Obama Speaks on the Recovering Auto Industry

Update on the silence. GM still owes $60 billion and it's not certain if they intend to pay that back.

Funny, for all the hollering about government taking over the car companies, there was virtual silence when GM announced Wednesday that they paid off all their loans--with interest-- to the government. The auto industry has added 45,000 jobs since the downturn, says Obama in his weekly address.

Buchanan Rips Fellow Republicans On Auto Bailout

Conservative Patrick Buchanan shames his Southern republican cohorts and he gets kind of stupid about Mitsubishi.

Buchanan: Is the Republican Party so fanatic in its ideology that, rather than sin against a commandment of Milton Friedman, it is willing to see America written forever out of this fantastic market, let millions of jobs vanish and write off the industrial Midwest?

So it would seem. "Companies fail every day, and others take their place," said Sen. Richard Shelby on "Face the Nation."

Presumably, the companies that will "take their place," when GM, Ford and Chrysler die, are German, Japanese or Korean, like the ones lured into Shelby's state of Alabama, with the bait of subsidies free-market Republicans are supposed to abhor.

In 1993, Alabama put together a $258 million package to bring a Mercedes plant in. In 1999, Honda was offered $158 million to build a plant there. In 2002, Alabama won a Hyundai plant by offering a $252 million subsidy.

"We have a number of profitable automakers in America, and they should not be disadvantaged for making wise business decisions while failure is rewarded," says Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina.
DeMint is referring to "profitable automakers" like BMW, which sited a plant in Spartanburg, after South Carolina offered the Germans a $150 million subsidy and $80 million to expand.

Be it BMW, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Mitsubishi or Hyundai, the South has become a sanctuary for foreign assembly plants, for which Southern states have been paying subsidies.

Fine. But why this "Let-them-eat-cake!" coldness toward U.S. auto companies? General Motors employs more workers than all these foreign plants combined. And, unlike Mitsubishi, General Motors didn't bomb Pearl Harbor.

Bush Will Aid Auto Industry

Bush speaks and speaks and speaks. He sure is getting in his last words.
He's considering all options to bailout Detroit's automakers:

CNN: President Bush said Tuesday that he is "considering all options" in aiding the U.S. auto industry because doing nothing could lead to further economic decline.

"A disorganized bankruptcy could create enormous economic difficulties, further economic difficulties," he said. "I feel a sense of obligation to my successor to make sure there is a not a huge economic crisis. Look, we're in a crisis now. We're in a huge recession, but I don't want to make it even worse."

On the shoe attack:

"I didn't have much time to reflect on anything, I was ducking and dodging," Bush said.

The journalist was "looking for notoriety," Bush said, adding that authorities shouldn't "overact" in their treatment of him.

"First of all, it's got to be one of the most weird moments of my presidency," he said. "Here I am, getting ready to answer questions from a free press in a democratic Iraq, and a guy stands up and throws his shoe. And it was bizarre, and it was an interesting way for a person to express himself."

He added, "I'm not angry with the system. I believe that a free society is emerging, and a free society is necessary for our own security and peace." there's more

Face the Nation Dec. 14

Topics include the auto bailout and who else, Blago. News out late today says Blago wouldn't resign tomorrow.

Auto Bailout: Time To Work Out Good Policy

Paul Krugman and George Will discuss the bailout. Krugman says the bailout helps save workers and bides time until a real solution can be worked out. I don't know why anyone is still arguing. It seems that Bush will step in.

Boxer Asks Paulson To Care

Sen. Barbara Boxer: If he can save the white-collar jobs, he can save the blue-collar jobs.

UAW Isn't Making $75 an Hour

Conservatives, not a fan of unions, curbed the auto bailout. Conservatives don't seem good at problem solving, only derailing. They claim the union workers make $75 to $85 an hour. I've seen all kinds of numbers. But it's not true. Also, the intention of the bailout is to keep people working, not bail out the failed leaders:

NYT: So what is the reality behind the number? Detroit’s defenders are right that the number is basically wrong. Big Three workers aren’t making anything close to $73 an hour (which would translate to about $150,000 a year).

The real problem is the auto companies are making cars that no one wants to buy. The most popular cars in the U.S. are Toyota Camrys and Honda Civics.

But the defenders are not right to suggest, as many have, that Detroit has solved its wage problem. General Motors, Ford and Chrysler workers make significantly more than their counterparts at Toyota, Honda and Nissan plants in this country. Last year’s concessions by the United Automobile Workers, which mostly apply to new workers, will not change that anytime soon.

And yet the main problem facing Detroit, overwhelmingly, is not the pay gap. That’s unfortunate because fixing the pay gap would be fairly straightforward.

The real problem is that many people don’t want to buy the cars that Detroit makes. Fixing this problem won’t be nearly so easy.

But it looks like the Bush Administration is going to step in. It's interesting that Bush's willingness to step in was a big surprise to the media.

