| Monday, March 30, 2009 |
08:10 - Welcome to IRS Burger
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/presidential-task-force-on-automobiles-restructurin
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So the government is now in charge of GM and has booted out Wagoner, and has officially put Chrysler on "marry Fiat within a month or die" watch. Their fact sheet covers all the gory details.
I'm no financial analyst, but this doesn't sound like good news for the economy as a whole or the auto industry in particular.
This is pretty far beyond the loan guarantees of 1979-80 that heretofore have been held up as the great cautionary tale of our age. This actually puts the government in the driver's seat, and goes so far as to declare Chrysler officially non-viable as a company. Whether Fiat can save them or not, that's a pretty heavy sentence. Especially coming from a government that to date has pretty much steered clear of treating the auto industry like a semi-nationalized rail or power concern.
On the plus side, this looks to be the time to load up on some severely discounted Vipers and Corvettes. Delivery might take six to eight weeks, though.
How can it not be possible for a car company to succeed in today's America? Is it only because of all the grandfathered union and dealership rules? Can't a brand-new, home-grown brand get itself established making not kooky next-generation things like the Tesla line, but basic, inexpensive, internal-combustion family transportation? Or is there simply too big an economic gulf between the ability to create a car free of the traditions and trammels of the past, and the ability to produce it in such numbers and with such immunity to liability prosecution and at low enough cost as to be viable in volume?
If so, can that gulf be closed in any way? Would that not be a better use of government money—incentives to spur the creation of a brand-new generation of traditional automakers?
I mean, hell—at some point, cars gotta come from somewhere. Right?
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Brian Tiemann
