By Steve Sailer
12/21/2008
Has anybody noticed how out of date Obama’s automobile industry rhetoric is? He’s still talking about cars as if gas was over $4 per gallon and global warming was the imminent threat, rather than global depression. He keeps talking about how Detroit has to stop making big pickup trucks and start making little runabouts. That kind of mindless rhetoric is killing Detroit, which makes profits on big hulks and loses money on go-karts.
If Obama wants the Detroit car companies to actually earn some cash flow and keep workers employed over the next 2-3 years, then the government should take major steps to solve consumers' big worries about buying from the (not-so) Big Three:
1. Figure out a way to guarantee Detroit’s seven year warranties so even if they go out of business, new buyers can still get the cars serviced under warranty. They'll be a lot less likely to go out of business if customers don’t have to worry about them going out of business.
2. Guarantee that new buyers won’t pay gas prices over, say, $2.75 per gallon during the next 2 or 3 years, through a tax rebate or whatever.
3. The President of the United States of America should stop demonizing the most profitable products made by American car companies. Stop pretending that "green" cars are going to rescue Detroit. Admit that all the SWPL green stuff was just a load of campaign hooey that is now "inoperative."
If the government can lift those clouds of uncertainty from would-be customers minds, then Detroit could move a lot of metal.
But, Obama won’t because:
A. This is all about the class struggle.
B. Obama loves power. Helping American businesses and consumers make mutually satisfactory transactions is not as much fun for him as forcing both of them to make and (not) buy cars that they (and, for that matter, Obama himself, whose last car weighed 4,000 pounds) don’t want.
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