What the heck is wrong with cafe standards? Lamar Alexander

[Skidmore]

is going on and on about how cafe standards would cause jobs to go overseas. Can't we gain some traction with an argument that these "American" companies are unpatriotic?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

1. Funny.. most of the cars made overseas have better CAFE standards!

You'd think GM would catch on

[rox63]

2. Jobs are going overseas anyway

So we might as well be less dependent on foreign oil, and have breathable air.

[tnlefty]

3. The problem isn't cafe standards, rather the Plaid-Shirt Lamar.

Those cafe standards would be imposing regulations on auto makers, ya know? Lamar is just desperately trying to come up with some cover for corps to continue their assault on workers.

[indepat]

10. And I thought it would be impossible for anyone to have as despicable

record as the senior senator, but LA is coming on strong.

[MindPilot]

4. I'm tired of hearing US car companies bitch and complain

Back in the 70's American car-makers did nothing but bitch and moan about emission standards. While they were busy whining, the Japanese (and the Germans) were designing equipment that works. To this day, many of the low-emission, high-efficiency fuel system components are licensed from Bosch. The American manufacturers had to learn about quality from the Japanese.

General Motors, quit whinin' and start designin'

[tnlefty]

5. Oooh, I like that - "quit whinin' and start designin'

:thumbsup:

[MindPilot]

11. Thanks!! That phrase is from the seventies

I was at the time working with the Colorado state goverment helping to design a smog check program. GM was a real pain; the other car companies were quite cooperative.

[phantom power]

6. Truer words were never spoken.

These mighty captains of industry run squealing at the first sign of serious competition. They fought CAFE tooth and nail, and they got exactly what they asked for. The freedom to make cars that get crappy gas mileage. Well, now reality has returned, to smack them upside the head. And once again, they will run away crying, asking us all to buy their inefficient cars out of some misguided sense of patriotism.

If the auto workers had any sense, they would lynch their CEOs. But most likely, they will go back to their old stand-by: vandalizing foreign cars.

[Skidmore]

9. Automobile companies have had 30 years to come to the market

with innovative technology and instead spent that time developing and advertising large vehicles with all kinds of energy consuming gadges in them. The Congress has set about strangling the railroad industry, which could have expanded to create shortlines between communities across the nation which share work forces. Instead they babied the auto industry and convinced every American they had to have their own car, or two or three. I'd take a train or a bus to work gladly, but mass transit is not available to me. I live in a rural community and travel 40 mi. RT per day to my job and back. We drive a 20 year old Toyota with no airconditioning as a go to work car. We own a pickup truck used sparingly for hauling, and we have a minivan (yes, used only for major trips and light hauling, gets used about a dozen times a year). Give me a bus line or a shortline until the alternative fuels are developed. In the meantime, GM can bite the dust. It is neither an effective or visionary company.

[left is right]

7. Wasn't it sometime in the 60's that they were

whining about having to install seatbelts? And before that they probably whined about turn signals and head and tail lights. Higher CAFE standards are going to happen or people will just by foreign cars

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. Once upon a time, unions would strike to fight for their own best

interests.

The misguided, shareholder driven policies of the US car manufacturers are undermining the the industry they work for, and a sizable segment of the American economy.

Couldn't the unions strike and demand that the companies design products that will be competitive in the world marketplace, thus preserving the companies' viability as well as their own jobs?

Or has the union-busting methodology of the past few decades gone so far that they just can't do that?

[4_TN_TITANS]

12. Our plaid avenger

has been seriously partaking of the koolaid lately. The other day he was bitching about wasting money on windpower, that windmills were nonproductive 40% of the time. Idiot - we gotta start somewhere with green energy!

I used to think Lamar was a decent Repub, but I should have known better. :eyes:

[ieoeja]

13. Framing It

I got the following link in a Latest Breaking News thread:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/latimests/homegrownfuelsupplyhelpsbrazilbreatheeasy

While some people like Lamar Alexander have spent the last thirty years arguing that any efforts to clean up the environment, or switch to renewable fuel sources would cost this country jobs and close down small businesses, Brazil spent those same years making this switch. As a result today's economy in Brazil is not losing billions more to middle eastern oil producing companies. Even more important, they have positioned themselves to export huge supplies of alternative fuels, and the cars that run on those fuels, as countries around the world accept the fact that this time around, the prices ain't going to drop.

You heard that right. The initiatives Lamar Alexander opposes CREATED jobs and saved the economy billions.

That is, of course, the inherent flaw in being too Conservative. If you oppose too much progress, you better expect to be Left Behind. And it is time these men stopped obstructing our attempts to make sure the United States continues moving forward.