As a relentless, slow moving recession continues to strangle the housing and auto sectors, someone sent an e-mail with several links to articles about the auto industry. The articles detail the hard times now befalling GM, Ford and Chrysler who, like many US industries, are facing declining sales, rising costs and the need for major layoffs.
One Detroit News article focuses on the hurdles automakers face in meeting the new CAFE (fuel efficiency) standards Congress adopted last year. In a joint filing submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, US and some foreign automakers claim that 82,000 jobs will be lost by 2015, with a net economic cost of over $28 billion.
Regulators and industry always differ on the costs and benefits of new standards, and the NHTSA disputes the automakers’ claims [as do others], but it concedes the industry faces a retooling effort that will cost tens of billions just to meet the CAFE standards, and that’s just the beginning of what needs to be done.
We have an economy built around a vast fleet of millions of cars and trucks, subsidized by a massive investment in highways circling and interconnecting where we live and work. Even under the most ambitious scenarios, we’ll need to maintain that system for decades, even as we radically transform it.
There is a compelling need — some would say a national security or global climate imperative — to increase the fuel efficiency of that vast fleet, probably change its fuel source and technology, reduce it’s vulnerability to strategic fuel disruptions and price rises and reduce it’s contribution to global climate change. It’s a staggering task, yet we need to do it quickly, within a few decades at most.
What struck me about these stories was the huge disconnect between the magnitude of this task and the relatively light attention this is getting in the Presidential campaign. If anything in our history called out for a massive, well planned and coordinated government-industry effort to transform a vital industry, this is it. But that’s not what’s happening.
So far the two campaigns — and the media — have given only scant attention to what needs to be done and what we’d have to do to pull it off. We hear the usual rhetoric about something equivalent to going to the moon, but almost no discussion of what that means.
McCain wants to give an award for a better battery for electric or hybrid cars. Okay, but what will it take to restructure our homes, electric distribution/transmission and generation systems to supply the energy? What will displace the hundreds of coal plants we rely on today? What does the public "refueling" system look like and how does that get built? How can we pay for this while spending $12 billion a month in Iraq? Will it take major government investment and direction, as some suggest?
Obama has suggested he’d be willing to help the auto industry make this transition by relieving them of health care costs. That seems like a good idea, but how do we structure that tradeoff, how do we pay for it, and how does it fit with the broader effort for universal health care?
We’re in desperate need of a national industrial policy, tied to a national energy and climate policy, tied to a national health policy, supported by an infrastructure reinvestment policy, and all backed by revenue, monetary and tax policies. We need all of this explained so Americans know we’ve got a plan, what’s expected of them and the leadership to pull it off.
But first, we need a national conversation about these issues — and dozens of related topics — but instead the media is fixated on the silliness of the week. Today it’s whether we can even ask if John McCain’s POW experience would make him a good President and whether Obama has sufficiently answered questions about his religion and patriotism from those who have the narrowest views on both. It’s mindless, utterly mindless, and there’s no excuse for it.
h/t Greg Greene
Related posts:
- GRITtv Live: Wangari Maathai – The Politics of Global Climate Change
- Thomas Fingar on the Politics of NIE/NIAs
- The Politics of Car Dealers
- FDL Book Salon Welcomes Eric Boehlert, Bloggers on the Bus: How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press
- Slowing, Killing Health Care Reform is about Politics, not Policy
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Morning Scarecrow
Good morning Scaarecrow.
We need a comprehensive public transportation initiative. The bus system, in other than densely populated urban areas, is almost non-existent. The train systems are poorly maintained and very expensive. Local stores, ones we could walk to, have gone the way of the dinosaur. People are forced to drive miles if they want food, clothing or whatever. All in all we have managed to make it imperative to have an automobile to shop and go to work.
If we were to subsidize rail and bus transportation and were to increase access to both the automobile companies would come up with a car that would do 60 mpg in a blink of an eye. In europe, where autos regularly get 50 mpg there is an alternative, public, transportation system that forces the car companies to make a better car or not sell cars. Of course the oil companies do not want mpg standards to be raised to a sensible (40-50 mpg) level and with congress in the pockets of big oil the chances of a comprehensive transportation system are nil.
Is anyone expecting the media to tolerate any serious discussion of issues and/or policy? Now I’ve got the giggles and have to go and compose myself…
Why would any responsible journalist want to discuss policy.?
ReverandWrightWesleyClarkReverandWrightWesleyClarkReverandWrightWesleyClarkReverandWrightWesleyClark
we need to deal with the impact of all the industrialization.
One the one hand this represents millions of jobs. On the other the costs to the environment are now well understood and we are creating the end of civilization by failure to deal with the implications of industrialization, energy use, and the environment.
Industrialization has created an force with almost unstoppable momentum, but it is moving in a direction that will surely be our demise.
We need some very serious looks into the future of our civilization, the carrying capacity of the planet right down to the local level.
