Let Them Eat Hummers

With apologies to the excellent Michael Moore, and his desire to bail out the Big Three that he claims have been more "responsible than almost anyone for the destruction of our fragile atmosphere and the daily melting of our polar ice caps," but I'm not buying it.

Three astoundingly rich, obnoxious and spoiled CEOs from three astoundingly incompetent, short-sighted and corrupt automakers do not a destructive mandate make. As Hillary Clinton famously wrote, it takes a village, people. And for years, our American corner of that village has been exporting pollution and excess to the rest of the world, in the form of gas hogs that don't work, suck up cash and destroy the environment. And the people who bankrolled and built them are as responsible as those who bought them. And none of them deserve to be saved from their own obvious failures.

It's not like this was rocket science. For years, analysts and journos like Jim Kunstler, myself and others have been ringing the peak-oil alarm, not to show the rest of our consumerist fantasyland that we are smart, or that we have data that it doesn't, but to argue that there is no such thing as a free ride. Regardless of whether or not oil production peaked in the '70s, '90s or yesterday, eventually it will peak, and we had better get busy on building the next energy and transportation infrastructure now, and it better be as green as that stuff Stephen Colbert and Willie Nelson smoke at Christmas.

Time, like our atmosphere, is a-wasting.

And the answer is a-blowing in the wind: Investment belongs not in the latest bonanza, which is a horrendously underperforming amalgam of hedge funds, housing, war, debt and invented wealth fed through proprietary algorithms and unregulated stratagems, but in what's left of our imbalanced ecosystem. I hate to tell you people of faith this, but a growing number of us believe that without this planet, we are nothing. And the faster the planet warms, the more we pay, the harder our backs are pressed up against the wall of extinction.

And the Big Three automakers from Detroit have known this all along. One of them built an electric car, and then shelved it the minute the Bush administration decided that hyperconsumption was an "American way of life," as White House puppet Ari Fleischer once explained. This is why they built Hummers and killer SUVs while forward-thinking companies like Toyota and Honda built hybrids, and took over the auto market in the process. Michigan had its chance to lead on this issue, and instead it cashed itself out and built crap. This is not something that should be rewarded, no matter the stakes.

Because the stakes are always overrated. What, the entire population of Detroit or Flint will never find a job again? Please. Join the club, people. Entire industries that have refused to evolve with time and technological progress have been left behind, so if the shoe fits, wear it. This is what being an American has supposedly been about all along: Individualism, freedom, destiny. And the people that built and bought Hummers while Los Angeles burns and New Orleans drowns deserve the fate that they wrought with their own free hands, deciding to follow the herd off the cliff rather than strike out alone on a path towards the future.

So no, Big Three and its enablers, you can eat Hummers. All of you. You're lucky the Obama administration is, like the Bush administration before it, in handout mode, a fact that will probably reward the richest of you and then press the rest to repent. Hummers and SUVs, like it or not, are the closest thing we have had in the 21st century to environmental terrorism. And if our government likes to say it doesn't negotiate with terrorists, then why is it considering dropping billions on willing participants that have screwed my daughter's bank account and environmental future by building Earth-killers with no inherent value whatsoever? Does that make it complicit? And if so, doesn't that make everyone who built and bought those cars complicit as well?

There are no innocents in this world, except our children, and they didn't ask for this. And so we should honor their uncertain futures by abandoning those who would live in the past at the expense of those increasingly expensive futures. That includes the Big Three, and their partners in crime.

Comments

[carrieanna]

I always felt like when car companies designed their fuel efficient cars, they made them purposefully ugly so that no one would buy them and they could cry out that the consumer didn't want efficiency.

What I thought was interesting about Toyota's Prius was that it instead targeted the "different" look in a way that the owner could kind of brag about their eco-friendly ways... as opposed to being embarassed about an weird car.

Speaking of Hummers, I wonder what Arnold Schwarzeneggar has done with his...

[Wombaticus]

It's time for America to rethink the freedom to purchase destructive appliances for their own pleasure.
Here is my starter plan:
Regular sedans should get 50mpg - anyone can buy them
Lt Trucks and Vans get 30 mpg - 3+ person families can buy them
Hvy Trucks get 20 mpg - only companies showing need can buy them

Mileage may vary, but the basic principle of showing need to run a vehicle with above average pollution output is what I am presenting here.
We don't get to shoot firearms aimlessly wherever we want, driving a Hummer or other wasteful vehicle need to be viewed the same way.
The world is finite, we clearly need more laws that restrict the destructive choices available on the marketplace. Pure Capitalism is insufficient, we need regulation.

