All day long, I\u2019ve been trying to figure out what to write. Most of the news chum has been pretty dry; there wasn\u2019t much worth comment. But then an article caught my eye:<\/p>\n
Schwarzenegger isn’t mourning the loss of Hummer<\/a><\/p>\n Now, if you recall, the Governator was a big fan of Hummer a few years ago. Nowadays, he drives a Hummer powered by vegetable oil, while he guides our wonderful state into fiscal ruin. But that\u2019s another topic. Back to Hummer… in the article, Arnie is quoted as saying: <\/p>\n \u201cI feel saddened about the fact that America has so far fallen behind and that Detroit, the big automakers, that make spectacular cars \u2026. somehow have not kept up in the technology. … And I think it is largely because they have been protected by the federal government for too long, rather than the federal government saying, \u2018Here are the new standards — 10 years from now, those are the cars that you have to produce.\u2019 \u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This brought to mind an article I saw earlier in the NY Times, about how GM is really an innovative company. They just aren\u2019t innovative in the US<\/a>. Where do they innovate? India. Brazil. China. Sales increased 10% last year in Brazil, 9% in India and 6% in China. Recent numbers in some areas are even better \u2014 GM\u2019s sales in the Asia Pacific region were up 44% in May compared with the year before. Yes, cheap labor has a lot to do with it. But innovation does as well: In China, GM spent years emphasizing fuel economy and affordability. In Brazil, it created flexible-fuel engines that run on ethanol or gasoline, and compact pickup trucks. In India, it is constructing a new tiny car that may be priced to compete with Tata\u2019s $2,500 Nano. <\/p>\n Even if GM doesn\u2019t import the vehicles here, it can import the designs. The constraints of bankruptcy and Federal involvement, as well as the publicity, prevent the imports. But protectionism can backfire. There was a link from Yahoo<\/a> that noted the reason the Big 3 turned away from cars and to trucks and SUVs was because of tariffs. When we look at automakers and jobs, we need to take the global view: GM has plants outside the use, and foreign-HQed automakers have major plants in the US. I know, I\u2019m rambling from point to point. But that\u2019s how my mind is working today.<\/p>\n Thinking about the tariff issue makes me think of collateral damage. We\u2019ve seen that with the stimulus: the \u201cBuy American\u201d provision in the act are hurting American companies that source to foreign suppliers<\/a>. We\u2019ve seen that in LA: a poorly written pot dispensory moratorium has resulted in an budding business in pot<\/a>. The GM bankruptcy will have ancillary effects as well. I\u2019m not talking about dealers: but the already beseiged media and newspapers, who will suffer a significant drop in advertising dollars<\/a>.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know where I\u2019m going here (hmmm, just like GM). But I do know that if the American HQ\u2019d companies are to be successful reinventions, we need to look at the global business. We also need to encourage the foreign companies to invest and build plants and manufacturing here in America. That\u2019s how we reinvigorate our economy successfully.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" All day long, I\u2019ve been trying to figure out what to write. Most of the news chum has been pretty dry; there wasn\u2019t much worth comment. But then an article caught my eye: Schwarzenegger isn’t mourning the loss of Hummer Now, if you recall, the Governator was a big fan of Hummer a few years Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-3446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lj-xfer","tag-automobiles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}