What should the Obama administration do about the Big 3 automakers?
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3 votes
Convert Detroit Big 3 to Mass Transit Production
The Portland (OR) Oregonian carried an excellent editorial on Dec. 29, '08, "A 'bail-in' instead of a bailout" by Tim Smith suggesting that the Detroit Big 3 accept our tax bailout on condition they switch to creating "nationwide urban networks of streetcars, light rail and other public transit systems." This would bring us back to the excellent public transit we used to have before cars proliferated.
<www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2008/12/a_bailin_instead_of_a_bailout.html>
Running the system would also create a lot of jobs.
We could also do with revamping interstate and intercity rail transport since Amtrak is currently a poor substitute for the excellent nationwide rail service we used to have.
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401 votes
Reinvent the Auto Industry As We Save It
The current bailout does not achieve the goals of 1) Jobs 2) Energy Independence or 3) Clean Energy
We should spin out the Chevy Volt into an open source electric car platform in exchange for the GM bailout. Any automaker will be able to build on the Volt Platform but all improvements are open source. The gov't will subsidize the cost of the initial units so that they are affordable. It's a given that any bailout should include increased fuel efficiency standards etc, but this will jump start the platform. Robert Lutz should lead this.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/steveblank
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122 votes
Reinvent our transportation system.
100 years ago when the first cars were invented and the fuel source for the model T was chosen, alternative energy sources such as solar, steam, and wind were considered to power them. At the time it was cheaper to use oil, so they stuck to that. Now one hundred years later, we are facing a huge global warming problem and co2 emmisions are a huge part of the problem.
Here is how we solve the problem:
-change our national average mpg for cars to 50+ mpg and require them to be powered by alternative sources or be a gas hybrid.
-Switch all public transportation to be 100% free from oil, and to use solar wind, and electricity.
-Power trucks with 100% american natural gas (since it is the only source that can produce the best mpg) And use trains more to move goods across the country.
-Provide tax breaks for fuel efficient american cars, and tax car owners that own in-efficient SUVs and cars that further guzzle gasoline. Also provide a tax break for americans that buy and pay for these vehicles for 10 years, or until they do not own the car.
- Create a $1 tax on gasoline that pays for transportation projects, subsudies for small car companies that create efficient cars, and to pay for infrastructure projects.
-Work with China, and India and other immerging countries to buy efficient American cars, and to switch to using non gasoline cars.
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286 votes
Cars are the past, transit is the future.
The government should focus on modernizing our transit infrastructure and should not spend precious time or money worrying about car manufacturers.
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193 votes
Retool for building transit, buses and efficient autos
Most mass transit buses, and trains are imported. Retool Detroit so that the workers can have jobs and build efficient autos, buses and mass transit parts.
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334 votes
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1 votes
Mandate the use of carbon fiber auto bodies
The weight of cars and trucks can be drastically reduced by the use of carbon fiber bodies. Costs are high when volume is low. so the administration should require the use of carbon fiber bodies as a condition of bailout funds.
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3 votes
Change payroll tax to payroll credit
Instead of bailing out the big 3, bail out the little companies. Change the payroll tax to a payroll credit--give businesses incentive to provide jobs, with a higher incentive for higher wages up to ~120K or so.
Make up for this cost by imposing a large carbon tax.
Jobs give people money. People with money buy things. Buying things makes our economy run.
Think of how many talented engineers at the big 3 who have probably had brilliant ideas crushed out of them by bureaucracy and the need to protect the cash cow products their shareholders demand they build. If this talent is set loose on the marketplace, and small startups had help hiring them, think of all the innovation we might see? That's how you jump-start this economy.
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17 votes
Create a University Franchise System
Create a university franchise system that, in conjunction with nearby universities and colleges, creates micro campuses in Detroit that offer easy access to continuing and higher education by creating learning institutions in areas where home foreclosures are high and in other blighted or under-served areas. Tuition should be highly subsidized and entrance barriers minimized. Education should be focused on a broad liberal education but with specific skills that will lead to employment. Institutionalized red tape such as state licensing should be minimized to reduce start-up times. Programs could be set up for five or ten years after which they can be evaluated and then turned over to public or private institutions.
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26 votes
Attach a $1.50 per gallon federal tax on Gasoline
Rather than legislate any particular fix, create an environment that pushes the market in the desired direction. Expensive gasoline changes consumer behavior in the short term, and spurs innovation in transportation technology. The automakers will produce what people want - if gas is cheap people want big SUVs, when gas is expensive people want efficiency. That might be plug-in electrics or tiny smart cars - who knows. Specifying what Detroit should build would be a huge mistake.
