Bridge Loan to Nowhere or Bridge Loan to the 21st Century?

In every crisis there is opportunity. That lesson has been well-learned by all the wrong people over the past eight years.

American defense contractors like Blackwater, Triple Canopy and DynCorp made obscene profits in the chaos created by Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld in Iraq. Imagine their armored Humvees pulling up to Treasury every month for billions of our tax dollars.

The banks have their getaway armored truck parked at the side door of Treasury right now. They've only been able to load $250 billion but they're idling at the loading dock waiting to see if the new Treasury Secretary will be the same rent-a-cop the current Treasury Secretary is.

And then there's the inept and stubborn auto industry, that refused to have a business plan for the 21st century, waiting at the back door of Treasury in their gas guzzling SUVs for whatever is left after the orgy of stealing. Democrats want take $25 billion away from the bank robbery in progress and loan it to the auto industry.

Is this a Bridge Loan to Nowhere or a Bridge Loan to the 21st century?

Naomi Klein speaking at the 25th Annual Miami Book Fair this weekend points out that we are not nationalizing banks, we are corporatizing the treasury. She nailed it.

Jack Quinn, the Former Clinton Administration Counselor, put it this way, "Bush came as a Social Conservative but is leaving as a Conservative Socialist".

Either way, Disaster Capitalism is alive but may be on life support. Time to pull the plug. Republicans may grieve if they wish, but we should dance on its grave and get our money back!

We can start with getting $25 billion of the $700 billion back in the next few days. Let's take it from the bank bailout and loan it to the auto industry and build a Bridge Loan to the 21st century.

Barack Obama has talked about appointing a Car Czar to oversee the spending of the $25 billion, but there aren't any further details. Details must be presented during the lame duck session of Congress that begins today. A Car Czar is just one condition.

Should Congress find the votes to take back at least $25 billion and loan it to the auto industry in the lame duck session of the 110th Congress (not likely in the Senate), they ought to attach it to a long list of demands that need to be set down in writing.

Some of those conditions must include:

-- Job protection first and foremost. Job protection is the only reason to bailout failing auto makers. Three million jobs are the reason why we must do it.

-- Removal of all current management including the entire Board of Directors, CEO, Presidents and Vice Presidents.

-- Recruitment of people from successful car manufacturers and pay them no more than 44 times the lowest paid line worker. Bonuses should be based on sales performance not stock prices.

-- None of the bailout money may be used to finance overseas operations .

-- End dividend payments on the little bit of value the stocks currently have to preserve what's left of them.

-- Capping executive pay at 44 times the pay of the lowest paid line worker going forward.

-- Allow workers and retirees to be the first to buy into a National Healthcare Fund subsidizing them if needed.

-- Streamline the product lines to one or two models.

-- Retool the products -- Biodiesel buses, vans, heavy vehicles and cars.

Biodiesel engines can be put into any weight automobile, bus or SUV. Biodiesel engines pull tour buses everyday. Biodiesel engines are diesel engines with a modification. There is no need for R&D.

-- Concurrently invest in building sustainable biodiesel fueling stations with Government Infrastructure Investment dollars in the hands of small private entrepreneurs. There are currently 495 biodiesel fuel stations in the US -- Here is a map http://find.mapmuse.com/interest/biodiesel and here is how easy it is to retrofit existing gas stations http://www.biodiesel.org/buyingbiodiesel/guide/

-- Prohibit speculation on biodiesel or you will end up with a biodiesel "bubble" and we will be right back where we were on crude oil.

-- The bailout can not be tied to any other issue like Colombian trade deals. This should be anathema to the UAW as well, since the reason we don't do a Colombian Free Trade Deal is Colombia's brutal oppression of labor organizers there.

Some of you may have other items that should be included in any bailout (especially on the dealership system). It's your money! Write your Senators! You only have two. www.senate.gov

The UAW should immediately engage in information awareness regarding union workers who are already being blamed for the auto industry's crappy management, allergy to innovation in fact, collusion with government and big oil not to make fuel efficient automobiles and the murder of the electric car and other innovations.

The failure of American automakers is a systemic failure of management (as is the case in all of failing American behemoths), not workers. Productivity is up in the US! Time to thank American workers, not punish them because of the "narcissistic idiotcracy" that American management has become! Somewhere along the line it became okay for management not to know how the people they manage did their jobs! How is it possible to manage people when you don't know what they do? We have an epidemic of failing upwards and rewarding that failure in American Big Business.

Sadly, even if a bailout bill is passed in the lame duck session of Congress by some seismic shift in thinking about the magnificent American worker instead of the corporate culture that tries to kill them, by Republican senators like Richard Shelby Bush will most likely veto the bill.

The loss of these jobs will have a cascading effect on the already seriously injured economy. The Bush Corporatists are trying to shatter the entire economy and empty the Treasury to guarantee maximum recovery time. We can not let him take one more dollar or job on his way out.

