MM Nails It....

[DetroitDad]

Gas goes to $4, the cost makes people change behavior. MPG standards go way up to 36 or whatever, the cost to drive goes down and people love their cars again.

Gas goes up to $6, MPG's at 60 via hybrids, electrics, currently undiscovered technology, cost to drive is still reasonable, people still love cars.

Gas goes to $10, lots of vehicles get the equivalent of 100 MPG, people are still driving like they always did, suburbs are still sprawling and transit/density advocates have made only modest progress. Where transit has really taken off and filled out the region, people can more enjoyably live way way out and still get around relatively quickly and inexpensively.

Probably a nightmare scenario to many on here, but probably more likely than cars going away.

Older people will probably continue to buy cars while younger graduates and new families will move into the cities and utilize mass transit. Both of those groups are going to have no choice. Older people are going to be forced to hunker down and keep working to pay of mortgages on their devalued homes and condos. Younger people are going to face soaring unemployment and under employment because of the more experienced elders who can't retire. As a result, home ownership is going to be unobtainable for younger families and they just aren't going to be able to make it to the same middle class their parents were use to. Car ownership, health care, home mortgages, childcare, and taxes are huge fixed costs that they simply won't be able to afford [[those costs are so high that no business owner would see the middle class family's financial model as viable, if it were translated to a business).

Some fixed costs are going to have to be eliminated for young people, and cities, multifamily housing, shared cars, and mass transit will be popular options they will utilize. Right now this generation is choosing to not get health care, and are just starting to have children. As they age, health care will become more of a priority, and their children will need childcare. It will be automotive sales and home sales that really suffer.

In the above scenario, there might end up being more jobs that pay less, due to a wider array of needs.

Going off topic, I hear there are two start-ups in Seattle producing light rail vehicles and beginning to use Michigan based suppliers that once catered mainly to automotive makers.

[Stosh]

Mass transit is not the be-all or end-all in the transportation end game. The auto will always be there. Count on it. Trouble is, will the hipsters and Gen X buy American? That's the question for the ages. And they had better do so, in droves.

Everything is interconnected. While a few around here are virtually hopping up and down with glee [[Michael Moore , et al) they fail to see the interconnectivity of regional life. Truly a sad day here to see GM and Chrysler suffer. And it's just a matter of time before Ford cries poor and wants a better contract deal. Count on that too, and more hemmoraging of jobs.

So while some are gleeful in the carnage, they had better remember that their jobs [[unless a bankruptcy attorney or work in the courts} aren't secure, no matter what sector.

As far as my choices of transport, I'd be glad to take a train or bus somehere, IF it doesn't entail a two hour walk to get the REST of the way there. I'm looking forward to hybrid/electric SUV's and trucks. Screw the Prius.

[dtowncitylover]

Wrong: That GM should cease production of cars immediately and produce mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices... DUH? After they completely retool their factories to produce these completely unrelated items, there's not a guarantee that these will even sell. They already make buses, if I'm not mistaken. Stick to what you know. Hybrid, electric, efficient personal vehicles. And sell trucks too.

Aren't cars and tanks also unrelated? So how come they built those fast enough for the war?

Did anyone else read the article as if Michael himself was reading? I couldn't help myself. It was well written with very strong points, most of which I agreed with. As much as I love cars, that can easily become a secondary mode of transportation for me.

[lilpup]

I thought he was off the handle with this, but given his previous lambasting of GM he can't very well back down now.

I want to know why sellers of any product in the US aren't required to build at least in North America, if not specifically in the US. GM's Fritzi yesterday said 98% of their North American sales are North American built. There are few other consumer goods sectors that can say that. Let Asia build for their own market while North America builds for ours.

[Ghetto_butterfly]

Do you really think people are willing to give up their cars?

I did in a heartbeat, as soon as I moved to a city with a comprehensive public transportation system. Happily living carless for one year now.

[Stosh]

Aren't cars and tanks also unrelated? So how come they built those fast enough for the war?

It's quite complicated. Certain factories are suited for certain things. And you will notice that, in the Detroit area, that the Chrysler tank plant here continued to build tanks.

