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Notable quotable
"The auto industry declined while [Dingell] was chairman, ranking member and chairman again. He said we should do nothing to modernize the auto industry. That kind of protection is why we lost out to the Japanese and why Detroit chose the wrong kind of cars to make."
-- an unnamed "aide to a [Henry] Waxman supporter," challenging the conventional wisdom that John Dingell's chairmanship of the House Energy Committee has been good for automakers
David Roberts is staff writer for Grist. You can follow his Twitter feed at twitter.com/drgrist.
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Comments
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wesrolley Posted 1:19 am
14 Nov 2008
Yet, this gets not a single peep. Comments from my fairly green neighbors follow two tracks. One is let them fail, because there is no end to their follies. It is the moral hazard argument that we heard so much about earlier but not lately.
It is my personal view that the reason for the failure is that all the auto executives lived in Grosse Pointe mansions and could not longer relate to the middle class that they expected to buy their product. Japanese trading company C. Itoh had a chairman who took the train to work every morning rather than the private car to which he was entitled. It was that sense of the needs of the common man that he was afraid to lose. GE Execs never had it.
Wes Rolley
CoChair - EcoAction Committee
Green Party US
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