The house hearings with the tin cup delegation from Detroit showed how mediocre U.S. automotive managment is. This group is on deck for the failure. They then Search for Excellence in the form of a tax payer bailout? 

Their performance in front of the House Panel last week pointed out The Big 3's mediocre game plan. They lost sight of their business. Henry Ford didn't invent the automobile, he created the affordable automobile. Had GM's Rick Wagoner, Ford's Alan Mulally, and Chrysler's Bob Nardelli shown up with a vision that would save middle class jobs and America's Chevy's, Mustangs and Minivans they might have succeeded.

They delivered only one  C in Credibility - Confidence. They forgot about Compassion and Competence. Private jets showed an appalling lack of compassion and showing up without a business plan was rookie stupid and incompetent. They must be confused, Baseball is where .330 is awesome.

They left Washington with a couple directives. Come back when you come up with a plan and come back with a little more humility (and maybe some common sense).

I'm curious if the Big 3 plus the head of the UAW didn't consult Public Relations advisors, or if they disregarded their advice; because it sure looked like this foursome prepared for the wrong talking points - if they did any preparation at all. It would have been wise for the four of them to share a flight on the way to Washington just so they'd walk in with a shared strategic plan. They ended up fouling out on dozens of wild pitches.

They were broad sided by the uninformed. The political wind was against them and too many bobble heads had their sway ahead of them. The House Panel had made up their minds before the foursome walked into the Capitol building. It's hard to believe these four men didn't realize they had to do a pursuasive bit of talking to a hostile audience. It was obvious they had skipped out on practice the whole week. They were looking to where they were going before they caught the ball.

Here's what they need to do to make a come back.

First they need to repackage themselves. They need to be both more humble and  more respectful of those who they are asking for help. That starts with flying commercial, or maybe  driving there to make a point? ...and staying in moderate accomodations when they visit Washington. Brian Williams poked the best hole in these CEO's argument for private jets:

Citing CEO's "security" as a justification is a bit shaky: what are the real chances that Chrysler Chief Bob Nardelli is going to be attacked (or generally in any grave danger) while in a first class airline seat on a commercial flight to Washington? It turns out the only attack had to do with Congressional, media and public reaction to his flight to Washington by private jet.

One big hurdle these execs must clear is the amazing amount of disinformation  that is spewed by the  Republicans, financial analysts, talking heads, pundits and MSM bobble heads that doesn't always add up. Another is that they need to stop looking at labor as the enemy and more like they are team mates. Another sticking point is, "Why the Auto Industry?" because Life Insurers and endowment funds are about to pitch their needs too. The Big Three needs to show, not say, why they are vital to our economy. They need to talk about how their recovery will fit into the overall economic recovery.

GM, Ford and Chrysler are only looking for help along the lines that Toyota, Mercedes Benz, Honda and Hyundai received. The differences being that the transplants received the help years ago when they didn't need it, the help came at their host state's expense and today's price tag is much higher.

GM, Ford and Chrysler pays their labor 12% more in wages than the U.S. Toyota, Honda and Hyundai factories. The big three need to acknowledge that labor did concede on wages in a 2 tier compensation plan. They need to make law makers see that labor has negotiated.

Automakers have already wrung billions in concessions out of the United Autoworkers over the last three years, and even if union workers agreed to work for free it would only shave 5 percent off the cost of their cars.

Let's repeat that point: if the autoworkers worked for no salary at all, it would cut just 5 percent off the cost of their cars.

GM, Ford and Chrysler pays out far more in legacy costs to retirees than the Toyota, Honda and Hyundai does world wide.

Health care costs are killing GM, Ford and Chrysler's competitiveness far more that Toyota, Honda and Hyundai because the Asian auto makers do not pay retiree health care benefits in their home countries (or here for that matter) and the transplant factories are too young to face that problem yet.

For the last quarter-century, Toyota, Honda and Nissan have strived to appear to American consumers like homegrown companies.

They built a string of manufacturing plants in the South, employing tens of thousands of local workers. They hired American designers. They spent millions on ads to trumpet their growing roots in communities across the country.