I don’t any solutions which are palatable on the horizon. What is happening is that the oligarchs will live as they always have as the ship goes down. We’re on the titanic my friends and there are no life boats here.
the recession ended some time lasy year, we are in a depression, we are paying more for raw goods yet havng to charge less to sell the finnished prodcut, we are borrowing more then we earn, we owe more then we are worth, we are in deby, each man women and new born child to the tune of some 30,000 dollars to china and saudi arabia
our infrastructure is near collapse, our food sources contaminated, the prospects for the future slim
I don’t know how come nobody is talking about this as if it’s a depression becuase we are long past rescession
speaking of the auto industry, jane posted an iacocca link that is nothing short of incredible;
‘ “Am I the only guy in this country who’s fed up with what’s happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We’ve got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we’ve got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can’t even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, “Stay the course.”…
“Stay the course? You’ve got to be kidding. This is America, not the Titanic. I’ll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!
“& someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don’t need it).
Well said, Scarecrow. One of the auto industry’s main points in their reluctance to adopt new technology is the cost of retooling, and more importantly, how that will affect shareholder value. Having fallen into the Wall Street earnings predictions trap they find themselves constantly trying to find ways to decrease costs to boost shareholder value. Another problem is the American idea of defining who we are as individuals by what we own and our ability to borrow money in order to reach that goal. Ten years ago having 4 or 5 credit cards was a symbol of that definition. Now, to an intelligent person, borrowing to maintain a lifestyle is seen as folly.
Ford, and it’s many subsidiaries have been making smaller, more efficient, autos in Europe for years they can easily, and cheaply, recreate that same tooling over here. The meme bout “high tooling costs” is nothing but corporate bullshit.
I understand that but Congress and Americans in general don’t.
But why are the people not up in arms (literally)? Why are we so numb and dumb to accept this fate? Why did we give our country to Wall Str again after they have shown how destructive they are to the interest of the people? Why are we lemmings?
Yeah, I was thinking about Iococca’s statement when I wrote this.
Re tooling is good for tool makers! It creates jobs!
Excellent post.
There should be a town hall, debate, whatever on this topic alone.
Why all cabs, buses and non-emergency city vehicles don’t run on natural gas or electricity is beyond me. Why does the housing inspector in my city need to go from 0-60mph in 5 seconds? (driving alone in a Crown Victoria, no less!)
As cars are replaced in the above areas, they should be forced to use alternative fuel vehicles.
Oh I am sure that congress does but they only say and do what their masters tell them As for the American public they rely mainly on MSM so they are not going to get any useful information.
Take a good look at car commercials and what they’re really trying to sell you. They’re not trying to sell you a car, they’re trying to sell you a lifestyle image.
How much stock in the auto industry do you think congresscritters own?
Is that what the half naked girl is trying to sell me? I did wonder.
LOL Marion. I love waking up to your comments every morning! ;-)
And oil company stocks
The most consistent message consumers get about the energy/economy seems to be coming from the coal/gas/oil industries — like the woman in the ad who tells us every night that we’ve got plenty of resources right here in the USA — we see that message a half dozen times every night on all the news shows.
Heh. Without that brand new SUV in yer driveway you ain’t gettin’ laid, ergo yer a loser. *g*
This was all made abundantly clear by Bernays. Look up
Century of the Self
and watch the 4 segments – long but very telling about what we have become and WHY.
Well, that explains it.
Erm, the auto industry has for decades been shirking fuel consumption standards, and in the past 15 years have wound up populating the roads with the largest most dangerous passenger vehicles consuming fuels at a rate higher than ever before in the history of the industry. They had to ‘retool their plants’ to make that sea change!
Quite frankly, they’re still doing well in the weapons trade and probably would prefer to follow the money there and abandon any nonsubsidized auto production altogether in America. We’re talking about the people who have most of the wealth in this country. If the distribution of wealth weren’t so skewed, there wouldn’t be this intransigence against having better, safer, more fuel-efficient vehicles. The same with the utility industry. People would be able to get more productive things done on a more decentralized and less costly way if the wealth were more evenly distributed and not concentrated in the hands of a few environmentally irresponsible cabal of war profiteers.
What car?
That’s the same girl trying to sell me beer!
But seriously, do you have any idea how much it would really cost for these auto makers to re-tool their plants? Or can you point me towards any authoritative websites on this?
I have long thought the auto makers were FOS on their estimates. I’m thinking we need a massive Letters to the Editors campaign on this subject. Just as soon as I can arm myself with a few facts.
And coooofffffeeeeeee…..
I did have a brand new SUV, and I still wasn’t getting laid. What does that make me?
It’s really that simple if you look at it with a jaundiced eye. How many people do you know that live in a house that looks like any you see in TV ads, regardless of the product being sold?
In need of viagra. Watch the ads dammit!
That’s because they don’t feel our pain.
