Why...

...the fuck...

...should we even be considering...

...bailing out the "Big Three" US automakers?

It's bad enough that we had to bail out the entire financial industry, but, in fairness, the argument there was a little more compelling. That debacle, brought to us by the fine folks who, well, bring us debacles, impacted every citizen in this country, and in many cases, we had no real alternatives. We can also see the case for bailing out airlines — yes, it's a bit of a pain, and the rank incompetence of the air travel corporations is growing beyond atrocious, but we do see the public, national interest in maintaining easy access to domestic air travel (the asshats at the TSA notwithstanding).

But domestic auto makers? Fuck 'em. There are plenty of non-domestic alternatives. Just look around next time you drive, and we're sure you'll see tons of them on the road. The US manufacturers have been rolling out Pieces of Shit for decades. It isn't the economic downturn that struck their death blow (though it certainly hit them about the head and neck with a sock full of quarters), it's their simple inability to compete in a global market. These bloated behemoths were all too happy rolling out environmentally bulimic trucks and SUVs while things were good — when the only people asking for better fuel economy are all penniless hippies, why should commercial capitalism give a shit what they buy?

But now that the price of fuel has gone up and the economy has gone down, these fuckers have suddenly seen the light? It took a look at the bottom line, as the desire for better fuel economy spread like a green fungus across nearly every possible demographic, for them to finally decide that they need to retool and invest in more fuel efficient cars?

Fuck 'em — they knew it was coming years ago, and they did nothing. They knew the gravy train was truly over just a few years back, and they continued to manufacture cars that no one wanted to buy. So let 'em die.

Oh, but what about the 300,000 people they employ? Gee, folks — Walmart employs over one million people. If the plight of the economy hits the bulk retailers, should we bail them out as well? Because their collapse would put four to eight times as many Americans out of work as would the collapse of all three big US auto makers put together.

And we don't want to hear that one in twelve US jobs relies on these three companies. If you want to make that claim, Big Three, then you'll need to show your work, because we call bullshit. And before you try throwing in a few variables on which we'll also call bullshit, remember that a professional mechanic, with a quick refresher, can work on Hondas as easily as F-150s — so that doesn't count.

So we're waiting to hear: what exactly is the overwhelmingly compelling downside of these three companies going under?

Sure, it would be another kick in the shriveled nuts to our feebly stumbling economy, but compared to what we've already been through, it would be a drop in the bucket. And we have plenty of other cars to buy (fuck, we've been buying them for years already), which wouldn't devastate our economy any more than it is already devastated.

Here's an easy question: You know what isn't good for the economy? Repeatedly propping up a failing industry in which we cannot compete in a global market. What we're doing, basically, is using taxpayer money to buy into a business model that just isn't working. Further, the auto makers have shown us no compelling reasons why their business models — whatever they are — will start working at any time in the near future. Why should we perpetuate this farce? Don't get us wrong, it wouldn't be any kind of instant economic curative if we didn't throw our money at this problem, but in our opinion, it just isn't worth it to bail out these asshats again and again when they've shown that they have no ability to upgrade or revise (or, in an ideal world, change) their business models to compete with the rest of the world.

Just over a month ago, we bailed out the auto makers with $25 billion in loans aimed at making more fuel-efficient cars to be issued in 2009. Now the auto makers are looking for that same amount of money...but this time, those clever fuckholes would like a "no strings" handout.

How about: no. How about: more fuel efficient cars are the only things that we, as taxpayers, have a vested national interest in providing incentives for (financial or otherwise). How about: if that's not what you want to use the money for, then you don't fucking get any.

Here's a fucking thought: there are other ways to get a capital infusion if you need one. How about selling assets? Or phasing out some advertising spending? (Because these days, of course, everybody buys automobiles because of the grinning celebrity behind the wheel of a sedan on TV or on a billboard. Right, morons?) Of course, if you're in real trouble, you could always declare bankruptcy — it doesn't necessarily mean the end of the world, or the company (at least, it doesn't have to in every case). Have the Big Three tried investigating any of these avenues before looking for a handout? Fuck, no!

Without even looking, we can virtually guarantee that there are assets that could be sold (corporate jets, anyone?). And the last time we watched television, we're pretty sure we fast-forwarded past at least a dozen commercials for domestic cars. (Hey, Chevy? You guys are the carriers of the "Importitis" virus, so shut the fuck up.) Hell, you could always drop some of your fabulously expensive Nascar sponsorships before asking for our fucking taxpayer money, dickholes. Is that fourteen drivers there on Team Chevy's site alone?

And yes, we know that you don't want to do any of those things. But guess what? We don't want to bail your sorry asses out again! You know the saying that tough times call for tough measures? That means tough measures by you, not us.

You know, maybe after these three lumbering prehistoric giants are gone, some of the barriers that block start-up auto companies from entering the market will be removed. Maybe we'll get some true innovation again, a reinvention of the industry on the level of Ford's assembly line. Maybe we'll see a manufacturing company that doesn't rely on inefficient, overpriced union labor, and incompetent, short-sighted management, and maybe we'll once again have a shot at a place of prominence in the auto making industry, if that means anything. But writing a blank fucking check to these three fucks, so they can live high for another few months or years while refusing to cash the one check they need — a reality check — isn't going to get us anywhere.

So, hey: Big Three! Tighten your fucking belts, and try to finally change your business models so that you can fucking compete with the foreign auto makers. If it's finally, truly too late, and you can't do that, then shut up and die. We don't need your sorry asses, and we sure as shit don't need to fund them.

