Prime Minister Gordon Brown against saving Big Three

I'm an anglophile, but Gordon Brown is testing my patience. Give me liberal doses of Monty Python, Shakespeare, the Magna Carta, Yorkshire pudding, paneer makhani, C.S. Lewis, the Rolling Stones, William Byrd, Beowulf, Peter Rabbit, cockles and mussels. But please spare me the advice to let the U.S. auto industry crumble.

At the G20 Summit yesterday British Prime Minster Gordon Brown described bailing out the U.S. auto industry as akin to 1930s style protectionism. Brown said, "The dividing line here is between an open society capable of trading round the world, against a protectionist response that happened in the 1930s and is totally unacceptable."

That's a whopper of an either/or. Either we're an open society presumably like Britain (hey what about all those cameras around London?) or we are stupid protectionists (pitching tea overboard). Has he trotted that past the Chinese, renowned for skewed trade practices, currency manipulation and government subsidized manufacturing? Probably not. Maybe he's just jealous that the United States still has a car industry to protect, while Britain does not...think Jaguar and Land Rover.

In fact, Mr. Brown champions extensive global management, regulation and oversight of finance. He would like to expand the IMF's role in the care and feeding of Mammon. According to the Times, "He wants the IMF to create a council of experts to monitor the markets for danger signs — his much-vaunted early-warning system — and the IMF’s coffers to be boosted by cash-rich states such as Saudi Arabia and China. He is also calling for a clean-up of the banking system, including a network of regulators to scrutinise the world’s biggest banks. "

But who minds the minders and what's Brown willing to trade away to get China and Saudi Arabia to ante up?

Ford Exec. calls for plug-in hybrids

Too little, too late. That's what this is.

Yesterday, Ford Motor Co. President of the Americas Mark Fields said that the federal government should make plug-in hybrids a "national priority" and invest heavily in the technology.

He said Japan, China and Korea are investing in research and development and that we should too. You think?

Am I missing something here? We've known since the 1970s that dependence on foreign oil could devastate our economy. We've known about peak oil for nearly 20 years. And we've watched U.S. auto manufacturers pander to the conspicuous consumption of consumers with SUVs and trucks. The U.S. auto industry could have been proactive and pursued a long-term development strategy like say...Toyota or Honda. But instead the industry chased after short-term profits by selling wasteful vehicles. They backed themselves into a corner.

Now, suddenly they see the light? We need vehicles that don't guzzle $5-a-gallon gasoline. And the industry needs subsidies because research will cost money and retooling will cost money.

The people who really need help right about now are laid-off workers stuck driving gas guzzlers. Not everyone is in a position to purchase a new fuel efficient vehicle at the moment.

Let's help families first. Take a number, Ford.

Promises, promises -- UAW falls in love again

Promises made the UAW contract with GM a reality. GM promised to build specific vehicles in the future including the Volt in Hamtramck in 2010. GM's promises gave Chrysler workers pause as they considered their own contract, which did not contain any such promises. Chrysler would not, and further claimed it could not, make those sorts of promises. To do so would have been irresponsible, irrational and unrealistic. In the end, the UAW did accept the Chrysler contract.

The International Herald Tribune reminds us that the Volt "is a concept car that cannot be built until the technology is available, and one that the company has not even officially announced it will build."

The piece quotes Professor Walter McManus, an auto industry economist at the University of Michigan:

"The problem," he added, "is the battery technology is still not ready. I would say, when they break ground on a plant to make batteries, two years later the Volt will come out."

For the car to be built starting in 2010, he added, "a factory has to be built soon, and it doesn't look like the batteries are that near production."

Those promises to build the Volt, while well-intentioned and seductive, are premature.

Less than three weeks after ratifying the GM contract, nearly 2000 Michigan workers were laid off -- 767 of them in Hamtramck. Lay offs are a rational response to market conditions. You shouldn't build cars you can't sell. GM is in the business of building and selling cars, not guaranteeing employment. So how could they make promises about future production? After the recent lay offs, those promises seem suspect. How can GM assure future employment or promise to build something it cannot build?

Although the Chrysler agreement made no predictions beyond its four-year term, it may end up a fairer, honest commitment to workers.

Now, on to Ford...as negotiations have resumed.