Gedachtengang van Republikeinen over autoindustrie

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Het lukt me niet om een coherente gedachtengang by de Republikeinen te
ontdekken over wat te doen met de Amerikaanse autoindustrie.

Sinds de Iraanse revolutie (1979) en de Iran-Irak oorlog (1980) is de
prijsontwikkeling van olie nergens gevolgd door een beleidswijziging bij
de Amerikaanse automakers.
In de rest van de wereld hebben wel wijzigingen plaatsgevonden.
Ze verliezen de laatste 30 jaar gemiddeld 0,7% marktaandeel per jaar en
zijn nu (op Ford na) te zwak geworden om de crisis door te komen.

Toch blijven de Republikeinen er op harpen dat de regering niet mag
ingrijpen, maar 'de markt' zijn werk moet laten doen.

Hopelijk voor de werknemers (en de industrie in USA) komt er door Obama
een redelijke oplossing (Pensioenverplichting GM $45miljard, marktwaarde
GM $2miljard, 243000 direkte werknemers)

Groet / Cees

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-gm-policy31-2009mar31,0,6371904.story

Reporting from Washington -- President Obama's plan to save failing U.S.
automakers -- and make them the instruments for creating a cleaner,
greener transportation system -- marked a major step across the line that
traditionally separates government from private industry.

His announcement Monday of a new position on bailing out Detroit went
beyond a desire to be sure tax dollars were not wasted in bailing out
struggling companies. It put the Obama administration squarely in the
position of adopting a so-called industrial policy, in which government
officials, not business executives or the free market, decided what kinds
of products a company would make and how it would chart its future.

His automotive task force concluded, for example, that the Chevy Volt, the
electric car being developed by General Motors Corp., would be too
expensive to survive in the marketplace. It declared that GM was still
relying too much on high-margin trucks and SUVs, and that Chrysler's best
hope was to merge with a foreign automaker, Fiat.

Judgments like those are usually rendered in corporate boardrooms or
announced in quarterly reports. But this time they were coming directly
from the White House.

The notion that it was the president, not car company executives, who
would pick such a course drew immediate criticism, especially from
conservatives.

"When did the president become an expert in strategic corporate
management?" said Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), chairman of the conservative
Republican Study Committee. "The federal government is famous for its
mismanagement, yet this administration continues to demonstrate its
certainty that Washington always knows best."

Sen. Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican, called it a "power grab" that
"should send a chill through those who believe in free enterprise."

And Rush Limbaugh declared in his daily radio broadcast, "There's always
been a line, ladies and gentlemen, over which no president would cross
with respect to the distinction between the public and private sectors.
Obama has now crossed that line where there is no limit to government's
destruction of private activity or control over it."

Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice) defended the administration, suggesting that
Detroit had had its chance. "My feeling is that we were too tolerant for
too long and this is the tough medicine the taxpayer wants. And we have to
reinvent our auto industry, or it will die."

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