Motown Missionaries Cancel Caravan of Love

Wow - so many ludicrous opinions here I don't know where to start. The fact is that there are too many people who wanted to join in this caravan - those of you who doubt this are just hiding your heads in the sand and believing your own hyperbole. Get over it - you are in the minority on this one. There are so many jobs on the line here that it is the height of arrogance to suggest that there are not enough people who would participate in this. The fact is that the 'Ambush Setup in Washington' that was the alleged hearings, was simply a way for those who structured the true bailout - you know, the one "For the Finance Industry" (read those who destroyed the economy for their own personal greed) to deflect the attention away from their horrendously idiotic lack of oversight in the $700+ BILLION bailout. So - here we are, don't provide the loans to the American OEM's - and our illustrious 'political leaders' (Gags) truly screw hundreds of thousands of families in this country. It the economy wasn't currently in the toilet thanks to Wall Street, this wouldn't even be on the table. If Chrysler went down in a normal economy, it would be at least tolerable to absorb the workers at Chrysler, various suppliers and their dependent economy (you know, Elmer the butcher et al). But we are NOT IN A NORMAL ECONOMY and this cannot be allowed to happen now. A tremendous number of people from all walks of life are suffering right now because of Wall Street and their global brethren. It is high time all of you understand this and get over your petty, ludicrous comments of "Detroit must die" because they "just don't get it" and the rest of your clueless comments that you repeat like trained parrots. The real issue here is to stop the hemorrhaging of our economy and the real possibility of the loss of our middle class and deal with the true problem - the out of control financial community!! Maybe you like your 401K's and the value of your homes tanking, but I am not too happy about it. Yes, I think that there are some real problems with leadership at many of our companies in this country - but not just the domestic OEM's - the financial companies are much worse. There are also a great many smart, hardworking people who - given the right leadership - can right the ships that are listing all over our economy without going to ridiculous extremes of letting entire segments disappear along with the technical capabilities that are absolutely essential to continuing our way of life. You can talk all you want about how some of the foreign cars are built here, but the true value of a domestic auto industry is the sheer level of technical capabilities that this entails. And I have been in virtually every R&D center of both the foreign and domestic OEM's and a majority of their tier one suppliers - the foreign OEM's (and suppliers) do the vast majority of their true development in their home countries - that is why every country works hard to develop and NURTURE their own auto industry - it is the key to a middle class lifestyle and leads to numerous opportunities for other types of industry to develop and thrive.

Ronnie Schrieber, Your claims don't pass the sniff test. On bikers producing CO2... First, I can go up to about 30 miles per gallon in my car... that's about 5.5 lbs of fuel, which is largely carbon which largely gets turned into CO2. To emit the same amount of CO2 as a car, I'd have to convert more than 5 lbs of fat when biking 30 miles. That doesn't happen, although I wish it did. And then there's the matter of the warm-blooded mammal's rest metabolism... if it takes me 2.5 hours to bike 30 miles, you'll find that I'd expel some significant fraction (probably half, maybe more) of that CO2 (maybe more) were I to simply nap for 2.5 hours. On the environmental impact of producing a 40 lb bicycle vs a 3000 pound car.... you've got to be kidding. Moreover, the bike lasts nearly forever. The one I bought in '79 is still hanging up in the garage for occasional use (it's a road bike) and I expect the one I bought in '06 (a hybrid for commuting) will last quite a while, too. If not, it's largely aluminum, which recycles very nicely. I've purchased 12 vehicles since I bought that '79 cycle and I'm sure at least half have gone to the crusher. The entire vehicle is certainly not recycled 100% effectively; I'll bet several times the mass of my bike is lost along the way. --- Sajeev Mehta, Still, what are the core competencies? For clues, we'd go to Detroit vehicles that are very competitive. And vehicles in categories where Toyota and Honda do not choose to compete or where heritage counts heavily would not necessarily be representative of product from core competencies. Their core competencies must include automtive design, engineering, marketing, manufacture and distribution. And "competency," to me, implies, they are as good in these efforts as anyone else. To have these core competencies, unless hindered by other forces that act unequally on the competitors (like, for example, healthcare costs) or other organizational problems, would lead to competitive product.