!!!

I've gotta say, when I originally heard this proposal, I was floored by the sheer audacity of it. GM’s been in trouble for years, partially due to its refusal to market more fuel efficient vehicles, but also partly due to their refusal (the problem was identified over ten years ago) to take steps to “fund” their pension plan.

Not sure that laying part of the blame at “inefficient overpriced union labor” is constructive, though. The companies in question have had the option to offshore jobs for years. Dealing with a heavily unionised workforce is simply part of the deal when it comes to keeping jobs in the US.

My dad's a GM employee and has been trying to convince me of the necessity of a bailout for weeks. I'm not convinced. I sympathize with him, certainly, but I think his reasoning is clouded by his own personal self-interest. I'm mostly of the opinion that they should file chapter 11, which is the only way they could dump enough of their hundred-year largess and legacy expenses (in addition to their shitty leadership and overbearing union contracts) to effectively reorganize. Give them money, they'll just keep plugging along with the same inefficient structure, paying out money to the same useless places. They need to majorly slim down, and chapter 11 is pretty much their only hope.

My dad's argument for the "indirect jobs" comes down to the number of GM factory towns that still exist in the US. I believe he has a minor point, but many of these towns have survived the loss of factories before. And besides that, just because GM leaves doesn't mean the factory will remain vacant. I'm sure Toyota and Honda are itching to expand their US holdings as fast as GM is itching to relocate factories to China.

Oh, we agree, dikkii. That's why we were sure to blame the company leadership as well. In fact, we'd place far more blame on the leadership for their poor decisions than we would on the unions.

In fact, the situation you mentioned is one influencing factor in our opinion that a bail out just isn't a good idea. If the auto makers are ever to implement a successful, workable business model, we tend to believe that it will absolutely require offshoring their workforce to some degree (perhaps a very great degree). That would mean that, contrary to the argument that this bail out would "save" oodles of US jobs, any bail out with even a remote hope of long term success will still entail massive domestic job loss.

And don't get us wrong — we aren't union haters. Traditionally, unions serve a legitimate and important purpose. Without them, the exploitation of workers would be far more widespread than it is today. However, any rational person must admit that some unionized workforces have crossed the line to wanton insanity, with no chance of ever crossing back. (And worse, in certain industries, the unions have replaced the self-serving bureaucracy they were formed to fight with their own self-serving bureaucracy.)

Mandating hopelessly overstaffed teams for miniscule jobs (at work, one of us once had to pay two foremen and seven laborers to move one thirty pound box from the back of a truck at the loading dock to a room about fifty feet away), having things "break" in order to make a point (like the time all the electrical cords on a floor were found mysteriously missing their plugs), creating jobs where none exist (like the full-time person that had to be paid to push the button on the elevator all day, every day — yes, all of these are actual, personal work experiences), forcing employees to join unions, and an overall poor work ethic have become the hallmark of all too many unions in this country. If the US is ever to take a leading role in manufacturing again, we have to believe that the unions have to either clean up their acts and go back to the basics that spurred their formations in the first place, or be set aside in favor of non-union labor, either at home or abroad — wherever it needs to be.

And Akusai — exactly right. We feel for your dad, but as you did, we come down on the side of the rational good of the many rather than the emotional good of the few. Of course, we don't blame your dad for allowing personal interest to enter into his decision making — in a situation like this, that's only natural.

Chapter Eleven is certainly one of the Big Three's most viable options at this point; though we doubt they're willing to do it without a fight. As for the "indirect jobs" argument, you addressed yet another reason why the numbers are suspect. The perpetuation of this preposterous hypothesis that the collapse of the domestic auto makers will absolutely destroy the factories and the towns that base their economy on them, or that a mechanic can't figure out how to work on a different make of car, deserves only a deadpan, sarcastic response, not a helping hand to the tune of $25 billion.

And yes, people will lose their jobs, and the economy will take a hit, and it's possible that some towns will collapse. But that still isn't a good reason to continue to prop up a failing industry that has shown no signs of possible redemption.

I have to agree with the rant. And I must compliment you on combusting an especially ranty rant. Have a few habaneros on your Wheaties this morning?

Pretty much all the car manufacturers are global now. There's really nothing special about the Not-Quite-So-Big-Anymore Three. BMW has a plant in North Carolina. Toyota and Honda have plants in the US. GM and Ford have plants overseas. How come BMW, Toyota, and Honda aren't crying? Because they make good-looking, high-quality cars that people want to buy. And not just the Prius.

Detroit got it's wake-up call in 1973. The OPEC oil shock and subsequent invasion of the Japanese automakers was a big thumping with a 4x4 cluestick. Detroit's response was a decade and a half of pure dreck. Zero styling, shoddy workmanship, and a Buy American ad campaign. Brilliant.

By the time they finally started listening to JDPower and began upping the quality of their products, it was too late for them to repel the invaders. And they never have figured out that "style" thing. Detroit made cool cars in the late 60s, and then showed occasional glimmers in the 90s and Aughts, but generally the trip from concept car to production model took a detour through Ugly/Boring/Predictable Town. (Gotta give Chrysler some props for rolling out the Prowler and a few other models--definitely not playing it safe there.)

Then again, maybe they're just pining for the good old days. After all, haven't they been cranking out Sherman tanks for the war effort all these years? Isn't that worth something? Isn't what's good for GM good for America? I think Eisenhower had something to say about that. And the Sherman sucked. Hell, BMW was kicking GM's ass even then.

