Rather than providing a bailout, Michael Moore wants the government to buy up the Detroit auto makers outright, and hire effective managers to restructure the industry. Moore writes, “These idiots don’t deserve a dime. Fire all of them, and take over the industry for the good of the workers, the country and the planet.”
Moore claims that the government could buy all of GM stock for less than $3 billion. Moore writes, “This proposal is not radical or rocket science. … What I’m proposing has worked before. The national rail system was in shambles in the ’70s. The government took it over. A decade later it was turning a profit, so the government returned it to private/public hands, and got a couple billion dollars put back in the treasury.”
Moore says, “This proposal will save our industrial infrastructure — and millions of jobs. More importantly, it will create millions more. It literally could pull us out of this recession.”
Moore says, “I care about what happens with the Big 3 because they are more responsible than almost anyone for the destruction of our fragile atmosphere and the daily melting of our polar ice caps.
“Congress must save the industrial infrastructure that these companies control and the jobs they create. And it must save the world from the internal combustion engine. This great, vast manufacturing network can redeem itself by building mass transit and electric/hybrid cars, and the kind of transportation we need for the 21st century.”
Moore says that any bailout money given to Detroit at this point would simply be wasted. He says, “Let me just state the obvious: Every single dollar Congress gives these three companies will be flushed right down the toilet. There is nothing the management teams of the Big 3 are going to do to convince people to go out during a recession and buy their big, gas-guzzling, inferior products. Just forget it. And, as sure as I am that the Ford family-owned Detroit Lions are not going to the Super Bowl — ever — I can guarantee you, after they burn through this $34 billion, they’ll be back for another $34 billion next summer.”
Is it easier to get rid of auto workers and money still owed to them through health care, than it is to get rid of the auto executives? Conservatives want to reduce the work force and particular reduce what workers are paid, through a bankruptcy. The bankruptcy “reforms” that made bankruptcy more difficult and expensive for individuals does not apply to corporations. What if you did that to executives, replace them the way Obama people will replace Bush people in Washington?Could you find some executives to run GM and maybe do some good things like build reliable cars and build plants for fuel efficient cars instead of closing them down? That dynamic used to happen when you had leveraged buyouts, but mostly that was “corporate raisers” trying to loot companies rather than make them better. If we need some personal responsibility from companies instead of just individuals, how do we make that happen?
The issue is obviously socialism. The liberal illuminati seems so in support of the government taking over that they’ve ignored the fact the government is often very ineffective.
Why should we be surprised,that’s the way communists talk.
Moore is recommending that the government simply buy up the Detroit automakers outright. Government ownership of the means of production is often cited as a component of one type of socialism. So what. Why should we be afraid of a word? Can we not have government ownership and a strong democracy all at the same time?
What we need are solutions that bring the most benefit to the most people and we need to think creatively about what type of institutions will best serve our democracy in the future. Government ownership of the Detroit auto industry, it seems to me, should be one option that should be analyzed and discussed.
Let’s get real, MichaelLet’s get real, giving Michael Moore any serious consideration about how a business should be managed, is what liberals like to say about George Bush commanding our armed forces. I worked in the auto factories. It was hard work but I made more than the average blue-collar worker did by about two and a half dollars an hour. I had great medical coverage also. Moore spews his B.S. Detroit ruined the planet etc… to ad nauseam. I would love to see how Moore acted when he turned 16. What kind of gas guzzling gm car did he drive? What a hypocrite. Why doesn’t this blow hard get a few of his millionaire buddies and start an eco friendly business that produces the “environmental dream car”. I‘ll tell you why, because he hasn’t worked a day in his life and he wouldn’t know the first thing about running a successful business.
This isn’t the time to kick the Big 3 in the teeth. Sure, the C.E.O.’s have made some “big” mistakes, but these companies have been integral for working class stiffs like me to live the American dream since the 50’s. Making them wards of the government is definitely not answer either. Let’s just use our old Welfare model as an example. Those who espouse the socialistic model are those who don’t want to pull all their own weight. They are usually looking to do the minimum while being insured by the government.
