Suggestion Box for the Car Czar -OR- DEEP GREEN Lives

Deep Green is the guy I know who lives in Indiana. Back in June I relayed his reports of midwest floods and his experiences. He used to work for one of the big three as one of those greedy union bastards, stuck between his union and Mother Company. Eyewitness to the up close and personal horrors of being in the trenches of Car Wars. Needless to say, since separating from Good Mother, he has reflected on his career and counted his blessings *for reaching a lifeboat*
albeit a leaky one. Lamenting what could have been, what used to be and how it could go so wrong for so long without serious consequences. The consequences are unfolding now, fast and furious. He was asked what he would do. His "plan" follows.


Okay, I'd remind the guy that America's first auto company bailout WORKED. The
K-Cars were great sellers. Lee Iaccoca paid the government back in full--with
interest on the loan and shares of the Chrysler company, which the Feds sold at
a profit--and Chrysler paid them back seven years early. In that bailout,
American taxpayers actually turned a profit and a quick and handsome one at that.

The message is, you gotta believe in the possibility that this can actually
work. If you don't believe that, let me know and I'll resign now and save us
both a lot of headaches.

#2. Be as independent of Congressional and White House influence as you possibly
can. They have no bloody idea what goes on in a coffee shop, let alone what it
takes to turn iron ore into something a soccer mom would be willing to spend
tens of thousands of dollars on and drive at 70 MPH with her children aboard.
Congress is running for reelection. The American auto industry is running for
its life.

#3. We must lay the groundwork very quickly. This will mean 24 hour days for us
and the car maker execs. Quietly arrange meetings with me, you and the CEOs of
each of the Big Three. These meetings will take place in a neutral area, not
Washington, not their corporate headquarters. The CEOs will come alone, without
their usual battery of lawyers and yes-men. We will talk informally but firmly
with each man to sound them out about their personal beliefs about their
companies chances of success. We will talk about what Iaccoca did when everyone
said he was going to fail and did not, and what they intend to do. We'll accept
"I don't know but I'll find out" and not accept empty words. We will tell them
we need straight talk from them at all times or we will see to it they are
immediately severed from their companies without further compensation,
no second chances.

Some of the language will be foul and tempers will flare from time to time.
Man up and deal with it. This is real-world hardball and neither side must
forget for a moment we're not offering a bailout for a corporate logo or a
single man who already has been paid more than any human being can possibly be
worth. We are offering our taxpayer's dollars--and trust--in a business deal to
secure American jobs and the American economy. That is more important than the
personal beliefs or prejudices of any of the three of us and any biases we
might have. We'll tell each CEO that we expect two things from them, besides the
truth: we will expect each man to do his best with the full backing of our
office to save what jobs are left in the United States and this country ONLY,
with no concern whatsoever of their foreign assets unless they can prove to us
it will affect the U.S. stock market, and we demand full transparency from them
and their staffs at all times. Corporate secrets, such as they are, will be
carefully guarded by the FBI if need be, but we will require an immediate and
honest answer to any question we have currently or after a turn of events--good
or bad--that come along during the span of this loan. Each CEO will be informed
that we'll be having similar talks with the leadership of every union connected
to and/or contracted with these companies. And then we will dismiss them.

#4. Rapidly contact ten different individual auto plants and arrange meetings at
each with 100 hourly employees picked at random. Listen to them. Go in with the
knowledge that these people are angry and frightened and some have little
education but lifetimes of experience with their companies. Go in expecting that
some will be stupid, some will be confused, and a very few of them just might be
brilliant. Come away with every good idea or honest question for the
corporations that we can get. No news media will be allowed in any of these
meetings. We will conduct and finish these meetings within the span of one week.
Auto companies work around the clock and we must too.

