On Nov 11, 8:29*pm, joe wrote:

No, it is because Detroit makes too many big vehicles and too few fuel
efficient cars. It is because the high price of gas has finally made people
think about driving a vehicle that uses a lot of gas. It is because the
turmoil in the banking industry has made credit difficult to get.

If sales were down 30% because people lost their jobs, then 30% of the
people must have lost their jobs. But that is not true. Unemployment
numbers are much lower.

The recent reduction in car sales does not track the jobs lost. You have
nothing that shows there is a connection.

As far as fuel efficiency and building the "right" cars, there is no
reason why an American company cannot crank out plug-in electric
hybrid cars, using state-of-the-art electronics/chips and software,
and improved materials and battery technology. If any country on
earth could implement a better crash program to make carbon fiber
manufacturing, battery capacity, clean tiny hybrid engines, and
optimum management electronics for maximum range and utility, I'd be
surprised.

All that's needed is a "can-do" attitude, an investment (not bail-out)
in basic R&D in all these areas, and a sustained push to get it done.

THOSE high-technology cars are the American cars that will sell in
Germany, or the UK, or Canada, as well as here.

Not crappy cost-cutting gas-guzzlers designed considering only
domestic appeal, which are outscored by Korean imports.





The Unions can be -part- of the problem. In the late 30s, management was
grossly abusing the workers and there was a *legitimate* need for
unions. In later years, the unions may have gone too far -- it seems the
pendulum swings too far in both directions. (However, there is still a
limited need for unions even today -- witness Wal-Mart).

Yes, financially they are doing well compared to their competition.



However, I respectfully suggest you are not looking at the whole
picture. Possibly I didn't make my point clear enough or possibly you
overlooked it. It has NOTHING to do with the auto companies (or unions)
per se; it has EVERYTHING to do with Joe and Sally Citizen, who -buy-
the cars.

If the auto companies were making more fuel efficient cars, they would have
better sales. Look at the Toyota Prius, one of the most fuel efficient cars
around. They are selling quite well. (Notice how Toyota is running
promotions on all cars except the Prius. The don't need incentives to sell
them.)

It has a lot to do with the auto companies. The management has chosen to
ignore fuel efficient cars for too long.

When years of service is the merit of an employee rather than productivity
and quality of work, then the unions are part of the problem.



The people that -buy- the cars, everybody from the the guy that makes
bed pans to the guy that makes bicycles, has seen their jobs go
overseas. Once they have lost that good paying American manufacturing
job to other countries, they don't have the money to buy a new car,
domestic OR Toyota.

Are you implying those who don't have a manufacturing job don't buy cars?

Thus my original point that you seem to have
overlooked: Bush sending even *more* jobs overseas is -not- going to
help this country one bit, and indeed, he seems not to realize that this
'outsourcing' leaves less money for our citizens to buy American made
products, nor does he realize the irony that his deal with Colombia (and
Mexico and Haiti and India and China) is why the auto companies need to
be bailed out.

OK, bail out the car companies, so they can do what? Build more cars that
nobody wants to buy? That doesn't solve any problems. If one company has to
fail, so be it. That is the nature of our economy. The survivors may see
more sales.

Jobs go overseas because companies can't compete. Figure out why that is and
you can start to solve the problem.

Jobs moving overseas is a symptom of the problem, not the cause. You need to
address the cause.

wrote:

snip
As far as fuel efficiency and building the "right" cars, there is no
reason why an American company cannot crank out plug-in electric
hybrid cars, using state-of-the-art electronics/chips and software,
and improved materials and battery technology. If any country on
earth could implement a better crash program to make carbon fiber
manufacturing, battery capacity, clean tiny hybrid engines, and
optimum management electronics for maximum range and utility, I'd be
surprised.

I fear that there may be intellectual property rights issues involving
advanced battery technology that for now is the province of Asian
concerns and is a real impediment to U.S. domestic development. Add
to that the nationwide disregard and often rejection of science and
technology priority and initiative in the last decade and it is no
surprise that we currently lack the capability to mount a program
that you suggest. At least McCain voiced support of a program to
develop a nuclear powered nationwide grid to support plug-in vehicles
and also showed some public support for NASA and space exploration;
Obama has been absolutely silent on space and has no real interest
in nuclear technology, and would probably be pressured into rejecting
it from pressure by certain interest groups. I am not a Republican,
but I fear for our future as a source of innovation and initiative
under the upcoming administration. I have thought of proposing an
email campaign to folks such as astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson
who is very strong on NASA and space exploration, to encourage
lobbying the new administration to strongly support space, tech r&d
and science at all levels.

Michael

msg wrote:

snip
Obama has been absolutely silent on space and has no real interest
in nuclear technology

snip

I withdraw this statement, as I have not done any real research other
than reading reports of what was on the campaign's website; in fact
Obama is on record as not a friend of NASA -- see:
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1100/1

Obama’s modest proposal: no hue, no cry?
by Greg Zsidisin
Monday, April 7, 2008

[Editor’s Note: This is part 1 of a three-part article.]

If elected President, Senator Barack Obama plans to delay Project
Constellation for at least five years, putting the saved money into
a new $10-billion-a-year education program that would, in essence,
nationalize early-education for children under five years old to
prepare them for the rigors of kindergarten and beyond.

Why single out the space budget to cut for this program? “NASA is
no longer associated with inspiration,” Obama told a campaign rally
audience in March. The silence from space advocacy groups in response
to this policy, made public in November, has been deafening. As I have
discovered in recent weeks, Obama is personally adamant about this
approach, if the details of its implementation remain hazy.

Attacking the space program, as poorly funded as it is, and singling
out a very important discovery program such as this, to me is
unconscionable, while sabre rattling about Iran's nuclear program
and heading into a bigger morass in Afghanistan. So much for the
waves of grass-roots populism that purportedly put him in office -
it reeks of the techno-hatred of the hippie movement, and yet it
was technology willingly exploited by the masses, with cell-phones
growing from their ears and fat pipes to the 'Net that they so
willingly have co-opted, that comprise the tools credited with giving
his campaign the edge.

Michael

y'all think that SON OF A BITCH G.W.Bush is a Republican? WRONG! He is
a SON OF A BITCH Nazi, just like his dad!
cuhulin