President-Elect Obama's first YouTube address (actually, America's first presidential YouTube address).
Your Weekly Address from the President-Elect (YouTube, in addition to radio, which is a new thing.) NOTE TO THE PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION TEAM: This would be much better with Yakety Sax.
the latest
latest episodes
I'm glad political figures are taking intrest in internet media I just hope YouTube doesn't end up monopolizing it.
does Obama read Boing Boing? Get them to lower the teleprompter two inches. Also "Service and Sacrifice" is buzzwordworthy, push that with emphasis on sacrificing the ultra-rich. I get the left-overs.
From what I've been able to suss out, he's going to continue this AND the radio address, which is great news as there are still a number of people who are only accessing the internet from spotty connections, if at all. Working in libraries, I've seen many terminals get their sound shut-off as a matter of policy. Radio is still a great way to communicate.
But weekly radio address needs an upgrade all the same. It's rarely heard in full and yet it's quoted from and excerpted in all the major media. The more people can see and hear their leadership the better off we are.
I'm interested in the stagecraft involved. What books are on the shelf to his right, and who autographed the basketball on his left?
"Working in libraries, I've seen many terminals get their sound shut-off as a matter of policy"
True, and damn few libraries have loaner earphones.
Maybe internet carrels that are soundproof?
I hope he's not dropping the radio speeches. For lots of reasons. Not everyone has internet access. Older people usually listen to the radio in favor of other media.
Man, he's already got a thin top layer of gray hair that wasn't there last year.
Love the idea, but Mr. Prez-Elect, you can haz nicer office without fake wood paneling?
Hmm... President-elect Barack Obama, 'Fred', and neo=nazis all joining at one destination. the internet is a strange place.
Agree with #2 above. FIRST thing I noticed was the odd, almost awkward, tilt of his head.
I see a photoshop contest, design a background for Obama! Pakistani cave rock formations, batwing chair with uplights, nightclub dance floor, .... greenscreen work to go with the text?
Lofty speech is lofty.
The sirens in the background are an interesting touch. One presumes the White House will have a better room for recording these things.
sirens could be deliberate, a subliminal cue. Could be what you see, could be extremely highly orchestrated to integrate with a programmed unfolding of some message narrative. Start a little rough to avoid looking manipulatively glossy. We'll see.
I rather like the homemade feel of it. It doesn't smack of artifice. I'm sure once he's in the WH he'll have a "better" set. And a cameraman who can center things.
He's still on-message, though, which has both a been-there-done-that sound, but also is comforting. I'm sure he'd love to take charge tomorrow if he could.
The bit that got me was when he said he wanted unemployment payments extended. Not even in office yet, and already he's telling the current Congress and President what legislation to pass. The man's got serious brass balls.
Kick ass! Couldn't be more excited.
#4: Kennedy's Presidential papers, natch. I note, and do not necessarily appreciate, that he's about a fifth of the screen to the right.
This is gonna hit the front page of digg every week.
Ah, but the props in the background have undoubtedly been placed there to communicate a certain message:
1) American flag (or at least part of it): A proud American, but not so proud as to show the entire thing - he's not showing off about it.
2) Fancy-lookin' books: He's an educated man, not like that Bush fella.
3) Signed basketball: He may be an educated man, but don't worry! He's still an average Joe who likes things like basketball, and prizes the signatures of sporting greats. He's just like you! Except smarter! And richer! And vastly more powerful!
And the wall's kind of crappy, like a regular office wall. Nothing fancy for the pres-to-be.
Good to see the flag on the left for a change (if you catch my drift).
How nice it will be to have a leader address us directly through a common medium that's extremely accessible. A very democratic medium it is. He comes across so sincere, and professional. He is indeed a reassuring figure.
Not even in office yet, and already he's telling the current Congress and President what legislation to pass.
Um, until earlier today he was actually still IN the Senate, you may or may not recall this fact, and his suggestions come after some meetings with the current President.
Truly, how reckless, what gumption that man has, trying to be all.... competent 'n stuff.
