Larry Gude
Strung Out
Wash Post...David Ignatius
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/01/AR2005120101174.html
Reasonable, as far as it goes.
The bait.
The hook. I blew frosted mini wheats, banana and blue berrys all over the paper and had to re-read it on line.
Our Japanese economists is coming from a Japanese background; private enterprise coupled with strong national support.
The US model is the US way. GM, like Ford, like Standard Oil and like Cat and endless other US companies over the years stomped a mudhole into global competition and walked it dry WITHOUT much in the way of national backing. Our companies just won because they simply dominated. Can you say "Microsoft"?
The one thing the Feds actually built was the space program and we're not exactly talking about a product that beat all comers off the shelf. We're talking boutique, single customer stuff here. Nor is NASA any model of efficiency or resourcefulness. Neither the model T nor the C series pick up truck came from Washington DC.
If anything, Dear Mr. Ignatius, government plans were the end of Standard and, most recently, with Microsoft, not exactly a partner for developing or winning squat.
Simply put, GM has been to slow to react to reality. Part of reality is the albatros hung around its neck in terms of wages and benfits to people who don't produce anything anymore; retirees.
Now, why'd GM sign so many labor contracts that spelled potential doom? A major reason was because the government helped make it so. Anything as big as GM was is a simple target for politicians to take a chunk out of; make my constituents happy or you will have an enemy in congress. Make them happy and you will have a friend in congress.
Be careful who you sleep with.
GM's path to renewal, check that, survival, is to get lean. Not exactly a government specialty.
There was no governemnt plan that brought GM to existence. There was no government plan that helped GM leapfrog in technology and grow to such dominance. There will be no government plan now.
Far, far from it.
The one thing the feds can do is figure out a way to deal with what is due to retirees. They helped make that mess through implied and tacit understandings or government help. If the feds could go back in time and change one thing that would have prevented GM's current pickle it would be to eliminate rules and laws that allowed GM and others to underfund retirement plans and make all those great promises for the future.
In that case, GM would have never made the promises and would not have the problems today.
There's your great government plan; Get out of the way.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/01/AR2005120101174.html
A Japanese economist he had known for many years asked him a stark question: "What great nation will allow its major manufacturing company to fail?"
Reasonable, as far as it goes.
But suppose we took GM's near-death experience as a national wake-up call and decided to get serious about reviving the long-term health of the U.S. manufacturing sector. What if political leaders treated this as a fundamental national mission, equivalent to President John F. Kennedy's call to put a man on the moon? Could government make any difference?
The bait.
Try this thought exercise: Suppose a government plan could revitalize the automobile industry and the rest of the transportation sector, encouraging it to leapfrog several generations of technology; suppose this same plan could cut U.S. dependence on foreign oil to zero; and suppose, finally, that the plan could develop new technologies that would bump our economy to a higher growth path and foster U.S. economic leadership in the 21st century. Would that idea be worth exploring?
The hook. I blew frosted mini wheats, banana and blue berrys all over the paper and had to re-read it on line.
Our Japanese economists is coming from a Japanese background; private enterprise coupled with strong national support.
The US model is the US way. GM, like Ford, like Standard Oil and like Cat and endless other US companies over the years stomped a mudhole into global competition and walked it dry WITHOUT much in the way of national backing. Our companies just won because they simply dominated. Can you say "Microsoft"?
The one thing the Feds actually built was the space program and we're not exactly talking about a product that beat all comers off the shelf. We're talking boutique, single customer stuff here. Nor is NASA any model of efficiency or resourcefulness. Neither the model T nor the C series pick up truck came from Washington DC.
If anything, Dear Mr. Ignatius, government plans were the end of Standard and, most recently, with Microsoft, not exactly a partner for developing or winning squat.
Simply put, GM has been to slow to react to reality. Part of reality is the albatros hung around its neck in terms of wages and benfits to people who don't produce anything anymore; retirees.
Now, why'd GM sign so many labor contracts that spelled potential doom? A major reason was because the government helped make it so. Anything as big as GM was is a simple target for politicians to take a chunk out of; make my constituents happy or you will have an enemy in congress. Make them happy and you will have a friend in congress.
Be careful who you sleep with.
GM's path to renewal, check that, survival, is to get lean. Not exactly a government specialty.
There was no governemnt plan that brought GM to existence. There was no government plan that helped GM leapfrog in technology and grow to such dominance. There will be no government plan now.
Far, far from it.
The one thing the feds can do is figure out a way to deal with what is due to retirees. They helped make that mess through implied and tacit understandings or government help. If the feds could go back in time and change one thing that would have prevented GM's current pickle it would be to eliminate rules and laws that allowed GM and others to underfund retirement plans and make all those great promises for the future.
In that case, GM would have never made the promises and would not have the problems today.
There's your great government plan; Get out of the way.