I am so torn. I live in Michigan, my partner comes from Flint, and while I know we haven't hit bottom yet, this may just do it. Even if I tried to bail now there is no way I could sell my tiny house. And it's not just the current employees, it's the zillions of retirees... oh, what's that? Social Security will pick up the slack? Right.

On the other hand, when you consider what these companies deliberately and systematically did to public transportation in this state I'd say they sort of have it coming.

I was here in1975 when they hit the snooze button the first time. That's, you know, like, 23 years ago. I realize the buying public is fickle, but Toyotas have sold well for all of those 23 years.

So, I don't know what I think of a bailout. No one should be rewarded for bad business practicies. But some help with the pension monster would save a lot of suffering.

First, I generally agree with your rant. It's stupid to prop up failing business models, and the US carmakers did miss all the earlier wake-up calls.

However, at the start of the rant, I wondered about this line:

"We can also see the case for bailing out airlines — yes, it's a bit of a pain, and the rank incompetence of the air travel corporations is growing beyond atrocious, but we do see the public, national interest in maintaining easy access to domestic air travel (the asshats at the TSA notwithstanding)."

Why are air travel companies different from car companies? Don't you have several hundreds or so of air companies, plus (as in the case of car makers) foreign carriers also?
Plus, wouldn't a time like this - when rising oil prices made obvious how expensive air travel really should be to the public - an excellent time for building up a railway network that your country sadly lacks (which is ironic considering the important role in the "colonisation" (and almost-extinction of the Native American tribes in the process) of the Wild West the railways played).
This would not only be a benefit to the enviroment (provided you would be smart enough to used electric trains instead of coal or diesel, as any sensible civilised nation does), if you produced the electric power via wind and solar, you would reduced the dependency on foreign oil.
Plus, building the railway network and training drivers, engineers, tickets sellers, conducters etc. would offer new jobs to those people who lost theirs from the economic downturn. Seems to me a much better investment from the state. The only "argument" against it seems to be that Americans don't want a railway because it can't run commercially, that is privately without government help.
But given that the highway system is run with tax money, too (right?), and that apparently air companies need regularly bailouts, too, why are people so hung up against railways? (Was there some secret ad campaign from the car makers that planted subliminal prejudices some time ago?)

The other line that surprised me a bit was

"That debacle, brought to us by the fine folks who, well, bring us debacles, impacted every citizen in this country, and in many cases, we had no real alternatives."

First, from reading your previous rants, I thought you were heavily libertarian, yes? (If I was mistaken, then it clear up). But liberatarians want to lift all restrictions on capitalistic enterprises, don't they. No government interference translates to no rules and no regulations and no control - which is what lead to this mess: the market created new, unregulated financial investments (and new companies outside the regulated banks) and the government watchdogs, following the neocons and liberatarian dogma that less interference is better, didn't catch up. (You surely won't pull the bullshit of claiming it was Clinton's laws against discriminisation against poor people that caused this mess, instead of Bush's deregulation, won't you, because surely you're too smart to believe that nonsense, aren't you?)

But capitalism has always been great at privatising profits (that is, dividing it up among the few people at the top) and socialiszing losses (that is, spread them out among the poor dopes who pay taxes or who get laid off because of dumb managment decisions).

We sympathize, Marta, and that's why we'd be much more open to a government plan that directly helped the people impacted by the poor business practices of the automakers, than we would be to one that helps the automakers themselves. We do feel sorry for the people who are getting the shaft in this sordid tale. We just don't think that's a valid reason to prop up the automakers — they're the ones who fucked up, here.

That said, we have to question those who, in the past decade or so, have decided to start careers working on production lines for the US automakers. While we understand how someone who has been on the line for 20 or 30 years (or more) might find it difficult to change jobs, we have to wonder why someone today would look at the abysmal track record of these companies and make a decision to tie their livelihoods to them.

constanze — you ask:

Why are air travel companies different from car companies? Don't you have several hundreds or so of air companies, plus (as in the case of car makers) foreign carriers also?

No, we don't have several hundred domestic air carriers, even if you count the small regionals. In the US, there are maybe 8-10 "Majors" and about a dozen other big airlines that serve the entire country as well as international locations (your numbers may vary slightly as we've found it hard to find two lists that match). After that, there are maybe a few dozen regional carriers that fly a very limited number of local routes (some are very, very limited). So, basically, if enough of them fail (which has been the fear when we've propped them up), our ability to travel both within the country and to the rest of the world would be significantly handicapped. Even if all of the regional airlines survived a collapse of the Majors, the loss of the Majors would turn air travel into something like bus travel (jump on the 3:10 from LAX to Burbank, then the 5:50 from Burbank to Las Vegas...), which is not so incredibly efficient or desirable (especially considering the fares we pay).

And yes, there are plenty of foreign air carriers, but none of them have entered the US market in anything like the way that foreign car makers have. They simply don't operate domestic US flights, and even their international flights tend to only operate out of a few large US cities (and then, pretty much only to cities within their countries of origin). Want to see a real world example? Try to grab an Alitalia flight from New York to Chicago. Oh, what's that? You have to make that trip via Rome? Yeah, that's the problem. Now go try to buy a Honda. Wait, you can get one from your local dealer, and you don't have to go to Japan? Exactly.

So the situation with foreign air carriers isn't even close to in the same ballpark as the situation with foreign automakers. Hell, it isn't even the same sport.

You posit:

Plus, wouldn't a time like this - when rising oil prices made obvious how expensive air travel really should be to the public - an excellent time for building up a railway network that your country sadly lacks ...

In our opinion: absolutely not.

