I have not yet commented on the impending doom from Detroit and the efforts to bail them out. It’s been the talk of the Sunday news programs, however, and since I’ve been using today to catch up on the blogging I’ve not been able to do during my busy week, now seems the time to comment.
I have to start out by saying that Meet the Press this morning was, as ever, an exercise in false equivalence. The guests where Carl Levin of Michigan and Richard Shelby of Alabama. A guy who is in the tank for automakers and a hard-line Conservative who wouldn’t agree to tax-payer funded water if his hair was on fire. This is not a useful discussion, since neither man is in a position to compromise, but compromise is exactly what is needed in this case.
Because if ever there was an industry I would be in favour of letting crash and burn – hoping that we could finally then let more innovative minds and more cost-effective business models take the lead – it would be the auto industry. Nowhere in American business is there a more completely ass-backwards group of companies. . . and that’s saying quite a lot. Still, its not an industry we can expect to let drop without having huge and probably unpredictable consequences on the rest of the economy. There are simply too many people working in the industry and too many subcontracting companies tied to it to think we can let the automakers drown themselves.
What is required is that we yes, do bail out Detroit. But we do so in a way that guarantees us a better chance of a viable auto industry in the future. It’s not a simple question of letting them go or handing them a blank check. Carl Levin said today that the auto industry might have had problems “ten or twenty years ago,” but that they’re making changes. Bullshit. They’ve made half-assed efforts at going hybrid – itself not a solution to our energy problems – only in the last two years. And what have they produced? Hybrid SUVs. Hybrids which get a paltry 34 miles a gallon, compared to the 40-50 MPG of Asian counterparts. This hardly represents a true effort at reform, particularly when there are plenty of minds working on the issue in garages and backyards whose ideas are not being listened to.
So, we need not a bailout package, but an investment plan in our auto industry which considers the future as a primary means of growth. We should demand that Detroit automakers actually engage small private businnesses working on energy-smart cars and use their industrial might to produce those cars. Similar things are commonplace in the record industry, where small indie labels like Interscope or Def Jam are distributed by Sony or Warner Brothers, but exclusivity has plagued the auto industry. Yes, I’m aware that there are downsides for Interscope. But the point is that Detroit has gone out of its way – Microsoft style – to crush competition in its infancy, and it is precisely those infant companies that are generating the ideas we need.
And of course, we need leadership. Barack Obama has been trying to stay off the stage and work on his cabinet, since after all, he’s not yet the president. But the problems we face currently are much beyond the ability – and let’s be honest, the desire – of our current White House resident for him to handle. As hard as it undoubtably must be, Barack Obama is going to need to find a way to represent a leadership role – even if that leadership is only a Senate-bound leadership – to help steer the ship as best he can in the next few months so we can get things done in something approaching a rational way.
Since the announcement that Governor Sarah Palin would be the Vice Presidential pick for the Republican ticket, a lot of people have had drilling on their minds. Many people, including Sarah Palin, seem to think that if we just keep drilling – deeper, harder, faster and in more places – our nation could finally find the satisfaction its been craving, without having to rely on foreign pipes.
But as hard as we drill, we only produce about 10 percent of the gushers in the world, while we receive the fruits of about 25% of gushers worldwide. That’s a lot of extra pumping for one nation to do, almost twice as much, if we’re going to give as good as we get. In fact, the Adonis of oil drilling, Saudi Arabia, only produces about 12% of the gushers in the world. Do we really think we have that much stamina? Just because we can do the pumping doesn’t mean we’ll get the gushers we’re looking for, anyway.
Because if you ask other nations honestly, they’ll tell you that after a certain point, too much drilling is just a bad thing. It’s a tiring waste of resources that damages the environment and just gets kind of sad after a while. Worse than that, once you’ve drilled one hole dry, even if you’re allowed to go for another hole, it’s not really going to produce any gushers and it’s probably just going to be a shitty situation for everybody.
