I keep hearing Friedman and others say that we need to bail out the auto industry but only if they agree to make green cars.  As if GM would suddenly be more profitable if they just decided to make green cars.  Sure we all agree that America needs green cars and the company that can deliver the best technology the quickest will make a lot of money but I think this approach Friedman takes misses the point entirely.  The reason GM is in the shape it's in today isn't just because it choose to make SUV's vs. more fuel efficient cars.  GM is in the shape it's in today because the cars it makes can't compete in terms of price or customer satisfaction with other foreign car manufacturers.  Take a look at GM's Income Statement for the past several quarters and you'll see that GM has been in a death spiral for quite some time now.  My point is that as a tax payer I don't see the point in funding an Auto Company that makes bad "green" cars any more than I want to fund an auto company that makes bad SUVs.  A bad car is a bad car and not enough people are going to buy them to make GM profitable, which means that GM will either continue to get more money from the tax payers or go bankrupt.

All that being said I don't want to see the US auto industry go under, especially now that the economy is so weak.  So I'm actually for saving the auto industry the question is how to do it.  The other options I have heard are assign a new auto czar.  I just roll my eyes at this one.  Does any one think the thing that GM most needs to be profitable is one more layer of bureaucracy?   The other idea I've heard is requiring the CEO and possibly the board to resign.  While the thought of this may give me some personal satisfaction I doubt that it would do much good.  Even if you got lucky enough to hire a truly gifted CEO it would be nearly impossible for him to break through the layers of entrenched malaise that permeates through every level of GM.  Simply put GM is the antithesis of the innovative culture that America embraces and needs now more than ever.

 
Since just bailing GM out is a waste of money and letting GM fail is far too painful what should we do?  My solution is to break GM up into several pieces like they did with the old AT&T and fund the pieces long enough for them to get started.  My reasoning is that while some of the newly formed companies will go under others will innovate and thrive.  With each company competing on fairly equal footing they will all have an opportunity to succeed.  Having several auto companies competing can only be a good thing.

 

You watch in awe at the artistry and the skill while holding your breath in anticipation of the inevitable fall by one of the contestants and once it's over you rage about the unfairness of the subjective scoring.

I like to play and watch tennis.  Every once in awhile you see a match that is very close but at some point one of the players either begins to cramp or gets a minor injury.  The initial reaction of the healthy player is always a blood in the water opertunity that can't be missed. While you would think this would spell doom for the hampered player often times it ends up working to their advantage.  What happens most often is the healthy player starts to try to change their game to best take advantage of the injury by making the injured player move more and playing safe, thinking that it will quicken their demise.  What usually happens however is the healthy player will start to over think the points and play tenative passing up oppertunities that they otherwise would have taken advantage of and giving their opponent easy shots.  The net effect is the injured player often ends up winning a match that earlier looked hopeless

When John McCain picked Sarah Palin I thought to myself that it was blood in the water and that Barack should go after her hard.  Now that I've had a chance to step back a little I think that Barack would be best served to stick with the stragety that he's been using.  Let America judge weather or not Sarah Palin was a good choice.  I think the pick speaks for itself.  Give her enough rope and sooner or later she will hang herself.  Don't get me wrong if McCain starts in on the Barack's not experienced enough he has to push back by saying "Look who McCain thinks is experienced enough ..." but attacking her out of the gate is more likely to back fire on him.