Amtrak, the only remaining US passenger rail carrier, is owned and subsidized by the US government. Why? Because it's notoriously difficult to make rail travel profitable, and that observation is not limited to just the US. Or, more to the point, while some routes are profitable, others simply are not. The free market would dictate that only profitable routes should be run, and all other areas would have to make due without rail service. So governments have to own or subsidize them to keep them running in the public interest. You can argue over whether that's really necessary in the case of a rail system (we certainly do), but it seems clear that mass transportation needs to be maintained as part of the public and national interest.

Quite simply, propping up a failing rail system, which offers much less advantage to us, instead of a failing airline system, which offers a lot more advantage to us, doesn't make any sense at all, most notably with regard to faster travel and international travel. If we have airlines, then we do not require trains to get around. The same is not true in reverse — even if we have a robust rail system, we still need air carriers for overseas travel and for efficient longer trips. The airlines do everything the rail carriers can do and then some. If we can only have one, and we get to choose, then the logical choice would be to shitcan the rail carriers and keep the airlines, not the other way around. Since you seem to hold the opposite position, feel free to explain to us how propping up an unprofitable rail system is better than propping up the air carriers, because we just aren't seeing it.

You ask:

First, from reading your previous rants, I thought you were heavily libertarian, yes? (If I was mistaken, then it clear up).

No, we are not Libertarians in the way you mean. We are certainly civil libertarians, but we are most certainly not Big-L "Libertarians" in the sense of the political party that wants to privatize everything, and do away with government. For more information on why we don't agree with these Libertarians, you can read our Score entry called The Trouble with Libertarians, or our more entertaining Rant entitled Libertarians and Colecovision.

Since the rest of your comment seems to be based on the incorrect assumption that we subscribe to a Libertarian world view, we'll take a pass on responding to it.

Constanze, not sure what country you're in, but the basic problem with passenger rail in the US is that the country is big. It just takes a huge amount of time to take a train coast to coast or from Seattle to LA. It's so much faster to go by plane that few people bother, unless they really hate to fly or really like choo-choos. I've actually done the West Coast trip both ways and quite enjoyed it, but most people wouldn't bother. The East Coast (and Europe) is another matter. Everything is close enough there that passenger trains make a lot of sense.

The one place where trains beat the hell out of planes is in fuel efficiency--trains haul a lot more tonnage than planes for the same amount of fuel. Like orders of magnitude more. Which is terrific for freight, which typically isn't in so much of a hurry. I don't think the US could actually dispense with its freight rail network in favor of air freight. And the environment wouldn't like us much if we tried.

Oh, and diesel trains basically are electric trains. The engines run at optimal RPMs to produce electric power to run the wheels. They just haul their power plant along for the ride instead of burning that fossil fuel in a stationary electric plant. And I'm not sure how you'd reliably deliver electricity to the rails all the way across the continent from stationary plants. I'm sure it could be done, but the system in place works pretty well.

Of course, the fact that rail is limited to about 80MPH in the US is another problem that Japan and Europe seem to have gotten around. High-speed trains would make them more competitive with air travel, but also be a huge investment that nobody wants to make in a "non-competitive" technology. A bit of a chicken and egg problem, that.

Personally, I'd like to see the railways updated and expanded. I've only used rail travel recently (since it's only been a viable option recently) but I much prefer it to car travel of the same trip. A three-hour drive from one small town to another (neither one serviced by air travel of any sort) where I'm stuck in one position in the car, unable to do anything productive, vs. a slightly shorter ride in a train, where I can get up, walk around, and read a damn book--no contest. I don't know how many others would share my enthusiasm, especially with gas prices falling to manageable levels again, but I know if the trains went to more places I wanted to go, I'd be taking them left and right. Air travel is great if you want to travel cross-country, but it's inefficient if you just want to travel cross-state.

Sure thing, Tom — rail travel is actually a pretty convenient (not to mention relaxing) thing in some respects, both short and (though less so, in our opinion) long distance. Some of us travel by rail regularly, like on the New York subway system, and always have a book or music or something else to keep us occupied.

But the question we were responding to was: if the U.S. government could only prop up one of these flagging industries — airlines or railways — which is more important and desirable to have as the sole option? We agree that traveling by rail can be a superior choice to traveling by automobile when certain aspects are considered (though automotive travel can beat the rails in light of other factors), but that's not the comparison constanze was bringing up. It was a "choice" between planes or trains; and given that planes can get everything done that the trains can, plus, it doesn't seem all that difficult a choice to us. Sure, air travel does not win out in intrastate travel, but it's still viable; meanwhile, it beats the pants off of the railways in cross-country travel, and there's simply no contest at all (literally) when it comes to intercontinental transportation.

And when you get right down to it: you can read a book on an airplane, too. Which is generally our strategy, since we're not so interested in seeing the first seven-eighths of the censored version of Curly Sue for the hundred-and-forty-fifth time.

I certainly agree with that set of priorities. Someday, though, when the country's in a better spot financially, I'd like to see rail travel less of the luxury/impractical alternative that it is today. Moreover, there ought to be a lot more cities with a decent El/Subway/Trolley system.

And there ought to be a lot more thought put into city planning and urban sprawl and walkable communities and...well, you get the picture. Allow me at this point to breathe a heavy sigh at the vicious circle of transportation problems in this country.

This post was in response in another forum about how GM could "spin off Saturn, Saab, Hummer, etc..." without taking into effect many things. BUT oh well... its one of those things you point out about "Make work"

What part of General Motors... as a huge set of Brands are you forgetting...