In fact, most nations would tell us that if we were just a little less selfish, we wouldn’t need to work so hard in the first place. If we didn’t spend so much time trying to show off and act cool around our friends, we wouldn’t have to worry about living up to an impossible image or dealing with our inadequacies. If we just appreciated what we have a little more, took it less for granted, maybe we might find out that quantity is no substitute for quality.
After all the latitude and patience we’ve been given, to insist that finding new and interesting places to drill – especially those we’ve worked so hard to keep clean – just isn’t the right answer to the problem.
Newt Gingrich is still giggling over the whole Obama + tire inflation “controversy,” apparently not aware the joke – such as it was – is over. Never mind the stupidity of thinking, as he does, that the oil industry also has a cartel on tire pump air. Note, rather, that the 2008 Saturn Aura has had tire inflation gauges in it for quite a while, now.
Well, whaddaya know? CNN Money is reporting that oil prices are holding steady at around $119 a barrel despite a major pipeline in Turkey being cut. If you recall just last month back, every time a pipeline anywhere was damaged, the price went up by five bucks at minimum. So, what accounts for the sudden change in the market moves? Well, most experts point to declining demand in the U.S. . . Demand goes down, prices go down.
So, John McCain, tell us about your drilling plan again?
I shouldn’t make light of this situation at all, the title of this post just came to me.
Haitians are going through convulsions as a result of the food and fuel shortages and rising prices across the globe in a way very few of us here realize. Their prime minister’s position has already been toppled; their food prices have jumped 80% in a year; the food provided as relief by the U.N. is running out.
And now, they’re eating mud cakes. It’s a revolution and a humanitarian crisis, right on our doorstep, folks.
When it comes to trumpeting the failed policies and anaemic strategies of the national Republican Party, our local Republican Representatives never fail to live up to expectations. Randy Kuhl and Tom Reynolds (who?) are both making public statements in favour of more drilling to solve our nation’s oil crisis.
Where is the pressure – from either party – on American auto makers to produce energy-efficient cars? Where is the effort to bring manufacturers together around the idea of creating energy-efficient home appliances?
Debating the efficacy of drilling or bitching about coal isn’t getting us anywhere.
With luck, perhaps they’ve finally put the nail in the coffin of those goddamned SUVs once and for all:
Rising Gas Prices Finally Kill The Once-Mighty SUV | Autopia from Wired.com
Need more proof the SUV is a goner? Ford’s venerable F150 pickup ended its 17-year-run as the best-selling vehicle in America last month, dethroned by the Honda Civic and three other Japanese sedans. General Motors is looking to unload Hummer, the epitome of gas-guzzling excess, after sales fell 60 percent in May. The number of Civics sold in one month exceed the number of Hummers GM expects to sell all year.
Now, the question is: does this mean an increase in production of more fuel-efficient cars? My continuing chagrin with my car manufacturer of choice, Saturn, has been that they only make two hybrids: a hybrid SUV and a luxury car. I appreciate the effort, but spending the extra dough for a hybrid only to get 35MPG is hardly worth the trouble. I’m getting about that now.
So I’m beginning to look elsewhere, with my term on my current vehicle edging ever closer to completion. And by “elsewhere,” I mean something other than American cars. The trouble is that, while I’m hardly one to be defined by my car, there’s a certain lack of – oh, let’s just call it “testicular fortitude” – in the available options. The Prius has gotten better looking as it goes on, but a $25k price tag makes it hard to take. Not impossible, though. The new India-produced TaTa (to be marketed as the “Mini-Cat,” its English translation, in the States) looks like it might be OK, but what the hell is up with the 1Lakh? And the “Smart Car?” It’s only smart if your working towards a life of celibacy. And while I lived in the city, I considered buying a Vespa scooter until I realized I’d look like an English schoolmarm with a hickory switch up her keister.
As a person whose favourite car of all time was the Dodge Shadow, I hardly require a “penis-mobile” of any variety. But come on! These things just make you look stupid driving around in/on them. The manufacturers are doing the environment and the world economy a great service by even producing these vehicles, but they’d be doing an even greater service if they made the vehicles just a little bit more approachable for the average American.
But then, vehicles that appeal to an American sensibility would be more likely if American producers would produce the vehicles, wouldn’t they?
