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The Greatest Generation and the Auto Industry
It was only a matter of time before the imminent failure of one or more U.S. auto makers pushed AIG and the financial crisis off the front pages, at least temporarily.
And now that it's here, and we have to listen to talk of "restructuring" and "automobiles of the future" for the next month or so, I urge you to keep in mind just one historical fact:
At the beginning of World War II, the entire U.S. auto industry, then the largest industrial manufacturing center in the world, completely converted from making passenger cars to military vehicles, including tanks and airplanes, in less than one year. One year.
They went from producing 4 million cars in 1941 to virtually none in 1942-1944, as they pumped out a quarter million aircraft, along with tens of thousands of tanks and additional military vehicles.
Think of that whenever you get into and out of your car. One year.
This small miracle is emblematic of the group we call "the greatest generation." It exemplifies their discipline, willpower and ability to work collectively against great odds to win a titanic struggle. The sort of grit and American can-do personified by Rosie the Riveter.
It turns out, oddly enough, that Rosie was a lot more willing than the auto company executives, who had to be threatened and coerced by Franklin Roosevelt to make the shift. Which is one lesson the greatest generation has for us in our own time of titanic struggle: don't leave it up to the "captains of industry" to chart the path.
The more important lesson, though, is the sweeping, transformative nature of the changes they wrought - and the extraordinarily short time in which they were accomplished. The greatest generation didn't deal in half-measures.
A comparison to the present day is not a particularly favorable one. Short timelines notwithstanding, the Obama Administration is still leaving it up to the auto companies themselves to determine the "restructuring," with even greater layoffs and decreased health care for workers a given. And the President's goal of putting two million hybrid and electric cars on the road by 2015 represents a mere 2.2% of the roughly 90 million cars that could be sold between now and then (at 2008 sales rates) - and less than 1% of the 250 million vehicles currently registered in the U.S.
One year? More like one century.
If the twin crises of global warming and job loss are to be met, the greatest generation's approach would be far different. The President should simply tell the auto industry that it has one year to convert to the production of plug-in hybrids, electric cars and vehicles for mass transit, such as buses, light rail cars, etc. (They're made of the same stuff as cars, and it's what we want to encourage, right?) Oh hell, give ‘em two years - but that's it. They'll get all the support they need from Washington, including appropriate subsidies for consumer purchase and a desperately needed revitalization of our national and metropolitan rail systems. But just two years.
And if the industry execs don't like the idea, they should be shown the door as summarily as G. Richard Wagoner of General Motors was, and replaced with business leaders who do.
Are we capable of such truly great, transformative changes anymore? Because that is exactly what is required to meet many of the challenges we face. Simply spending prodigious amounts of money (borrowed money, lest we forget) is not a substitute for the systemic changes we need.
Take the health care crisis. President Obama is trying to cobble together more than $600 billion as a "down payment" on universal care, while leaving the system in the hands of private insurance companies that limit or deny coverage to increase their profits. The greatest generation would simply scrap the current dysfunctional system and switch to a privately delivered, publicly financed "single payer" system - one used successfully in other nations and which would be a huge boon to businesses struggling with health care costs (like the auto industry). But it's not "on the table" for discussion. Why not?
How about the collapsing financial system? Congress and the new President are continuing to dump literally trillions of (our) dollars into failing banks, with little or no evidence it's working, or any idea what we're getting for it. Why not, the greatest generation might ask, simply march in to insolvent banks, kick out corrupt bankers, clean up the books and then reopen under new management? (And if the companies are "too big to fail," but not too big to destroy our economy, then they should be broken up. The President should channel the other Roosevelt, trust-busting Teddy, on this one.)
Of course it's not just up to our political leaders. We need to make great personal changes ourselves. Americans in the 1940's sacrificed all manner of material goods to win the war. They learned whatever job needed to be done. They grew more than 40% of their own produce needs in 20 million Victory Gardens.
We all need to be part of the change. Because now is the time not simply for big or bold action, but for truly great action, something to make our grandparents proud.
Are we up to the challenge?
- Posted in
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Show AllAround 1960 I was out to purchase my first new car. Having a long drive on weekends, I had set my mind on a particular smaller car to economize. There were only a few sub-compacts available and they were not that small. In a dealer's showroom I was intent on completing a deal but I was continually steered to other larger models. It took awhile until I realized that he would not sell me the smaller car! The salesman and I both became irritated and I left.