Consolidation means less cost to make things.
Consolidation means less over head.
Consolidation means making better things for better margin.

Unless of course you are too big and have to deal with a union that stretches into making design and assembly decisions. Making sure maximum PEOPLE are still kept on lines.

I have been in a multiple GM plants in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana.

One type of "making jobs" is many many examples of disabling automatic screw insertion so a Union person can start threading *a* screw. Then the next station is the automatic tightening station... except one bolt on the tightener is disabled allowing another person to use an air driven screw tightener (the same as the disabled one) for that screw.

Another area of "making jobs" is "part transfer" de-automation. There also many many examples of this, where a machine automatic transfer (sliding, catching, moving or placing) of parts to the next stage of work to be done... no inspection, no value add, no nothing except taking part X from line 1-A after stage 4 and putting in the "queue/hopper/line" for Line 1-A stage 5.

Heck even engine and transmissions are done this way. I witnessed places where the line had a 5-6 foot section cut out of the conveyance system. The entire line was run by a single "chain system", the section had the chain route into the floor to keep the system running on a single chain cog system at the section.

ASCII Art representation

Line 1-A

"Stage 4" -->-->-|__,__,__|->-->-- "Stage 5"

Man works {--this--} area

Then a "man assisting" lifting device used to transfer a transmission carcass from "initial" pad trimming to the next section. There was no reason needed for the "workstation". Pad trimming is to get reference points for the rest of the machining, the base for the locating of everything.

I've also been in multiple Ford and Chrysler plants and one Toyota plant, similar but fewer examples were there of the "making jobs" setups, but they still were there (unfortunately).

One marked difference between the GM plants and All the others... cleanliness. Ford, Chrysler and Toyota(only one though) you could nearly "eat off the floor" outside of the actual "working area" of the machines. Inside the working area you could still see it was cleared and cleaned regularly. The GM plants, every one (except final assembly plants) had 1 to 12 inches of greasy dirt in MANY areas, especially around stamping machines, or machines dealing with heavy machining. This also extended into GM hanging area markers from frames rather than having them on the floor and able to be seen.

One last thing, due to the fact that the machine I worked on used electricity, use compressed Air and had Hydraulic operation (air was used to push fluid), I got to have a Pipe fitter, a Hydraulic Engineer and an Electrician all around and assist me to do my job. This was at *ALL* of the Big Three only, Toyota, I only had a white collar person assisting me.

The whole Auto-Industry thing is screwed... kill them all and let $DEITY sort them out. (Yeah I know... that would be bad)

Twopercentcompany:

... And yes, there are plenty of foreign air carriers, but none of them have entered the US market in anything like the way that foreign car makers have. They simply don't operate domestic US flights, and even their international flights tend to only operate out of a few large US cities (and then, pretty much only to cities within their countries of origin). Want to see a real world example? Try to grab an Alitalia flight from New York to Chicago. Oh, what's that? You have to make that trip via Rome? Yeah, that's the problem.

I don't know if you've chosen Allitalia at random or because of this example, but Allitalia certainly seems to have a fixation on routing everything over Rome that other carriers don't have.

However, there are two different duties air carriers have to fulfill: overseas (intercontinental) travel, where planes are a better alternative to travel by ship; and national travel over land - and there, many alternatives exist.

If you consider thus the two problems seperately, then one international air carrier (US Air Intl., if you like) would be enough considering that Lufthansa and KLM and other foreign carriers also connect the US with the world.

And one national air carrier should be enough if managed competenly - that is, by connecting bigger hubs with shuttle planes, and each hub servicing a region; plus completing travel options with a good railnetwork and private cars.

After all, a national carrier doesn't have to be government-run, only government-controlled and -mandated, that is, the government tells them to obey strict safety rules, treat the employees well and deliver a certain amount of service connections, and then controls regularly, if these conditions are met. That's what would make sense.

Because, so far the free market has produced a lot of bad service in the name of cost-cutting, judging by the stories I hear about how some airlines treat their passengers; and because of competition, not all slots are effeciently connected. It's not in the interest of airline A to get you connected to a flight from airline B, even if airline A can't deliver you to to your destination, only B can.

You posit:

Plus, wouldn't a time like this - when rising oil prices made obvious how expensive air travel really should be to the public - an excellent time for building up a railway network that your country sadly lacks ...

In our opinion: absolutely not.

Amtrak, the only remaining US passenger rail carrier, is owned and subsidized by the US government. Why? Because it's notoriously difficult to make rail travel profitable, and that observation is not limited to just the US. Or, more to the point, while some routes are profitable, others simply are not. The free market would dictate that only profitable routes should be run, and all other areas would have to make due without rail service. So governments have to own or subsidize them to keep them running in the public interest. You can argue over whether that's really necessary in the case of a rail system (we certainly do), but it seems clear that mass transportation needs to be maintained as part of the public and national interest.

I was thinking of a national-run rail system like in Europe, of course. Maybe I didn't make that clear. However, the government also subsidizes highway travel, correct? So why help cars and airlines, but not railways? I don't see the difference (Apart from the ideology or whatever hangup many Americans seem to have with regards to a subsized rail system, but no problem with a subsidized car/ airline system.)

