Michael:

I command you for your sound diagnosis and solutions. The streets and parking lots of our cities are already congested. The only way out is to initiate a national work project and employ millions of people to save us from moving tons of steel to move two hundred pounds from point A to point B. I have an interesting idea about this issue, but it is not the place to discuss...

Peace,
Edip

by Edip Yuksel (17 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 90 comments [4 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008 at 1:50:41 PM

  (0+)

read your good sense and yet at the same time know that you actually think the Democrats are going to save us. Have you no sense of history? ...of no clue about which party lied to us about WWI ("I kept us out of the war")???...Pearl Harbor??? ...Gulf of Tonkin???...It's all part of the transfer of wealth program, who's CEO is sometimes a Republican and sometimes a Democrat. They are one and the same, just using a different language to hide their theft.  You are a great advocate for the people. I just wish you knew your political history.

by Mark Watterson (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 207 comments [133 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008 at 3:19:10 PM

  (0+)

The only difference is that the Democrats occasionally throw the people a bone. The Republicans don’t even do that. But they convince most people that NOT doing so is GOOD for them!

by Don Mullican (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 27 comments) on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008 at 8:47:33 PM

  (0+)

There are a few forces at work here and enough responsibility to go around.  Overall, the encompassing problem is that American business decision makers and our legislators have made policy changes to the delicate economic system as if the effects were contained in a vacuum. 

    I remember in the 70’s and 80’s that Japanese auto reigned king in quality. A company that introduced its first product into the world’s strongest economy  in 1957.  The fact that they were allowed to offer a fuel efficient, low priced auto into the system caused ripples.  Until that point the big 3 had not competition.  Their wage structure and benefit plans were based around wholly built American products. Even if the US had wanted to build the exact same car, it would have cost them at least 15 to 20% more.  Some would argue if you look at the full impact of costs and lost opportunities it is closer to 50% more.  The US allowing this product, not regulated by the same costs, into the market was irresponsible.  Like adding an invasive species into to lake system. 

   Let us look at the pickle the big three are in.  If they manage to mussel the very powerful UAW into accepting a huge cut in wages and benefits in order to lower the cost of their current product and/ or retool to meet the new demand for Japanese type products, they are taking money way from the consumers who buy their product.  Not a problem for the Japanese manufactures to deal with.  Wage cuts seemingly a bad idea, the other option is to cut quality.  Spend less time on R&D and revamp the marketing strategy instead.  The problem was that many of the design flaws were not caught until after they reached the market.  This developed a product image problem.  The other option was to employ people outside the economy to lower costs and build the new products.  This was ultimately the medium that they settled on.  There was no winning option for the big three. 

   It doesn’t help that in the 70’s we don’t know how many great and innovative minds never made it back from Vietnam to come up with a competitive solution. These are only a few of the forces. 

by Dwight Black (16 articles, 1 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 50 comments [1 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008 at 4:21:52 PM

  (0+)

I agree with you as long as we are printing money we might as well buy the big three automakers, the banks, brokerage houses, and insurance giants we are bailing out too. 

Then fire the BA$TARD$ that got us into this mess, regulate this naked short selling BU!!$#IT, reinstate the uptick rule and set real loan to cash margins so this doesn’t happen again.  

That or let the chips fall where they may under a real free market. 

by Michael Chavers (53 articles, 0 quicklinks, 15 diaries, 198 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008 at 4:44:01 PM

  (0+)

A long long time ago.

 But he does make some real neato movies and books about things like the need for Single Payer Healthcare. While at the same time supporting a rotten corporate corrupted system that will never give us Single Payer.

He does make a lot of money from those books and movies from gullible liberals though.

Hope you read this Mr Moore. You and people like you are the problem, not the solution.

by Michael Cavlan (15 articles, 0 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 538 comments [131 recommended, 2 rejected]) on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008 at 5:41:36 PM

  (0+)

Is this what happens when we elect an a majority Democratic Congress?  I bet your happy about our President elect building a Civilian Military and you won't mind paying higher taxes to help the po' folk out...  You do make more than 250k a year...  My Message to Obama...   thanks but keep the change..  just leave my 401k alone... It's good to see the Clinton's back in the White House, I'm sure you can spend the night in Lincoln's bedroom again. 

by Don Bybee (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 116 comments [2 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008 at 6:17:15 PM

  (0+)

perhaps the UAW should make a bid. They might even get a better deal as the stock price plunges through the floor.

by John Sanchez Jr. (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 25 diaries, 1796 comments [150 recommended, 3 rejected]) on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008 at 7:37:54 PM

  (0+)

Michael,

 Great article and for the most part I agree with your  sentiment.  

