David

Karki

Read David's bio and previous columns here

June 1, 2009

The End of the Auto Industry . . . and America

“They can have any color they want, so long as it's black.” – Henry Ford

They can have any car they want, so long as it's a tiny hybrid death trap. – President Obama

OK, so President Obama didn't actually say that in so many words. But that's what his unilateral raising of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards effectively does.

For all practical purposes, the production of SUVs and trucks has been outlawed. There is simply no way to manufacture a bigger, heavier vehicle that can meet those standards. Therefore, they won't be manufactured.

In their place will be mini-Cooper-sized hybrid compacts made of metal only slightly more resistant to crushing on impact than your average soda can. They'll be more expensive to make and cost more to buy and maintain, effectively making the new standards a massive tax increase. And they will be lethal – more people will be killed because lighter-weight metal will not protect occupants as effectively in a crash.

No one wants these glorified Flintstones cars. Were there profit in it, someone would already be making and selling lots of them. No thuggish orders from Obama and his EPA would be necessary. But that's not the case. In fact, the very vehicle lines Obama just terminated were Detroit's most profitable. And it makes sense. An SUV can comfortably carry a family and their stuff and protect them during the trip. The new Obamobiles can't do any of that.

But then Obama has never let reality get in the way of his hubris. Little things like the immutable laws of economics and physics, and the integrity of contracts, are nothing in the face of his bill- and regulation-signing pen. Obama will outlaw the most profitable good product, force the sale of an unwanted bad product, wave a magic wand to instantly change how efficiently gasoline burns and ignore any legally binding agreement he feels like, and we'll suffer no deleterious consequences for his delusions of grandeur.

Please. This is insane. And does anyone even care anymore about where in hell Obama thinks he gets the constitutional authority to do any of this? I certainly don't see Article II containing anything about the president having the power to appoint himself CEO of the auto industry.

And then there's his forced closures of dealerships and unilateral voiding of bankruptcy contracts with regard to General Motors and Chrysler. He has screwed the holders of those companies' debt out of the payments to which they have a legal right, protected by the Contracts clause of the Constitution. (Obama took an oath to preserve, protect and defend that, in case you've forgotten.)  He got them to the White House, offered them 22 cents on the dollar to shut up and go away, and when they objected he started publicly denigrating them as greedy.

He has also closed hundreds of dealerships, many quite successful, on very spurious grounds. I'm not sure if he's just selecting them that poorly as he incompetently tries to run an industry he can't possibly understand and had no business touching in the first place, or if there is a more sinister reason behind which got the axe. But I feel safe in thinking that politics played a much bigger role than the financial bottom line.

And that politics, that method to the erstwhile madness, is this: Obama, at the behest of the enviro-wacko lobby, wants to force the outright end of the auto industry in America as we've known it.

The tree huggers have long believed that the internal combustion engine is the most destructive invention in mankind's history as a pestilence on Mother Earth. Al Gore ranked it ahead of the atomic bomb in his green polemic, Earth in the Balance. And now, with a like-minded eco-nut in Obama and no opposition whatsoever, they have the ability to make their screwed-up vision a screwed-up reality.

Moreover, the means by which Obama is doing so is nothing short of fascist. Webster's defines it as follows: “A political regime that exalts nation above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and/or social regimentation, and suppression of opposition.”

There isn't a single part of this definition that doesn't fit: Exalts nation (or collective) above the individual? Check. Obama is handing whatever is left of GM and Chrysler to the unions and screwing debt holders.

Centralized autocratic government? Check. GM and Chrysler are now owned by government. Banking preceded them, and credit cards are to immediately follow. And it won't stop there.

A dictatorial leader? Check. Obama voids legal contracts, bullies and threatens industry leaders who stand up to him or get in the way of his goals.

Severe economic regimentation? Check. Obama the Car Czar is dictating through regulation every last detail of what Detroit will manufacture.

Suppression of opposition? Check. Uses the good-cop/bad-cop ploy on debt holders, offering a small amount of what they're due if they comply and slandering them (and threatening them with even worse, according to one of their attorneys) if they don't.

Obama keeps up a thin veneer of supposed private ownership, the better to hide his heavy-handed thuggery. But to quote Ronald Reagan: “Now it doesn't require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property?”

When Obama can void contracts, close dealerships, mandate and abolish product lines, all on his personal whim with no due process of law, we not only have seen the end of the auto industry but of America itself.

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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