Word: autos
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...secret that one of the biggest reasons the U.S. auto industry is teetering on collapse is that, quite simply, Americans have stopped buying cars. U.S. auto sales were down 37% in March from 2008, the latest in a nearly unbroken year-and-a-half streak of falling sales. And if the cratered economy is the main culprit behind backed-up inventory at U.S. car dealers, another is that American automakers have failed to produce the more fuel-efficient vehicles that gas-price-conscious car buyers are beginning to demand. As a result, the U.S. still sends hundreds of billions...
...what if there were a way to tackle both these problems with one policy: to stimulate demand for American cars while making the U.S. auto fleet cleaner, greener and more efficient? It sounds like the kind of slick two-for-one pitch you might hear from a used-car salesman, but that's exactly what proponents of a "cash for clunkers" program are promising. (See the 50 worst cars of all time...
...worth up to 2 million additional sales a year - while polluting cars would be taken off the road and replaced with more efficient ones. (All cash-for-clunkers programs require the old cars to be scrapped rather than resold.) "There are significant environmental advantages and substantive benefits for the auto sector," says Benjamin Goldstein, a policy analyst for left-leaning think tank the Center for American Progress. "This goes right for the source of the problem, for vehicles sales...
...government, the auto bankruptcy is not the issue. The issue is how well the process prepares it for the next industry bailout. At this point, GM is just a test case...
...most important reason for the government to expend this great effort on GM and Chrysler is that the car business is such a large employer. There is no longer a case to be made that the auto manufacturing business is "strategic". If the auto industry was ever in a position to enjoy that designation, it was when the American car companies had 70% of the market. At this point, Toyota (TM) and Honda (HMC) could buy the divisions of GM that they believe can be profitable and the domestic auto market would see very little disruption...