Gas could go to $20 a gallon and it wouldn’t change their lifestyles.
By the time one of these talking heads becomes a regular on tv, they’re making millions per year, living in some gated community or upscale apartment with a doorman and can’t identify with us anymore.
Sure, they read the stories they’re handed, and some (like Ann Curry) are really good at giving you that ‘concerned’ face.
Then, the lights go out and off they go out to the waiting luxury car with driver.
Appearantly, watermelon does the same thing – and cheaper!
Off to their weekend houses with gen sets so they can be off the grid until the utility workers get the power on.
We have passed the moment to take up arms against the machine.
Why are we so passive as a nation? Why do we accept their lies and myths?
Why do we seek shelter in the false hopes of religion and not the struggle of unions?
If one of these candidates puts forward an energy plan the public accepts as superior, they will win.
At this point in terms of the general electorate, virtually nothing else matters.
Doesn’t spitting out all those pits distract your partner?
All of the major car-makers have foreign subsidiaries, which manufacture high-mileage cars. The cost of retooling is high because tooling is mostly hand-made by high-paid and relatively rare labor, more or less one piece at a time. The work is very precise, and it takes a long time to train people how to make it. Much of it is manufactured here, by factories with older workers who have not had enough business to train their replacements.
Opiate for the masses
Heh. Not gonna go there.
Look in the mirror and tell yourself what you really see. Does a new car really do anything for you as a person? Does a $1000 suit make you a different person than if you wore simple cotton fabrics? Does a stress filled job at a prestigious company make you a better person?
There’s an old saying: Money can’t buy happiness. I’ve known a lot of rich/famous people in my life and I’ve yet to find one who could really say they were happy. Whatever they have they spend their lives trying to get more. I don’t have time for that. I’m too busy living.
I’ve seen the result of coal plants in China. You can’t believe the pollution until you try breathing in Xi’an and Beijing.
Once the tool is designed it is cut by computer. Transferring the computer chip from England to the US is not expensive.
mornin’ caw man–
another plant is closing in ohio, a chrysler plant, don’t remember how many thousand will be out of work….i’ve lost count of how many have closed in the past few years, a few recently…people with 27 years service, gone.
one worker commented about the mortgage crisis foreclosures here and said now there’s gonna be a lot more of them.
was a mini-van place.
chrysler ceo says rumours of splitting up company are just rumours, so, i guess soon the company will be splitting up. /s
i remember when mini-vans came out and there was a problem with the anti-lock brakes in rainy weather and in load shifts during fast stopping…….had problems with them at our company, had to address it cuz i was on the safety committee…..took forever for it to be remedied……..
was a brand new kind of vehicle……a mini-van, it took off didn’t it? find it hard to believe people aren’t still buying them, my bro-in-law even has one…..truck/station wagon/comfort of car all in one, with gas mileage closer to a car than a truck or suv…..i guess people are all buying subaru foresters instead? or are people not having kids anymore and don’t need the multi-purpose uses of the room in a mini-van? dunno. plant closing.
Because they no longer get news. They get “infotainment” and are more concerned about Brangelina and American Idol and $hit like that than watching their country go down in flames. Bad news is icky… Don’t distract us…
(Cute Westies, by the way! Saw the eCAHNomics pix.)
Well, this breaks my heart. Back off, everyone, back off. We can’t be having the auto industry’s grundies in a bundle, now can we? Who knew this would be so hard for them? Who could possibly have foreseen the phony liberal fuel efficiency vendetta against the American way? Who could have imagined that the Ford plant in St. Paul would be forced to shut down because of the left’s attack on fuel-guzzling, non-renewable fuel sourced, air fouling, oversized monster vehicles?
I tell ya, it just makes my belly ache.
I wonder how Olympic distance runners feel about going there; it could be lethal.
(psssssssst, marion 41-people asked that people not be identified, cuz they don’t want to be identified by elimination, just passin’ it on)
But can you prove conclusively that Ecahn is not a Westie? *g*
Chrysler is now owned by Cerbeus (?) with Dan Quayle as chairman of the board. There ain’t gonna be compassion there.
Dogs didn’t want to be identified? The pix were captioned, which is how I knew who the dogs owned.
You did mean “by” and not “for” didn’t you?
This is a joke, right? Please tell me this is a joke…
The suburbs and the exurbs are soooo 20-th Century.
:The Long Emergency” says it all.
The Auto industry destroyed public transport in this country. They were behind the demise of rail, light rail, trolleys and buses. They pushed the interstate system and the pork of road building for almost a century. They paved America and gave rise to suburbia, exburbia, debt financing, the destruction of the mom and pop stores in favor of the big boxes which blight every county in the nation. The internal combustion engine and the auto drove the industrialization of amrica and made war the horror that it became in the 20th Century.
I could care less of detroit disappears – that is the auto makers. They have blighted the landscape in so many ways.