"Adding comments has been disabled for this video."
IAWTC.
I hope this continues and I think it will. Obama needs to keep the direct contact up and the transparency see-throughy. Return of the Fireside Chat, please!
Not even in office yet, and already he's telling the current Congress and President what legislation to pass.
You don't ask - you don't get. He wants to start in as good a position as he can. If the current administration listens to anything he says at all - he's that much better off when he takes office.
I just want to say, I love this guy. The fact that he is still president-elect and trying to fill people in on whats going on. I am generally not so maudlin but I feel like a kid and it's christmas-eve night.
a nationwide increase in weddings would probably put some more money into the economy.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/captaintim/3035639444/
what a geek
really looking like no entertainment here, Biden's going to have to do double duty.
The sound issue in libraries – and in general for that matter, as some of us are deaf – would be subtitles/CC.
what a Special first, and likely last, post, innokenty
I was assuming that it was meant as the highest compliment in the Boingiverse.
The Change.gov agenda portion is back up if anybody's interested/ if it hasn't been mentioned yet. Some rad shit, specifics wise.
For super-nerds like me, there's a 720p of this on change.gov.
it's not subtitled ;_;
@19 You forgot the plant. It signifies that he's all that, plus he's goin' green.
Thank god they turned off comments and video responses, I can only imagine what kind of drivel this would stir up.
Green energy ? Keynesian road-building'n stuff ? Adress unemployment ?
Man, I wish we had the same here. All France's got is Bush, only less fun.
http://www.floridata.com/wallpaper/jpg/Cannabis_female800.jpg
@ #5 "loaner earphones"
My gosh, who doesn't have their own set of earbuds these days? In the '30s folks built their own crystal sets in order to tune in the Fireside Chats. Hell, I built one in '62, just to listen to the Ronettes!
MR
@4 Michaelrn --
From what I can tell, it looks like the basketball is an autographed ball from Lenny Wilkens, and the set of three books is the Public Papers of JFK, volumes 1961, 1962 and 1963.
@40
universal access means universal, even the homeless.
I want a presidential podcast I can subscribe to through iTunes. I also want a presidential blog, with comments, moderated by Teresa. I also want presidental forums.
I don't ask for much.
When will Obama be guest blogging on BB?
could invite him. We'd have to be polite though... is it worth it?
Well this won't win Youtube's prize for posting something watchable on Youtube.
Kidding! This is actually incredibly refreshing.
I wouldn't be polite Takuan and I'm a dyed in the wool libtard. I would ask hard questions and expect answers. Either that or there could be a drinking game.
What a breath of fresh air. I'm going to save each of these each week, just to be able to see the change. Glad we have a president who is willing to go the extra mile, even just a little bit.
so who's going to invite him? Before he really takes office and becomes utterly unreachable?
600k views? Next time he should deliver this address while sliding across the floor trying to slam in head into an empty box.
Step one for being the new FDR? Coming to office on the heels of an economic crisis
Step two? Fireside chats
This is awesome. Content wise it's okay, but the fact that is is happening is really, really cool. I like my presidents like I like my everything else - accessible.
(Step three: profit!)
#24 and #40: I'm quite sure the return of the
Fireside Chat is exactly what they're aiming for.
#13: If there's a narrative they'll be constructing, I'm certain it will follow along the lines of the FDR presidency. I do not believe this is a bad thing, however constructed it may be.
"With America.. hold on.." *swoosh* *donk*..
-looks back up at the camera-
"With America competing in the global economy we have to come up with new and exciting ways to spend the taxpayers money."
I honestly don't understand why we need to bail out the auto industry. I think the rallying cry we need is BUY AMERICAN. Not bail-out America.
Palindromic:
Before we can BUY American, we need to be MAKING stuff in America that's worth buying -- and right now, the auto industry is just broken. A push for "green cars" could let us rebuild it, but for that to happen, the government will indeed have to put in a fair bit of cash. They'll also need to use clue-by-fours on various Boards of Directors, but that part will definitely have to wait until the O's in office.