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215 votes
Provide incentives to startups like Tesla Motors
The government could provide incentives to innovative new startups working on green transportation.
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37 votes
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67 votes
Put them in pre-packaged Chapter 11 -- in and out, quickly!
Chapter 11 lets them stay in business, pay workers and suppliers, and sell products while they renegotiate their debts. That's what corporate bankruptcies are for. Shareholders and most bond holders will be wiped out, that's OK. The key thing is to be fast so that car buyers know they can buy cars that will have dealer support, warranties and so on. An extended stay in bankruptcy would be fafal, but a brief stay would leave them competitive.
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36 votes
Let them fail! We already bailed them out once!
They don't listen to consumers anyway! If they did, they would not be in trouble. Let them declare bankruptcy and get resold to someone else to run the factories.
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47 votes
guarantee pensions and pensioner/worker health care plans
The government should spin off, guarantee pensions and diversify them into other investments. This prevents pensioners from selling their privately held stocks to pay health care costs or avoid risk of staying in the market. If they do, the markets will go down even further and consumer confidence will die.
Health care costs should be taken over by the government itself, as the first step in the universal health care program - guaranteed as all countries that compete in the auto industry already do, even Canada. UAW wage concessions are fair since a huge risk and burden would be removed, esp. if basic dental and pharmaceutical and catastrophic coverage is included. All this could cut costs per vehicle by as much as $2000 and make US plants competitve, without triggering a trade war.
Since other industries will demand the same kind of plans, the momentum towards universal health care will be established with strong corporate and union support. And while auto workers will cut back their expenditures they won't dump stocks en masse to hedge against risk of a big failure (very possibly creating that failure).
They could also consider securing loans against all the physical and intellectual property required to build specific models, so the public can get its money back by selling lines to foreign companies (Jeep to Volkswagen, a heavy truck to Nissan, etc) so at least the viable models don't all disappear with the jobs.. Anything more than this, and trade wars will almost certainly start.
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73 votes
Allocate funds for worker retraining
The Detroit automakers have consistently opposed fuel efficiency standards and are now paying the price. It is not the government's role to bail out businesses that have made bad decisions. Instead, the government should allocate funds to retrain the autoworkers for other jobs--perhaps energy related job.
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12 votes
Require closing plants outside the US before inside the US
In order to accept low interest loans (aka bailouts), the automakers must close plants on foreign soil before closing plants in the U.S.
We should not give money to any company that will in turn, layoff US workers just to do the same work outside of the US. -
15 votes
Require throwing out the UAW contract
The UAW is a phonebook of rules that hold back the automakers. In order to receive bailout funds (low interest loans), the UAW must throw out their current contracts with the Big Three and allow compensation like the other autoworkers at other plants here in the USA.
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6 votes
Share patents and intellectual property between companies
As a condition of financing, the 'Detroit 3' must share all intellectual property, and pool R&D efforts. Drive new batteries, and electronics for cars. We must go 'together, quickly' as Al Gore has said.
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8 votes
Allow them to restructure and innovate on their own. No bai
A bailout of the big three is not an option in my view.They have perpetuated the ideas of big business, with high salaries and benefits for both the hourly workers and the executives.
Free health care for life is something we all should enjoy, not just the UAW.
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20 votes
Laborers should not suffer pension losses.
Retooling is necessary but the loss of pensions and employee contracts is unacceptable. Detroit should retool to build buses, transit, and energy efficient , non-polluting autos. The USA should adopt a single payer health care system to relieve employers of this responsibility.
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1 votes
Modern plants with new technology-no UAW
We need to build modern plants like Brazil has and start building smaller cars that don't rely on gasoline . see: http://info.detnews.com/
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2 votes
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10 votes
Create an increasing gasoline tax
At the end of any month in which the price of a barrel of gasoline declines, add to the federal tax of half that decline. This will add a tax that doesn't hit the pocketbook (as over the course of the month, the price has dropped), helps increase the cost of carbon emissions, and encourages the production of more efficient cars.
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15 votes
Rescue the Big 3
Unpalatable as it is, rescue of the Big 3 is necessary to prevent catastrophic failure that will immediately send the rest of the economy into a spiral as well. The intent isn't to give them a free pass for performing poorly, but recognizing that if they go down, the economy will go in the tank with them when millions of jobs and entire communities are decimated in one stroke.