[phylliscooper1]

I realize that everything is relative, but I cannot imagine paying as much for a vehicle as the Hummer cost. It is equivalent to the amount of money my house cost, 20 years ago. If our economy ever recovers, people are going to have to wake up and make better decisions across the board. Businesses, large and small, as well as the individual American, should be better stewards of their finances and resources. Each of us should save for the times ahead when we may need to draw from our own reserves, to make ends meet when times are tough. The study of economics needs to be woven into our education system, beginning in elementary school.

[johnie2xs]

I'm in agreement with Paul Krugman, on this deal. In a better financial environment, allowing the Big 3 to go belly up might be allowable, just not now. I agree that they have been something less than good corporate citizens, but then again, many of our citizens are an arrogant selfish lot, to boot. So who really gets to point fingers at whom. The expression goes that people "vote with their feet". Yes, the car manufacturers overdid the "Land Yacht" routine, but people bought them, none the less. I don't claim to know the best way to construct a bail out, but it seems to me, there is no way we can afford to lose another three million associated jobs when this last month (November) we lost 553k jobs.That would be tantamount to putting a second hole in the bottom of an already sinking boat, to let the water out. The Big 3's arrogance and inability to keep pace, is not the reason we're in this situation. The banks and the credit markets are the crux of the problem. Fixing the markets will help the manufacturers. We have to do both at once. How this is all structured is the key, and it has to be done whereby the tax payer is protected. We're facing a bit of a Hobsian choice. It doesn't feel good, but I don't see a viable alternative.

[johnie2xs]

I'm in agreement with Paul Krugman, on this deal. In a better financial environment, allowing the Big 3 to go belly up might be allowable, just not now. I agree that they have been something less than good corporate citizens, but then again, many of our citizens are an arrogant selfish lot, to boot. So who really gets to point fingers at whom. The expression goes that people "vote with their feet". Yes, the car manufacturers overdid the "Land Yacht" routine, but people bought them, none the less.
I don't claim to know the best way to construct a bail out, but it seems to me, there is no way we can afford to lose another three million associated jobs when this last month (November) we lost 553k jobs.That would be tantamount to putting a second hole in the bottom of an already sinking boat, to let the water out. The Big 3's arrogance and inability to keep pace, is not the reason we're in this situation. The banks and the credit markets are the crux of the problem. Fixing the markets will help the manufacturers. We have to do both at once. How this is all structured is the key, and it has to be done whereby the tax payer is protected.
We're facing a bit of a Hobsian choice. It doesn't feel good, but I don't see a viable alternative.

[MilwaukeeDan]

Mr. Thill, I agree with you most of the time except on this article. Your praise of Honda is somewhat deserving( they built the great Insight hybrid, and no one bought it), but not Toyota(and I've owned several, some way back in the stone age, remember the 20R motor?). You should blame the American consumer for the SUV, some can't fit in a Fit. Now back to Toyota. Have you seen some of their new 385HP monster trucks? How about the 260 HP Camrys? Yes, they have the overpriced and complex Prius(whose sales are tanking), but you also have the Lexus line full of gas hogs. This is the company that developed an old style cam-in-block motor just to race in NASCRAP to shill their monster trucks. Toyota wants to be GM, they just want GM out of the way. Yes, the big 3 are poorly run, and they need comlete reorganization, but they have some good products here and in Europe for that market. I'm not sure what the answer is.

[BabsfromKansas]

Excellent!

[follow the money]

the man at the top of the "Toyota" company
earned 1 million dollars a year...
those guy's earnings...are off the roof,
no wonder they went broke..
an yes, I do agree that they should build more cars which the people can drive like those 4 cylinder cars, instead of monster hummers....gas hogs...
it isnt practical, not at all for a family.
firsf thing I'd do, is fire the top 30 people in each company, and make sure, they dont rake in the company's profits, while at the same time, make sure that the cars they do build, are much more practical for familys..
For sure, I would like to audit, the bookkeeping, and the amount of money they make too. With so many workers out of work today, Im very sure I would be able to find someone who would like to make
less than a million a year..their pay was outrageous....

