I am glad to see consistency among Republicans (see below). The domination of opportunism and total lack of principles by the auto industry does not merit a bailout by our government – it requires rather a swift kick in the pants followed by solitary confinement for enough duration that a new generation of auto executives takes over our auto industry.
This new generation of leaders (new in the sense of attitude, not necessarily by their age) will be attuned to environmental concerns as well as the new world of energy, materials, engine design, and safety. They will, if it is not too late already, make the USA auto industry once more leaders in the best sense of the word. In my mind, leadership is not just the quarterly bottom line, but also setting a pattern in harmony with social needs including long-term reputation as being ethical as well as profit-driven.
It has been proven that being "green", specifically, can be turned into a profitable approach. In my philosophy the best of both worlds is when a new, environmentally sound, ethical approach to business can be innovated and developed as a way of increasing profits. There should be no greenwashing – no, our entire way of life should be immersed in green.
Meanwhile, in a totally non-partisan sense, I am worried about the government's absorbing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: what will that do to our national debt, taxpayer burden, and the methods of our financial system ("lose money big, you'll get bailed out").
I have to think that the massive deregulation of our financial systems and the old banking restrictions that have been decimated, have a large part in bringing about this collapse. For those who follow history, you may already know, the previous period that had comparable de-regulation was, you guessed it, the 1920s, leading to the Great Depression in 1929 into the 1930s.
Corey Boles reports from St. Paul, Minn., on the Republican convention.
Senior Republicans gathered here aren't too happy with the U.S. auto industry's pleas for bigger federal loans — up to $50 billion — supposedly to finance a switch to more green vehicles.
"We don't want our automobile industry to go down, but on the other hand, they've made a lot of bad choices," said Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch. "It's a worry about how large the help from the federal government has to be."
Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor who has deep ties to Michigan where his father was governor and chairman of American Motors Corp., said the last thing the federal government should be considering is spending "dumb money" to bail out the auto industry. "Having come from a world of business, you're always looking for what we called dumb money, somebody who would put their money in and not ask for anything in return," Romney said in an interview Thursday. "I'd be careful never to have the government become dumb money."
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