"Being a good corporate citizen starts with hiring lots of good citizens," one Toyota ad says.

Yet as they built up their operations, the Japanese "transplants" have worked hard not to resemble an American car company in one vital respect: how they treat their retirees.

"We want to avoid commitments when we have no control over their costs," said Pete Gritton, the head of human resources for Toyota's United States manufacturing operations. "We can't build in things in such a way that we won't be able to keep our commitments later."

Until recently, the issue has mostly been academic for the Japanese car companies. Most of the American factory workers they started hiring in the mid-1980's are still working.

But age is creeping up on them. All three Japanese companies are anticipating that the ranks of retirees will swell over the next several years. Toyota's American arm, for example, has just 258 retired production workers (G.M., by contrast, has more than 400,000 retirees).

But things will change over the next five years. In 2011 and 2012, a combined 1,700 workers will be eligible for retirement at Toyota -- about 6 percent of its current labor force.

The Big Three need to make the case to lawmakers that the transplant automotive industry is just earlier in the cycle than they are. They need to organize their position more strategically and come up with better tactics than they displayed last week. They need to organize their water bearers and get them on Morning Joe, Olbermann, Hardball,  and yeah, even take on the likes of Lou Dobbs and Neil Cavuto; because last week, was a reenactment of the Mighty Casey Strikes Out.

They need to admit they underfunded their contracturally mandated pension plans and emulated the U.S. social security system's pay as you go plan amd then explain how they are going to proceed.

They need to defend their products. I've seen here and everywhere that the Honda's and Toyota's are more reliable cars, but have you ever looked into why? It's because the foreign automakers don't put in the amenities American car makers do. I happen to have both a Dodge Caravan and a Honda CR-V. There's no doubt the CR-V is the "better" car. It doesn't break, but why is it we like the Caravan better? It's simple things like the rheostat on the windshield wipers. The Honda's rheostat doesn't break but it has on 3 settings: too darn slow, too friggin fast, and the mid range isn't just right either. Compare that to Dodge's 12 setting rheostat that ranges from every now and then to fast as I need. Honda's don't have visor extensions or tethers on their gas caps. Toyotas don't have turn signal indicators in their rear view mirrors. More amenities to break. More complicated cars break more often.

After they eat enough crow, then they need to deliver their plan. The devised business plan must take these automakers forward. All 3 of the Big Three must recapture Henry Ford's original focus; building affordable cars and trucks. That plan needs to:
1. Show how they are going to manage the nuts and bolts of their business to meet their target customer's needs. It needs to show time tables, cost cuttings and reappropriation of their resources.
2. Deal effectively with their legacy (retiree costs) of health care and pensions. They also need to a plan for current employee health costs, which may include a call for Universal Health Care.
3. Deal effectively with executive compensation to labor cost ratio and bring it down from the 261:1 it is now (Wagoneer $15.7 mil in 2007 vs. $60,000 for avg assembly line worker).
4. The plan must call for a moritorium on dividends.
5. The plan should offer the tax payer a stake in the business. A good old voting stock swap for a loan. We'll sell the stock back post recovery. That way we'll have a chance of getting our money back.
6. The plan needs to call for an infusion of some new key players in the managment team. Yep, they are going to have to offer up some resignations.

Once they pitch their plan they then The Big Three needs to engage the punditocracy who is oblivious to how adroitly they speak out of both sides of their mouth at the same time. Just last Friday, Pat Buchanan decried the auto bailout then called for "something to be done" to save Citibank - all within a 3 minute span on Morning Joe. Just about all the MSM are calling for a renegotiation with the UAW. It's easier for people on the sidelines to take the talking heads' talking points as gospel, but the truth is found a little deeper than our superficial media pundits dig.

Considering how poorly the $700 bil bank bailout money is going along. It makes sense that other bailouts are going more slowly. Finding out $25-$50 bil for the automotive industry has got to be part of a bigger plan that focuses on the middle class. We need to do it with the right kind of string attached. The U.S. economic recovery plan needs to stimulate a broad selection of businesses, not just ancillary businesses dependent on Detroit. 

Crossposted at dkos.