I offer a friendly reminder to all of those Obama bashers out there who are furiously indignant at his efforts to save American auto makers by hook or by crook.
Do you know how we went from zero to sixty in production of weapons when we entered World War Two? Look at some military antiques for a history lesson. Among the versions of model 1911 pistols that I have studied, you will find receivers stamped with everything from 'Singer Sewing Machine' to 'General Motors.'
But it wasn't just handguns. GM produced torpedo bombers for the Navy, deuce-and-a-half trucks for the Army and Churchill tanks for the British army. I say this not in praise of GM (which also profited from supplying the Nazis early on), but rather in support of having the domestic means of rapid, short-notice production of large quantities of war material in the event of an emergency.
You'll find similar stories behind the other American auto makers. At peak production, Ford was completing 1 B-24 bomber per hour, 24 hours a day. Literally, pilots slept on cots at the factory, waiting for their new planes to be ready. Ford also built massive numbers of military jeeps during this period. Chrysler made Sherman M-4 tanks, air raid sirens, ambulances and sundry other goods.
We can only manage this type of production if we already have thriving industries in coke, steel, railways and automobiles. You can't switch factories over to making tanks if they've been shuttered for years and the machinery has all been shipped off to China. Nor can you do much of anything with those factories if all of your skilled workers and machinists and engineers have scattered to the 4 winds and been forced to take up other trades.
Barack Obama understands this. Do you?
