Sunday Forum

Letters to editor of the Editorial Page

Good after bad

On Nov. 27, you published a brief article titled, "GM wants to block tracking on planes executive use."

Recently, the CEOs of the Big Three flew to Washington with hats in hand to beg Congress for a loan so their companies might survive, each in his own expensive corporate jet. They didn't even ride-share. GM has now asked aviation regulators to block the public's access to facts regarding corporate jet usage.

In the 1970s after an oil embargo left us with gas lines, Congress passed a law requiring minimum fuel mileage production for most autos. In response, U.S. automakers turned to their lawyers to fight the legislation, while Japanese automakers turned to their engineers in order to comply.

In the intervening 35 years, corporate managers of each of these companies were incapable of leading their designers and engineers to produce fuel-efficient autos and pickup trucks. Rather, they kept on producing heavy, fuel-inefficient vehicles to a continuously diminishing market. While at the same time they caved in to the United Auto Workers' Union and recently signed a compensation package untethered to their current financial situation.

But don't let that fact confuse you; that labor contract is not directly responsible for the current financial straits. The companies are in the current jam because of poor executive decisionmaking, exhibited by several consecutive boards of directors and those consecutively chosen to occupy the executive corridor.

Any lifeline offered to these companies must include a requirement that they divest themselves of their board and top management. Otherwise, we'd be throwing good money after bad decisionmaking.

Mark Zimmerman, Raleigh

1958 redux

If you wanted to write a story about today's big automakers, all you'd need would be a newspaper from 50 years ago. Run the 1958 auto news with some minor editing and take the rest of the day off.

In 1958 Detroit had overproduced just in time for the recession. Perceiving the average buyer as the doltish victim of his own fantasies and his wife a frightened shrew, Detroit built the most garishly vulgar fleet of insolent chariots yet known to history. Ford's Edsel was about to become a name forever synonymous with market failure. Chrysler had tried to offer a small car in the prosperous early '50s, only to see sales dwindle. Chastened, it ran the Plymouth tailfin up to the highest altitude ever reached by car. But it was only following GM's bad example.

Dealer lots became a slather of frozen chromium flatulence. Detroit was begging for loans to stay afloat and blaming it on the unions. Meanwhile, Volkswagen couldn't keep up with demand in spite of doubling sales every year.

Too bad the history lesson doesn't stop here. The Big Three were four back then. George Romney's American Motors was doing well with the little Rambler, the only American auto to show a sales increase in '58.

But the public can rebel faster than Detroit can retool. Eventually prosperity returned, and American Motors disappeared.

Doug Berg, Pittsboro

No factories, no service

The Big Three CEOs by their own blundering are disqualified from receiving 25 gigabucks. What did the megabankers do that qualifies them for 20 or 30 times that? I had thought I understood that their pursuing unduly risky courses brought the whole mess on. Or is it that no matter how badly they screwed up, we still need banks, but we don't need factories?

Who are we kidding? The economic chaos we have experienced so far is nothing compared with what will happen if General Motors, Ford and/or Chrysler go under. Or is this all part of the transition to a service economy?