Takuan (#2) Good catch on Mr. Obama looking a little upwards. Moving the whole teleprompter down isn't usually practical. The half mirror will bang into the camera lens, or part of the mirror/LCD display frame will be in a wide shot.
It's a rookie mistake for prez elect Obama to read the text at the top of the screen rather than in the middle. The teleprompter operator could have helped him out by either widening the top border so the scrolling text was lower, or speeding up the roll a bit to ease him into reading at the center. At least he wasn't moving his eyes left to right.
I think he should stick to the radio address, because I wasn't listening to what he said but rather trying to figure out why he was slightly off center horizontally, and you were fixed on his eyes.
Bring on the new New Deal. Investment in our crumbling infrastructure -- remember the Minnesota bridge collapse? -- will create jobs, generate disposable income, and do much to reverse urban decline. Put money in the hands of those who deserve it rather than bailing out corporate nogoodniks who sold our their clientele in bad-faith, high-risk investments. And let the automakers rust, for that matter.
David Harmon, I completely disagree. Ford, GM, Chrysler all have high quality, green friendly vehicles in their line ups. The myth of the American lemon persists however, having fallen behind image race with Toyota, Mazda and Nissan they are suffering bad numbers. Japan regularly subsidizes its auto industry, and I don't think its a bad idea, but Americans first have to do the right thing and buy American.
I think I like Obama more every time I see him speak.
As for the Auto Industry thing I think the 'buy American' message would go entirely against the 'green' message that Obama is hoping to build. That is unless the US seriously changes the way they build cars, hence the need for a large cash injection.
As people become even more conscious about how many MPG they're getting and what sort of emissions they're release they're not going to buy American made cars, they simply don't cut it compared to Japanese cars, European cars and even Chinese cars available in the marketplace because the US manufacturers are getting hurt by this they don't have enough money to re-invest properly (or they do but they want to claim poor until someone bails them out).
make a glorified electric golf cart with lead acid batteries that charges on house current, sells for $5,000 and is welcome in every city by federal law and they'll fly off the shelves. Probably account for 25% of the market right off.
Maybe GM could look into developing an electric car? Oh that's right, they decided they wanted to be Exxon's house boy. So maybe the oil corps could bail them out. I hear they've been doing ok.
I like it a lot, but in the future he could use maybe a little light piano music in the background. A nice intro theme too. Nothing too over the top, just a quick bit of the Star Spangled Banner, again maybe in piano. A genteel narrator could introduce him as the music fades to quiet lilt in the distance ... .
No?
Oh.
And thank YOU, Mr. Obama, for not ending with the seemingly obligatory "God bless America."
Chrysler was part of a German company for a decade until recently. Every Japanese manufacturer runs plants in the U.S., and every American manufacturer has plants overseas or in Mexico. There are Kentucky rednecks building Toyotas, and there are Spaniards building Fords. Americans own stock in BMW and Chinese own stock in GM. So what does "Buy American" even mean?
@Rikki, piano is okay, but what this really needs is some Yakety Sax (http://www.boingboing.net/2008/10/08/adding-the-benny-hil.html)
My car company bailout muscle is a little atrophied after watching Roger & Me last week.
how come the religious types never say "and may we earn and deserve god's blessing"
#57, Itsumishi, that's just the persistent myth about American cars. 90% of the vehicles in the current lineups of Americas auto makers match up quite well to the fuel efficiency and emissions ratings of their Japanese counterparts. Ten years ago and you might have a strong case to make, but not in today's car market.
Fuel efficient, low emission vehicles are the standard now, and Ford matches very well with Toyota or Honda. The whole point of building/subsidizing/buying American autos is to give a backbone to the manufacturing industry that is giving way to a highly susceptible "service economy". We can do both, and if we get to the point where we are exporting cars on top of a domestic dominance, we'll be supporting our own economic growth through the myriad of American industries that will benefit from a booming domestic car market. (Steel, electronics, fabrication, etc)
Wow.
After all those miserable years with Bush. Wow.