Secondly, while some parts of a properly run rail system are in competition to cars and airplanes (And will hopefully replace them for reasons of enviroment), nobody is saying seriously that all cars and all planes can be replaced by rail. Not only does rail not cross oceans (well, the chunnel-train does, but the Atlantic is a bit bigger), not every single home in the boondocks can be connected to rail. So you make the rail system well-run and efficient, and the average Joe takes his car to the next train station and drives to the big city where he works with a monthly ticket. He only has to pay high gas prices for 10 miles, not 150 miles of the distance, and can use the time on the train to read or whatever. I've read several times how terrible the car-only oriented infrastructrue in the L.A.-basin/region is, where there are highways everywhere, and daily traffic jams of 4 hrs. plus. Trains don't get traffic jams.

Lastly, if Amtrak is badly run and no serious alternative to planes is not an inherent fault of rail travel itself, but of badly run service, because in Europe, rail travel generally works well. (Not that there's not a lot of things that should be improved - but that's a different problem).

I simply think that the government should provide as many people with the option of easy and cheap travel - and the way to do that is with a good train network, not with everybody having to buy a car themselves and paying gas prices because there's no other way of getting around.

Quite simply, propping up a failing rail system, which offers much less advantage to us, instead of a failing airline system, which offers a lot more advantage to us, doesn't make any sense at all, most notably with regard to faster travel and international travel. If we have airlines, then we do not require trains to get around. The same is not true in reverse — even if we have a robust rail system, we still need air carriers for overseas travel and for efficient longer trips. The airlines do everything the rail carriers can do and then some. If we can only have one, and we get to choose, then the logical choice would be to shitcan the rail carriers and keep the airlines, not the other way around. Since you seem to hold the opposite position, feel free to explain to us how propping up an unprofitable rail system is better than propping up the air carriers, because we just aren't seeing it.

Well, for starters, airlines don't do everything the trains do better. Trains can do both - either fast connections between major centers like airplanes (we use the I.C.E in Germany, with top speeds of 300 km/h), or slow connections between every village, connecting two regional centers.
For an airplane, the most expensive time is landing and take-off, so the more stops an airplane makes, the less efficient it is.
It's also bad for the enviroment to travel with planes that burn kerosine instead of using trains that use electricity, that can be made every way, even green.

Secondly, as I said above, I didn't say to scrap the airlines. Certainly planes are better at crossing oceans. I meant that, since the government is already subsidizing two kinds of travel because they are necessary - cars by the highways, airplanes by the industries - then they should also subsidize the third. It's not an either/or, it's an optimal mode of travel. Car for small distances out in the sticks; trains from villages to regional centers, from regional centers to big city hubs, and from big city hubs to other big cities; and planes for international and long-distance travel cross-country.

But tell me where the advantage of planes is for a short- or mid-distance flight? The time to drive to the airport outside the city, to check-in, to get through security (altogether about 1 hour), waiting for clearance, deplaning, collecting your luggage, driving from the airport back to the city, all adds to the flight time.

When you take a train, you drive to the terminal, park your car, take your luggage and get on board (with the ticket - though you can buy that last-minute with your cellphone, or onboard the train, too).

Jason Spicer

Constanze, not sure what country you're in, but the basic problem with passenger rail in the US is that the country is big. It just takes a huge amount of time to take a train coast to coast or from Seattle to LA. It's so much faster to go by plane that few people bother, unless they really hate to fly or really like choo-choos. I've actually done the West Coast trip both ways and quite enjoyed it, but most people wouldn't bother. The East Coast (and Europe) is another matter. Everything is close enough there that passenger trains make a lot of sense.

First, I'm in Germany. And yes, the correct size comparison is between the whole EU and the USA, not one country.

Also, nobody is seriosuly talking of copying our network 1:1 to the US. But there are many densly settled corridors - the East and West coast (both of which used to have a train network; I think the West coast still has one special train?), and in the Midwest, places like Chicago-Great Lakes area are also rather populated. I don't have a current map with me, but certainly there are routes where many people live that both high-speed trains connecting the centers as well as slow commuter trains stopping at every village would have lots of passengers.

In Germany (for example; other European nations have similar concepts) we have high-speed ICE trains that travel with 300 km/h between the big cities; regional fast trains that connect regional centers to the cities; and normal regional trains that connect small villages to the regional centers.

Probably it's also a different attitude. We think the government has the duty to provide a basic infrastructure to get around, even those people who don't have the money to buy their own car. So even in the East European countries, where during Socialism getting a car meant a long wait, there was slow but readily available train network. Even in Russia, people travel through Siberia by famous train.

Oh, and diesel trains basically are electric trains. The engines run at optimal RPMs to produce electric power to run the wheels. They just haul their power plant along for the ride instead of burning that fossil fuel in a stationary electric plant. And I'm not sure how you'd reliably deliver electricity to the rails all the way across the continent from stationary plants. I'm sure it could be done, but the system in place works pretty well.

I'm not sure if that's a whoosh, but the way you provide electric power from stationary plants to traveling trains is through an overhead electric wire, like the streetcars. The big advantage is that planes only travel with kerosine, no alternative, but the electricity for a train can come from a solar plant in the desert, or a wind wheel on the coast just as well as from a coal or nuclear plant.

Of course, the fact that rail is limited to about 80MPH in the US is another problem that Japan and Europe seem to have gotten around. High-speed trains would make them more competitive with air travel, but also be a huge investment that nobody wants to make in a "non-competitive" technology. A bit of a chicken and egg problem, that.

80 mph ... let's see, that's 127 km/h. Are you serious, that's how fast your passenger trains go?? That's how fast the S-Bahn in Munich will go - 120 km/h. But that's local public transport! 150 to 180 km/h is the minimum I'd expect from normal trains. For example, travelling from Munich to Hamburg, a distance of 800 km (almost 500 miles for you), I need about 6 hrs. with the ICE.
The french TGV is similarly fast. And the Japanese Shinkansen also. They regularly try to outdo each other's speed records, but that's not normal conditions - they use only two locomotives, no passengers and a special smooth and straight track for those records.

