptcy, already weakened and forced to sell their truck division and partner with Renault to survive. Chrysler, having been taken private, refused to disclose their finances but within days filed bankruptcy, the owners attempting to sacrifice Chrysler while preserving their personal fortunes. The Ford family used their personal wealth to barely avoid bankruptcy, while GM's CEO held daily press conferences to tell anyone who would still believe him that GM would not declare bankruptcy. Ultimately, the creditors would do that for GM. The big three, some japanese transplants, and dozens of suppliers missed their january payments to their health insurers, causing three million americans to lose health insurance in one fell swoop. Meanwhile a CN locomotive attempting to plow out and reopen the Harbor Belt and unplug the midwest's congested railroads derails on snow covered ice build up on a key bridge, taking out one whole side of the truss and putting the line out of service for months if not permanently.
Still refusing to admit bankruptcy, GM orders all plants closed indefinately... Kind of a formality by then as they were pretty much shut down anyway. But the UAW members at Lordstown, who were the first in UAW history to strike over working conditions in the 70s, stoutly refused. In the spirit of the Flint strikers they occupied the plant, but refused to quit building cars. Parts shortages? They canabalized the junkyards for tires and batteries and shipped cars with nonessential parts missing. When GM refused to sell the cars to dealers, they sold them for cash to consumers at the front gate at 50% off list price. Hacking GM's and probably a few shipper's dispatching systems too, truck and railcar loads of parts mysteriously appeared to keep Lordstown running. Current and retired auto workers from around the country came to keep Lordstown running, as BBQs raged in the management parking lot night and day. GM demanded the local police and national guard evict the workers, but instead they reported to the plant and did traffic control as consumers with cash lined up for the automotive bargain of a lifetime. Having no luck with the local officials or the governor, GM pulled in what few chits it had left and president Bush order thousands of troups about to ship out to Afganistan diverted to Lordstown. While most refused to take up arms against their fellow americans, a couple hundred scared troups surrounded the plant and ordered the auto workers out. The auto workers laughed at them, having prepared for a long siege with copious quantities of BBQ and beverages. A tired young commander mistaked fireworks for gunfire in the early morning hours of January 20th and ordered in an air attack, setting the plant on fire. This set off a chain reaction which set off car upholstery, gasoline, and other fuels until the entire plant and inventory was consumed. As daylight dawns on January 20th, the plant and every vehicle in the lots is ablaze, and over 100 autoworkers are missing as troups guarding the gates kept auto workers from escaping the inferno.
This is fiction, but if we do nothing it could become reality. Is this the economic disaster we want to hand Barack Obama on inauguration day?