Is this how people felt about Kennedy when he got elected? It is pretty intense.
You know who's going to have a harder time of it? Stewart and Colbert. And I bet they won't mind the least little bit.
#62, GDP. If the people that own and run those companies are not Americans, and don't live in America, they aren't spending their wealth here, thus supporting our economy. They also aren't paying taxes here. That's bad.
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/08/28/city-of-flint-gives-gm-tax-breaks-for-cruze-and-volt-factory/
I'd rather see $25B go into sponsored grants for transportation research, city planning and urban renewal than in an auto-industry handout. U.S. car companies have frittered way hundreds of billions over the last decade and a half chasing short-term goals with shitty cars and shitty labor policies, they can burn through $25B in a couple years trying to buy Jaguar again or resurrecting Hummer or something else stupid.
Seriously, giving $25B to Toyota and Honda would probably result in more US jobs than GM/Chrysler/Ford.
i am just stunned. In a happy, excited way.
i feel a sense of hope and possibility, not crushing repression.
President-elect Obama makes me want to be a better person, for my country, and my family.
for the first time in a long time, I believe my son may have a positive future in our country.
@66 - Palindromic
Top 10 Most Fuel-Efficient Cars of 2007
Not a single US car in here.
Green Vehicle Guide - Midsize cars from 2009.
This one does have quite a few US cars higher in the list than I expected, however I notice Ford doesn't have a single car with a rating over 6.
An article published this September in regards to GM's plans to produce more fuel efficient cars in North America "where GM has faced a sharp drop in demand for its gasoline guzzling trucks and sport utility vehicles."
I'm no expert on this matter so if you can point me to something to back up your point I'm all ears.
Well cstatman good news. On 60 min. tonight Obama repeated his commitment to close Guantanamo Bay and ban torture. I think a lot of us are there feeling that sense of hope.
@6o Actually I think Johnathon Coulton should be slightly behind him, softly playing and humming Guthrie's "This Land."
Who the fuck buys a new car? A giant piece of steel that looses half it's value the second you drive it off the lot?
A waitress working 45 hours a week to put her kid through school? The employees working at the steel mill that makes the steel for the cars? No efing way. They're buying 10 year old cars for 3, 4, 5,000 dollars; so even if your point, Palindromic, was valid, which Itsumishi has cast some serious doubt on, it's still the 10-year-old cars that people are buying.
You show me a 10-year-old prius, and maybe I'll buy (as an example).
Itsumishi, yes.. if you cherry pick the top of the list from manufacturers who have been providing cars for markets where fuel prices have always been the #1 concern, US automakers lose out.
However if you take in to account the various classes and do an across the board survey (try it yourself, do an advanced search on fueleconomy.gov and check >15 city and > 20 highway) you will see that American models are hanging around in the same range as Japanese/German/South Korean cars for fuel efficiency in almost all classes. Yes, the Prius and the Yaris beat out the Focus and the Cobalt, but not by so much that you would buy one or the other solely on that basis. Or would you? I mean, the Focus only gets 37 mpg where the Civic gets 40 mpg highway. Surely that should be the deciding factor. Here's a side by side comparison:
Cost to drive 25 Miles
$2.29
$2.46
Fuel to Drive 25 Miles
0.86 gal
0.93 gal
Cost of a Fill-up
$31.60
$33.52
Miles on a Tank
345 miles
340 miles
Tank Size
13.2 gal
14.0 gal
Annual Fuel Cost*
$1377
$1476
You could be saving almost 100 dollars a year by buying that Civic. And destroying your own countries economy in the process? Priceless.
#70. Yes, Americans are retarded, our car companies are trash and they aren't changing or doing anything at all to fix things. They are just static and willing to lay down and die. Fuck America, fuck yeah! We SHOULD give 25 billion of our money to Japan dude, you're so right. I can see you have thought this through carefully and based your opinion on well reasoned arguments. Yes, back in the 80's the American car companies fucked up, and yes, Roger Smith probably was kind of a d*ck. But he's dead now, and things have changed a little bit. If these companies go under you will see some real layoffs and f'd up shit.
