OK. The Detroit automakers have "fallen and can't get up"...with out the help of Washington, or so some politicians think so. The following linked article is by Daniel Howes of the Detroit News

http://www.detnews.com/2005/insiders...D01-357583.htm

What a surprise to hear are the ones backing this call for a "National Auto Manufacturing Summit."

 

I think Sen Barack Obama recently suggested the Feds pay for the retirment in exchange for stricter EPA requirements. While I'm a limited government type, this sounds like a good proposal....

 

How quickly history is rewritten. Worker's retirements are *already* paid for -- by the workers themselves. Detroit spent the money, and now bitterly complain. <<shrug>>

The magnitude of the Detroit bail-out is a political question. If the repubs think the upcoming presidential election is in danger, they will buy the UAW. Financial gerrymandering, pure and simple.

 

When the concept of retirement was first invented, it was designed so that if you lived about 5 years longer than the average life expectancy, you could retire at taxpayer expense. Perhaps that's the standard that needs to be met? Every year, revise how long the average person lives (what is it, 78 now?) and make retirement eligibility at 5 years beyond that. If you want to fund your own retirement then by all means, knock yourself out. Retirement is a luxury, not a right.

 

This editorial gives a good REALISTIC, REASONABLE view of what is going on politically regarding Big Oil and Politics....

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1025/p25s01-cogn.html

 

I need to Google for the story - it may have been a health care bailout, not the retirement - I'm not for sure.

 

Those Detroit Dumbasses who think they'll get a Chrysler-style bailout are tripping on some mighty bad acid. For one thing, the federal govt. is too deep in hock to do anything. Ask the airlines. For another, I've recently read that Chrysler's bailout was for military purposes. Apparently in the early '80s they were the sole manufacturer of critical US Army tank components. So if they were to go under, a vital part of the Cold War deterrence against the USSR would have been lost.

(from the CS Monitor editorial): Sen. Hillary Clinton (D) of New York is on an oil company rampage. Scapegoating oil companies for the recent rise in gas prices, she lashed out, "If we don't fight Big Oil, this country's going down."

A look at her investment portfolio might prove interesting. Back in '93, while she was trashing the drug industry coast-to-coast in the failed effort to federalize all health care, she was shorting drug stocks. So I wouldn't be a bit surprised if she's now shorting oil stocks.

 

The downside of allowing the "Free Market" to dictate when we conserve is the the world free market has no national interests.More importantly "it" doesn't have the interests of the USA at heart.
Do we allow the"free market' to design our nuclear weapons?What about our top of the line fighters?Aircraft carriers?Now,it is true that some parts are outsourced,but the most essential elements are home grown-even though it might be cheaper to set up a plant in China to make F-16 wings.(yes,the Japanese make a F-16 under license,I think).What about the interstate hy?Did we wait till someone decided to build toll roads ( early America had lots of them)The reason we ignore the "free market" on these essential "things" is that they are waaay too important to leave to the whims of the free market.
Energy production-conservation has been largely left to the free market.There haven't been significant improvements in CAFE regs in many years.Same story on energy conservation in general.If all lightbulbs had to be compact flou. instead of old fashioned incandescent(which heat the house and cause more AC use),how many millions of barrels of oil-cu ft of gas would we have saved?Who would that have hurt?Heck,the initial cost is more,but they give you payback during the life of the bulb(maybe 2KW-HR/PER DAY for an average house-21 cents a day-say $70 a year-for 5 bulbs running 8 hrs a day saving 50 watt-hr/hr each )-over 100 million homes 200 million kw-hr/per day saved.I think a Prius can drive about 2-3 miles on 1 KW-HR so that is 400 million miles of free travel per day.A very crude guess is that 100 million of us travel 20 miles a day on average-20% of that could have been "free".Who would it have hurt for the FEDS to have mandated those bulbs-some,but not many.
On things that are really important-we need our government to step in and we need to bite the bullet and pay more (yes,the free market will deliver goods more cheaply-no question-)now so we can be assured a vital resource-transportation fuel and industrial fuel in the future.If we rely on the free market the USA might find itself short of fuel if-when-the ME explodes,or Iran decides to "cut off it's nose to spite it's face".
We need Federally mandated conservation and new resource developement(grow fuel,use more coal-NUKE POWER PLANTS-wind power can play a very small part regionally-everything helps).
The article is correct the free market is accomplishing conservation,but kinda late in the game.We are spending $100 billion/year and 800 lives a year to "assure" access to "free market" supplies of energy.
Some of this is spilled milk,but it isn't too late.Thanks.Charlie

 

I must say this every 3 weeks on here, but I love the CAFE regulations because they let you impose a certain element of government control while still letting the free market work. All that CAFE does is say that your entire fleet of automobiles needs to achieve XX.X miles per gallon on average or else you pay a very reasonable penalty for each tenth of a mile per gallon you miss.

BMW and Mercedes are the biggest offenders every year. Did we have to ban BMW? Did we have to ban Mercedes? No, those companies can still sell their cars, but they must pay penalties to the EPA to do so. If they want to avoid such penalties (I think it works out to an average of $200/car for BMW if memory serves) they can make their vehicles more fuel efficient. If that's not enough of an incentive, we can continue to raise CAFE until BMW's become MUCH more expensive than their competition in the marketplace, forcing them to either raise their prices (which lowers sales volume) or offer more fuel efficient vehicles.

It's a great system... truly visionary, if you asked me. As far as government programs go, I would honestly have to say that CAFE is one of the best to ever come along. Now I just wish they would raise the bar. Cars have gotten 80% more powerful over the last 20 years but no more fuel efficient because the CAFE bar was never raised. It's time to set higher standards.

 

Cafe regs were-are-a big success story.The car companies initially whined"not able to do,will cost $5000 car etc" all sorts of BS.You are right they have been frozen for 20 years-absolutely no one could remember back to 79-80 when oil spiked.The late 70's early mid 80's are when the japanese companies grabbed a huge shares of the USA market by producing small, reliable,FE cars.Did the Big 3 take this to heart,and make FE important-like Toyota and Honda-no.
If the CAFE regs had been progressively tightened GM would be in a much better position than they are currently with their gas guzzler heavy lineup.
The current CAFE is what 26 mpg??It could easily be have been boosted to 30 mpg-and GM would have been the better for it.
Still-in respect to the incandescent bulbs-I would prefer some sort of phasing out-like with Freon 12-with the price rapidly going up.There is(close to) zero downside to better light bulbs.
The history of safety regs is the same story-with no gov regs we would have very few safety mods.The marketplace just didn't reward(and still doesn't) reward safety.However they have saved many,many lives,and saved lots of $$$(huge medical costs).The companies whined about every safety reg!You can't rely on the "free market" to "make" people do what is good for them(in a long run statistical sense).Leather pks outsell side curtain airbag pks about 50/1(a guess).Same story on MC helmets.
The free market isn't always the best way-it is almost always cheapest-no question-but it doesn't have our national interests at heart.Charlie