Yes, you read that right. The auto industry is looking for a li'l help, according to a news report. In my eyes that takes some serious cajones.
Yes, I know there's an AP boycott here, but they are reporting that the auto industry is going to press Congress for $50 billion in loans to help with retooling and modernization?
HELLO. MCFLY. LINK
Have these guys no shame?
I am literally torn on this one. Why? Because the U.S. auto industry generally has no one to blame but themselves for the predicament they are in. Like many corporations there is no planning beyond that fiscal quarter. There is no vision and no sense of innovation. Everyone knows the world's source of oil is finite. Yet, these guys insisted upon pimping gas guzzlers like LINK
For the first four months of this year, truck and SUV sales are down a collective 24.8 percent. SUV sales plummeted 32.8 percent while pickups dipped 19.9 percent, he says.
"If gas prices stay where they are at or continue to rise, the body-on frame SUV is an endangered species and the pickup truck as a personal car is an endangered species," Brown says.
That was then, and this is now because in recent weeks, SUV sales have
risen, according to some reports.
Let me amend my statement. We are part of the problem too, because as is our custom, Americans tend to ignore history. I was only line when the gas lines of the 70s were at their height, but I remember them. And that's when the auto industry got their asses kicked the first time. Americans were driving land yachts and the Japanese had developed fuel efficient speed boats (figuratively speaking, of course).
There was gas at 99 cents a gallon about five years ago. Americans went nuts having to have those gas guzzling dinosaurs. Now I realize they're a necessity for some people. There are five people in my family so we find a minivan a necessity for family activities. When gas was over $4 a gallon, we put it in dry dock.
Look what Detroit's lack of plannind did to this country: it's home base, a once thriving metropolis, is turning into a ghost town. Many satellite manufacturing bases such as my hometown of Cleveland have been hit hard by auto industry cutbacks. In fact a lot of the current unemployment issues rest at the feet of the
auto industry.
WASHINGTON – Automakers and parts suppliers shed 38,000 jobs in the past 30 days, and the industry has lost 127,800 jobs over the past year, losses that powered the national unemployment rate higher according to federal data released today.
The job cuts in auto manufacturing, combined with 14,000 jobs cut from car dealers and auto parts vendors, were the largest contributors to the 6.1% unemployment rate for August, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. That rate is the highest since September 2003.
The question: should the government help the auto industry?
My answer is a qualified "yes". The deal would have to come with job guarantees and a minimal amout of outsourcing to foreign companies. Fuel efficiency standards and a commitment to develop the next generation of car that would not rely on fossil fuels.
What say you?