Sorry. It is true
Well, I’ve had several clients in this business, and I simply repeated what they told me. This article describes the machinery in a tooling company, and I think it supports what I’m saying. You can transfer the specifications for the tool, but you have to make it out of really hard metal, which is done by people using this kind of heavy and expensive equipment. The article describes a long-term maker who changed businesses because his work was drying up.
I think that is such nonsense. What is the deal with not being identified? I seriously want to know?
You forgot to add that it was done in collusion with the oil industry, who IMH are the real culprits in the fight against CAFE standards.
edit –
IMHIMOPreview is mah fren
Many want to maintain their anonymity on the blogs. I can understand that.
Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.
Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.
Namaste
Golly gosh, I haven’t seen a mention of “American Idol” in a while! A ways back, many commented on “the sheeple” watching that … near I could assess of the demographics, best rating was … like 9% of the American viewers …
Scarecrow, according to the Hong Kong newspaper, the plan is to stop all heavy trucks from going into Beijing beginning this week, and to allow only half the cars in Beijing on the road on alternate days. If that isn’t enough, they plan to close factories. I assume we are talking about very heavy industry, steel mills, cement factories and the like. But what about the coal plants. In Xi’an, there are three, one of which is actually in the city limits. These are huge plants, with cooling towers just like nuclear plants. Beijing is going to be hot in August, and they will need the power.
I hope this is a real wake-up call for the Chinese, who desperately want a successful games.
CNC tool making is how it is done now. The fact that a hand maker goes out of business only illustrates the fact. It is done by computer now.
Here and here
marion 47–oh, sorry……i am way not awake, was up too late last night.
barbara 44–lol, well, yeah, cuz i know which one she is…
nomolos 46, that wasn’t the name of the person-it was–wait for it–tom lasorda, thought he was ceo, guess it’s some other chairman type position. oh wait, not awake, you meant quayle was ceo of cerbeus, ok, cuz i thought i heard it right, that lasorda was ceo of chrysler……..
nomolos 48-for elimination?–lol—hmmmmm, let me think about that one—guess it depends who they are doesn’t it???rofl….oh, bad.
and they are cutie westies.
my sister just got a 1yr old terrier/scottie mix, she is over the top happy, has been talking getting a dog for two years, finally got one….so, i get to see my new niece thursday. will post pics on my flickr page when i get back next week. mom says she’s really cute. and smart. of course her gma would say that.
Absolutely. I understand there are several places with good mass transit. Unfortunately for me, I don’t live in one. Used to. If you think this is gonna be easy, just look how long to get the 2nd Avenue subway done. People just love their cars. Cling to them like guns and religion.
Tom Lasorda is the former manager of the LA Dodgers. Lives here in Florida.
I agree with the point. I keep tripping over the fact that during WWII, we told the auto makers (and US industry generally) to stop making passenger cars and start building jeeps, trucks, tanks, planes, artillery, rifles, bombs, etc. And they did; in two years they radically transformed the US industrial base. At the end of the war, they switched back, and in the process, produced a huge economic expansion that lasted decades. How did they do that? What did it take?
Actually, I read an interesting piece about the role of school architects in the 1950s(and continuing on today) in terms of the size of schools and where schools were located. Prior to this time, schools were located in neighborhoods, no matter if it was small town, small city, or large urban area. In the early 50s, the Association of School Architects came up with a set of standards for building schools and one of them was that for a high school, for example, it was a requirement that 25 acres of land be available. Of course, inside metro areas, such an amount of land was not to be found, which forced building of schools OUTSIDE municipalities…which forced more building of roads – which encouraged housing developments, and shopping and so on. I’m not saying the auto industry did not have a role to play – but the building of large central schools in this way had a large role to play.
Still driving my 1998 Civic. I can’t quite justify the price of a Prius. I am considering buying a motor scooter – the Suzuki Burgman 400 costs around 6 grand and gets 60 mpg in stop and go driving.
http://www.juancole.com/2008/0…..trage.html
iacocca
So true, Scarecrow, but how do we get this conversation started beyond the blogs when, as many have noted, there are big and powerful interests stifling the discussion?
Billboards? More print ads?
And dare I suggest Leadership?
I’m willing to bet that the executives were not pulling down salaries, bonuses and stock options like they are now.
sander at 54–guess you’d have to ask them, but it was clear and posted quite a few times……i figure it’s their business…..guess that shoulda been discussed when the pics were taken, everyone knows that people post the pics after get-togethers…..if i were in one, i would assume it would be posted. dunno.
i shoulda just stayed outta this one, was just trying to pass on what i knew.
i’m not directly involved-i’m not in them and i posted pics of myself on my flickr page, but that was my choice. guess not posting them is someone’s choice, too.
Good morning all.
A couple of things. First, look outside your window, door whatever and what do you see:
Roads.
Traffic lights.
Freeways, well in CA we still got ”em by golly!