Sweden, France, Denmark, are all socialistic leaning countries. They are not the model we should start using as examples to start chipping away at the great capitalistic system.
Moore is an simply an ideologue
You really ought to read what Moore actually says. For instance “None of us want government officials running a car company, . . . . ” Sounds like a communist to me. Conservatives throw these terms socialist and communist around these days like they were calling names on a school playground, which is essentially what they are doing. Admittedly Moore is often an aggravating personality in his films, and he even had me feeling sorry for poor dementia ridden Charlton Heston in the Columbine movie, even though all of Moore’s points about Heston’s contributions to gun violence are correct. He does sandbag a lot of the people he interviews, but if they know he’s coming and have a chance to prepare they won’t deal with his points up front either. That’s the point of his films. I don’t know that Moore could run a car company himself, let alone if he was more of a jerk at 16 than the rest of us, but what he says here makes a lot more sense than the posts critical of him.
What we should be doing is figure out ways to actually promote what is good for the public through the public’s institution of government, without having the ineffective bureaucracies that worry ew and Joe, the rapaciousness of the great capitalist system that is sinking the finance industry, or the dysfunctional corporate culture of the auto industry that wants to keep things like they were in the fifties but hasn’t figured out how to catch up to the foreign cars in quality, let alone prepare for the inevitable oil shortage of the future.
Stan, I did read what Mike said,
Moore says, “I care about what happens with the Big 3 because they are more responsible than almost anyone for the destruction of our fragile atmosphere and the daily melting of our polar ice caps.
I do not care one way or the other about Mike Moore but what an idiotic statement. I am not going to waste my time or this space by debunking his self-serving “documentary” rhetoric.
The capitalistic system is incapable of greed in and of itself. The greed of INDIVIDUALS in the corporate world, hollywood, ideological driven documentary producers, trail lawyers, unethical doctors, hedge fund mangers, predatory lenders, etc… is why our economy is in the worst shape it has been since the depression. Individual greed is the culprit in our economic meltdown.
The big three have narrowed the quality gap immensely with their foreign counterparts. As for our dependence on oil, that is just the way it is going to be for a least the next 20 years and that is an optimistic outlook. We have oil within our own borders but it is unattainable because of over regulation and frivolous lawsuits. I have been a “realistic” environmentalist for over 30 years. Much has been accomplished during this time. Unfortunately, Mike and Al spent time making their money by being part of the problem instead of developing a solution. Until the time mass transportation no longer need the combustion engine, the latté plastic bottle sipping water crowd will need oil.
Capitalism is the only economic system in the world can spur the intellect need to create and invent the necessary technology required to make our planet the idyllic place we all dream it should be.
The greed of individuals is certainly to blame but the system makes it possible, and even probable, to be harmful. Two of the members of this eclectic list are predatory lenders and hedge fund managers. The subprime market worked in a way that it essentially paid people to make bad loans because 1. loan originators got paid large sums of money, pretty much unrelated to how much work they had to do, up front regardless of whether the loan was good or bad, and 2. because the loans were then sold and bundled on the secondary market, and because the laws protecting consumers were so weak, there were no effective consequences for making bad loans. So we got what we paid for, the perps just closed up shop or reorganized when the day of reckoning came, and the rest of us are stuck with the consequences. That is a system problem. Asking when self interest, acquisitiveness and ambition become greed is a little like asking when a pig becomes a hog, but at some point peoples’ effort for themselves at the expense of everyone else becomes destructive. An economic system that allows greed to run amok, essentially by purchasing the government that is supposed to regulate for the public interest, is a system that needs to be changed. Initiative should be rewarded but there must be limits to those rewards, particularly when they come at the expense of others rather than for their betterment, which happens too often.
No, we do not want the government to run auto companies or much else. Government is inherently inefficient and for good reasons. Part is politics. A more important reasons is oversight and public policy. There is a lot of inefficiencies mandated into governmental organizations to increase oversight into their operations. After all, the Constitution state that money can’t be drawn from the treasury except as appropriated by Congress.