But that'd be okay, because Amerikkka fukkin sux. Amirite?
noen: The interview on 60 mins was heartening, especially his outright acknowledgment that government in America in it's current form has zero moral authority.
With any luck he's ushering in an era where the US can at least point to itself and say "this is democracy, this is what we want for the world, for you. This is what is best". And to be able to say that without the rest of the 'democratised world' sniggering with disgust.
"Our car companies"?? Since when? The only difference between Toyota and GM is that one is solvent and the other has junk bond status. The only difference between their respective CEO's is that the Toyota CEO would commit seppuku if he was a full of fail as the GM CEO.
Palindromic, life is not high school. You can put down the pom poms already.
@ Palindromic:
The people who own those companies are the shareholders, not the governments of Japan or Germany. When Americans buy stock in foreign auto manufacturers and get dividends or capital gains from it, that counts towards the GDP and maybe the trade balance too. When foreign manufacturers build a factory in the U.S., all those workers' income counts towards the same, plus employment stats. Either way, it's money going into American pockets. Giving preferential purchasing treatment to a company simply because its parent's corporate headquarters happens to be on U.S. soil makes about as much sense as buying a car because it has your initials in its model name.
Leavinghalfway, a 10 year old Prius is called a Civic, and good luck with getting a 10 year old Civic away from it's current owners.
"Next time he should deliver this address while sliding across the floor trying to slam in head into an empty box."
SECONDED. This would be awesome. :D And this, of course, should be set to "yakety sax".
@74 - why not just get one of the Guthries? There's still at least 3 of them I can think of making albums...
Obama is a great man... I've never been so happy to see a new president before him. I love his idea about how we rise and fall as ONE nation...
Listen, I am the middle class right now but that is not why I am an Obama supporter. Even if i owned my own business and I was taking in half a million a year. If it meant for me to give an extra $10,000 in taxes at the end of the year, I would be happy to because I would definitely still be able to provide food for my family and have a roof over my head.... and I know that I will be helping out others that might not have that comfort.
No one should go through hard times... call me socialist, call me communist, i personally hate labels. I will call myself good.
-Adam
We are witness to the down fall of democracy here.
A democracy fails when the people realize that they can vote themselves money out of the public coffer.
Well... they have, and they are.
Obama is doing on the table what Bush and his cronies have been doing behind closed doors. I pray that it will change soon. Unfortunately I see him trapped into some pay outs to the super rich. Hopefully that will be a major part of his "change"
America needs to not just buy american but we need to build it. Most "made in USA" stuff is actually built elsewhere.
*and just for the record... I voted FOR Obama.
May we earn God's blessing,
Timothy...
You may have voted for Obama flytch, but everything else you said is the purest, number one grade BS. It's standard cut and past right wing baloney that I've seen repeated over and over. You'd think you people would get tired of endlessly mouthing the same crap over and over and over...
Flytch, You're right. What we need to do is spend more American money in America, on America.
Where I know you are wrong is in pointing at a guy who has been in the Senate for 2 years as central to the ongoing problem.
Where I think you are wrong (this part is my opinion, not yet fact) is in refusing to believe Obama is capable of it.
Not even I gave up on Bush until Katrina, when he proved, well beyond my suspicions, that the incompetence of the last 7 years flowed down from the top.
If you cannot even conceive that Obama is capable, then you will be the one holding him (and us) back.
Give the man a chance Flytch. He's earned it.
This article, We Are All Flint, MI Now has changed my mind.
What would most likely happen:
1. GM files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy
2. GM's Chinese partner, SAIC, buys much of GM (Buick, Chevy, Cadillac)
3. GM/SAIC starts importing Chinese-made Buicks and Chevys, undercutting Toyota's cost advantages
4. GM/SAIC owns the Volt technology, requiring US firms to lease it if they wanted to use it
And I think that would be very bad.
palindromic,
Calm yourself. Talking like Archie Bunker isn't helping your argument.