Trillions of dollars of investment in a traffic system that relies on something we call a ‘car’. An individual transportation unit operated by an individual. Now if we were starting from scratch we might design a totally different system of transportation for individuals.
We are not.
We do not have the money or the time to make a transition to some form, still unknown of ‘mass transit’. The money shortage is obvious. The Road to Olduvai Gorge….maybe not so much yet but it’s real as death.
Fortunately there is a solution for our crisis. We must kick the oil habit, everyone knows this, and thanks to an accident of geography we in America are well placed to do it. Follow this lint to the Grand Solar Grand Plan. This can be done. With off the shelf tech we can supply all our electricity needs, including an electric plug-in car for every American family, by 2050 for approx. 420 Billion bucks. Check it out.
Two more things. Bush and his cabal of criminals know this. He recently issues an executive order forbiding the construction of solar evergy collection plants on Federal land.
Did you get that?
For this act alone he should be driven from office but….that’s another story.
Lest you think this is pie-in-the-sky this post shows part of the Solar Plan under construction or at least it was until Congress recently met to derail alternative energy.
This post is right on target if the Japanee are trying to ‘Rope the Sun’ at horrendous costs because they see that the Olduvai Gorge is coming that our government, that Obama the Great One, that the stupid fucks in Congress must be forced to get off their asses, stop taking bribes for Big Oil and build The Grand Solar Plan!
This would do more for our nation that a hundred bank bailout bills, than ten Iraq ’supplemental’ appropriations.
This is a matter of the survival of our civilization. And if you really think I’m ready for a tin-foil hat you are not paying attention. ‘Peak Oil’ is here folks.
And the Senators and ‘Leaders’ of America fiddle while our nation burns up the only chance we have to….
…..survive.
You all are just too sort of serious this morning!! So for a laugh – Guess who is an expert on what Latino voters want!
From the LA Times
where you SD? Lasorda is a bum. wherfe he live? vero beach area?
My plan is to shame the media, at least once a week. I have them right where I want them. If it doesn’t work, you can blame me.
I keep thinking the Dems are missing a huge opportunity by not running on a platform of transforming/rebuilding the economy, and bring jobs and health care along as essential support for the policy. Reducing our empirialist policies abroad would be a natural adjunct, rather than something they’d have to defend in Republican terms. That would force McCain to explain how spending $12 billion/month in Iraq is justified given what’s needed here, and he could talk all he wants about his POW experiences 30 years ago. He’d be seen as irrelevant to what needs to be done.
Is this the start of an attempt to rehabilitate Gonzo’s image? Even he should realize that it’s hard to take a Bush toady seriously on any subject.
Over a trillion dollars spent by Bush (I guess it’s not that much in US dollars) to push the collapse of economy down the road to 09. Who can’t see this?…maybe people that don’t care and the 23% Bush/McNasty deniers. This money could have been used to help the poor and people without health-care to cope during the recession/depression worst time frame. This is the Republican Party at it’s best.
That probably excludes Fox because they are incapable of feeling shame.
southern at 64—i KNOW that!!!! that’s why i remembered the guy’s name!!!!!!
anyone from the cincinnati area knows who the hell tommy lasorda is!!!!!!!!
lol
shoot, i’m gonna rewind the news tape and see the tag at the bottom of the screen to see what exactly his name and position are, man, i hate this minutae shit. lol. but i know that’s what it said, chrysler ceo, lasorda.
point is, thousands more buckeyes are now gonna be out of work, and it’s reaching an unsustainable number, and we already had a high unempolyment rate because of plant closings, for a few years now, and now more..
cars, industry, hate to say it, but our country’s economic infrastructure is imploding, and has been for a while, very noticeable here in ohio. the house of cards is already falling, what’s it take for it to be noticed? till they all fall down? some serious shit.
perris at 68–iacocca’s autobiography was a good read…..interesting.
In the land of what-ifs, if we had strong cafe standards in place, GM would still be producing cars and making money. They went for the easy money and now what.
It is not as much as it seems because the US converted to the Bush dollar a few yeas ago.
From this 2/8/08 article. Unless they’ve changed CEOs since 2/8/08…
lol!
where’s Ross Perot when we need him?
look at this chart.
A sick graph – Iraq war spending vs. spending on renewable energy
Gee, He did such a good job for Home Depot.
How’d he remember all those numbers?
speaking of talking about POW experiences… anybody see KO last night. somebody, I forget who (an Edwards person), was saying how it’s not good for the dems to get into this area because it lets McCain distracxt from the issues. Anybody agree w/ that? I did, anyway.. Seems obvious, no. Guess what? if you agree with that, you’re wrong. How do I know? Because “Dick” Morriss said so this morning on FOX & Friends. See, what this is, is an orchestrated effort by the Obama campaiogn to get McCain to talk about hsi military service so that Obama can distract from the rael issues. there you have it. It’s Obama, not McCain that is usding this to distract people. Thank god I watch Fox & FRiends. Thanks for setting me straight. Dick.