No wonder nobody takes it seriously against planes if you drive with drawn brakes.

Generally, it seems to be the question of rail travel in the US isn't one of "impossible to do" because the technical problems could easily be solved (and you have a lot of examples, both good and bad, to choose from, so by combining all best points and avoiding all bad cases, and starting from ground up, you could have the bestest system in the world. But the general attitude seems to be: most people don't like it, so it can't be done, and it would cost money from the government, which we don't do.
I hope that attitude will change sometime soon for enviromental reasons.

The Two Percent Company, 2008.12.07 (Sun) 22:44

But the question we were responding to was: if the U.S. government could only prop up one of these flagging industries — airlines or railways — which is more important and desirable to have as the sole option? We agree that traveling by rail can be a superior choice to traveling by automobile when certain aspects are considered (though automotive travel can beat the rails in light of other factors), but that's not the comparison constanze was bringing up. It was a "choice" between planes or trains; and given that planes can get everything done that the trains can, plus, it doesn't seem all that difficult a choice to us. Sure, air travel does not win out in intrastate travel, but it's still viable; meanwhile, it beats the pants off of the railways in cross-country travel, and there's simply no contest at all (literally) when it comes to intercontinental transportation.

I think that's the nub of where you misunderstood my intent. I didn't want to posit the question: if only one system can be propped up, which should it be?, but: if the government is already propping up a system, why not help an alternate one, too?
And of course, if the government is already helping the airline industry, why is it doing such a bad job of it? If the market is failing at providing good service for decent prices, then you don't need the competition of the market - let's have one company with mandates and control of these mandates, instead of three companies that need "help" from subsidies, but compete with each other.

There are two major benefits outside the enviroment:

to help the country get out of the recession, the government needs to provide jobs, not only mail checks which many people will either save or use to buy cheap stuff at Walmart made in China. Providing jobs is long-term, however (like Roosevelt did with his New Deal).

The best way is to advance and maybe enhance already planned infrastructure projects - improve and repair roads, renovate and improve public buildings, build new kindergardens and schools, and so on. The people get jobs, and the public profits from the improvement in infrastructure that the country needs.

Plus, when the recession is over, gas prices will rise again, which will impact both car and plane travel. The only way long-term without gas dependency is therefore electric rail network, where cars are only feeder to train stations, and planes only for long-distance and international travel (where they have the advantage).

And if you're smart, you'll not simply buy the German ICE or the French TGV (much as that would benefit our industry) but also start Research and Development of your own.

While starting a whole new network means spending a lot of money initially, it also means you can do the architecture right the first time. E.g in Germany, the tracks where first laid when trains went a maximum of 60 km/h, so they were winding and not suited for the fast ICE. So the Bahn had to spend time and money again in the 90s to rebuild and upgrade the old tracks to the new trains, by straighening the lines, building tunnels through mountains instead of winding passes up and down and so on. You can start right the first time.

Greg Folkert, 2008.12.18 (Thu) 06:37

Unless of course you are too big and have to deal with a union that stretches into making design and assembly decisions. Making sure maximum PEOPLE are still kept on lines.

I have been in a multiple GM plants in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana.

One type of "making jobs" is many many examples of disabling automatic screw insertion so a Union person can start threading *a* screw. Then the next station is the automatic tightening station... except one bolt on the tightener is disabled allowing another person to use an air driven screw tightener (the same as the disabled one) for that screw.

Another area of "making jobs" is "part transfer" de-automation. There also many many examples of this, where a machine automatic transfer (sliding, catching, moving or placing) of parts to the next stage of work to be done... no inspection, no value add, no nothing except taking part X from line 1-A after stage 4 and putting in the "queue/hopper/line" for Line 1-A stage 5.

I don't want to cast any aspersions or doubt on your personal experiences, but I find this hard to believe. Is the union really that abysmally stupid? Not only is this short-sighted and contra-productive, but why would people want to keep their job as rather stupid one-movement for 8 hrs. a day? Why doesn't the union together with the local college and the plant itself work out a plan to educate the workers into engineers and other highly qualified people, because research is an area where people can't be replaced (unlike automated assembly line). The more complicated and properly skilled a job is, the unlikelier it is (though not impossible) to be replaced by a machine, so you educate your workers into highly skilled, flexible, intelligent ones.

If you train somebody in one week to tighten a screw on an assembly line, then that is quick for you, while a proper training (what we call "Berufsausbildung" in Germany) as a car mechanic or similar takes 3 years (for designer or engineer, several years of technical university are necessary). But somebody who has finished these years can with little training take a lot of different positions and do many different jobs, because he has an understanding of what the screw that goes into that hole does in regards to the whole motor.

Of course not everybody is able to function and work on this high level, but do create make-work for the sake of employing sounds dumb to me. Are there no other necessary jobs in the community for unskilled people? (that's where the concept of citizen's money coupled with charity agencies would come in useful. The idea - it's not been tried big-scale yet, but several experts have worked on it - is that every citizen gets a certain amount of money - his basic pay - from the govenrment that covers his most basic needs (nobody has to be cold and hungry). If the citizen is content to live simple because he wants to spend his whole time painting art, that's his decision. If the citizen is full of unfulfilled ambition, then he can decide to work 20 hrs a day for a company and become manager. If a citizen doesn't have special skills or ambition, a roof charity agency helps him select a job that's suited to his personality, skills and wishes, so he doesn't feel useless and unemployed, but instead he's also doing a necessary job to help his community.

