Bailout Watch 118: Thar She Blows!

Automotive News [AN, sub] reports that “Growing political interest in another federal spending package to stimulate the U.S. economy is opening the door to more government aid to the auto industry.” Excellent! I recommend Uncle Sam buy as much Toyota stock as possible. And while we await more details on this, the real bailout, it’s nice to see AN join the journalistic march towards quoting anonymous sources as much as humanly possible. “Automakers and perhaps suppliers would have more flexibility in using the new money than they do with retooling loans that have been approved but not issued, industry officials say.” Who? Anyway, we all know where the United Auto Workers (UAW) stands on federal teat sucking– although they seem to want us to believe that their enthusiasm is a recent development. “Now we’re looking at the effect of a recession and depressing sales overall and what that does to the industry,” said Alan Reuther, the UAW’s legislative director. The next round of funding, rather than being tied to fuel economy, ‘would just be flat out in order to survive an extended recession,’ Reuther told Automotive News this week.” This week? What’s the hurry with revealing the info? So guess what Ford (a.k.a. the last domestic standing in waiting) thinks of the idea…

Ziad Ojakli, Ford Motor Co.’s group vice president of government and community relations: “If the goal of the stimulus bill is to help boost the economy and help the economy recover [Ed: as opposed to?], then it would make sense that there would be some attention given to an important part of the manufacturing sector, an important part of the U.S. economy, the domestic auto industry.”