LOL. Yep, he sure did…
It’s all happenned on the Republic’s watch, but are the Democrats able to make that case? I’m not optimistic that they are and Republics will live to gather plunder another day.
Speaking of bad jokes would’t it be ’sick to the stomach funny’ to see bush on the dollar bill?…worth about .00000002 cents.
Well, when inflation reaches Weimar Republic levels we can put his chimpy little face (sorry for insulting chimps) on a $1,000,000 bill and use it to buy a small loaf of bread.
Remember the Republic frenzy when they wanted to put Reagan’s face and name on everything?
would prolly literally be sickening to handle such a bill, what with all the spit on his picture.
I like the idea. Bush Bucks. Their value would would be a percentage linked to his approval ratings. So one Bush Buck today = about 25 cents.
Quite a devaluation since, say, late 2001.
I know the add you’re talking about. She doesn’t pronounce the “H” in “households” and, the first time I was half listening, I thought she said there was enough energy to heat several hundred thousand assholes.
That’s the real Bob Barr.
I still have that roll of toilet paper.
I don’t recall.
I love your optimism…maybe closer to a nickle if truth was known.
At least, even in this depression, we can export some things
ok, tom lasorda is PRESIDENT, not ceo, of chysler.
in response to question about chysler breaking up–paraphrased butlisteningtoitasitype-hogwash! not being considered at all, absolutely no relevance, am not going to even entertain those questions…….
==========
caw man says–Okay, but what will it take to restructure our homes, electric distribution/transmission and generation systems to supply the energy? What will displace the hundreds of coal plants we rely on today?
well, i’ve been wondering what tesla had in mind all those years ago–zero point technology..
http://sayit-sayit-sayit.blogs…..ology.html
Oh, you can believe the first clause (82,000 jobs lost) but not the second. But it has nothing to do with CAFE. That’s because they’ll find a way to eliminate 82,000 jobs regardless, and turn that into improved margin. No way is that $28M going to be a cost to the automakers. They win no matter what happens.
Been out among that mass movement of gas guzzlers already this morning… too many SUVs and pickups driven by people who don’t need ‘em [exception noted for real farmers and ranchers out in the countryside] to ferry their kids to soccer or themselves to the health club.
Get out and walk or bike, folks! We’d go a long way to solving the healthcare and fitness crisis and the energy crisis in one.
Great post, Scarecrow. Let’s not forget it was official government policy to subsidize gas guzzlers with humonguous tax bennies.
Much is needed for new energies and conversions to ‘em, but I hope there’s also room for technology to retrofit what already exists for greater efficiency.
Back to catch up on your comments now…
.
Prairie Today: Manchurian Bush
badwater at 88–that’s why they had to start operating overseas, fresh plunder. running out here.
I think the $28 billion is a net macro effect, not the projected cost to the automakers alone.
Thanks scarecrow
digg
Digg It Scarecrow!
Architects have done lots of harm to our environment.
Why does anonymity provide?
thanks for the reminder
here’s two more to digg
BT’s got one over 200, hope we can get it to go popular today
digg Six Years Later, McCain Says He Still Would’ve Invaded Iraq
and
digg Christy’s FISA: Now This Is What A Patriot Sounds Like…
THe nuts are falling off the trees!
From the LA Times
Here’s one slight WaPo example that is a micro exception to the horrible macro coverage: Off the Grid with Mike McKechnie, Owner, Mountian View Builders from Tuesday, July 1, 2008; 11:00 AM. IMHO, Mike provided a very high level of detail to many excellent questions.
Our depressions are always caused by policy actions initiated by our Federal Reserve Banking system.
Our Federal Reserve Banking system is a private bank, owned by European Central Bankers.
We’re a bit SOL here. Little Georgie and The Big Dick spent the 2 trillion dollars that would have been just perfect to invest in a new transportation/energy paradigm. In their eyes we’re stuck with the current energy equals oil paradigm and they’re just pleased as punch. They’re both oilmen through & through.
However, it’s still a worthy investment with a pretty good ROI. The balance of payments would change and we could stop borrowing from our children to heat our houses, run our factories (those that remain), and to propel our cars. The economic activity from developing and instituting the new paradigm would be a tremendous boon. We could actually be a new world leader in the technology and know-how involved with such a tremendous change.
It’s also a worthy and necessary investment to save out planet. We must find another way to energize our lives than to burn carbon based fuels. If we don’t, our world will dramatically change-and not in a manner to our liking.
OK, so what caused all the Depressions and Recessions that the US had BEFORE the existence of the Fed?
here is something deeply tainted in the way American capital markets are organized. Keynes fingered the basic issue 80 years ago when he observed that the increased liquidity of markets for public issues turned what ought to be long-term investment strategies like Warren Buffett follows into short-term bets on what other people think stock prices are going to do. Thus the expectations game. The notion of maximizing ’shareholder value’ is basically a fraudulent cover to keeping the gaming table going for the house. The United States have taken this strategy close to the limit, housing being the last bastion to fall to short-term thinking.