MDH@87: Point of correction: Obama has been a U.S. senator since elected in 2004. Although I agree with the thrust of your statement, I am surprised it took Katrina to open your eyes. I'm glad that it did, but there were plenty of examples of his incompetence prior to 2005. How did you manage to stay on the bandwagon for that long?
Noen,
The other side of the coin is of course:
Why Bankruptcy is the Best Option for GM
GM's brands (8!) are a mess. They have over 4 times as many dealers as Toyota. They support more retirees than workers. These are fundamental, insurmountable problems, and they are enforced by law. The only two options are (essentially) nationalizing them and running them in the red perpetually, and allowing them to go into bankruptcy.
The government doesn't have to allow SAIC's purchase of GM's assets. That's far less intervention than endlessly pumping taxpayer money into a miserably inefficient company.
I disagree with the WSJ editorial that GM can go chapter 11. Consumers will not buy vehicles from a bankrupt company. Chapter 7 will be awful, but it's like chopping off a finger with gangrene.
How did you manage to stay on the bandwagon for that long?
I never was ~on~ the Bush bandwagon, but was willing to SILENTLY give him the benefit of the doubt overall prior to Katrina. Even after he lied us into Iraq, which I saw through from day 1 - but US foreign policy has never been pretty - and Saddam was our man to take care of (take out).
The conservatives are going to disrespect (and probably try to impeach Obama) from day one, and nothing he does right can slow them down. They can eternally justify berating Obama because we grew to disrespect Bush - no matter that Bush earned it.
I think it's dandy to re-introduce the fireside chat via YouTube.
Let's see. "Extend unemployment benefits". OK, my lazy brother in law got laid off when his company got bought out, and has not made any real attempt at finding another job. So, Obama wants us to borrow more money fron China so we may continue to pay him not to work. Nice. Makes me all warm and fuzzy.
Bail out the auto industry: Sorry, but their problems go much deeper than the current economic crisis. We should not bail or buy them out of this mess. Let someone else buy them, and finally break the stranglehold the auto unions have on that industry. The Dems don't want the unions to be weakened because that's a big support base for them. In this situation, what's good for the Democratic Party is bad for the rest of the country.
Sparky, seems that you want society (rather than yourself) to send your brother an important message by cutting him off. As for unions, well, those are for people who actually are their brothers keepers.
Yes, because its so easy to get a job in this day and age, Sparky. Piece of cake. That's why everyone in the country is doing so well for themselves, because jobs are everywhere!
never could understand how some people chronically vote against their own self interest just because a few smart, bad people know how to push their hate/fear-buttons. Yeah, sure, unions are bad. If I were very rich and needed cheap workers.
Just why is it exactly,that in the "land of the free" there are so many who think they deserve to be poor and needy? In any case, until I am very rich and need serf-labor to stay that way, I'll bet on the probability that there are only so many working years in anyone's earning life-span and I'm NOT going to inherit a fortune or win any lotteries. Of course, if I DO become very rich somehow, you can rest assured I will be dead set against unions.
MDH,
As for unions, well, those are for people who actually are their brothers keepers.
That's like saying churches are for people who are their brothers' keepers. Sometimes they do wonderful things. Sometimes they become corrupted. Sometimes they're just dinosaurs from another era. Each case is unique, and sweeping generalizations about the absolute goodness or badness of unions is unproductive.
Detroit makes crap cars (hello Pontiac!) and does it preposterously more expensively than foreign competitors. That will only get worse. Protecting UAW jobs with taxpayer money doesn't help this, and it actually makes it worse, because it prevents meaningful transformation. So we save one job today and in return lose 10 tomorrow. I just see that as myopic and foolish.
This is an OSX vs. Windows 98 moment. Sometimes you have to scrap it all and start over.
To MDH: I don't sign his unemployment checks. I have no authority to officially review his attempts at finding work. I have no power to send him an "important message". Your complaint has no merit.