#5. Contact all union leaders, especially the UAW, and have private meetings
with each along the same guidelines as set out above for the CEOs. Go in with
the knowledge that their members have been bled white and are still bleeding. In
some cases union wages have been cut by half and benefits cut even more. Scores
of thousands have lost their jobs entirely already. Nevertheless show them no
mercy either. Sound them out about their willingness to change and adapt not
only their shop work rules, but the very structure of their unions themselves.
Suggest, for example, that the UAW allow its members to vote directly for the
office of President of the union, instead of that officer being selected by
other high union officials who have not worked an hour on shop floors in
decades. Listen carefully to what you hear. We may need to lean on the union
leadership as hard as we lean on the companies themselves. Remember, our goal is
the salvation of American jobs and perhaps the entire American economy itself.
We are not out to support OR to harm any union or its bylaws, but we are totally
willing to crush anyone who gets in our path towards that salvation. We can't
use those words but we must make that abundantly clear.

#6. Have a quick and very open question and answer meeting with the press. The
American taxpayers are being asked to boot up this money and they have the right
to know what we're doing and how procedures are going. Be honest with them and
tell them we are still gathering information. Point out this is a tightrope walk
for both the government and the industry with every American's fate being held
in the balance to a greater or lesser extent. Ask them how much they want us to
hurry with our guidance and advice to Congress in light of what is at stake.
Remind the press--and the people--that this is much more than just an
interesting news story. We have been given the task to defend America against
the possibility of another depression and the resulting effects of one which no
economist or public official has yet dared to estimate. Be quite frank and tell
them that since handed this task, your office is now capable of making the wrong
decisions and offering the wrong advice and becoming a part of the problem
instead of part of the solution. Therefore you do not look at failure on your
part as an option.

#7. Complete all of the above in fourteen days. Then we really get to work. This
is a national emergency and we must treat it as such.

#8. Assuming we have a staff--and what Congressional czar doesn't?--we break
them into separate groups to study separate issues. One group will be tasked to
investigate everything the car companies spend money on. Where does the money
go? Follow the money. Hourly, salary, and executive pay will all be made
transparent to your office, as well as energy costs, steel prices, subcontractor
costs, business trips, how much they spend on warranty work, transport of their
vehicles, entertainment costs for investors and subcontractor execs, lawyers
fees, lobbying, and bonuses. Who gets them, how often, and how much? We need to
account for each companies expenditures to the nearest dollar figure we can come
up with in the *next* two weeks. A second group will investigate all their
income from every source, each car sale, each dealership, every associate
business (GMAC comes to mind here), where they save their money and where they
reinvest it *and where that money is reinvested* most importantly. The next
three groups--and by "group" this can be merely two or three individuals, but
with the full weight of your office behind them--will focus on where the waste
in steel, manpower, energy, individual parts, and cost overruns are in each
company. Where do they sell their scrap steel, for instance? What do they get
for it? How is the bidding for their junk and scrap dealers held? Is there any
bidding allowed at all, or is it just the whim of an appointed manager? (I've
long suspicioned a crooked "sweetheart deal" between the local scrap dealers and
individuals in each plant in various cities. This could explain millions of
dollars of engineered "waste" and "scrap" each year. Expensive motors and
controls bought for "proposed improvements" that eventually wind up, brand new
and still in the box, in the scrap bins to be sold at a mere fraction of their
purchase price. Again, "follow the money" rules here.) A final group will study
the impact of outside forces on the American car companies, including the
contracts offered for business advantages to operate foreign "transplants" in
various states, the wildly fluctuating price in oil, general inflation,
subcontractor shortages and delays, everything that has an impact on the way
they are forced to do business that is beyond the control of their headquarters.

Included into this we must factor in the expenditures they are bound to by
Congress itself. Congressional meddling in the car business started decades ago
with the publication of "Unsafe At Any Speed" and for the most part it has been
a good thing. We are all driving safer and cleaner cars because of it. But you
must also search very deeply into each and every law passed over the years
looking for mistakes that other Congresses might have made in the past. It's
possible, knowing Congress' capacity for stupid errors, that some of these laws
may need to be altered or revoked entirely. You must be prepared to fight
Congress itself if we discover they are an impediment to the very job to which
they have appointed you. Be advised that we may have to jettison California from
the American car market for a year or two and be liberal with our mileage
demands for the national car fleet for roughly the same time period. You cannot
legislate technology. I spent almost twenty years making pickup trucks and
repairing the industrial infrastructure necessary to build them by the millions.
You cannot alter the known laws of physics by issuing decrees. Believe me. I've
seen people try that. They all failed.