The attached is a plan that could rebuild the industry, requiring all contract to evaporate, including all executive agreements, plus flushing existing senior management.

http://pacificgatepost.blogspot.com/2008/11/solution-for-detroit-gm-friends.html          

Bailouts are complex beasts, but can be carried out.

 Toyota and Honda also depend on the same suppliers who feed GM and FORD.  No need to let "Detroit" disappear.

There is much creative talent hidden inside the U.S. Big 3 that has been smothered by mismanagement and the UAW. ... and they actually "make" something, .... unlike Wall Street.

by James Raider (41 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 106 comments [2 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008 at 7:47:24 PM

  (0+)

Fascinating list. And true. But……

1. This makes sense. Too much. But it deprives the powers-That-Be at the top of too much money and power…….. and we all know that we have the best congress money can buy so it won’t happen. Sure does sound good though.
2. This make even more sense except that the Republicans will scream "SOCIALISM" as loud as they can. And who could argue. What the American People(who seem to have lost the ability to reason) will ignore is that all these "bailouts" the Republicans are lining up for is the ultimate in socialism. That is, it would be if the government(me & you) were getting anything for the money instead of it just being a corporate feeding frenzy with the governments(again, me & you) money. Sigh.
3. True, but as long as Corporate America is making money no one is going to do a thing. People in this country don’t act anymore, they simply react. That’s why we jump from one crisis to another. And Business has learned that this is a way to make money. And who want to change something that is making money? Our national colors should be changed to GREEN, GREEN, & GREEN.

4. In truth, the first "bailout shouldn’t have happened. Funny how no one EVER follows the money.

That wouldn’t solve the problem, but it might keep it from happening again. But, I digress. The Big Three need help but help should given in forms such as getting Ford to bring some of the cars it is bringing out in Europe(high mileage excellent quality cars) to out shores NOW. But management has to change too, or all this is pointless. And I don’t know how to accomplish that.

Major business in America has only one priority; make as much money as quickly as possible with no regard to the future. It is a self-defeating philosophy but, heh, we have Free Enterprise, right? Unfortunately, most business leaders in this country would cut their own mother’s throat with a dull razor for $10 mil extra profit at the end of the quarter. Sound cynical? It is. But it is also an observation and then a conclusion based on that and other observations. I don’t LIKE the conclusion I have come to but to face facts. If you don’t, you get surprised when you walk off the cliff.

I am not a union member, but the unions are what made the middle class. And they are good until the people at the top get corrupt. Germany is something like 80-90% union and their economy is not in bad shape because of it.

People buy the nonsensical concept of a "Service Economy". In practice this means most people are poor and serve the few who are not. Think South America, Africa, etc..

People in this country prove daily just how ignorant they are by their belief in superstitious nonsense.

by Don Mullican (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 27 comments) on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008 at 8:27:28 PM

  (0+)

One more comment. This is about one of the ads on this site. Does anyone out there really think George Bush has an IQ of 125? If he makes triple digits it would surprise me.

by Don Mullican (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 27 comments) on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008 at 8:41:24 PM

  (0+)

But he lacks usable "EQ" as Daniel Goleman described in Emotional Intelligence.  The "emotional" neurons, the spindle and mirror cells, are either disconnected or missing in his brain.  This defect causes him to act ruthlessly and without foresight.

by John Bessa (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 16 diaries, 94 comments [1 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008 at 11:24:52 PM

  (0+)

Well Mike, what can I tell you, maybe you should have bought a Ford or a GM product, they run great and I have had no problems with either after about 1996 until now. I think the old "arsenal of democracy" should be saved, but by god don't let the government run it. Look what they did with our money, and the housing industry. They would sink the car companies faster than finding  WMD's. Government is too big now, pretty soon we will have more people working for the government than work in the rest of the states. If the financial clowns hadn't given loans to people with no means of paying back the money, most of what has happened so far, would not be nearly as bad. You can't sell cars to people that are being foreclosed on. We need to clean house in upper management and start producing cars that are affordable and that get great gas mileage. Hummers and suburbans are not the answer, but you have to lay the blame on the numnuts that bought those over fuel efficient cars. We are a nation of spoiled under achievers. We don't need a 65 inch big screen in every room of the 10,000 square foot house with 2 people living in it. We did this to ourselves through cheap Communist Chinese crap from places like Walmart. Time to tighten that belt (might be a bit hard to do for you) and start acting like a nation of rational adults. 

by Jay Timmins (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 114 comments [5 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008 at 9:55:24 PM

  (0+)

The Big three and Wall Street need to be gutted.  We need to redesign our economic structure.  The Funnel up economics of super paid CEO's and Super Capitalism that concentrates wealth in the hands of the few needs to be completely rethought.

Our markets aren't free.  They are controlled and contrived and benefit those that are the owners.  The rest of us are the slaves in the capitalistic ownership model. 

The auto industry needs to be rethought from the bottom up.  Maybe we should let the dinosaur die and create a new green automotive industry based on a democratic form of capitalism.  If we are going to use taxpayer dollars taxpayers should have a say in how the company gets run and what its goals are and the should not have simply a singular focus on profit at the expense of the planet and people. 

We need a new form capitalism - a democratic capitalism that does not concentrate wealth in the hands of the few while leaving the masses with wages that do not allow people to survive and a country swimming in debt.  A system where "health care is too expensive" and importing products made by former American Companies that use poverty wage workers and call it "competing in the global economy".

The American Capitalistic System is the root of the problem.  It can be remade to benefit the many, still encouraging and reward true productivity and creativity while eliminating the excess and inefficiencies and the pain suffering that come from concentrating 80% of the wealth in the top 2% of the hands.

It's time for a systemic rethinking. 

by August Adams (11 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 585 comments [12 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008 at 10:38:09 PM

  (0+)

My advice is to let a talented teenagers retro-fit it with a carb, etc.  And give it a wild paint job. 

In fact that is where I believe the whole industry needs to go: small independent operations each making unique cars using a "common component" system to simplify the parts supply stream.

This component idea has been well prototyped by the open-source software industry for more than a decade now.

~~John

http://thinman.com

by John Bessa (3 articles, 0 quicklinks, 16 diaries, 94 comments [1 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Dec 3, 2008 at 11:19:40 PM

  (0+)

A google.  One to determine the old one doesn't work, and an infinite number to argue over how to fix the problem. 

Michael Moore accepts a political ideology which was a given in the Great Depression, and in the sixties and seventies among progressives.  Do not bail an industry out when you can buy it out.  There is nothing inherently inefficient about government owned businesses.  Government is just people, and a government owned business will be as good as the people it employs.  

What has changed in the intervening years is that progressives have forgotten the ideology that once bound them together, such that Mr. Moore's suggestion would heretofore never have resulted in an absurd list of comments with no relevance to the obvious necessity of nationalizing, retaining, and modifying the domestic automobile industry in America.  A nation that does not produce commodities for resell fails to produce wealth, and thereby falls into permanent debt.  America's industrial base has nearly all been moved overseas to near slave states, guarded by a military that the U.S. citizen still pays.   Until we reinvigorate that industrial base, and force the multinationals to pony up for their own protection, we will remain in deeper and deeper debt, and continued financial crisis.

Dare I say that socialism is not a dirty word?  Many countries have substantially higher standards of living than the U.S., and nearly all are partly socialized.  But in America, if we were to even experiment once with socialism, the howls would be so loud that one would think the boogeyman were on his way to get us.  I wonder why?

by W.M.L. (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 537 comments [52 recommended, 1 rejected]) on Thursday, Dec 4, 2008 at 12:15:38 AM

  (0+)

Socialism is such a hot topic dirty word to most American's and they cannot sit down and have a rational discussion about those things within our society that SHOULD be socialistic.  Let's face it, we have always had social programs in the US.  We have Medicare, Social Security and we have educational systems that are paid for by communities through property taxes.  We have fire departments and libraries.  The US Post Office and while there are some inefficiencies as in any structures - many of these programs run well and are publicly financed and delivered.  

In fact, if we were to now turn these programs into "private" programs.  The costs would be much more than they are being run by the government.  We are watching the privatizing of services to the military where those that are private contractors are paid several times what the military personnel are paid and do jobs that are less risky (food service, security and truck deliveries).  aka Halliburton and Blackwater

When profiteers run "Social" programs, those programs become inefficient.   