On TV during the previous oil crisis a spokesperson from the Automobile Association was defending why they aren't marketing more smaller cars. "People couldn't just sell their cars and buy smaller ones." The TV commercial which immediately followed the newsbyte was for a flashy full size SUV. A while ago I walked through a new car show in the local mall. All were high priced and big.
They may switch to fuel efficiency but auto manufacturers will keep the costs rising. Note some ads for SUV's with the best fuel efficiency in their class. And look for more wasteful extras.
Sadly consumers will buy these cars because the manufacturers can persuade them to.
And it continues today.
my wife has been are is shopping for an inexpensive, high fuel economy subcompact with no more than a 1.6 liter engine and 2400 pound curb weight. The choices are damn limited - One model each from Hyundai/Kia, Toyota, Honda (too expensive) and maybe the Chevy Aveo. That's it.
The salesmen keep insisting she needs "more car" and showing her larger, loaded models. Aggravatingly, some of the larger models are cheaper!
Ford does make a high fuel economy car, low carbon car: the Ford Focus.
The Greatest Generation were exactly that and they should be ashamed of what we have done with whast they gave us. We have squandered almost all of their legacy. It seems we have forgotten that America was not endowed with the riches we grew up with and enjoyed, they were earned by folks that paid a great price in many ways.
It remains to be seen if we are decent people with guts or just cowards that take the easiest road.
Baloney. The "greatest generation" have been running the country for the last 50 years and are every bit as responsible for this situation as the rest of us.
I'm speaking of my parents and their generation.....and they are NOT responsible for this mess. We are. The boomers are. So Baloney right back at you. They handed us a great country and we have blown it. As for Boomer kids.....please!
As a Boomer Kid I couldn't agree with you more Tom. We are pretty much powerless and not really responsible for most of this mess. It's on the Boomers, wish you guys had minded the store while we were growing up.
blurpghhh...
Boy, I sure wish I could tell you we did a better job, but we didn't. We are responsible for this mess. We forgot what our parents taught us and thought we were so much smarter than they were....Not!
Sorry about that!
Not sure if you mean the baby boomers or their parents. Those raised during the great depression were generally more frugal, but many of them were hardened by WW2, and were more than happy to jump into Korea and Vietnam afterward. Later, many of the same became avid Bush supporters, so I think they are equally responsible for the mess we have now. My father, 83 is, and always has been, a hardened corporate conservative (profit worshiper). He remains so to this day and has become a ditto-head to boot. Along with my brother the banker (a baby boomer), they make a great team. Ironically, many of those who rebelled against materialism, later embraced it in spades. Definitely chips off the ole block.
I'm speaking of your parents and mine. Though Korea was a bit diifferent, they were fooled into Viet Nam just as we were into Iraq.
And you are correct that there were many among them like your Father, but many more like my Father that wanted nothing more to do with War, didn't agree with Viet Nam, but well understood that you cannot face the world with a flower in your hand so to speak.
He agreed with Boomers about civil rights, thought Bush and Cheney were the scrapings from the ponds floor but thought that our generation didn't understand that this country was purchased by all that came before and is not someting that can't be lost.
I am of the opinion ( and the proof is plain I believe) that they, as a "generation" were far better than we are and accomplished far more than we have. Whats coming behind us seem to have so little understanding of the real world, so little real education, they may be worse than we have been.
Just my opinion, but firmly held.
You have my entire sympathy for the ditto head talk you have to endure and also the Banker Bull as I think of it. Maybe he'll change his mind if he ends up out on the street as a friend of mine did last week after 26 years with BoA.
Just out of curiosity, you served in the military too, yes? If so, which wars did you serve in and what was your experience like? I assume that your father served in Vietnam War even though against his will because of the draft. I also assume that the Korean War parallels the first war in Iraq while Vietnam War parallels the second and current war in Iraq, correct?
Check out the REVA, it is sort of hot golf cart. India turns them out for about 2 grand, but to get them here they run more like 10.
Similar conversation came up on the Daily Show the other day. Stewart made the great point that after WW2 the US was basically the only one with an auto industry left. We'd (the Allies) bombed all the others. Point being, don't make out the US as being some kind of heros of industry. We were the only game in town and couldn't lose.
I do agree with the article though, that we need big bold action. Giving folks an extra $30 on their paychecks isn't exactly "bold".
I support Obama, but I do wish he'd be more aggressive.
Do you want big bold thinking?
