I wish.

perhaps, but to go off of -what ifs- is dangerous. Moreover while there are NSA issues at stake, the hope is a company (preferably American) would come in take over the GM patrimony and start off anew with much better governance and product. I don’t want manufacturing to go away rather want it to be run reasonably and responsibly

Are you willing to give up your mileage runs, long weekend jaunts overseas, and job that depends on air travel for the sake of conserving fossil fuels?

Likewise. I'm open to any reasonable suggestion that achieves this result. Given that time is of the essence, I sense doors of possibility may be closing day-by-day.

I hope a carbon-neutral alternative to Jet-A is developed in the near future. IIRC, some Lab had developed a bacterium that can excrete Bio-Diesel at a price that's competitive with fossil-fuels. It would take an area the size of Alabama to generate enough Bio-Diesel to satisfy domestic demand. I nominate Alabama. :D

Dont go running and put words in my mouth :) I was NOT in favor of the bailout at all! And we are seeing how usless that was, 1/2 of it is in and good banks and bad ones alike are having massive issues. (A side note, the greed and spending of some execs from banking world was far worse then I what I have seen from the Big 3, though still does not make it right)

And while I dont want a depression, what you advocate, I think would still bring on a depression. You have not treated the problem rather a symptom

Sometimes the symptoms can be fatal. You gotta do some triage before you can work on the deeper, underlying issues. Both should be addressed.

Maybe, but who's going to finance that restructuring? Especially at a time when the banking industry is in the mess that it's currently in? And the fact is that bankruptcy will further erode consumer confidence in the products produced by GM, Ford, and Chrysler. New car sales are already in the toilet in the US for all automakers, both foreign and domestic. Honestly, would you buy a new GM that's not as reliable as a Honda or Toyota, or even a Hyundai or Kia, when GM is bankrupt with a completely uncertain future? When there's no guarantee that the dealer you purchased the car from will be in business 90 days from when you purchased the car? When there's a possibility that there won't be a network of dealers to service the car under warranty when something breaks on it after 20,000 miles? Most consumers are going to flee to the Japanese, Korean, and European automakers. The US automakers have already had to resort to 0% interest, massive rebates, and other concessions for years to artificially generate demand for their products. Bankruptcy would probably mean what few sales they're still making would evaporate. In that situation, getting the financing to reorganize would be extremely difficult, if not impossible.

I'm not a big fan of the government just bailing every business that fails out. But this is an incredibly bad situation the the entire nation's economy, and it's happening at a time when the rest of the economy is in pretty bad shape. If that entire industry was to fail, and we saw liquidations of most of GM and Chrysler, and a combination of government money and foreign investment used to prop up Ford and keep it open (and this is exactly the scenario many auto industry analysts see happening), it might take decades for the US economy to recover; it's quite possible we'd be plunged into a depression that makes the 1930s look like it was nothing.

Given the alternatives of seeing this nation plunged into that kind of depression or investing money into the auto industry to keep it alive, and then working on turning it around and making it a viable industry that produces competitive products, I'd rather see the government's involvement in the latter.

It's not permitting, it's the fact that a UPS for the government is actually different than a standard one.

If we do fight WWIII it would not be fought like WWII. Just like WWII was not fought like WWI.

All of the arguments I've read have leaned more toward a very contained conflict rather than a massive world at war scenario. But that is beyond the scope of the discussion.

There are stockpiles of military equipment that has been mothballed but could easily be turned out for use. My biggest fear would be munitions and munitions supply. A JDAM takes a lot more work to make versus an iron bomb dropped during WWII.

A somewhat decent amount, based on my observations.

:rolleyes: for good measure. :D


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Yes. But I don't see what that has to do with the auto-industry.

I would like to see the U.S. become more of a mass-transit country but it won't happen. We like driving. I think that car makers will adapt, nuclear power will become a mainstay and hydrogen vehicles will be a mainstay.

And I'm done with politics in this thread. My apologies for leading it off into the netherworld.

Could it also be that the proprietary technology/processes for much military hardware is kept secret (and for good reason)? In time of a massive conflict, though, perhaps it would behoove the government to share the technological/manufacturing know-how to ramp-up production by other suppliers as necessary.

I'm not so sure about the viability of Hydrogen in the near to medium term. I think Plug-In Hybrids powered by renewable energy sources may come to dominate the market.