I am aware, as you and the American public are, that Japanese and most
European cars get better gas mileage than the average American car. You must
start with "why"? I see three reasons: lack of engineering and shoddy
workmanship that is partially due to workers being driven to produce large
numbers of units in a very limited time without proper inspection allowing junk
to get through the lines. That, and the fact that the average American family
car owner will drive the largest possible vehicles they can afford to buy and
operate. Every other factor being taken out of the picture leaves that.
Americans will buy the biggest vehicles they can afford. You cannot stuff a
family of 3.4 people into a subcompact car and do it legally in the United
States if you are required by your state laws to use child booster seats,
rear-facing infant seats, plus carry a cargo equivalent to a week's worth of
groceries or luggage for a trip without grave discomfort. When Congress passed
legislation requiring better mileage, American automakers met the goals by
simply making smaller and lighter cars. This caused the boom in SUV and crew-cab
pickup truck sales. People wanted better mileage but did not want to sacrifice
personal comfort. This ultimately led us to where we stand today. The automakers
forgot the average family by not leading with new technology and staying with
junior high school physics and simply making smaller cars. Congress forgot the
average family when they mandated new fleet MPG ratings without looking at what
the public actually bought or was even willing to buy.

It was like a warm and a cold front moving into each other in the
atmosphere. This caused the storm we now face. Every family which could afford
one bought an SUV or pickup, every family that could not bought a foreign car
for its superior engineering and low cost. As fewer and fewer American families
could afford to buy either one, the perfect storm was set in motion.
Auto-related jobs were slashed and auto-related paychecks dried up. This plus
the ludicrous real estate scandals fed on each other. As debt consumed the
public they had less discretionary money on hand and credit dried up. Americans
soon got to the point in the curve where they quit buying any kind of vehicle,
foreign or domestic, and continue to drive older and older cars being passed as
they age down through differing economic levels. Detroit answered by cutting
more jobs and making even less desirous cars. People bought fewer of them still,
or switched brands. The two forces fed on each other and continue to do so.
Therefore you must carry the fight all the way down to the individual factory
worker who might make the same widget five thousand times a day, every day, and
have no idea what they do or where they go on a car. Their portion of the cause
and effect chain reaction is collectively as large as the CEOs of their
companies. Shared among the few thousand who still are on the job in America,
that responsibility is minimal compared that that of the CEOs--but it does exist
nonetheless. And you cannot improve the attitudes, teamwork, and pulling power
of a team of horses by simply beating them harder. Your job will involve human
psychology as much as it does economics and physics. Henry Ford II and Walter
Reuther of the UAW once toured a Ford plant together. Ford showed Reuther one of
the first industrial robots and smugly announced that it would work 24 hours a
day, seven days a week, and never ask for overtime or a break period to use the
restroom. Reuther said that was true, then told Ford it would also never buy a
car. That was true too. And prophetic on both their parts. The automakers never
retrained their workforce for advancing technology or demanded more from the new
people they hired in. The rapid rush to robotics and their saving in labor costs
led automakers into a robot buying frenzy, while workers were untrained in the
act of cooperating with non-human coworkers. This should have initiated a
massive skills training program from either the unions or the companies. Both of
them dropped the ball.

Your job now is to save as much of that manufacturing infrastructure as
possible in the short term and lead it onto a different path in the long term.
We need this manufacturing base for America for the rest of our foreseeable
future. The time will come when it is no longer necessary for the American
economy as a whole, but that time is not here yet.

Order your staff to move with all possible speed and accuracy. We will act
as if we are at war. If we fail, we may well help lead to one within our
lifetimes. Greater than the real estate market collapse, greater than the Wall
Street bailouts, the bare bones of America's manufacturing base must be
preserved because that is simply where all our money originates. People who have
never seen a car factory are involved in this much more deeply than they yet
realize. You must not only turn a single industry around, you must be willing to
lead, educate, inform, reform, and even be harshly critical of ignorance on all
fronts: from the actual buying public, to their state legislatures, to Congress
and even the White House and press on one hand, and from the lowest shop floor
janitor to the chief executive officers of the American automakers on the other.
Currently none of them are working together, in fact they impede progress more
often than not.

This may well be a job that is impossible to do. But we must try. And we
must move quickly.