Daschle's Comments on His Appointment

Read about the new White House Office of Heathcare Reform.

45 million have no healthcare insurance. Here are Obama's comments at today's press conference:

Are You Smarter than an Auto Exec?

Suze Orman wants you to be:

Yes, we should all be mad and annoyed that we have to bail out these companies that have been run with an indifference to tackling what is known. My hope is that at the very least, any federal aid will come with serious requirements, oversight and regulations. What is needed is that these CEO’s finally get their heads out of the sand and make the known changes that have always been needed and start running these companies like this is 2008 not 1958.

In the meantime, as I was watching the Congressional hearing I was thinking about you, and how my wish is that you act far more intelligently than the auto CEOs this holiday season. I hope that you have the fortitude and foresight to make choices based on what you know is true today.

You know you need to build an emergency savings fund that can cover six to eight months of living expenses; so you and your family will be okay if you are laid off.
You know you need to get serious-finally-about tackling your credit card debt, because you understand how a high unpaid balance can mean big trouble in 2009.
You know you need to invest more for retirement to have any shot at living comfortably later in life.
You know you need to sit down with your child and discuss how much you can honestly afford to cover for college

Reid: Not Enough Votes for Auto Bailout

This is odd. The execs are traveling the highways via hybrid to make their case tomorrow and Friday and there already aren't enough votes? Chrysler vice chair threatening a depression.

ABC: Imperiled automakers and their union worked feverishly Wednesday to sell a skeptical Congress on a $34 billion aid plan, promising labor concessions and restructuring. The Senate's Democratic leader said there still weren't enough votes to tap the $700 billion federal bailout fund to prop up the foundering Big Three.

One day before the chiefs of the auto companies return to Capitol Hill to make their urgent cases for loans, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the money was unlikely to come from the Wall Street rescue fund.

"I just don't think we have the votes to do that now," Reid told The Associated Press in an interview.

The White House called the timing of his comments "interesting" coming on the eve of high-stakes congressional hearings Democrats demanded.

"It's not hospitable," said Dana Perino, the White House press secretary.

In Capitol Hill meetings, industry officials said the collapse of one or more of the Big Three carmakers could greatly worsen the nation's recession and undermine the companies' ability to survive.

"We're on the brink with the U.S. auto manufacturing industry. We're down to months left," Chrysler's vice chairman, Jim Press, told the AP in a separate interview. "If we have a catastrophic failure of one of these car companies, in this tender environment for the economy, it's a huge blow. It could trigger a depression."

Merge Automakers Into One

This was my idea:

Newsweek: So this is how it ends for Detroit? After more than a century of putting the world on wheels, the American auto industry collapses amid squabbling over clueless CEOs and their private jets? Not necessarily. There is another way forward: the Big Three could become the Big One.

Auto Dealers Submit Plans Dec. 2

They'll submit plans, which includes CEO paycuts, tomorrow and will appear before the Senate Banking Committee on Friday. Ford's plan doesn't sound new or worthy. It sounds like what they should've been doing miles back.

WSJ: Ford Motor Co. plans to tell Congress it is retooling itself to build small fuel-efficient cars and break from the past strategy of focusing mainly on large pick up trucks and sport-utility vehicles, and will cut the compensation package of Chief Executive Alan Mulally, as part of its bid to win support for a federal bail out of the Big Three auto makers, a person familiar with the matter said.

Ford and General Motors Corp. directors were meeting separately on Monday to approve the viability plans the two auto makers will submit to Congress on Tuesday as part of a second appeal for $25 billion in low-cost loans from the federal government.

At Chrysler LLC, which appears to face the most urgent need for cash, top executives were putting the finishing touches on their own presentation to show the company can survive and return to profitability with government help. Chrysler's private-equity owner, Cerberus Capital Management LP, was reviewing the plan Monday afternoon.

Pelosi Stands Strong Against Automakers

Pelosi: Show us the plan first. I'm hoping the plan includes at the very least, salary reductions and elimination of perks.

Rejection of the latest bailout plan by House leaders postponed until next month a politically tricky decision for the Democratic Congress on whether to approve yet another unpopular emergency plan at a time of economic peril, or risk being blamed for the implosion of an industry that employs millions and has broad reach into all aspects of the U.S. economy.
"Until they show us the plan, We cannot show them the money," Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said at a hastily called news conference in the Capitol.
GM and Ford quickly issued statements promising to submit the blueprint the Democrats demanded.

Brian Ross Takes on Auto Execs and Private Jets

Brian Ross of ABC actually asks them about the jets on camera. Ford's CEO is paid $28 million. That's incredible. Why don't they sell their jets and take a pay cut? Then we might believe that they're interested in saving their companies rather than saving their lifestyles.
My solution.

What Nissan's Carlos Ghosn has to say.

Auto makers begging