Okay, so you want more than that. Yes, I think it's necessary, because of what North America would look like without them -- and I don't just mean directly. I live in a GM town -- one where the automaker has closed an on-site subsidiary and a truck plant so far. It's tough enough for outlying businesses just when the plants close down for two weeks each year on summer holidays. You should see it when a plant closes for good.
When people think about auto companies, they think about men and women bolting parts together on the line. They don't think about how much further that goes. The feeder plants that make the parts, and all the people they employ. The company that supplies the cafeteria, and the company that provides them with the bread and beans and bagels. The companies that make the shipping containers, the work gloves, the bathroom tissue, the companies that deliver it, the companies that take it away. It's almost impossible to comprehend the amount of material in an auto plant that isn't even related to the cars, and all of that comes from somewhere.
Certainly you can say that the Detroit Three helped bring this on themselves, but that doesn't make things any better. You can castigate a welfare mother for birthing a new baby, but that doesn't change the fact that mother and baby need to eat to stay alive. The three automakers should have become leaner and meaner 25 years ago, but they didn't. That was then, but we have to fix it now.
Don't think they aren't trying; for the most part, these three are turning out the best and the most fuel-efficient vehicles they've ever made, but it takes time. I'm very tired of opening the paper each day and seeing yet another letter to the editor where someone says, "GM needs to immediately start making the Volt/microcars/cars that run on coffee." Quite simply, you do not convert auto production in a day, or a week, or a month, or in many months. The cars coming off the line right now were designed and engineered years ago. Flexible manufacturing helps immensely, but the reality is that an all-new vehicle needs to be tooled, dies must be made, parts must be sourced, the supply chain must be adjusted, people must be trained, advertising must be focused, dealers must be prepared, and that's just the big stuff. I've talked to designers. It takes weeks just to come up with a door panel that can be readily produced in bulk, doesn't hit on the power switches, and fits the outside door that someone else designed. And that's just one part in a car that has thousands of them.
GM, Ford and Chrysler get it; don't think for a moment that they don't. They know what they've done wrong, and what the Japanese and Koreans have done right. But while they've been focusing their operations to bring us better and more fuel-efficient vehicles in the shortest timeframe possible, the goalposts moved.
There must be bailout money, and it's got to be freed up now, before it's too late. Automakers operate on something called economy of scale. If vehicle production drops below a certain number, the company can't survive. It's happened before; we now only know names like Studebaker, Kaiser, Pierce-Arrow and Packard because of antique-car shows. It could very easily happen again, and it could very easily happen very soon.
Put strings on the bailout. Tell Mulally, Wagner and Nardelli that they'll get their operating cash, but they'll draw no more than a manager's salary until the books are in the black again. That's tough love to someone hauling down $20 million a year, but look on the bright side: do you want to be the hero who saved the ship, or the rat who went down with it? Then, when the strings are in place, open the purse, and open it wide.
Can we afford to do it? We can't afford not to do it. Go rent Michael Moore's Roger and Me. Take a good look at the scenes of Flint. I mean a really long, good hard look at those scenes. Now think about what it would be like to live like that in your neighborhood. And if you think it wouldn't happen that way, then believe me: you're just not giving it enough thought.