Try this; the era of the automobile is over. The era of gridlocked traffic sitting for hours burning gas while going nowhere is over. The era of vehicles having steering wheels, gas pedals and brake pedals is over. The era of pneumatic tire on asphalt roadways is over. The era of vehicles getting less than 80 miles per gallon is over. And best of all the era of traffic accidents killing 36,000 Americans while mangling hundreds of thousands more is over.
How do we achieve this? By placing ultra light vehicles with steel wheels on steel rails and employing modern computing, GPS, wireless communications, and by reducing the weight of vehicles by more than 65% utilizing carbon fiber and other ultra light materials technologies.
Steel wheels on steel rails are far more efficient than pneumatic tires on pavement. The rail road company CSX is currently running ads promoting that they can transport one ton of freight 423 miles on ONE GALLON OF FUEL!!
Automobile transportation is basically a switching problem very similar to routing data across the internet. Given the power of modern computing technology the transportation switching problem for the transportation system of even a large metropolitan area could probably be handled by few servers in a closet sized room. This computing system would depend on data from GPS communicated by wireless communications systems.
This system would virtually eliminate all crashes except those caused by catastrophic mechanical failure or the proverbial deer caught in the headlights. By eliminating crashes to need for massive SUV’s is eliminated so the weight of vehicles can be greatly reduced. Add in the weight savings by using much small engines/motors and hi-tech low weight materials and reducing the weight of the vehicle by 65% is easily obtainable.
Unfortunately, only the sort of drive like the conversion of automobile plants into factories producing airplanes and tanks is going to bring about the system I describe above. Maybe when the Bush compound on Key Biscayne and Kennebunk are under 15 feet of water at high tide this system can be considered.
Indiana used to be one of the states whose steel production kept the state's economy alive. With your ideas, it can still happen. Don't give up pushing for those ideas on your state and local levels.
I heard that on the radio the other day that "The Region" (Indiana's Lake Michigan shore area) and Indiana's electric mini mills surpassed the south to regain the #1 position in steel manufacturing in the U.S.
I'll tell you one thing about steel and light rail. St Louis could desperately use your state's stell production and I'm not kidding. The worsening traffic jams and the languishing infrustructure of metro says it all. It's so sickening to see the metro fees increase and yet no improvements to metro and then they wonder why more people still drive even when a lot of them live right near the metro. I used to live near the metro by the way until I moved out into the suburbs. It takes 2 - 2.5 hours to travel 45 miles to work almost every day. Light rail with steel would be lovely. Plus, they could sure as hell extend it further into the suburbs as the sprawl is getting out of hand these days.
Indianapolis is much the same but virtually the only public transportation is city buses. I used to have to work a couple of days a month calling on clients in Indy, fortunately they were Antique Shops and most didn’t open until 10:00 AM so I missed the morning rush hour. In the afternoon I made it a point to call on clients in the suburbs on the side of town that was on my way home, come 3:30 PM I was heading toward home and calling on clients that were along the way (there were several different routs so it worked out really well and I didn’t have to hassle with the Indy rush hour traffic.)
The Region and Chicago are much worse than Indy, and may God protect you if the traffic is not gridlocked; 80 mph with two car lengths between vehicles. If you leave three lengths somebody will change lanes into the gap leaving only one car length between vehicles.
Parking the car at South Bend and taking the South Shore Train into Chicago is an option that beats driving, but it’s slower than driving as it stops at a bunch of stations between South Bend and Chicago.
The absolute scariest traffic I was ever in was when my wife and I attended a sporting event at Market Square Arena that ended at the same time the Billy Graham revival let out at the Hoosier Dome. It was around 10:00PM and the traffic was light, the hyped up Jesus freaks were driving like J.C. was their all protecting hood ornament. (Or the hounds of Hell were in hot pursuit) I was running 80 mph and they were passing me like was standing still.
I’m not a big fan of big cities; many years ago I lived in Indy for10 years and had long commutes most of the time. The option of living in small communities here in the Midwest is really rough simply because most small towns have NO JOBS.
Is your 45 mile 2.5 hour commute one way or two way?
"Is your 45 mile 2.5 hour commute one way or two way?"
It's one way. I generally leave at 6 AM though I'm working on leaving at 5 AM. It used to not be as bad back when the gas prices were higher. In the evening, I usually just go to my gym center right near my office and exercise for about an hour so that I can avoid at least some of the traffic. It's generally not as bad after 7:30 PM but it's about an hour and a 30 minutes getting back home. The too low to be true prices pretty much brought the traffic back up and public transportation was once again back in the slumps. I'm surprised they never bothered to lower those metro fees. I wouldn't mind taking the metro if I lived near one even if my company doesn't pay for it. I'll have to admit though that when I initially worked in the city, walking 1.5 miles from my apartment to the station and then 1 mile from the station to work, it sure felt like one hell of an exercise in the morning and the same when coming back and got my reduced to slender size in 1 year. :)
"The option of living in small communities here in the Midwest is really rough simply because most small towns have NO JOBS."