There are free market ideas that should stay in the "free" market.  Someone inventing something new should benefit from that creation for a period of time.  There should be incentives for creative thinking and for performing extra work or for natural talents.  Those things should have a variable reward system.

But capitalism is failing because it takes the efforts of ordinary people and their contributions to wealth creation and steals it.  It funnels that wealth into the hands of the few.  Not the creative few.  Not the efficient few.  Not the hard working few.  But the ownership few.

Follow the Money - those with the concentrated wealth "own" us.  They are not the best managers.  Not the best workers.  They are not the most creative.  They are the robber barrons and thieves.

Capitalistic components are ok.  But so are socialistic ones.  We don't need a society of completely one or the other.

What harms society is when the money that is created locally through people's efforts is taken out of that local economy and concentrated in the owners hands someplace else. 

by August Adams (11 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 585 comments [12 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Dec 4, 2008 at 7:46:18 AM

  (0+)

Socialism is such a hot topic dirty word to most American's and they cannot sit down and have a rational discussion about those things within our society that SHOULD be socialistic.  Let's face it, we have always had social programs in the US.  We have Medicare, Social Security and we have educational systems that are paid for by communities through property taxes.  We have fire departments and libraries.  The US Post Office and while there are some inefficiencies as in any structures - many of these programs run well and are publicly financed and delivered.  

In fact, if we were to now turn these programs into "private" programs.  The costs would be much more than they are being run by the government.  We are watching the privatizing of services to the military where those that are private contractors are paid several times what the military personnel are paid and do jobs that are less risky (food service, security and truck deliveries).  aka Halliburton and Blackwater

When profiteers run "Social" programs, those programs become inefficient.   

There are free market ideas that should stay in the "free" market.  Someone inventing something new should benefit from that creation for a period of time.  There should be incentives for creative thinking and for performing extra work or for natural talents.  Those things should have a variable reward system.

But capitalism is failing because it takes the efforts of ordinary people and their contributions to wealth creation and steals it.  It funnels that wealth into the hands of the few.  Not the creative few.  Not the efficient few.  Not the hard working few.  But the ownership few.

Follow the Money - those with the concentrated wealth "own" us.  They are not the best managers.  Not the best workers.  They are not the most creative.  They are the robber barrons and thieves.

Capitalistic components are ok.  But so are socialistic ones.  We don't need a society of completely one or the other.

What harms society is when the money that is created locally through people's efforts is taken out of that local economy and concentrated in the owners hands someplace else. 

by August Adams (11 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 585 comments [12 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Dec 4, 2008 at 7:46:18 AM

  (0+)

with their pocketbook, the only weapon they have, the government bails out the offending company. This is not a free market at all. The companies are failing because of gross mismanagement at all levels, and the rewarding of that management by the high salaries awarded CEOs and their immediate underlings. Will a government takeover alleviate this problem? Let Detroit fail. If the government doesn't get in the way, with its bogus ripoff currency (the biggest wealth redistribution program ever devised by man) and by the use of taxpayer money for private purposes such as bailouts, creative people will pick up the ball and make a much better vehicle. All of these bailouts are a result of the misallocation of capital driven by an institutionally corrupt banking and monetary system.

by Peter Duveen (13 articles, 0 quicklinks, 15 diaries, 197 comments [30 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Thursday, Dec 4, 2008 at 8:54:36 AM

  (0+)

It is now or never my fellow americans (and world citizans)!

 STOP THE OUTRAGE  www.StopTheOutrage.org

Unorganized we fail.  $140 Million Strong by 1/15/09!

by evvie harmon (0 articles, 1 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 4 comments) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 12:39:30 AM

  (0+)

Mr. Moore, uh, once again you don't have a clue.  Global warming?  Polar ice caps melting?  Because of cars?  Hahahaha, what have you and Al Gore been smoking.  You need to study climatology.  For more then 20 years people have been telling the "big 3" to make more fuel efficient cars and they produce Hummers.  DUH!  The "big 3" are all controlled by unions.  It is the unions that are responsible for this mess.  Unions should be abolished.  Toyota doesn't have any union workers, and they are fine.  Let the "big 3" crumble.  It is not our Governments responsibility to "save" these companies like they tried to "save" the banks.  (Which by the way is completely the liberal congresses fault, and you voted for them)

 Abolish the Unions in this country!

by No Bama (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 6 comments) on Friday, Dec 5, 2008 at 11:36:24 AM

  (0+)