Quote:
Originally Posted by delusianne
The “new GM” will get $30.1 billion in bankruptcy financing from the government, and the Treasury “does not anticipate providing any additional assistance” after that, the Obama administration said yesterday in a statement. The federal government will have a 60 percent equity stake in the retooled automaker, and 12 percent will be held by the Canadian government, which is lending $9.5 billion to the company.
“Our objective is to make sure we’re limiting our involvement to the minimum necessary, and that we get out of those involvements as quickly as we can,” Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said today in Beijing. “We want to have a quick, clean exit as soon as conditions permit.”
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....The Detroit-based automaker became burdened by higher costs than competitors and a reliance on fuel-guzzling light trucks as gasoline prices rose. GM has been battered by almost $88 billion of losses since 2004.
“GM going through bankruptcy is a very positive thing for the auto industry: They should emerge as a reasonable competitor,” said Len Blum, managing director at investment- banking firm Westwood Capital LLC in New York.
GM Bankruptcy to Bring Taxpayer Ownership, Less Debt (Update3) - Bloomberg.com |
GM and Chrysler should go bust - the sooner - the better. And the taxpayers will be hosed, no doubt.
Subsidization of the automobile and highways, at the expense of more efficient and frugal transport modes must end.
Applying cold hard physical facts, based on the Law of Physics, we know the hierarchy of energy consumption (efficiency) for transportation systems:
1. Water
2. Rail (steel wheel on steel rail)
3. Rubber tire on Asphalt
4. Air Transport
We may not know that
GM (http://saveourwetlands.org/streetcar.htm - broken link) and other petroleum interests deliberately killed off the urban rail system to boost sagging sales, in the 1920s. Their spin doctors have effectively covered their tracks - almost.
So - disregarding the predatory and destructive schemes of the past, we should not abandon Big Auto because of its evil past, but that it makes no SENSE to embrace a transportation system that is so wasteful of fuel, surface area, resources, and one's lifespan working in support of it.
Petroleum's age is nearing the end. Any transportation system dependent upon it will incrementally increase in price, and decrease in availability. In short, the national agenda should be working toward alternative transportation for when automobile ownership dwindles to 10% of its current level.
What's left?
Electrified rail, where practical / possible: urban streetcars, interurban, heavy rail, subway, funicular, cogwheel - whatever. And the overhead power distribution grid may offer the secondary benefit of power to other vehicles, such as hybrids and electric buses, trucks and automobiles.
Way of Steel
Before petroleum's rise, there were boats and railroads
After petroleum's demise, there will be boats and electric railroads.
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