Big 3

No, that's not a dick joke.

Look, I'm getting a little tired of these morons on TV and in congress (I'm looking at you Harry Reid, you pussy) complaining about bailing out GM, Ford, and Chrysler. They were tickled to death to give Citi tens of billions (even though they just blew $400M on naming a stadium), AIG hundreds of billions, and the rest of the financial industry untold billions. No conditions, no oversight, no problem. But when the 3 remaining companies in this country that actually make shit that people buy need help, all of a sudden, everyone's panties get in a bundle.

Yes, their business plans have been garbage for years. But, keep in mind Congress continually wimped out on passing real CAFE standards that would force them to make fuel efficient cars (not to mention the same group of regulations makes it impossible for them to bring their popular, thrifty, and economical European cars to the U.S.) So there's some blame to go around. And you get some blame for buying that ugly, wasteful SUV. But, like I said before, this is a huge opportunity to help the Big 3 get back to the forefront of not just car sales, but also technology.

I recently learned from NPR that Chrysler back in the 70's got a bailout. The gov't guaranteed a bunch of loans, forced Chrysler to turn around, and voila, Chrysler did and the gov't made about $500 million on its investment (the gov't got shares of stock that appreciated). The same thing can and should happen here. Invest $25B (hell, make it $40B while we're at it - if AIG can get $100B or more, these guys can split $40B three ways and they're way more important) in the Big 3. Require all 3 have at least one fully electric car for sale, in showrooms by June 2010 (it can have a small petrol engine to recharge the battery on the go); require their entire fleet (pickups and SUVs included) to get 30mpg or better by improving not just engine efficiency, but also gross vehicle weight (easiest way to get better mpg, use aluminium instead of steel - drive a Lotus, you'll get it); require them to have a hydrogen or other alternative fuel car in the fully-functioning prototype phase by 2012; and require them to trim their vehicle lineups to 10 models or less. I mean, do we really need 7 different cross overs, all of which share the same chassis?

So, Reid, stop being a pussy, do your job and get the Senate in line so we can start the engine on this new green economy. We've already got the companies, the employees, the factories, and the technology to get it done. So, get it done.