Word: auto
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...auto industry in trouble. You can tell how bad each company is doing just by looking at these hard copy reports. Ford, which seems best-equipped to ride out the economic storm, puts together a forward-looking document full of boxed-off pull quotes. The more dire GM ("Recent significant declines in dealer orders are now adversely affecting first-quarter production schedules and revenue forecasts") packs its statement with charts and graphs and lots of diverting graphics. And Chrysler? It's 14-page document, half the size of the others, looks like a college sophomore's final term paper...
While Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and other congressional Democrats mull an auto-industry bailout plan, it's worth recalling a pair of Republican legislators from the past. One of the most derided pieces of 20th century economic policy was introduced by Senator Reed Smoot of Utah and Representative Willis C. Hawley of Oregon. Signed into law on June 17, 1930, the notorious Smoot-Hawley Act jacked up U.S. tariffs on more than 20,000 imported goods, sparking a global trade war that deepened the Great Depression at home and spread it abroad...
...Meanwhile, the European Investment Bank is set to pledge $2.5 billion to help the continent's auto industry develop more environmentally friendly cars, according to Reuters. That support could help struggling companies stay in the race to bring greener vehicles to market during a global economic downturn. Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne summed up the situation in simple terms: "Either [aid] is for everyone...
...Monday, an auto industry consulting firm, Planning Perspectives Inc., reported that 68% of participants in a survey of executives for industry suppliers said their companies would have to downsize if General Motors declared bankruptcy, while 12% said their businesses would likely close or would definitely do so. In the Midwest alone, some 275,000 jobs would be lost as a result of a GM bankruptcy. "If they go into bankruptcy, it's going to have a catastrophic effect on businesses across the board," says John W. Henke Jr., president of PPI, based in Birmingham, Mich. (See the Top 10 Bailout...
Meanwhile, just to the north, in Kokomo, Ind., Rich Boruff, vice- president of the United Auto Workers local 685, is closely watching the developments. Kokomo boasts plants for Chrysler and one of the nation's largest auto parts suppliers, Delphi. So there is much at stake. Boruff and his troops have been calling and e-mailing their Congressional representatives, urging them to support a bailout for the major automakers. The consequences of a bankruptcy declaration from either of the Big Three, he fears, are just too severe. "It'd kill us," he says...