Auto Chiefs Plead for Money; Zimbabwe Pleads for Life

Live on CNN, auto maker execs are pleading for $34 billion. See how easily it went up from $25 billion in a matter of days.
Ford's Alan Mulally asks congress to "kick its tires." We're a good company, he said. See them beg. 
If we give them the money, we must kick them out. They have failed miserably. The economy isn't to blame for their failure.
These leaders have poorly run their companies for years on end while paying themselves millions. Their ignorance and greed is now in a position to effect millions of people who might lose jobs, causing an even bigger ripple in the economy. They need to not only be fired but fired in a public way. We need to make an example of them.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's pleading for help with a cholera outbreak that's threatening lives.
Seems if our former leaders (the Bush lot) of the U.S. had been bright enough, leader-ly enough, we'd be in a better position to help ourselves and the world.

HARARE (AFP) — Zimbabwe's government pleaded for international help Thursday after declaring a cholera epidemic that has killed more than 560 people a national emergency and admitting that hospitals are no longer working.
The government and doctors said hospitals needed medicines and equipment to keep health care centres going and even money to pay salaries and water treatment chemicals as the country's economic crisis bites ever harder.
According to the government and World Health Organisation, more than 560 people have died in the cholera epidemic and more than 12,500 cases recorded.
The state-run Herald newspaper said the government had declared the cholera outbreak "and the malfunctioning of central hospitals as national emergencies" on Wednesday and had appealed for international aid.
"Our central hospitals are literally not functioning," Health Minister David Parirenyatwa told a meeting of aid groups, the newspaper reported.
He put the death toll so far at 563. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Wednesday there were 565 deaths and 12,546 recorded cases.

Elsewhere, in Nigeria, people have no food and water.

Alertnet: Water, medicine and food supplies are running low for an estimated 10,000 people displaced by violence in Jos, northern Nigeria, following three days of violent clashes.
Calm has been restored to the city following sectarian violence that broke out on 27 November, but thousands of residents whose houses were burned down during the three days of fighting are still sheltering in mosques, churches, army barracks and hospitals.
"The city has virtually run out of food, water and medical supplies," Baba Hassan Ibrahim, deputy speaker of Plateau State parliament, told IRIN. "The injured and the displaced are bearing the brunt because they are surviving solely on inadequate relief items."
No medium-term government emergency programme has yet been announced for those who have lost their homes.
Jos grain market now "rubble"

Auto Chiefs Hit the Highway

Swamp: The Big Three auto makers all got their restructuring plans in to Congress and their chief executive officers are all reportedly in hybrid vehicles somewhere between Detroit and the nation's capital as they head to the first of two congressional hearings this week.

As someone who's driven from the Midwest to Washington, I hope they have a few good audiobooks. Ohio and Pennsylvania are much bigger in person than they seem from a corporate jet. Maybe they'll race each other along the Ohio Turnpike to keep things interesting. It all could be a great realty TV show: "Race to the Bottom," maybe?

The Swamp has links to Ford, GM's and Chrysler's restructuring plans.
WSJ says don't bother giving GM any money. They're doomed.

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.