I've heard reasonable arguments from smart people on either side of the "should we bail out the autos" debate, and I unfortunately suffer from the affliction of being heavily influenced by the last person to leave the room, so my jury's out.
That said, the way the autos are treating their crisis, compared to the high finance folks of two months ago, is a stunning display of a difference of opinion on what tone to take when asking for billions of dollars. When it turned out that most of our money wasn't really money, banking collectively had its tail between its legs, as it should have. Their irresponsibility had caught up with them, they knew it, and at least to a degree they admitted it. The honesty of a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar isn't the best kind of honesty, but it's better than what we're getting from the auto companies, who are blaming most of this on the credit crunch and their labor contracts, despite years of getting consistently outsold by Honda and Toyota's line of better and more fuel-efficient small cars. It's just not the proper 'tude for someone asking for this much money.
Furthermore, I can't imagine what popular support for this bailout would look like if we removed the myth of the American car from the equation -- a myth that frankly anyone my age and under is only familiar with via Brett Michaels from Poison singing about getting dirty talk at the drive-in in the old man's Ford. (If you want to know how ridiculous the fetishization of the American car sounds to anyone who never lived it, check out "'92 Subaru" by Fountains of Wayne and observe how silly it the myth sounds with Japanese cars. And that is NOT a reason to support the bailout, BTW.)
Anyways, we wanted to make a song describing our thoughts and unease on the auto bailout's inseparability of our inflated notion of American glory associated with our automotive industry in the very style of the 70's power-pop songs that helped create the notion itself. Enjoy "In the Backs of American Cars."
Click the player to hear the song.
In the Backs of American Cars
In the backs of American cars, under the seatbelts and under the stars
The Michigan steel grows a grey hair, and catches a break on its bus fare
In the backs of most of our minds, some things are worth saving, or leaving behind
On American roads that they took here, on the fetishization of last year
The old rusty gears were rotting for years but they only bring it in when it breaks
It'll move right along, driving straight on, ignoring the squeals and the sputters and shakes
When the mouth of the mitten opens up for a hand and it draws it's penultimate breath
In the backs of American cars lurching forward to death
I've never been at the drive-in in the old man's Ford, or flown in a Phantom with suicide doors
But the radio says that it's lovely, I can't foot the bill on the memory
So if old dying dogs won't learn new tricks, it might that's pointless to fix
From an era no longer golden, tarnished by interests to which it's beholden
The rims keep on rolling
The old rusty gears were rotting for years but they only bring it in when it breaks
It'll move right along, driving straight on, ignoring the squeals and the sputters and shakes
When the mouth of the mitten opens up for a hand and it draws it's penultimate breath
In the backs of American cars lurching forward to death
In the backs of American cars, they're asking if we've got any left
In the backs of American cars, slowly lurching forward to death
Max and the Marginalized are a band and a blog. We do a song every week on the Huffington Post, all 57 of which are available for download here at our site. Add us on Facebook or MySpace.
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The issue is a complex one, to be sure. High labor costs aren't necessarily a problem. BMW, Mercedes, Porsche, Volkswagen and Opel all have high labor costs, and they're doing just fine. The key is basically this: you have to build a good car. That is the crux of the problem.
American car makers give us bloated, bland, wasteful and inefficient vehicles that don't really do anything except go in a straight line while using a lot of gas in the process. There are a few interesting and good cars from Ford and GM, but I can't think of any that I would buy. And I don't seem to be alone in that view.
One other thing: stop blaming SUV's for the fuel problem when when people are flying between cities less than 500 miles apart. We're wasting MILLIONS of gallons of fuel every day when we should be installing high speed rail; the U.S. is so behind the rest of the industrialized world on this it's rediculous.
And if I'm not mistaken, those tanks we rolled through to Bahgdad were not simply figments of the imagination.
I think that it's important to try to keep manufacturing in this country. I have much less sympathy for banks. If it were not for the fact that the failure of the financial sector affects credit available to other businesses I would seriously oppose bailing out banks. Based on their greed and irresponsibility, they don't deserve any help. This whole thing makes one wonder what kind of financial system we have. I thought it was capitalism. I don't iknow what it is now that Government is going to bail out all these businesses. No one ever bails me out whenn I get in trouble. I'm in trouble with the IRS because my ex wife stole money that I had set aside for taxes and now I (only) was saddled with that debt. The IRS isn't giving me a brake Our goveernment would help arrogant people flying to meetings in corporate jets but wouldn't give a poor shlep like me a brake. They will bleed me until I go hungry.
Because I don't think you're EVER going to see a compressed air vehicle in the US, they're so light that they can't pass the safety requirements.
Anyway, I don't see the benefit of a compressed air vehicle. Most air compressors are powered by electricity, which produces more CO2 per BTU delivered, than gasoline.
That's not exactly correct. The credit crunch HAS affected the Japanese automakers, Toyota profits are down 50%.
Meanwhile, labor costs are the reason why the Japanese can make a better small car, since economy cars have a very small profit margin. American manufacturers focused on the larger vehicles, because the cost of shipping a large vehicle from Japan puts the final price more in line with the US (Toyota Tundra notwithstanding).
It is pointless to dwell on who makes the most efficient car or who takes company jets to meetings. What matters now is how can the big three make autos that will sell and still provide a margin sufficient to cover union wages and benefits. It was easy to cover those costs when selling large PU trucks and SUVs -- in fact that was the only way to cover the costs. Little, fuel efficient cars simply do not provide enough profit margin for Detroit to cover manufacturing costs.
It is not just the UAW that is in trouble here -- many other unions will go down with them.
cripes i see more pro american worker pro american industry on the right wing sites
there are an awful lot of mistaken ideas about how the auto industry works qand opinions here from folks who know little about it floating around out there and myths about american autos that frankly are so 1980s