Last Sunday I posted, my last post, about "Bailout the Automotive Industry? GM?" and why I thought the USA governmnet should buy 51% of the GM stock and put a green Board of Directors in place. Our local paper ran an editorial by Dan Neil of the Los Angeles Times that supported that same solution for GM.
While Neil did not have the same reflection on the history of GM’s fight to distroy urban public rail transportation and killing the electric car that I have, but he comes to the same conclusion... nationalize GM.
http://www2.arkansasonline.com/...
Here’s a plan: Buy GM
BY DAN NEIL LOS ANGELES TIMES
LITTLE ROCK — At the moment, D.C. and Detroit are brooding on two equally unpleasant choices: Watch the American automakers auger in and take hundreds of thousands of jobs with them, or bail out these failed and incorrigible companies whose management so richly deserves whatever hell (flying coach?) awaits them.
Tops on the critics’ list of grievances is Detroit’s failure to anticipate the inevitable. Why didn’t these companies sufficiently invest in next-generation technology-fuel-efficient small cars, high-mileage hybrids, plug-ins and all-electric vehicles-that could help wean the U.S. off foreign oil and take the automobile out of the climate-change equation? As the auto executives again bring their begging bowl to Congress, a consensus is forming: No bailout unless Detroit buildsgreener cars.
From my perch, as someone who drives all of the Big Three’s North American product offerings, I think a lot of the anger is reflexive and misplaced. Detroit makes some amazing cars, and anyone who thinks otherwise should hold a Corvette ZR1 to his head and pull the trigger. The Ford F-150 pickup I drove last week flat-out humbles rivals from Toyota or Nissan. Considering that the domestic carmakers are shouldering titanic "legacy" costs-it’s estimated that $2,000 in health care, pension and employee post-retirement benefits are baked into the price of every UAW-built vehicle-just being competitive in any segment is a signal achievement.
Nonetheless, the question remains: What to do about the domestic automakers? My modest proposal: Nationalize GM...
there is more:
http://www2.arkansasonline.com/...
This article was ran by the LA Times on December 2nd:
Nationalize GM
The federal government should buy GM. We can run it, then sell it at a profit once it recovers.
By Dan Neil
December 2, 2008
http://articles.latimes.com/...