SADIsm
from http://www.reportonbusiness.com/servlet/story/RTGA... :
Reeling auto-parts companies seeking $400-million infusion
Companies want Ontario, federal government to provide emergency infusion of cash in the wake of plant closings and job cuts
The $400-million in loans would be used by parts makers mainly to buy equipment to make them more productive, Mr. Fedchun said in an interview Monday.
...................................................................
Productive for what? Could be justified if recipients were directed to radically reorient their production. Expect neither our (ameri-)Con. govt. nor NDP to be so creative. A portal on a sinking industry through which Greens can shout a message of rescue & redirection.
Remember the Chrysler bailout of a generation ago? At that time there was critical impetus for research into & development of all things "alternative" (including founding of various Green parties worldwide), and yet we got retrenchment of more of the same. Maybe a bit of fuel efficiency, but just what was eaten up in increased use. Which side will Liberals take on this one? Greens can put some notable & required distance between us & them if they come out closer to those other two.
Are today's automotive industry problems not in major part traceable to the Chrysler bailout back then?
suggestions from the article:
"- loans to companies of $5,000 an employee for a five-year period;
[-- for retraining?]
- enhanced and longer-term export financing from Export Development Corp.;
[ --Not if it's following Buzz Hargrove's advice that all we gotta' do is pry open them Asian markets.]
- an investment fund similar to the $900-million Strategic Aerospace and Defence Initiative provided to aerospace and defence companies
[-- announcing that programme in April, the Minister for Industry said "Our plan is to keep the Canadian aerospace and defence industries at the forefront of the knowledge-based economy. Through encouraging research and development, SADI will accelerate innovation, keeping the entrepreneurial spirit alive in aerospace and defence." -- acceleration in which direction? for more of the same?]"
This is yet another juncture for application of that greener critical impetus. Will my children, after raising their own children, have to say again what I say now after having raised them through the disappointingly misdirected destructive decades just past, when alternatives were also available but mostly dropped? Seeking inspiration from SADI seems almost SADIstic to me...
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same refrain
On CBC Radio's Ontario Today auto workers' economist & commentator Jim Stanford is praised by the host for clear explanations regarding an Ontario economic downturn/recession, but as far as I heard merely rehearsed as prescription, like Hargrove, the need for foreign markets to open more to & buy more of what we offer. No comment about shifting, background untenability, unviable finance, but much commiseration with suffering Ontarians phoning in. A sure case of an economist sticking to the quantitative when qualitative & cultural matters are paramount. Receptive foreign markets for more of the same, the very opposite of Green concerns for saner production & relocalization. Just before the show, Opposition leader John Tory joined the federal Cons. chorus about overtaxed Ontario business, which the guest economist properly ridiculed, much as some critics of the Cons. retort that the economy is more than just oil & gas. But not a peep about appropriate Green-prescribed measures for enduring, differently-grounded, prosperity. The cultural problem is very deep indeed, and only as Ontarians are forced by deteriorating conditions, even as they are better off than most of the rest of the world, would there be sufficient receptivity to creative possibilities proffered by Greens, whose voice must still continually be heard, certainly more so than compromised economists'.
"a holistic approach"
"Taken together, these measures demonstrate that Canada is taking a holistic approach along the supply chain — manufacturers, suppliers and consumers," he said."
How's that for more misappropriation of language.
Canada, Ontario announce $4B auto aid package
""Here in Ontario we have 400,000 people and their families who rely on the auto industry so that they can put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads," the premier said.
"What the prime minister and I are saying today is that those people and their jobs are worth fighting for."" -- more like, fighting against the future of the offspring of these 400,000.
""Canadian taxpayers expect their money will be used to restructure and renew the automotive industry in this country," the prime minister said."" -- but what are we really going to get, a couple of more miles per gallon?
And yet more linguistic usurpation ("sustainable"):
""We completely get it that we really need to earn the trust, not just of our customers, but all Canadians to this kind of support and we've been extremely focused on transforming and making our business very sustainable for the future here," [GM Canada spokesman] Paterson told CBC News following the announcement."" -- (I've made regular reference to misplaced use of that term around here, eg http://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/3053#comment-2275,
http://main.greenparty.ca/en/node/4576#comment-5041 ,
http://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/6647 ,
http://www.greenparty.ca/en/node/3076 ).
"one mile per gallon a year"
In a major speech a year & a half ago then-Senator Obama was relying on the then-prevalent war-inspiration talk, but to inspire what?
"raising our fuel economy standards by four percent - approximately one mile per gallon - each year"
and yet
"automakers can avoid meeting this goal is if the National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration can prove that the increase is not safe, not cost-effective, or not technologically possible"
More "good money after bad" in a smaller version of the wild bailout of other perpetrators in October, and some are betting on the companies' demise in any case not too long from now.