Of course we have a long history of it. A century and a half ago, we capitalized the value of human beings, and gave that value the Fifth Amendment protections.
The economics profession neeeds a new Marx — one unshackled by the labour theory of value — to sort out what has happened. I’m not optimistic.
and spotlight Scarecrow, too.
if we can just open a few more eyes…
Great post Scarecrow.
AZ Matt– I was just reading that very article and my jaw dropped.
Alla this money to fight terra and the nuts in Amurka think it’s okey dokey to carry in an airport– where we know the screening does not work!
Only in this country…….
http://www.uoregon.edu/~schlos…..ol_ppr.pdf
http://www.plannersweb.com/spr…..hools.html
Additionally, a lot of public health folks have a belief that this locating schools in such a way that kids can’t walk or bike to school is a major factor in childhood obesity as well. The above are two good articles, though not the one about the 1950s that I references above.
I think the notion of carrying guns in airports will suffer a setback the first time someone shoots an TSA inspector because you had the wrong size plastic bag for your tooth paste. Of course no one has mentioned that pilots and flight attendants would probably go on strike.
Instead of government policy – or until it changes – we need individuals to think about how they can improve things by making sensible, creative personal choices about, for example, how to get from point A to point B and how to otherwise conserve energy. Then we need a place, on the Internet, where we can share our ideas and experiences and learn from those of others. Personal choices are more powerful than any government policy and, thankfully, more adaptable. Now, if we could only harness the power of individual creativity and responsibility by encouraging it and making it freely available, then maybe we could begin, however slowly and incrementally, to make fundamental changes toward safer, more economical, healthier and sustainable lives.
now that I’ve stopped lmao -
LIAR!
at least he’s consistent
Spencer Ackerman has a new post upstairs.
why are we so passive as a nation? i’m reading Matt Taibbi’s new book and he hypothesizes because we are so divided up into so many weird enclaves, we can’t talk to one another to get any real action going.
it’s mind- boggling.
(and my mind is pretty boggled!)
Gee, there for a minute I thought this post was going to be about how the automobile companies that are now so down in the dumps because nobody wants to buy their gas guzzler anymore. Yet these same companies complained that it would cost too much to retool to smaller cars, more able to meet the requirements set out by Congress for fuel efficiency standards, and nobody wanted to buy these cars is they did. People wanted the minivans and big trucks. It was the car companies job to give the people what they want. Yet, funny thing, they can’t build the Prius fast enough to meet demands. This morning I heard a story about Honda being one of the few companies whose stocks have turned upward. Can’t find a link now, and I’m not sure I remember what the story actually said but I heard this as one bright note on an otherwise bleak outlook. Need I add that I have no sympathy for either the car companies or the owners of all those gas guzzlers that are about to get stuck. Certainly I have less sympathy for them than I do for those that got stuck in the partially rigged mortgage traps set by unscrupulous mortgage brokers who pedaled their mortgages using predatory lending practices. Even the ones that were not victims of predatory practices got caught in a time warp. If their timing had been better, they could have refinanced and probably intended to do just that. They did nothing more or less than a lot of other people have done but they did it at the wrong time.
Thank you Scarecrow, for the food for thought
now I go find food for my belly
Yes. Retooling is expensive.
But the cost of retooling is a red herring. Retooling happens all the time. Each new model that “Detroit rolls out to spark your consumeristic lusts requires retooling.
“Detroit” doesn’t want to retool to make more fuel efficient vehicles because the profit margin on big SUVs and pickups is HUGE. “Detroit” doesn’t want to retool for smaller, more effienct vehicles because they know they don’t do it as well as the rest of the global auto industry.
Back in the 80’s GM was pissing and moaning that they had such a loooong history with the Chevy (or generic GM) small-block V8 (350 CID, et al) that they couldn’t afford to develop new 6 cylinder and 4 cylinder engines. Of course GM is still building their 4 cylinder engines on a fifty year old design (the old Iron Duke). The 8 cylinder engines in GM trucks are still based on the old small-block and large-block engines that were originally developed in the 50s and 60s. Big, heavy cast-iron overhead valve geriatric designs.
BMW and Mercedes were both famous for their silky smooth inline 6 engines. But they both developed brand-new V6 designs to compete in the modern market. The Europeans and Japanese (and Korean too now) manufacturers have a myriad of smaller engines that they design, redesign, and creat new designs for all of the time. They invest in retooling. It works. Nissan was in horrible financial and sales trouble. They came out of that with a slew of newly designed cars most of which used a brand new engine design. The upbiquitous Nissan/Infiniti 3.5L V6 was new. But it also saved the company. Why? Because it was a completely modern design uncompromised by the threat of retooling.
