"Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors."

-Jonas Salk

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

What's Good for America

It used to be said that what's good for General Motors is good for America, but in those days nobody expected it would come to this: General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC), the people you had your car loan with the last time you bought a GM car (back before that string of Volvos and Toyotas, remember?) is trying to get itself declared a bank so it can get cut in on Mr Bernanke's trillion dollar bank bailout.

This is a silly way to save GM and its jobs. Remember we have two crises on our hands, both caused by economic excesses, operating on different time scales; the one financial and the other environmental.

I've been despairing of making lemonade out of these two lemons, but my good friend Howie Richey has pointed a way out of this thicket. What we should be doing is to tell GM they can't be a bank, but we'll give them a $10 bn contract to develop carbon neutral transportation, please and thanks.

Then maybe what's good for America will be good for General Motors, for a change.

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