I vote for Hasselhoff!!

Obama weighing idea of "auto czar," aide says

CHICAGO (Reuters) – President-elect Barack Obama is considering naming a point person to lead efforts to help the distressed auto industry return to health, an Obama aide said on Thursday.

General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler LLC are seeking a federal bailout of up to $50 billion.

Automakers and Democratic congressional leaders have discussed a two-stage process in which government would provide $25 billion in direct loans to meet urgent needs. A second $25 billion would come later and could be applied to a United Auto Workers (UAW) retiree health care trust, freeing up more cash for operations.

An Obama transition official said the president-elect was looking into "identifying someone in charge of the auto issue who would have the authority to bring about reforms that would lead to an economically viable auto industry."

Obama said at a news conference last week that he considered federal help for the industry a high priority for his transition and called the auto companies "the backbone of American manufacturing and a critical part of our attempt to reduce our dependence on foreign oil."

He urged the Bush administration to accelerate disbursement of $25 billion in advanced technology loans approved by Congress in September.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081113/pl_nm/us_usa_obama_autos_1

In Canada, the auto industry employment figure are already down to a 14 year low to about 126,000 jobs, mostly in Ontario. But in the US we are talking about 3 million jobs! In 1991, it was 4 million and that represented 5 % of the total jobs in the country. So it is HUGE. And vital, unfortunately.

Sometimes I think that the "We are entrepreneur in a dog eat dog world free liberal economy and we hate people who do not take responsibility for their errors and demands hands out from the government" captain of industries should reap what they sow, period, and just shout the bloody up about it. They messed up so stupidly, giving us the SUV while we wanted efficiency, killing the electric car instead of being the leader in the technology and helping us paved a better future. Just plain being the pounding board of the oil industry instead of developing their independence and scientific advancement. No surprise that people are buying Japanese!

But it's 3 million lives and their families that are at stake here. So here come the "auto czar". Maybe he'll just distributed bitch slap all around and that will be enough to put some sens into the jet-set CEO gang...

See also todays New York Times:
The question: bankruptcy v/s bailout...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/business/economy/13bankruptcy.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin