Hummer and Sickle

For someone who started their working career in America in machine shops in Detroit and Pontiac, Michigan in the 1960s, and legal career in the secured lending arena representing corporate America in the 1970s, who for several years worked his way through the bankruptcy court system representing secured lenders, creditors committees, trustees and receivers, including Detroit’s giants and America’s leading financial institutions, watching General Motors seek refuge in bankruptcy court is not only a sad epitaph of an era, but a double dose of nostalgic memory lanes. First as an auto parts worker in who made parts for what became America’s automobile dinosaurs, and then as a lawyer representing the corporate-financial institutions whose shenanigans lead America to be technically bankrupt.

Living in China and reading that GM’s gas guzzling Hummer brand is being sold to a Chinese company for an estimated cool $500 million, even though the purchaser has assured it plans to keep production in America, so that 3,000 workers and 100 dealers can retain their super-sized burger diets, was a symbolic reminder of how China’s Confucian capitalism is devouring America. After all, the Hummer is different from other American car brands because it invokes a sense of American pride. A Hummer is readily associated with American soldiers dashing around in Humvees in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hummer is symbolic of Americanism.

With America’s automobile industry fighting for survival as it depends on government lifelines, China’s automobile industry is thriving. It wasn’t long ago that China produced only 5000 cars a year. Today it is the world’s largest car market. No one expected China to be in first place in the global auto market race until 2020. The pundits and experts were wrong again. China’s stimulus package with more than $733 million in tax breaks for rural buyers of small cars drove sales through the Middle Kingdom’s sky. Let’s not forget China also allocated $220 million to fund and upgrade new green automotive technologies, especially in alternative-energy vehicles that are the wave of the future. To help offset the high cost of buying clean-energy vehicles, subsidies of nearly $8,800 are being offered to local government agencies and taxi fleets in 13 cities for each hybrid vehicle purchased.

Beijing’s 2009 car sales target is 10 million units, an increase of 10 percent from 2008, and a figure that will cement its position as number one with an estimated 1 million more unit sales than America. China’s dominant role will allow it, rather than Detroit and Washington to dictate world fuel consumption and emission standards, including fuel efficient Hummers.