Obama's People's Car

Car Crazy Bankrupt companies making 39 mpg autos. Are we nuts?

A Dictator's Prerogative

Forgive me for compulsive dwelling.  I still haven't entirely come to grips with the death of America.  Reports of the first firing squads and dissident roundups will bring it all home.  In the meanwhile,  look at the language  used in America's historically preeminent financial journal. " Two auto companies that have fallen into his arms."  Yeah, like the Lindburgh baby fell into Bruno Hauptmann's arms, but still. What Obama is doing is fascist. “ At the end of his Rose Garden explanation yesterday of the new U.S. fuel-efficiency standards, President Obama remarked on the good that can be accomplished when we are "working together." The President may be getting ahead of himself. Watching the unlikely coalition arrayed behind him as Mr. Obama committed the U.S. to an astonishing passenger-car mileage average of 39 miles per gallon by 2016, it looks truer to say we are merely standing together in this adventure, for better or worse. Mr. Obama's fleet-mileage partners yesterday included the two auto companies that have fallen into his arms, Chrysler and GM, still-independent Ford, the major foreign manufacturers, United Auto Workers chief Ron Gettelfinger, and beaming representatives from the Sierra Club, Environmental Defense Fund and the Union of Concerned Scientists. All that's left to arrive at the President's new destination for the American way of driving are huge, unanswered questions about technology, financing and the marketability of cars that will be small and expensive. Mr. Obama said a lot yesterday about the promised benefits of all this for the environment but not much about return on investment for the auto sellers. These public goals notwithstanding, it still looks as if Ford, Chrysler and GM will be making cars they can't sell, or can't sell profitably. That might not be a problem if you're now Gettelfinger Motors. But still-independent Ford has private shareholders and creditors to answer. While GM and Chrysler attempt to meet the new standards with taxpayer money, Ford will have to do so on its own. ”   How does history deal with his predecessor fascisti?  There's your answer.