The Big Three Million

The hot topic over the last week or two has been the proposal to offer some kind of bailout to the “Big Three” American auto manufacturers — Ford, General Motors and Chrysler — all of whom, most immediately General Motors, are struggling to survive the current economic crisis.

Now, I don’t know about you, but the American automobile, whatever its breed, has been near and dear to my heart since I ran with the ‘rodders back in high school — back in the day when I could tell you the make and model of everything coming down the pike.

There were certain rules that I still take as sacrosanct, too: You might drive a Ford family car, but your old pickup was always a Chevy and the van conversion had to be a Dodge.

Suffice to say those days are past; I began to lose track somewhere between the MG-TD and the Lamborghini, and finally gave up trying when the Japanese started building pickup trucks.

Thirty years ago it made good sense to want an American vehicle; no matter the buzz that Mercedes might be better engineered or that a Volkswagen or Renault got better mileage, it just seemed practical to avoid the possibility of being stranded for days in some remote village without ready access to foreign parts.

Then the economy got all global and now foreign cars are made right here in America, but old habits die hard and I confess to a visceral loyalty to the American originals. So it matters to me, for that reason if no other, what happens to our automobile industry.

The possibilities being debated among members of Congress and opined upon by an array of media pundits range from government loans to bankruptcy, with a few hard-hearted suggestions that nothing at all be done because “they brought it upon themselves.”

Maybe so. But who deserves punishment? Certainly not the almost three million Americans whose jobs will likely be lost if just General Motors is allowed to die!

It’s said that one in every five American jobs would be affected: after all, it’s not just the assembly-line workers in Detroit, but also the companies that make the components, the truck drivers who transport the new cars all around the country, and the salespeople and mechanics in the dealerships; consider, too, the graphic designers and video producers who create the new car advertisements, the Madison avenue types who sell them and the media that publish them . . . you get the picture. And it’s not pretty.

So it may be tempting to say “It’s their problem,” but it’s much bigger than that.

If your neighbor lights his roof on fire by burning leaves on a windy day, you could say it’s his problem, too. But that doesn’t mean you refuse to call the fire department just because it would cost taxpayer money to run that red truck over and put out the fire.

You call the fire department because, among other really good reasons, that fire just might spread to your house and then it is definitely your problem.

Interestingly, folks who favor bankruptcy as a solution almost always seem to get around to the appeal of “tearing up union contracts,” which makes me wonder whether they are more interested in helping to rescue the industry or in getting rid of unions. These same folks also complain about the pensions retired workers are receiving.

What is it with these people? Pension envy?

If someone is to be punished it could be management, it could be labor, it could even be the public that demanded what Detroit was selling. For years – well, just about forever, the big three resisted safety changes that cost money, increasing gas mileage – which would cost money, building smaller cars, and so on, and yes, they did bring it on themselves.

But that just makes a case for spreading the punishment around, to borrow a phrase, rather than socking it to workers and the economy that workers support.

We can provide bridge loans to the auto industry but with serious conditions: we can require that they retool ASAP to build fuel-efficient cars and hybrids; we can demand that the unions concede some of their hard-won benefits and that managers and stockholders take serious cuts in pay.

I heard one of the opponents of a bailout cry, “But it will cost money! Where are we supposed to get the money?” Maybe from the same place that’s providing the money for the war in Iraq? Where did we get the money for the AIG bailout?

In fact, the main bailout proposal being talked about would get the money from the $700 billion already on hand for economic relief, and would amount to only 4% of those funds.

But it won’t be enough just to help the industry get past the present crisis; we can do more to help rebuild and stabilize this hub of American manufacturing, at the same time working to reduce our dependence on oil. Robert Goodman, a professor of environmental design writing for the New York Times, suggests that

As part of its loan package, the government should insist on the development of "transportmaker business plans" from the car companies, with specific timelines for developing more fuel-efficient cars. The companies should also provide detailed plans to transform some of their factories into research and manufacturing centers for the development of light-rail cars and high-speed trains and buses. (In some cases, these could run on existing tracks and on the median strips of Interstate highways; in others, entirely new lanes and tracks would be built.) . . .

During World War II, the auto companies converted their factories to build not only military trucks and jeeps, but also airplanes, weapons, tanks and other vehicles. Ford’s Willow Run plant built thousands of B-24 bombers, becoming the world’s biggest bomber plant.

The research and production capacity that the car companies built during the 20th century could be adapted for the needs of the 21st.

Sounds like a plan to me!