[gdaerin]

great article, I agree completely.

Your title pretty much says it all! They deserve what they get. They ran themselves into the ground and screwed over millions of Americans in the process. If they hadn't marketed the gas guzzlers we'd all be better off, for so many different reasons.

They are greedy bastards that can't come up with a good business model. Let's not throw money down a money hole. If we really want to help the big three why don't we send all their execs to Business School?

[NewRadical1]

Great article. I agree that we need to let a dying industry dissolve so that something new can take its place.

However, I think the government should use the desparate position of the automakers to force them to straighten up, fly right and re-tool for green transportation.

I think that with creativity there can be a win win. But definitely the CEOs should not get a cent, should probably be in fact penalized if they don't get with the program. I mean worst case scenario they crawl home to their mansions and are forced to suffer with just the tens of millions they already have. Boo frickin' hoo.

[GKHaley]

You sound like a parent that has told their children not to play with matches. They insisted on doing it anyway so the answer is to let the house burn down? That doesn't just punish them but also everyone else in the family. Including you. Go ahead and wish for the Big 3 to fail. Several million other jobs will follow in short order. It's time to stop pointing the finger and whining and put out the fire before it takes out everything. If you truly do want to be a third world country just let the last of American productivity die. People who shuffle papers and sell things cannot float this economy. Nor can people who write and whine and point fingers.

[Scott Thill - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone.

Mjt218, if you think it makes sense for the Big Three CEOs to fly in private jets to a Congressional hearing on the waste, pollution and fraud of their companies over the last decade, I think you just made my point for me. Even they don't think they should fly in jets to those hearings, which is why they came in hybrids this time. Too late.

FrictionSoul, those jobs will be reclaimed by the green industry coming down the road. The people will be put to work by Obama, much like they were by Roosevelt. And even if they are not, we can't keep doing something stoopid so people can have jobs. Especially if that stoopid is destroying the planet.

[mjt218]

They did it so they wouldn't get slammed in the press and for no other reason, I guarantee that they thought it was a waste of their time . . .

[FrictionSoul]

But Scott,

You're missing the big picture here: the industry employs hundreds of thousands beyond the core mfg of the Big 3. Here in the Renewable Energy Capitol of America (Colorado) bankruptcy would put 1.7% of the workforce out of work with nowhere to turn to.

Bailout the Big 3 but make we the people the new owners and put Neil Young in charge of GM:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neil-young/so-you-want-a-big-electri_b_145077.html

[Jessegirl]

Brilliant! "Let them eat Hummers!"

That says it all!
Love it!

[mjt218]

"Three astoundingly rich, obnoxious and spoiled CEOs . . . "

I know it's politically popular to try and tear down these guys, but I'm not sure that obnoxious and spoiled are justifiable ways of describing them. They all probably have worked non-stopped all their lives and have sacrificed a great deal personnally to get to the professional position they are in. Now, if you want to take issue with their performance, I find that justifiable. However, the fact is that these guys have worked hard to get where they are. They haven't risen to the top of the company ladder by being lazy and useless.

Frankly, I think it's in the Big 3's best interest for these guys to fly in Private Jets. They can work while on the plane and their time is a lot more valuable to the companies they work for than the expense of chartering a jet. Wasting time driving to Washington or going through security at the airport probably drives down the Big 3's profitability by limiting the amount of time these guys can use to have an impact on the company's performance.

[jp5472]

Please, I've been in the corporate offices and eaten in the corporate dining halls with the peers of these three back in the 80's. How much time do you think these three are spending barking out momentous earth shattering and business moving decisions that justify obnoxious salaries and bonuses with super expensive perks to boot? How much profit was generated by any of them flying around in their private jet pools? Has any of this "time well spent" or expense led to flourishing businesses? So how much worse would these companies be doing had they traveled like many other execs and celebs in first class (having witnessed through my being upgraded to first class by airlines)? Do you know what it costs to buy/lease and maintain this multiple fleet of private jets that each company has?

Companies immediately cut out these type of expenditures when they are serious about a turn around. From a perception standpoint, would you go rolling up to the bank in a stretch limo if you are claiming poor house/collapse by the end of the month?

They should understand that in the face of these dire circumstances, perks don't fly.