Willow Run was built for plane production. A quote from Time, 1942:

Guns, shells and motors are at last in mass production. General Motors, once biggest of all automakers, is already producing arms of all kinds at the rate of a billion dollars a year. Packard and Studebaker are making airplane engines; Hudson makes anti-aircraft guns; Nash is at work on engines and propellers.

It's quite different to convert a plant to something it isn't suited for. The plants would lend themselves to producing wind turbines and solar panels sooner than trolley cars.

Employment levels in the 40's at these plants, even pre and post war, were astronomical. No robots or automation. While I'd like to see these levels of employment return, building trolleys isn't going to cut it. It's a short term stab in the dark, with existing competition already.

[gazhekwe]

There you go, Stosh, completely one-sided.

Why can't we build something BETTER than someone else is building it? Are we doomed to be beaten by our competition on every turn? Where did our spirit for innovation and creative design go? What happened to our brilliant engineers? I don't see it as all one thing or another, we MUST diversify. Of course we will have cars or some other form of personal transport vehicles for far into the future. But GM is closing 14 plants. Get out there and find a better use for those plants than echo chambers.

[Ltdave]

If Chrysler and GM said today that they were hiring on the line for $15 and hour and partial benefits

well as soon as they start hiring thats exactly where the compensation will be...

but we have this whole two car per household mentality

because the tax and spend policies of the fed have nearly mandated that households have two breadwinners. ive tried for 11 years to get into the same plant as my wife so we could carpool. think its happened? we currently are on two different shifts in two different plants in two different cities...

oh and like others have said, two hours to get to where youre going wont cut it...

as soon as you do away with PRIVATE transportation and go to PUBLIC transportation you put people at the mercy of the entity running said public transportation. how segregated was the social scene in the 40s and 50s before every family had a car or truck to get into the city?

as it is now, i make the 65 mile trip to detroit sometimes 3-4 times a month [[other than work) for things going on like ball games, hockey games [[although not this since 97), the music festival at hart plaza, the river cruises, belle isle, the zoo or to just wander around and see the buildings. make it more difficult for me [[and others) and ill stay home. i dont care HOW COOL you say the city is...

how many families saw the great United States in their own cars vs. on the train or a bus after the big economic boom of the 50s? i cant quote numbers but id bet that there was a SIGNIFICANT increase in tourism because of the family car...

but go on, hope and pray for MASSes being jammed into GOVERNMENT run transit. ill stay where i am...

[BShea]

I hope Moore didn't strain himself too hard reaching one of those meaty arms around his ample girth to pat himself on the back.

"The company's body not yet cold, and I find myself filled with -- dare I say it -- joy. It is not the joy of revenge against a corporation that ruined my hometown and brought misery, divorce, alcoholism, homelessness, physical and mental debilitation, and drug addiction to the people I grew up with. Nor do I, obviously, claim any joy in knowing that 21,000 more GM workers will be told that they, too, are without a job."

Then what is his job? He never explains.

Without GM, there is no distortionist known as Michael Moore. Without GM, Flint is nothing more than a railroad stop on the way to Lansing.

I suspect he's dancing his jig on what he perceives to me GM's grave a bit too soon.

And his manufactured populist outrage is dimly thought, as usual: A $2 tax on a gallon of gas would be crippling for the poor far more than it would immediately affect the middle class or rich.

Cris-crossing the nation with bullet trains sounds nice, but does that significantly replace many cars? Seems to me like that would affect airline travel. How many clans of Griswolds are loading into the Family Truckster to travel 2,000 miles?

He also fails to calculate how much it would cost to lay millions and millions of miles of track and buy train cars and operate systems. I would guess in the trillions. Will there be a line running past of the gate of his mansion up north? Or a bus line, which would run an astronomical deficit on rural routes? Or will he waddle himself miles and miles to the nearest station so he can take the metro to Old Country Buffet?

I also have trouble believing Americans are going to willingly take to public buses in place of their cars. They never have unless economic hardship forced them. And if they're as clean, comfortable, well-maintained and punctual as buses in this city and others I've seen, there's almost zero chance of that happening.

