As it turns out, Destiny’s Child was a group of female profits, much like Jesus, Abraham, and Buddha before them. When they first sang, “Can you pay my automo-bills?” on their eternal classic “Bills, Bills, Bill,” I must admit, at the time, I had no idea what an “automo-bill” was. I searched through Webster’s Dictionary in the hopes that I would find the definition of “automo-bills,” but alas, there simply wasn’t one.
Now, just 9 short years later, the term “automo-bills” finally makes sense. Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler are begging the American taxpayer to pay their “automo-bills,” and the price tag is $25 billion ($50 billion if you include the $25 billion already allocated to them to invest in more fuel efficient technologies).
The notion that we, the American people, are somehow responsible for bailing out the Big Three is preposterous. These companies reported record profits in the 1990’s by producing gas guzzling Sport Utility Vehicles. They had no desire to create fuel efficient cars. I can only imagine that in board rooms of GM and Ford the phrase “Leave that to the Japanese” was uttered as a punch line in regards to cars that were able to get more than 12 highway miles per gallon. Now, as it turns out, the Big Three are the punch line.
These companies climbed into bed with the oil companies, much like Michael Douglas climbed into bed with Sharon Stone in “Basic Instinct.” How were they supposed to know these oil companies were ice-pick wielding psychopaths? Honda, Toyota, and other foreign manufacturers were able to decipher it, but the Big Three were blinded by avarice.
The Big Three had the money and clout necessary to jump light years ahead of their competitors. Lest we forget, GM was the first company to put a fully functioning electric car on the road. Then, magically, they all disappeared. GM was worried that these cars would sully their long love affair with big oil, which they weren’t ready to let go of. Toyota, not wanting to be outdone by the biggest car company in the world at the time, invested heavily in technologies that would allow them to compete with GM’s technological breakthrough. GM took one step forward then two giant leaps back, and Toyota simply leapfrogged right over them.
I believe the American people would prefer to buy American cars if they believed in the product, but the quality of these cars has been on a steady decline since the 1970s. The perception we have of these companies, and their cars, will not change until the companies themselves change. Handing over $25 billion is not an incentive for them to change. It’s tantamount to handing an alcoholic a bottle of Jack Daniels to help them sober up. The only way true addicts realize they need help is if they hit rock bottom. The Big Three need to hit rock bottom, which means filing for Chapter 11. This way they can protect their current assets, throw out the private jet setting C.E.O.’s that drove them into the ground, and truly restructure so they can become profitable again. This is the only way they will learn how to pay their own “automo-bills.”