That's the same thing that's been going on back in southwestern MO where my parents still live at. I'll admit that I was reluctant to move from there to St Louis but I was getting virtually no jobs in the area. The only places in the state where I'd even get a job interview were in the Kansas City and St Louis areas. Every time I visit my parents on an occasion, just looking at the small towns looking worse than the previous visit would put me in tears. It drives me crazy that the rurals have been depopulated while the suburbs and inner cities have become too crowded.
Why stop short of better technology. If you are going to spend money on steel tracks for cars with steel wheels, why not just go MagLev?
MegLev is state of the art technology for transporting large numbers of passengers long distances at speeds that are nearly as fast as the airline companies when you factor in the security delays at the air port.
At this point in time I don’t think it would be practical to equip vehicles that are designed to carry 4-6-8 passengers at a time with expensive MegLev technology. The transportation system I’m thinking of is designed for use in urban areas primarily; a MegLev system for long distance transportation would fit nicely with it.
v.purto
Nothing corrupt as deep as success.
This is a joke of an article not even remotely grounded in reality. Should Obama tell Toyota and Honda what to build also? This sounds like more communist drivel from someone who has no clue what it takes to run a business.
The greatest generation has done more to pollute and destroy our environment than any before or since.
You sound like a lot of capitalist drivel.
This is not about how angry we are with our conservative fathers; this is about how hard work, work that actually moves stuff around and builds something folks can use, is undervalued in this country. You could understand it if it was only undervalued by the capitalists who exploit it, but it is undervalued by the the alleged progressives who comment on these issues. While some of these hard working Americans may be conservative on some points, they are progressive on others and have been willing to put their lives on the line in the last century's labor struggles, not to mention in WWII. For those who are curious, you can learn more about life on the assembly line at www.autoplant.info.
Excellent comment.
Yes, excellent comment!
Maybe we can restart our greatest generation by first allowing the vested Big Business crooks on Wall $treet to collapse. Next, why not just forget about Detroit and let's allow local geniuses to put forth their local inventions and small businesses. I sure as hell don't want our young children to suffer the same fate of having their dreams of innovating thinking and creativity crushed as a lot of us in this country have had for ages. Until localization and decentralization of our entire business structure are taken seriously, I don't see much changing over the long run.
I was born in 1981 and am unfortunately part of the younger generation that's been trained to be completely ignorant and way too materialistic but some of us haven't been fooled. Sometimes, it takes fate in life to realize the plight. Sometimes I think that maybe being left out when I was younger just because I was laughed at for my differences helped me to learn about the dark side that's controlling us all. Like every generation, there will always be those to help only to have their hands bitten while the big shots keep deluding themselves into believing that they were powerful even as they receive hidden assistance even from those they claim to rail against.
This is all very simple. The automakers are not the solution. A gas tax of $2.00 per gallon will focus everyone's mind.
Use the tax to off-set health care or build schools, etc.
This is not difficult folks. Look at what happened to auto buying pattern in 2008.
If we are silent, even stones cry out.
spinwing
RE: Thomas More April 7th, 2009 11:24 am
Although I am confident that your intentions were to be sincerely thoughtful in your discourse regarding “The Greatest Generation”--your parent’s and my grandparent’s generation--I must argue that to appreciate the context of the first half of the twentieth century it is necessary to take an intersectional approach to our analysis that includes factors such as, but not limited to, race and sex.
“I am of the opinion (and the proof is plain I believe) that they, as a "generation" were far better than we are and accomplished far more than we have. Whats coming behind us seem to have so little understanding of the real world, so little real education, they may be worse than we have been.” Thomas Moore, April 7th, 2009 3:05 pm
“Proof” is not an effortless project. Consider that women, blacks, Arabs, Latinos, Natives, Chinese, Japanese, poor whites, and miners (just to get started), taken together, represent a far greater majority of people across this nation’s history. Yet, during the glory days of “The Greatest Generation,” these categories of people were systematically excluded from the very “accomplishments” you reminisce about. Violence against women and people of color (abuse, asylum for failing to dust furniture, lynching, rape, economic tyranny...), redlining, abduction of Native children, and a whole plethora of anti-human crimes worked to terrorize, exclude, take advantage of, and erase the dreams, identities, and existence of an astonishing mass of people during “The Greatest Generation’s” reign.