If they retool the Flint truck plant next week to build trains, where are they going to go? Who is going to buy them? Maintain them? Operate them? The hidden subtext in Moore's crude and clumsy blather is his desire for the United States to become an socialist state along the lines of Cuba and the former Eastern Europe. He makes no secret of that. Massive taxation and government regulation of business and personal lives by self-appointed elites who "know what's best" for the proles, who must be coerced into things for "their own safety" and "the greater good."

GM certainly was responsible for many of its own problems, and America's desire for the freedom of cars and suburbia [[to get away from the filthy and crowded industrial cities) has produced some unforseen problems, and we need to invest in energy and transit, but if there's a fascist to be defeated, it's the likes of Moore.

[Stosh]

There you go, Stosh, completely one-sided.

Why can't we build something BETTER than someone else is building it? Are we doomed to be beaten by our competition on every turn? Where did our spirit for innovation and creative design go? What happened to our brilliant engineers? I don't see it as all one thing or another, we MUST diversify. Of course we will have cars or some other form of personal transport vehicles for far into the future. But GM is closing 14 plants. Get out there and find a better use for those plants than echo chambers.

I never said, if you read my posts on this subject, that Americans [[the nebulous We, as you put it) can't build something. Diversification is great, but you have to have the expertise, and the will, to build something. It'll be someone other than auto makers that will be doing the building, sorry to say. They should have diversified, but chose to concentrate on their core biz.

It's not to say that some of the existing machinery can't be used to fill excess capacity though. Stamping presses can press out any form imaginable. Solar heating panels need enclosures, create the dies for the presses, you can churn them out by the thousands. Assembly is simple welding skills, lots of welders around. Paint booths to paint them, and bake the glaze, got that too. Really, I can't see why that the excess capacity can't be used for this, at least. This could easily be done.

These panels are low-tech, of course, but fill a need in the North for heating of homes and businesses in the winter through air heating. Higher tech ones that pump glycol through for heat exchange could also be built easily.

[gazhekwe]

Now you're talking. See those closed plants and the equipment therein and the people who ran them as resources rather than so much destructible dross and drain on the economy.

This continent was resettled by people who saw nothing but raw material for their enterprises and they took it and used it. Pine forests, farmland, ores, and more. We learned that everything has its season, and new things must replace the things that are no longer viable. We also learned that some restraints on use and processing were necessary to preserve health and meet future needs. With those things in mind, here we have so much raw material to do something with. Ideas are exciting to discuss, and who knows, we might come up with the very thing or things we need.

I like the solar panel idea. There is even a new solar shingle that can be put on south-facing roofs being developed in California. Come on MICHIGAN, we can do it too.

Something that will work in our cold cloudy winter months would be very helpful. Working to make the grids interactive, so people can be on the grid to supplement their power when needed, and can provide power to the grid when they have excess. That would be necessary for wind power too. Maybe some combination of wind and solar, and let's not forget geothermal. Maybe some companies here and in other countries are already making things. That shouldn't stop us from working to increase the market demand and building products to fill the new demands.

[Stosh]

I like the solar panel idea. There is even a new solar shingle that can be put on south-facing roofs being developed in California. Come on MICHIGAN, we can do it too.

Only in summer,unless you'll be up to shovelling your roof.

Something that will work in our cold cloudy winter months would be very helpful. Working to make the grids interactive, so people can be on the grid to supplement their power when needed, and can provide power to the grid when they have excess. That would be necessary for wind power too. Maybe some combination of wind and solar, and let's not forget geothermal. Maybe some companies here and in other countries are already making things. That shouldn't stop us from working to increase the market demand and building products to fill the new demands.

Like anything alternative energy [[it seems) there's a lot of costs involved with photovoltaics. Sine wave inverters from DC to AC, cutoff switches for generated electricity, utility interties, etc. Not to mention the costs for the panels itself. And done to CODE. If the utilities provided up front financing there's a lot of potential jobs in this area alone. But the vested interests of the power generating companies won't do that. Wind power too, same issues. And the cities won't let you just pop up a tower. Clearance/fall issues.

Cheap and easy savings using passive solar though, both heating and, remarkably, cooling.

