March 6, 2009

What To Do About GM

     It's time for the creative destruction Schumpeter described. Rather than propping up the dinosaur with subsidies, it should be reformed into many small independent R&D manufacturing companies. If GM workers were put in charge of many small independent factories, they could liberate the creativity currently stifled by GM management's delusion that it's still 1950.   
     Remember who killed the electric car. Those are not the people who are going to design and build affordable sustainable cars and trucks. What if the GM staff who did design the EV-1, and who really cared about their baby, had been an independent company? 
     How many other ordinary people have great ideas that they could share with each other, and work together to come up with truly elegant designs that meet people's need for affordable alternative transportation and other sustainable tools? I'm sure the people who work for the parts companies (that politicians say we need to save GM for) could help out too.
     Heck, we could use some of the subsidy to hire some laid-off workers to drive the buses that transit agencies can barely afford to hire drivers for even though fares have been raised so high driving and parking is cheaper.

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