I do not wish to communicate that accomplishments were trivial or that social-technical advances are unwelcome. Rather, I hope to help reconnect our past and future through reconciliation with the fact that “accomplishments” are far more complex than an Edenistic-imaginary might tempt or compel. Our remembering must acknowledge that the great benefits and accomplishments enjoyed by us today came at, and continue to come at, a great price to countless ancestors who never agreed to be touched by invisible or wretched hands--and here we must also include our animal, Earth, Water, and Sky friends. And this price was levied against the many for the benefit of the few who continue to benefit in person or through their kin. For me, this is not great.
I too worry about the paths that we travel as we flail about trying to figure who we are and who we want to be.
I believe that what *is* coming are generations (including my own generation-X) who understand the real world as much as any other generation. Never before has education in this nation been so welcoming, comprehensive, inclusive, and wide-reaching (and of course, we have numerous opportunities to make our educational system even more welcoming, comprehensive, inclusive, and wide-reaching). For better or worse every generation rises and falls and it seems that the ‘most successful’ generations are those who die off before they can be proven savage. If we are to succeed we must imagine and promote a progressive vision of ourselves and of our offspring so that we may light the paths ahead with encouragement, trust, and love.
nia savage
detroit, mi
You can spot a politician a mile away by what he says.
"We need to make great personal changes ourselves. Americans in the 1940's sacrificed all manner..." This is his mantra. He repeats it in other forms, but it is still the same. You see, we, the taxpayers, are not doing enough by bailing out the banks to the tune of $2 or 3 trillion dollars and hundreds of billions to the automakers and trillions to the medical octopus, and even more to the political structure by letting them have our 'Bill of Rights'and allowing their corporate masters to spy on us for them. NNNoooo. This dipshit writer is so confused himself, he offers up a victory garden ala Michelle Obama because he doesn't have a clue what he is talking about.
How moronic is that?
I've been growing vegetable gardens for so long politicians begin to look like white, fat grubs that are too good to act like a worm and enrich the soil,rather than look like an incompetent boob, confused, wandering, only to get eaten by a bird or hungry aboriginal.
This is a waste of my time. These comments reek of childish ignorance and reflexive accusations powered by assumptions without the benefit of a single fact.
Excuse me? Some of us don't mind relating our life's experience with the article when commenting. Why would you call that childish?
haha...
so your problem is that contributors to this discussion are able to reflect (which is the meaning of 'reflexive') in discourse? and you do not find a single fact here in this discussion? funny, funny, funny.
Where is the electricity going to come from ? Keep in mind 40 percent now comes from coal, so unless we also change the way we generate we solve nothing. Also natural gas production in north America has peaked.The carbon question is of equal importance.
You haven't heard of solar, wind, and tidal sources of electricity, have you?
As much as it is appealing in its simplicity, the actions called for in this piece (whether they have merit or not) are not generational, they’re ideological. That the so-called greatest generation grew up in times when such ideas as a government seizing control of broken systems were not as unthinkable as they are now, has everything to do with what they accomplished.
Subsequent generations have been indoctrinated into the ideology that government IS the problem and that less government is essential to the betterment of the all-important Individual. It is accepted truth now that it is the unencumbered individuals who made our nation’s greatness instead of considering the possible view that our nation’s collective greatness made the success of individuals possible.
What made the Greatest Generation GREAT was that they thought an acted as a generation … that they saw their fates as interconnected and that they found ways to overcome their boundaries and differences with a sense of common purpose and worked for the common good. This was no doubt forged in the hardships of horrific world war and the Great Depression, but the result was the creation of a culture that acted collectively and forcefully when required.
This generation saw something in being an American, a shared destiny that resulted in the kind of social solidarity that has been more or less intentionally filtered out of our contemporary American culture (or at the very least drowned in a bathtub).
I am not sure cultural diversity has all that much to do with it. The more complex social fabric of today is still woven in the Mills of modern free-market thought. So despite their pasts, heritage and orientations, today’s Americans are cut from the same cloth, the cloth of individualism, of singular and not shared destiny, of the belief that the American Dream is the promise of individual fulfillment even if it is at the expense of fellow Americans.
This atomism was unthinkable to the so-called greatest generation and that was the source of their greatness.