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Interview with Linda Niemann, Author of Boomer, Railroad Memoirs
Jon Flanders, MRzine
Linda Niemann’s Boomer: Railroad Memoirs is one of a handful of outstanding books, like Ben Hamper’s Rivethead, that have documented industrial working-class life in the United States, as experienced by the children of the sixties.
Boomer vividly illuminates how a generation of railroad workers faced the receding standard of living for workers in the seventies and eighties, in prose that jumps from the page, pulling no punches when it comes to explaining how a collapsing capitalist economy bears down on one’s personal life. Boomer brings to life the unique work experience lived by “rails,” the folks who work the endless river of trains that move the lifeblood of the US economy across the mountains and plains, mostly unseen by the majority of Americans. Boomer also is a documentation of the experience of women “trespassing” in occupations formerly exclusively held by men.
(8 September 2008)
I wonder if our heroes may be changing. Railway workers, farmers and people in the oil industry are looking pretty good right now, whereas Wall Street types are not. -BA
Bush Approves Automaker Loan Program: But Will It Arrive in Time?
David Kiley, Business Week
President Bush on Sept. 30 signed a broad spending bill that keeps government operating in the new fiscal year, and includes $7.5 billion to pay for a $25 billion loan program to help automakers and supplier companies transition plants to building more fuel efficient vehicles.
General Motors, Ford and Chrysler are all facing liquidity problems as they try to restructure amidst the current economic calamity, and develop new models that will help them meet stricter fuel economy regulations between 2015 and 2020, as well as increased consumer demand for those vehicles. Some analysts believe GM, for example, coud hit a critical shortage of liquidity by the middle of next year.
Starting today, the Department of Energy will begin a two month process in which it will write the parameters around which the auto companies can apply for the loans. Broadly speaking, each company will have to show that the money will be used to modernize plants and technology that will deliver more fuel efficient vehicles to the public.
(1 October 2008)
Previous attempts to interest US car makers in fuel economy met with resistance as recently as 2007, and as long ago as 1990 (which would have allowed plenty of time for the adjustment. Looks like another bail out.-SO
U.S. auto sales plunge
Chris Isidore, CNNMoney.com
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Sales at the nation’s top automakers fell sharply in September, as tighter credit for buyers and dealers combined with high fuel prices resulted in industrywide U.S. sales falling below the 1 million mark for the first time in more than 15 years.
The sales declines were broad based, with Japanese automakers reporting the same kind of double-digit declines that hit U.S. brands earlier this year when the record gasoline prices sent buyers scurrying from SUVs and pickups to more fuel efficient car models. Overall Asian brands saw a 31% drop in sales, more than the 24% drop among traditional domestic brands.
This time it was the credit crisis, not just gas prices, that cut into sales. Many buyers were unable to get the credit they needed to buy a car and a growing number of dealers saw their own credit cut off, causing widespread failures.
Add to that general nervousness about the economy and the industry was poised to sell fewer than a million cars in the United States for the first time since 1993. And auto executives say they don’t think they’ve seen the bottom yet…
(1 October 2008)
