Factories are Factories, and in WWII we were able to show that we could convert factories to make almost anything. I think we should use the employees (if they want to work there) and the factories to make all sorts of other stuff.

In the end its that that these companies are overvalued. The market will compensate. Someone will buy them out.

I heard an interview on NPR last night with someone who dropped out of high school to work in a Ford factory, where he’s held the same job for 20 years ~ I agree, bad bad plan on his part, but even if we take a Social Darwinist stance, when hundreds of thousands of people are in that boat, it becomes everyone’s problem, not just the problems of factory workers about to get the axe.

So yeah, I definitely agree: no handouts for Ford execs… But my inner socialist is hoping we’ll see massive investment in green technology, turning facory towns like Dayton, Ohio & Janesville, WI into the next producers of hydrogen fuel cells and wind turbines and whatever else that hasn’t even been thought of yet…

And who says we can’t keep producing cars in these factories? Let’s create an open competition for scientists to innovate the best new design for green transportation – let the goverment buy out the bankrupt Ford factories on the cheap, and offer them as a prize to the scientists who come up with the best ideas – and invest in retrofitting the factories to produce these new, smarter cars! Bingo, factory workers have a new job, America has less crap on the road, and the goverment just invested in an industry that can actually remain profitable in the new century ~ sounds like a winning combination to me!