Missed opportunity

Romney on Detroit auto industry bailout

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney said that General Motors and Chrysler should have gone through the bankruptcy process without the injection of $60 billion in taxpayer money that didn’t keep the companies out of bankruptcy court in the end.

Well, in this case, back in 2009, I was siding with Romney, but I understood the stakes. Yes, the American economy was going to go through a really rough shakeout, but I had foreseen that 30 years earlier, but I am not going to go back over what I was saying editorially back in the 1970s and 1980s.

No, something President Barack Obama said during the debate set off a cascade of thoughts in my head in relationship to the U.S. auto industry.

First, President Obama wasn’t talking about how he saved Detroit; he was talking about how the country had changed since 1916. Romney had pointed out that the U.S. Navy is smaller than it was before World War I and the president was saying a lot had changed, from bayonets (which are still used, Mr. President) and horses to aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines.

It was the horses’ thing that triggered my thoughts. Even though Special Forces guys rode to victory in Afghanistan (proving that even horses are not quite obsolete yet), it was the image of horse drawn carts that leapt into my mind.

In 1916, the U.S. (along with the rest of the world) was on the cusp of shifting from a horse-drawn world to a internal combustion engine-powered one, something like the world is facing now.

Ok, this is a stretch, but think about it. Detroit is heavily invested in internal combustion engines that run on things that burn, right? That is a no-brainer. Of course it is. I can think of more than one movie plot that has the “auto industry” in conjunction with the “oil companies” conspiring to suppress breakthrough technologies that revolutionize the auto industry.

Now, stop and think a moment. Why were GM and Chrysler doing so badly? Might it be that not only that they were stuck with union contracts that were sucking the life’s blood out of the industry but also because they were stuck with an old business model? Are they not still trying to sell horse-and-buggies to a world that needs Mr. Ford’s Model Ts.

What would have happened if the fossil-fuel based auto industry had been forced into bankruptcy? It might have had to reinvent itself. That is what the buggy makers did 100 years ago. Some made the transition to cars, but a lot didn’t. That is what happens in a truly progressive world where the world progresses and inspires innovations and new industries.

President Obama talks a big line when he talks about turning to alternative energies in the future, but when he had a chance to really change things, did he do it?

But no, our government was more concerned about doing the bidding of the auto unions. Don’t believe me? Then why did the unions get rescued, while those bond investors – who by law came first on the list of creditors – basically got the shaft and the door?

You see, one of the great things about the United States is that we used to be a nation of laws. Those laws applied to everybody and the president wasn’t busy waiving their application against this group or another.

You want to know why I have a problem with President Obama and his administration. The answer is right there: Its refusal to apply the laws of the nation equally, regardless of social status, economic status, racial status, religious status, etc.

Don’t complain about the wealthy not paying their share when 1 percent pay something like 40 percent of the federal income tax. Sorry, but that dog just doesn’t hunt.

Don’t grant states waivers to unpopular laws, while suing other states for trying to apply federal laws within their jurisdiction.

Don’t tell defense contractors they don’t have to abide by federal law and that the federal government will reimburse them for their violations if they get sued because they didn’t.

The U.S. missed a huge opportunity three years ago when it could have stood up and taken the body blow that would have hit the auto industry in Detroit. That auto industry could have taken that opportunity, as provided under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, to reorganize itself, reconfigure the industry and come out with a more forward looking product.

Nope, we missed out chance, because we were too afraid that the unions might take a hit and some people might get hurt.

Well, getting hurt is part of life. What marks the type of person you are is what you do when you get hurt, get knocked down, and then get up again. What you do then is the true indicator of the type of person and type of nation you are. What are you? What are we?