I remember a cartoon from (I think) Newsweek Magazine sometime in the early 80s during news of Chrysler loan guarantee.
It showed a battered old airplane labeled "Detroit auto makers" headed out on a bombing run to sink ships with cheap foreign auto imports on board.
The bombs were landing on oil tankers instead.
That's as if to say, "Detroit was shooting itself in the foot raging against imports."
Now, it looks like that cartoon idea is good to ponder again. Detroit automakers are even, themselves, realizing how cheap oil imports have made it harder for US auto companies to tool up for smaller more fuel efficient cars. Yes, the American market still goes for the big cars, when fuel is cheap. Safety is one reason. Rural living and the craze for light trucks is another.
Turn on that country and western music.
Maybe there should have been tariffs on cheap oil imports all along. Then the US economy could have planned for more fuel efficiency. Things like solar energy and more compact city planning would have been done also.
America was spoiled by cheap energy. Flooded with cheap oil imports.
On another note, good to see a web clip about auto executives traveling in expensive private jets to ask for money on Capital Hill. One executive blurted out something like, "got another meeting to get to in Detroit."
Maybe they should be doing more teleconferencing.
2 comments:
I would love to see that political cartoon. I wonder if you could find it and post it. And now look at the price of gas, just as Obama is going to take office gas prices in Cincinnati, Ohio have dropped to $1.59 a gallon at some stations!!! You are so right about the cheap gas being an addiction. 35 years from the first oil embargo of 1973, and still no comprehensive energy policy. In 1991, I painted a stamp showing that we were being held hostage to our own energy policy. I have posted that piece of art many times since Feb. 2008 on my blog.
Too bad I didn't keep that cartoon. I guess one would have to thumb through a bunch of old Newsweeks for it. I think it was Newsweek. Or maybe there's some search able archive on the Internet, or soon will be, for political cartoons of the past.
Post a Comment