| Author | Message | ||
     David Gagen Member Username: David_g Post Number: 207 Registered: 02-2007 |
I'd be interested to know what US boarders think about what should be done with US car industry bail out? What will happen if Ford/GM/et al go kapput. Should congress have passed package? | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 1860 Registered: 03-2005 |
I think the companies should either be fully nationalized or allowed to die. If they are fully nationalized, new management can be installed to re-direct the products toward forward-looking more rational modern vehicles instead of the lumbering maladaptive garbage they've clung to. If they are allowed to die, other automakers will take over the better-equipped of their factories and produce more appropriate products. But there is a more basic problem. In 1969 Gianni Agnelli (Fiat) said that the auto industry had a problem with overcapacity. That's 40 years ago and since then the Japanese have expanded incredibly, the Koreans have risen up and now the Indians and Chinese are producing cars. The U.K. car industry is nearly vanished and the U.S. industry is going the same direction. I expect the French and Italian car industries to do the disappearing act next. The world only needs so many cars. Over the past decade--in the US anyway--all of the automakers (domestic and foreign) have been doing everything they can to get people to buy cars even though they don't need them using the credit bubble as a tool. It's been a virtual Saint Vitus dance to try to stay in the black, while the customers have all gone hopelessly into the red. There will be no escaping the re-arranging of the economy in this country. The population of the "rust belt" region of the country has been declining relative to the coasts and the "sun belt" areas for about three decades. I expect that to accelerate at least until we develop a better technology for heating (which I believe we WILL ultimately achieve), because right now it's just too expensive to house that many people in that area. On the other hand I think agriculture will prove to be one of our salvations and the midwest definitely has a role to play in that. Food is a lot more important than cars. This is a big country with a lot of good arable land. Too much of it has been concentrated in the hands of too few giant corporations producing absurd crops like corn for ethanol and that poisonous high-fructose corn syrup. If we stop subsidizing giant ag corporations this country can resume its historic role as one of the world's chief bread baskets (along with Oz and Argentina). |