Heading the UAW at this economic juncture is an opportunity to publicize and address America’s growing wealth disparity. Shawn Fain, who heads the autoworkers’ union, has so far demonstrated he’s not up to the challenge.
Business
Ford’s Heavyweight Beltway Swamp Creatures
The Department of Energy’s sweetheart $9.2 billion loan to Ford Motor Co. to finance the company’s EV projects in Tennessee and Kentucky had a bad odor to it. Thankfully, Wyoming Republican Senator John Barrasso agrees, and a letter he wrote to Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm helped connect the dots.
San Francisco’s Inequitable Concierge Police
Today marks the three-year anniversary of San Francisco Mayor London Breed’s media celebrated decision to reduce the city’s law enforcement budget by $120 million and redirect the funds to better serve the city’s African American community. Now some city officials want to bring back a security protection initiative from the lawless days of the Gold Rush that likely only the affluent can afford.
Carlos Tavares’ Inspiring Stellantis Leadership
The media isn’t fond of Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares because he says demand for EVs are artificially driven by government mandates and subsidies and complying with those mandates could lead to a shortage of raw materials necessary to produce enough battery driven vehicles.
Nevertheless, Stellantis has ambitious EV plans for the U.S. market, including launching a truck with 500 miles of range that could prove a competitive threat to GM’s and Ford’s lucrative truck businesses.
Unlike the CEOs of GM and Ford, Tavares has demonstrated he knows how to execute.
R.I.P. Corporate Ethics and Morals
Some Wall Street Journal and Reuters news exclusives this week forced me to accept that corporate morals and ethics no longer matter.
Hollywood’s CEO Pay Awakening
Some thoughts on the less than Six Degrees of Separation between Hollywood’s striking workers and the workers at GM’s Ohio electric battery plant.
America’s Banking Code of “Ethics”
Reading up on the latest wrongdoing in U.S. banking and finance I was struck just how much the industry has changed since the days of Milburn Drysdale of Beverly Hillbillies fame.
By today’s banking standards, Drysdale was an upstanding executive.
The Challenge of Positive Thinking
Happy people think happy thoughts, but I wonder if they are aware of what’s happening in the world.
Mayor Pete’s and Scott Kirby’s Woeful Leadership
Americans willing to accept Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and United CEO Scott Kirby remaining in their jobs must embrace the years of airline travel misery that awaits them.
Travelers Beware! Hertz Will Put You in an EV
Surveys show that most Americans are becoming increasingly leery of electric vehicles, but there’s a high likelihood that travelers renting from Hertz this summer will be given one.
Says a writer for The Atlantic who experienced the switcheroo: “(EVs) are great, potentially planet-saving machines, but the ordeal made me want to wage a slash-and-burn campaign against all of them.”