Bailoutpalooza 2008, Detroit Style, continues...
The auto industry continues its "Band-Aid on a gaping wound" approach to remedying the problems it has had for decades now.
In the plan it released this morning, Ford said it would pay its chief executive, Alan Mulally, a symbolic $1 a year if the company took the $9 billion it has requested from Congress. In addition, the company said it planned to sell electric vans by 2010 and electric passenger vehicles by 2011.
If they were bright, they'd make the CEO job a volunteer position and cling to that extra buck. And I am still beyond confused as to how electric vans are going to lower skyrocketing labor costs and approaches to spending that look like they were drawn up by an alcoholic trophy wife.
This is an unholy intersection of bad business practices and climate commie fervor. The idea that retooling to manufacture even more crap that nobody wants is a "solution" is disturbing.
Hey, why not invest a few billion in researching astral projection? It is a zero emissions mode of transportation, after all.
There is still a lot of emphasis on how much money should be spent and very little mention about a new approach to doing business, which is what U.S. automakers need. The Big Three should be renamed "The Same-Old, Same-Olds".
We can hemorrhage cash to Dumb, Dumber and Dumbest and save them for a while. Then we can have this conversation again in six years when it turns out that nobody could afford the electricity for the vans because Obama's "cap and trade" scheme had driven up energy costs and, oh yeah, the private jets had returned and labor had gotten a new pound of flesh to make up for whatever concessions there were during the bailout.
It's a nice show the auto execs are putting on, what with the driving to Washington in hybrids and all. Had they been bright enough to do that in the first place the whole production might be more believable.
They should take it to Vegas for a while and see if they can earn a few extra bucks that way.
(UPDATE: GM announces that there is no "Plan B". They've got all their eggs in the taxpayer basket and aren't working on any contingency plans which involve bankruptcy.)