[Det_ard]

According the Ward's the latest figures show 429,770 total cars and 387,517 total trucks sold in April. Historical data shows them running neck and neck. If you are looking at the number of vehicles sold to INDIVIDUALS - i.e. do not count all the contractors buying F-150s, then cars are the clear winner.

Not sure why you'd subtract contractors who buy pickups since most seem to use them as their personal vehicles as well, just check the grocery store parking lot. And you may want to subtract all the company cars used by sales reps and government workers. Or just take the numbers at face value since no one, company or individual, decides to buy a vehicle that fails to meet their needs.

Now, taking the group "Small Cars" as a proxy for high MPG vehicles we see that in April it represented 18% of all vehicles sold. Therefore 82% of buyers thought something other than a small high-mileage car best fit their needs. Surely all buyers would love to get better mileage if there were no tradeoffs against other attributes they value more. But this is the real world and for many buyers, more than 4 out of 5 based on April's numbers, small cars aren't what they want or need, despite their higher gas efficiency and lower price.

Just in... for May, all major automakers US sales show bigger percentage declines in car sales than in truck sales. GM, Ford, Toyota, Honda, Nissan [[Chrysler numbers not in yet).

[Hypestyles]

i'm already writing to state and federal legislators and to the white house on this topic..

[Stosh]

I can just see their reaction... [[*click*)

[Hypestyles]

i'm already writing to state and federal legislators and to the white house on this topic..

and also writing to any other public figures who might give a darn..

..Noam Chomsky sent an affirmative response, bless him..

[Lorax]

As usual, MM is right on. He had it right 20 years ago when hunting down Roger Smith, and he has it right now.

Some of you have suggested MM advocates stopping all car production now, in reality, he stated electric cars with battery production should be at the forefront, and a quick phase out of the internal combustion engine as the goal.

Nothing wrong with this, as it's inevitable, as the cost of oil will be prohibitive, as it nearly is now.

My favorite part of the equation is high speed rail, or ANY rail would be an improvement in Detroit, a city where all major and most secondary arteries had streetcars for decades before GM sought to destroy public transportation, so it's bus division could build the new coaches which have polluted our air for over fifty years now.

Rail was always the cheapest mode of transporting goods, and people, and was ruined in favor of the car, and the semi. Removing truck traffic off our freeways would extend the life of the roadbeds, and reduce the cost of transporting goods, especially food. This should be a top priority.

And this is where government can step in and do the most good. Another WPA, and a Civilian Conservation Corps [[CCC) is what is needed to put people back to work, and restore our beautiful country to what it could again be, without the unregulated heavy hand of private enterprise screwing up the works.

[Hypestyles]

a new Free Press Editorial--

http://www.freep.com/article/2009060...ral+on+transit

i haven't written to the macomb county exec yet.. hmm..

[BShea]

As usual, MM is right on. He had it right 20 years ago when hunting down Roger Smith, and he has it right now.

You mean when he launched his deceptive film? He had a point, but his tactics were wrong. He had met with Smith, but leaves that out of the movie. The ends justify the means with MM.

Some of you have suggested MM advocates stopping all car production now, in reality, he stated electric cars with battery production should be at the forefront, and a quick phase out of the internal combustion engine as the goal.

I got the feeling the carmakers understand that, but the technology is cost-prohibitive right now. It's just not cost-effective for with the makers nor the consumers. One day, they'll have cars with batteries that provide the same range as a gasoline engine, but they don't yet, and consumers aren't going to buy such cars in bulk yet, even with tax credits.

My favorite part of the equation is high speed rail, or ANY rail would be an improvement in Detroit, a city where all major and most secondary arteries had streetcars for decades before GM sought to destroy public transportation, so it's bus division could build the new coaches which have polluted our air for over fifty years now.

Funny, a lot of people on here disagree, especially when it comes to M1 Rail. Unless the plan is to their liking, the transit activists would rather have nothing.

Rail was always the cheapest mode of transporting goods, and people, and was ruined in favor of the car, and the semi. Removing truck traffic off our freeways would extend the life of the roadbeds, and reduce the cost of transporting goods, especially food. This should be a top priority.