The automobile industry did not "go down" because of the economy. This wound is 100% attributable to laziness, greed and narcissism.

Democrats must make sure that blame is squarely placed on those who can not or will not change and adapt to the 21st century demands placed on our workers and economy.

I sure wish workers got to vote on their corporate leadership and culture but if we lend them money, we have more say than they do!

The bridge loan to the 21st century will be paved with the egos of the biggest losers and built by those who survived them and finally get their ideas heard.

If we build it, they are done. Let's make Congress do it. www.senate.gov

Read More:

Should the Government Bail Out the Big U.S. Three Automakers? HuffPost Bloggers Weigh In

Comments

[Decipherer]

I listen to your radio program regularly and agree with much of what you say, but you are quite wrong about the ability of biodiesel to make a meaningful impact on the elimination of our dependence on fossil fuels.

For one thing, there is simply not enough of it to make a difference. If all biodiesel producers were manufacturing product right now, which they are not, they would only be able to produce just over one billion gallons, about 2% of the current diesel market. There are other limits as well, such as feedstocks, etc.

There are other feedstocks and production technologies emerging, but I recommend that you focus on biofuels -- plural -- more broadly and talk more about vehicle hybrids, electric vehicles, a greater emphasis on fuel efficiency, as well as the responsibility of each of us to be far less wasteful of energy than we are right now.

It is immoral for the U.S. to have about 5% of the world's population and consume 25% of the world's energy.

For more on what I think makes sense for our country and could be done in the short term, have a look at http://www.autoweek.com/article/20081124/FREE/811249987.

[USNVet]

Randi--My suggestion? Why don't the oil companies bail them out? They, in collusion with the automakers, tore up street tracks of public transportation trolley cars, in major cities all over the country back in the early 50's. A prime example is the city of Los Angeles. The colluding oil companies and automakers alone are responsible for the demise of public transportation all over the country. Their goal, in which they succeeded, was to put everyone in an automobile. The oil companies should be helping out with their "partners in crime."

[MikeCanada]

Randi, you're right in so many ways as always.

[raindrips]

I don't get the 44x. Where did that come from? If I just pull numbers out of the air, I'd guess lowest paid is probably around $12K/yr. Highest should be no more than 20x I think. In fact, I think tax laws should discourage any company from a greater than 20x spread. I remember getting hit with a 70% Federal income tax one year long ago due to some stupid stuff I did. But back then, there was a point where it didn't make sense to make more money because so much of it went to taxes. There was less of a differential then I think.

[sl26]

reading Vince Bugliosi's book I think right now the CEO's are getting over 500 times what the average worker is getting. I think the next country that even comes to close to that has a discrepancy of 120 times more than their workers. The 44 times might be closer to what CEO's in Europe are paid.

[blue marnie]

Hi Randi...

I loved your musical choice(s) on I think it was Monday's show? I've watched this 3 times now. I used to sit in front of MTV waiting for them to play it, hahahaha.

Golden Earring - Twilight Zone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86_FhNvjCSI

As per usual, I agree with your take on this post. Did you get the "44x" number from somewhere specifically?

[Wolf Larsen]

I agree with most of your suggestions but bio-diesel is still a highly energy intensive product to produce. Plug-in hybrids are the wave of the future and should be the focus of auto development.

I love bio-diesel but it has a ways to go as far as development and delivery are concerned and in the long run it is not the answer....I agree....it is a decent stopgap but hybrids are the future. Also BD requires acreage that can be used for food production that will become more of a premium with each passing day. I understand that much of the BD comes from waste in food production but there is also a great deal devoted strictly to production of bio-fuel.

[k1k2lee]

I agree with you Randi, as usual. I'm awfully annoyed at the commenters who want to let the auto industry fail because it is "broken." If something is broken but fixable we should FIX IT. We shouldn't simply throw it out or ship it overseas, only to see our industries collapse and fail all around us. It will cost millions of jobs, billions of lost corporate tax dollars, and probably the final destruction of the middle class. Congress needs to learn to LEAD.

[Tex88]

Randi,
Your proposals all make sense, especially the 44x pay cap for executives... In these times, we must ask of our grossly overpaid executives, "How much money is enough?!?!?"

[ohleslie]

Ravi Batra suggests we give 60% of the companies' stock to the workers, who know how to make cars and will protect jobs, pay fair wages, and thus begin to remedy the imbalance of supply and demand he holds responsible for our economic collapse.

[philosopherkingtomas]

PAY FOR THE bRIDGE LOAN WITH A TEN CENT A GALLON RETROFIT TAX, IT ENCOURAGES CONSERVATION AND PRODUCES THE PAYBACK FROM ALL DRIVERS, THE TAX WOULD PRODUCE $12 BILLION PER YEAR.