The state gets the money partly from taxes (from those who get a high pay from a company) partly by combining unemployment money, welfare, social money etc. The people get the benefit of feeling needed and no longer being outcast because of poverty.

Sorry for getting a bit off-topic from carmakers at the end...

Constanze, don't get me wrong. Most days, I'd rather live in Denmark (though Seattle isn't bad as US cities go). Especially since Reagan decreed that government is evil, and his minions set about destroying it from the inside. I pretty much agree with most of what you have to say. Competition simply is not the answer to all human needs, as the airlines amply illustrate. I firmly believe that government should take on the big infrastructure projects and dictate the terms of the playing field generally.

Amtrak is, in fact, a government subsidized rail company. It's actually pretty much government run, really. It's kind of like the US Postal Service--a quasi-governmental corporation. Amtrak gets billions of dollars every year from Uncle Sam. But there is always a debate about whether to stop that subsidy. I favor its continuance, as most Democrats in Congress do. Republicans generally think it's a waste of money. Which is hypocritical, as you point out, because automobile travel is hugely subsidized in the US.

Amtrak is the only long-haul passenger rail system in the US. Most major cities have some kind of commuter rail system, but the only other long-haul rail companies carry only freight. Because rail is extremely efficient for certain kinds of freight. And because what they carry doesn't get bored and cramped. Well, I suppose the cattle might.

But perhaps I didn't state my case well. America is not simply large. It is also largely empty. Major cities west of the Mississippi are very far apart. There are essentially just four US rail destinations along the 1,500-mile west coast. The only two where rail is time-competitive with airlines (including parking, baggage, security, etc) is Seattle and Portland. It's about three hours by car, plane, or rail. The other two are San Fransisco and LA. Well, Vancouver, Canada if you want to include that, which is about the same distance from Seattle as Portland. Heading east, there's not much until you hit Denver or Phoenix. Then Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas, Houston, New Orleans. But that's a roughly 2,000 by 1,500 mile box with only a few major metropolitan areas. Amtrak simply can't be profitable or competitive west of the Mississippi. It's much faster to fly between the major destinations. Not everybody on the train from Munich to Hamburg is going the whole way. In the western US, there's no in-between place to stop unless you like mountains, wheat, and sagebrush.

On the eastern seaboard, Amtrak turns a profit because the big cities are closer together, and all your arguments kick into gear. And yeah, the speed limit for Amtrak really is 79MPH, and they slow down a lot to go thru towns they don't stop in. The reason the speed limit is so low is that the tracks and the trains really can't handle any faster, and there are a lot of road crossings at grade (few overpasses), so people are routinely killed in their cars by trains even at these speeds. It's a pretty rough ride at 79MPH. I wouldn't feel safe going any faster. And since it's not profitable west of the Mississippi, there's not much interest in sinking a trillion dollars into upgrading the tracks and trains for not very many customers.

Amtrak does have one higher speed route back east, the Acela Express, running about 150MPH. It's seven hours from Boston to New York to Philadelphia to Washington, DC. I'm sure they'd like to do more high speed lines, but again, they run into the subsidy issue--good money after bad, or so some folks think. You're right that there is an attitude problem about trains in the US, but simple economics really is the showstopper. One could make a powerful argument to simply shut down Amtrak west of the Mississippi so the system to the east could be competitive, but a lot of people and just enough congressmen appear to be fond of choo-choos.

constanze, we concur with Jason's answers to most of your comment (thanks for taking that on, Jason), but there are a couple of small points we'd like to make.

I don't know if you've chosen Allitalia at random or because of this example, but Allitalia certainly seems to have a fixation on routing everything over Rome that other carriers don't have.

We chose a non-US carrier because we knew that any non-US carrier would only connect two US cities via their country of origin. So while Alitalia may be the only airline with a tendency to connect all flights via Rome, Air France has a similar bias toward connecting all flights through Paris (et cetera). The point being, of course, that no matter which foreign carrier we chose, they wouldn't be doing much in the way of direct routes from one US hub to another — it's simply not profitable, not feasible, and not their thing.

I don't want to cast any aspersions or doubt on your personal experiences, but I find this hard to believe. Is the union really that abysmally stupid?

In a nutshell, constanze: yeah, they sure can be! Or, rather, they sure can be stupid like a fox, in that they're getting the easiest jobs in the world with guaranteed employment, good wages, and benefits, all enforced by a largely corrupt union to "protect" them from an equally largely corrupt industry. We admire — and share — your proclivity toward disgust at someone not wanting to do more with their time, but don't make the mistake of thinking that your (and our) disgust is universal.

While we can't vouch for Greg's particular examples, we can relay very similar stories about our own union experiences outside of the auto industry. In fact, we listed a few above:

Mandating hopelessly overstaffed teams for miniscule jobs (at work, one of us once had to pay two foremen and seven laborers to move one thirty pound box from the back of a truck at the loading dock to a room about fifty feet away), having things "break" in order to make a point (like the time all the electrical cords on a floor were found mysteriously missing their plugs), creating jobs where none exist (like the full-time person that had to be paid to push the button on the elevator all day, every day — yes, all of these are actual, personal work experiences) ...

So yes, in some cases the unions are that abysmally stupid (and broken), and we don't find Greg's examples all that hard to believe. And to reiterate, not all unions are this broken, and we're not anti-union — but we are against idiotic and/or corrupt union practices.