Alternate Big Three Bail-Out Plan (A Pipe Dream)

[statler]

(I know this idea is riddled with technological, economical and political flaws, but it's just a pipe dream...go with it)

Verizon is attempting to reinvent itself from a 'telephone company' to a 'communications company'. Newspaper are trying (and failing) to reinvent themselves as 'media companies'.

What if auto manufactures reinvent themselves as 'transportation companies?'
What if instead of the government just handing the Big Three a check and saying 'keep doing what you are doing', they promise them large & exclusive contracts for building and maintaining national, regional and local railways? Detroit could keep it factories open building the train cars while thousands of local jobs could be created building and maintaining the railways.
Of course rail cars have a much longer lifespan than private automobiles, but this would be a huge, long term project so by the time the last of railway is put in place the first cars in the system will need to be replaced. Plus the market for domestic automobiles won't completely dry up, so that will fill in some gaps as well.
The car companies would would profit from the government contracts and the government would profit from increased taxes from a revived economy thanks to the added jobs, and more efficient transportation system.

This of course would require a radical reworking of both the Big Three and our current rail systems, but if there is any truth to our cherished notions of 'American Ingenuity' and 'Can-Do Spirit' then it should be possible.

Just my crazy thought of the day.

 

[Lurker]

The bailout is essentially giving those morons at the big 3 all the cash that the wise American and foreign consumers have been refusing to use to buy their inferior products for decades. The big 3 are untenable given their current business model, industrial operations, and insane union contracts. They should be left to declare bankruptcy and restructure themselves to actually build cars people want to buy in a competitive fashion.
If they get the current offer of $14 million, expect them to be back in two to three months begging Obama to be their new sugar daddy on the taxpayers' dime.

I wouldn't trust any of the big 3 in the current form, current management, or labor force, to build or maintain any form of public infrastructure or rail vehicles. If they weren't able to design, manufacture, and provide service for small industrial products like automobiles, they have no right to be dealing with complex products like trains and high speed rail.

 

[unterbau]

I hear they have a ton of old streetcars they could retrofit....

 

[kennedy]

The bailout is essentially giving those morons at the big 3 all the cash that the wise American and foreign consumers have been refusing to use to buy their inferior products for decades.

I wouldn't trust any of the big 3 in the current form, current management, or labor force, to build or maintain any form of public infrastructure or rail vehicles. If they weren't able to design, manufacture, and provide service for small industrial products like automobiles, they have no right to be dealing with complex products like trains and high speed rail.

AMERICAN CARS ARE NOT LESSER QUALITY! This is a myth. Give me a fact.

And, it wouldn't be as difficult as you assume for the government to hand over rail production to the Big 3, because the government already controls all the rail, and Amtrak is a government corporation-so they have absolute control over the situation. And, I've always assumed but was never sure-are GM and GE connected? Because, GE already makes rail engines. Maybe the government bails out GE, who buys GM, and they create the super-mega-multinational corporation we all fear (the industrial version of wal-mart).

GE is a communications/media company (NBC). And a consumer electronics company(GE). And possibly a transportation company(GM?).

 

[Lurker]

AMERICAN CARS ARE NOT LESSER QUALITY! This is a myth. Give me a fact.

How many American cars can be reasonably expect to last 300,000 miles?

When a Japanese car costs the same as an American car, and the American car has much higher labor costs, where do you think the savings came in manufacturing to even the sticker prices? High quality parts and materials?

Has reliability of American cars dramatically improved in the last decade? Yes.
Does the necessarily equate to parity of build quality to foreign companies. Actually no.

Toyota and Honda were building green cars before governments even made the suggestion. Now the big 3 are clamoring for Federal money to do the same even before the bailout.

Why is it the the foreign companies are able to innovate and sell those products without government money and the Big 3 can't? BAD MANAGEMENT and the PARASITES at the UAW. Let them fail, declare bankruptcy, reorganize or be broken up and bought by small domestic companies, such that in five years we actually have a domestic auto industry that can be competitive without our tax dollars.