The nobs at GM/Ford/Chrysler are still lost in the 60s dreaming of pony cars, drag races, market dominance, gas guzzlers, planned obsolesence, All-American V8s rumbling around the town, and the thought that their customers will keep coming back regardless of what else is on the market. The only reason they retain the market share they do is the incredible saturation of US mfg’s sales outlets. Of course they’re losing market share and billions of dollars per quarter. They’re too afraid of designing a truly new car.
I think you have pegged this. We need a new paradigm for organizing society. Wall street’s greed is good as part of the essential nature of man has led us to the brink and over it for millions (billions).
Why are we so passive as a nation?
Television, video games and easy access to porn.
We live vicariously through our
CRTsLCD and plasma screens.Spot on analysis. The concept of replacing what doesn’t need to be replaced or providing products that fall apart so that we are forced to purchase again is wasteful and ill conceived beyond belief. But it’s the business model to create and hold and expand a customer base.
Corporations NEED to grow or else they are caput. And there in lies the problem.
Tough to compete with that when we are telling people to retool their lives.
… but it concedes the industry faces a retooling effort that will cost tens of billions just to meet the CAFE standards, and that’s just the beginning of what needs to be done.
The retooling thing has always been their excuse – back in the late 60’s and early 70’s, to, when Japan and their tiny, (more)fuel efficient cars appeared on the scene they screamed bloody murder about it. Their learning curve sucks. They got buried in the 70’s by imports and have never regained their market share. How can they justify this level of dinosaur-brained justifications, still and again? Feh. I will never understand Big Bidness.
I think we have to look at which constituencies would be against such a plan as Scarecrow’s.
The biggest one, in my mind, is Corporate America — which has got quite comfy with its obscene self-payouts even as the industries it manages are either dying or gone overseas (which as far as American jobs go, comes to the same thing). The mainstream press is an arm of Corporate America. So are far too many of our pols. That’s why most of the measures needed to accomplish what Scarecrow talks about are strongly opposed by Corporate America.
Had my first ride in a Prius yesterday. I have seen the future. Even regenerative braking!
One of the issues about the energy crisis is that the pain is felt by the bottom disproportionately to the top. High energy prices to the rich don’t matter a bit.
In fact, many are making out because of inflation as profits are tied to the base cost of the products so rising prices means more profits for the property class.
Retooling isn’t the problem for them, they just don’t want to produce a good reliable product which lasts and doesn’t need to be replaced.
It’s all coming undone.
President, Andrew Jackson wanted to close The Second Bank of The United States. But bank president, Nickolas Biddle, refused, threatening Jackson with a recession/depression in the process.
Jackson finally got deposits transferred out of Biddle’s bank into state chartered banks, but not before Biddle restricted the money supply, causing a recession, which he blamed on Jackson.
Central bankers have been around and fucking this country for a couple of hundred years.
A few months back I met an interesting fellow on an airplane, the head of the Prometheus Institute, an organization that does economic analyses of alternative energy sources. They are focused mostly on solar. I was cheered that there are some people working seriously on this regardless of the inattention.
Fresh action post, up and running…
It’s not mindless. It’s by design, even if somewhat unconscious design.
Jay Hanson predicted this kind of thing many years ago. As the reality of Peak-Oil begins to bite, we are going to see an exercise in ad-hoc government at its worst. Our politicians will be pointing in every direction, saying “who could have anticipated this?” as they work hard to do what corporate power wants them to do in the moment. There will be no long-range planning, because long-range planning implies a certain amount of fore-knowledge, and that’s the LAST thing our politicians want to cop to.
This is going to be a long exercise in deniability. and when the wars for energy begin, as they inevitably will (as they already have) our politicians will continue to point in every direction and say “who could have anticipated…?” and “not my fault.” It’s already happening.
Survival of the most powerful and wealthy in these difficult times demands ad-hoc government. Government that considers only the most short-term gain and gain only for those who are already wealthy and powerful.
You can see it happening now, all around you, as Scarecrow’s article makes very clear. The ideals of the past–such as they were–are dead. We now have remorseless corporate power and its marching orders.
And fixing any of the grotesque prolems that confront us as a nation is NOT on the corporate agenda, unless such fixes benefit corporate power.
Our country has always lived in this tension. Right-wing ascendency for the last 40 years has finally resolved the tension in favor of absolute corporate power. Endless war is the final outcome.
Where’s the use of high tech computers in this?
We should sell them equipment to clean up their coal-burning plants!
“It sho’ is a white man’s world.” — from the movie “Being There”
They’re shutting down all coal plants some time before the Olympics to clean the air. It’ll be the cleanest air in Beijing in 50 years, probably.
Good post, btw, glad you covered it.
Nomolos says they use computers. That may be so in some industries, but I don’t think so, based on my discussions with clients who provide tooling to the auto industry and one other industry.