NAIAS DOA?
What if they held a North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in the middle of Detroit in the middle of the winter and the Japanese manufacturers’ CEOs didn’t go? We’re going to find out what that means this year, as The Detroit News reports. “Toyota Motor Corp. confirmed earlier this week that CEO Katsuaki Watanabe had canceled plans to travel to Detroit… Previously Honda Motor Co. and Nissan Motor Co. said their chief executives would not attend. The companies did not give reasons, but officials say they expect the crush of reporters covering the Detroit show will focus almost exclusively on the industry downturn and the U.S. automakers’ difficulties.” So they’re running scared? Uh, I think that’s what you call “projection.” Another explanation comes from Joseph Serra, senior co-chairman of the NAIAS and president of Grand Blanc-based Serra Automotive Inc: “What’s possibly happening now is that, out of respect for the Big Three, they don’t want to upstage anything right now.” So they’re running scared? You know, from anti-transplant blowback. That sounds more likely, especially given the transplant’s low profile and quietly supportive demeanor during GM and Chrysler’s very public, shameful jostling at the billion dollar bailout buffet. Another another explanation: all those NAIAS unveils cost big bucks and sap a lot of time from execs’ scheds. Occam’s razor that.
More by Robert Farago
Comments
Join the conversation
Hi Landcrusher, Let's turn the volume on this down a bit, shall we? This is the second time you've devoted a nontrivial portion of your post to whaling on my presumed motives. Let's assume, for the moment, that we are both interested in finding the truth and go from there. I'm a bit of an "economic conservative" too; small business owner, defiant member of the middle class, solid in my belief that everything over a modest sales tax amounts to coercion at gunpoint, because it pretty much is coercion at gunpoint. With that being said, I'm not ready to live in a world where the government interferes whole-heartedly in the affairs of the auto business right up to the point where they need help and then turns conservative. Do you really believe that Mr. Shelby and his constituents would be so quick to beat on the UAW if we didn't have Card Check coming our way? 'Cause that's what the anti-bailout folks are really doing: trying to create a situation where the Big Three use bankruptcy to cut the UAW's throat, just like the airlines used bankruptcy to escape their pension obligations. Everybody knows that if the UAW can survive the next 18 months they will be able to unionize the South. Shelby et al don't think they can stop Card Check and the fallout legislatively, so they will let Detroit twist and do it that way. True economic conservatives wouldn't support CAFE, wouldn't allow the amount of gas tax we have nowadays, wouldn't mandate a frankly absurd amount of safety equipment on one hand while berating the manufacturers for heavy, fuel-thirsty cars on the other side, wouldn't provide incentives to hybrids or E85, wouldn't permit the dealers to write state law the way they've been doing for the last sixty years... the list goes on. The automotive landscape as we see it today is twisted and shaped by legislation and government intervention. You can also argue that the Big Three are in trouble largely because of financial problems having nothing to do with their own actions. I find this late-innings talk of economic conservatism to be disingenuous -- not on your part, but on the part of the people you are supporting. Show me a world where the taxpayers didn't just guarantee ten-figure payoffs for bank heads -- show me a world where we don't force lenders to give away home loans and then slap their hands for doing it -- and that's a world in which I'm more comfortable letting manufacturers fail.
I love the word "nontrivial". Jack, True conservatives wouldn't mandate wage controls either, or tell American industries to dance to the tune of foreign companies or ignore the threat to our defense industries by the collapse of our manufacturing base. I'm really disappointed how some conservatives are acting. Do you really believe that Mr. Shelby and his constituents would be so quick to beat on the UAW if we didn’t have Card Check coming our way? I agree that fear of the impending Card Check legislation and a desire to make the UAW look impotent is a factor, but some folks hate unions so much that they'd act like Shelby (and some of the online union haters) EFCA or not. I'm not great fan of organized labor as you can see from this piece I wrote, http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/myths-of-organized-labor/, but some folks really hate unions. I see people calling the UAW "socialists" and "commies", completely ignoring how Walter Reuther fought tooth and nail to keep communists out of the UAW. Detroit is what Jay Nordlinger of the National Review called an idée fixe, a universal bogey. Just as the Jew is both a communist and a capitalist, and the American both a materialist and a puritan,. When the domestics made money, they didn't invest in new technologies, and when they don't make money they are poorly managed. They are condemned for selling people the vehicles they wanted (SUVs, pickups) and they are condemned for not selling the vehicles people want (though Toyota is having problems now too). The UAW is slammed for making too much money and for being communists. Aesop said that any excuse will serve a tyrant.
Jack, I did not know or care about your motives. If you are interested in truth, then you need to realize that the argument you presented has nothing to do with truth, or pursuit of it. I am passionate about this issue (can you tell?) because I see how much pain we have in the world because people are allowed to throw out arguments that most everyone should have been trained to see through. Like I said (you can check) there are rational arguments for the bail outs. As soon as you throw out this one though, I am gonna point out that your emperor is wearing nothing but freckles. Now, back to motives. I don't know how you know the motives of the folks in TN or their senator, but that argument gets you nowhere either. It's invalid. It's ad hominem. On top of that, I can tell you that the people of TN are most likely against card check (I have lived in there). Southern states are mostly right to work, and they won't like the Feds trying to trump their laws. If they really are trying to manuever against the UAW to prevent card check, they are both playing fair, and doing the right thing. That is how our government works, and it is not dishonest. Don't get me started on card check. I don't know what kind of business you own, but with card check you really don't own it anymore. It will be like owning real estate - it's really the government's, and you are really just leasing it. My businesses have no employees other than me, so I guess I may be somewhat immune. I am sympathetic to some of your other arguments, and even proposed that if the 2.8 had defended themselves by taking on Congress and blaming state and federal regulation for much of their woes that I would be inclined to support them. I am not happy with the bank bailouts (though I was sympathetic to buying a bunch of mortgage derivatives in order to "restart" the market for them). I simply won't go with 2 wrongs making a right. The government did cause a lot of the problems, and it was both sides of the aisle at fault. How about we try to get it all right, all the time, and only settle when we have to? I don't think we have to give the 2.8 any more money. I really don't think it's fair to Ford to bailout the others. How about when one of the others fails we use a lot less money to keep Ford's suppliers sending them parts. That would be a bail out I could get behind. That would also keep the UAW in a few jobs, but I will live with that if I have to. Overall, if you HAVE to have a domestic car company, then keep the strongest one and let the others fail.