Regarding unions: the US auto makers are financially hog-tied by their union contracts that hold provisions created when economic and labor conditions were very different. I don't have a problem with the concept of a labor union. There are situations where they are of real benefit. In this case, The UAW has refused to adjust to changing times and has become a parasite on the auto industry, and is sucking the hosts dry.
Big unions and big corporations are just two sides of the exact same coin: they both want power and influence over their members/employees and their competition. Don't believe for a second that unions are "good" and businesses are "bad". That's just naive. Both forms of organization are primarily intent on their own growth and influence, and it's the little guys that get screwed in the end. The greedy power hungry leaders of the UAW share the blame with corporate management in creating a business model that cannot be sustained, and their members will pay the price when the bill comes due. This is why I think they both need to be kicked to the curb.
Of course, the auto makers should have made the hard choices before it got this bad, and should have done a much better job of running their companies, but they didn't. And because they did not, I feel no compulsion to bail them out with money BORROWED FROM OTHER COUNTRIES, some of which don't like us much at all.
At the same time we are making ourselves ever more vulnerable to foreign influence via oil, we are also weakening ourselves with foreign debt. What's the point of "buying American" when Americans no longer own America?
Oh, and Talia, I never implied it was easy to get work. I said he had not "tried" to get work. There's a big difference. My sister also found herself unemployed. She found work doing security for a casino, graveyard shift. It was a big pay cut, and she hated it, but she sucked it up and did her best. According to Obama's plan, her effort is not worth rewarding, but my BIL will get more checks.
At least with Roosevelt's New Deal, he put people to work on public work's projects. This may come as a shock, but there really are a lot of people who will sit around and not work if they can be paid to do so. I object to my tax money being used this way.
no UAW people ever told GM etc. to make crappily engineered gas guzzlers. While construction quality defects might be laid at the line workers feet, it was the executive suite that made and enforced greedy, short sighted decisions.
no UAW people ever told GM etc. to make crappily engineered gas guzzlers
But that's exactly what they do. GM execs want to exit a market, but the UAW won't let them. New execs try to fix mistakes made by old execs and are powerless to do so. Case in point:
UAW forces conditions on sale of Hummer.
"The United Auto Workers union would not support a sale of General Motors Corp's (GM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) Hummer brand or Chrysler LLC's Dodge Viper if changing owners would take production outside the United States, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger told Reuters on Tuesday."
what does exporting jobs have to with new models being implemented?
Only everything, Takuan. If you can't close down or sell problem business units, how do you move into new areas? This is exactly why GM has eight brands right now, and they can't expand anymore.
You can't complain about poor past executive decisions if current and future executives are powerless to correct them.
maybe management should do a better job of switching their workforce over to new viable models. I'm not going to get into the nitty gritty of contracts and negotiations. The bald fact remains: The present situation is a mess, who was driving?
Well it appears there is some interest in a presidential address/Yakety Sax mash-up.
President Elect Obama's Yakety Side Address
Enjoy!
heh!
Firstly I'm not American. I'm Australian. Secondly my point is consumers will buy what is best for them, if that means buying Toyota or Honda then they will. Yes in the long run it's probably bad for the Country but 'one little car' isn't going to change anything and that's the attitude that most people take. This is proven by the market share continuing to dwindle for such a long time.
Secondly there's no need to have a hissy fit because I said American car's are not as fuel efficient as other parts of the world. They're not and this is precisely why the Government needs to step in and help them.
What hurts the US hurts Australia especially as our 2 major manufacturers are both subsidiaries of US companies (GM Holden who manufacture your Pontiac GTO and Ford Australia).
Although after reading those other 2 articles posted by Noen and Deviant I can see that there's going to be a lot more to fixing the situation then throwing money at it and manufacturing more efficient cars.
I have this eerie feeling that those who cry most loudly about The Market are often the ones who insist that we not buy Japanese cars.
I have this eerie feeling that unless Americans light a fire under their collective asses they will find themselves living under a rock in a hard place.
Antinous, when I was younger I did think it was somehow unpatriotic to buy foreign cars. A really sharp econ professor challenged my views and made me reconsider.
http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2994