I don't think we'll ever get trucks off the roads. I don't think we're every going to have rail spurs running to every store.

And this is where government can step in and do the most good. Another WPA, and a Civilian Conservation Corps [[CCC) is what is needed to put people back to work, and restore our beautiful country to what it could again be, without the unregulated heavy hand of private enterprise screwing up the works.

We don't have near the unemployment we did during the Great Depression, and for all the hype, the New Deal only managed to reduce unemployment from something like 25% nationally to 19%. And today, there aren't the projects out there to put people to work in the near-term. The idea sounds good, but I'd want to see a firm plan in place that's not just moving dirt from one pile to another.

And I would suggested that private enterprise made our nation great, not the heavy hand of an authoritarian state in which self-appointed elites dictate what is good and proper for the rest of us.

I don't want American operating like the post office and Amtrak. Yes, a lot of mail gets delivered, and the trains tend to get there eventually ... but do we want a government-run America?

[gazhekwe]

I just had a half-baked idea, and I will just present it for fun. For the nonce, battery car ranges are just way too short for our modern broad commuting society. I have heard all kinds of ideas to fix that problem, such as trade-in battery stations where you trade in your dead one for a live one and continue on your way. Still, 40 miles between stops seems like a lot for trips out of town. There is the idea of metered parking spots with charging stations so you can charge up while working or shopping or watching a movie.
I like traveling.

Here's my pie in the sky idea: What about rail transport charging stations? Have miles and miles to go and want to take your car? Drive as much as you can, then hook up with a commuter or cross country train which will put your car on a rail car with its own charging station. Ride as far as you like and drive off with a fully charged car. This is in part based upon the 1915 cross country drive of Emily Post and her son, where they put their car on a train from Flagstaff to Santa Barbara.

[jtf1972]

Moore is mostly right, but the automobile does have a place in society. It would work best as a supplementary form of transportation in urban areas and primary in rural. Buses in farmland? That's even less economical than if everyone drove Hummers. Give me a nice subway system and a Ford Escape Hybrid that I can dust off on occasion any day.

[Lorax]

BShea, you've got a right wing fascist ax to grind.

You've got to move beyond the discredited dictates of the repugnican right, and realize that socialist democracies in Europe and elsewhere outperform us in just about every arena.

Transportation is only one of those arenas. Health care is another, research into green energy is yet another. I travel in Europe half the year or more on business, and have direct knowledge of how successful their efforts are. They wouldn't tolerate cities looking like Detroit, or Miami, where I live the rest of the year.

Your figures on the New Deal are incorrect, as are our current figures on how many people are unemployed, or underemployed. Our current figures in reality are closer to 14%, some say higher.

When government is run by Democrats, it runs more efficiently. Amtrak and the post office and Medicare, and Social Security have been very effectively run, and work well when Democrats are in control. When repugnicans take over, they try to destroy it, since it's their mantra to privatize everything including the mercenary shadow military we had under Bush, i.e. Blackwater, et al.

Funny how so called "conservatives" rail against anything that may civilize us as a people, and instead favor the dog eat dog mentality of Social Darwinsim. Says much about the lack of forebearance, and in fact, simple humanity.

The Scandanavians have a fantastic transportation system, and a cradle to grave health care system that works very well, and a public education system from pre-school to college level, inluding Masters and Phd level courses- all paid for by the state, through taxation. They are getting something of quality for their taxes, and don't mind paying for it.

They also see legacy wealth as a hinderance to the advancement of their society, as we did in the 50's when Republicans were true conservatives, and Eisenhower embraced the 90% taxation rate on personal income over 2 million per annum.

You've got to get over the bankrupt idea of American Exceptionalism. We are an important part of the world, and it's governance, but not invincible.

We need to learn to participate, not unilaterally shove our particular form of democracy on other nations at the point of a gun, or using economics as a weapon [[guess we won't be doing much more of that in the current economic climate).

We have much clean up to do from the last 8 years, and dare I say the last 25 years of lousy leadership in this country. Either we'll return to our founding father's idea of socialized democracy, or we won't. No doubt they'd be appalled at what America has become.