Auto Tradeoff
***NEG
Uniqueness
Auto industry improving now
Keshavan 7/20 (Meghana, "Survey: Optimistic auto industry execs plan hiring, expansions in coming
year," 7/20/12, Crain's Detroit Business,
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20120720/FREE/120729992#) CS
Automakers and suppliers are expected to hire more people and expand their plants in the next year to keep
up with growing demands for U.S. light vehicles, according to a report released today by KPMG LLP, an audit, tax and advisory firm.
Executives for the auto industry and suppliers, surveyed in May, said they are optimistic about continued revenue
growth, despite concerns such as pricing pressures, a lack of a strong domestic skilled labor force and sales declines in Europe. "The
survey results clearly demonstrate a U.S. automotive industry that is regaining confidence ," said Gary
Silberg, national automotive industry leader for KPMG LLP, in a statement. "Even though the overall economic recovery remains weak, that is
not the case in automotive, where pent-up demand for vehicles in the U.S. is expected to carry over for years."
According to June reports, U.S. auto sales rose 20 percent, reaching an estimate of 14.1 million for the year, up from 12.8 million in 2011. He
said this
is causing auto companies and suppliers to ramp up hiring and production, and invest in new
products and facility expansion. "Revenues are higher and execs feel confident that revenues will grow
stronger still," Silberg said. The survey results The 2012 KPMG Automotive Industry Outlook Survey, which was conducted in May, reflects
the responses of 100 U.S. automotive executives. Findings include: Two-thirds of companies have added personnel over the past year, and 72
percent say their companies will continue to hire U.S. employees – up from 62 percent in last year's survey. When asked to predict when their
company's U.S. headcount would return to pre-recession levels, about one-third said they already have rebounded to that level, or will by the
end of 2012. About two thirds said that their companies have a significant amount of money on their balance sheets, and will invest that cash
before the end of the year. About 73 percent will increase capital spending over the next year, with the highest
priority being in developing new products or services, or expanding facilities. Nearly half – 47 percent – of the surveyed executives said their
company is likely to be involved in a merger or acquisition as a buyer, whereas 10 percent said they'd be sellers. Key drivers behind this activity
will be access to new markets and customers, and access to new technologies and products.
Growing now
Huffington Post 7/9 ("Ford, GM and Volkswagen Top List Of Fortune's List Of World's Most Profitable
Companies," 7/9/12 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/09/ford-gm-volkswagen-fortuneprofitable-companies_n_1659939.html)
Things are looking up for the auto industry: Just three years after the car industry's future seemed bleak and unredeemable,
signs of a comeback are all around. Fortune's Global 500 ranking, released on Monday, listed three automakers among
the world's most profitable companies. Volkswagen and Ford landed in the 13th and 14th spots, respectively, with General
Motors ranked as 48th. This is the first time in at least a decade that more than one carmaker made the top
50 list. This stands in stark contrast to the situation in 2008 and 2009, when the global car market crashed. For a time, before Congress voted
to extend aid to the industry, it seemed as if General Motors and Chrysler might fail and disappear. The two companies ended up with
government-led bankruptcies, emerging with billions in government aid, as well as fewer workers, health care obligations and manufacturing
sites.
Growing now
Bloomberg News 7/3 ("Auto Sales In June Provided Bright Spot For U.S. Economy," 7/3/12,
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-03/auto-sales-in-june-provided-bright-spot-for-u-seconomy.html)
The U.S. auto industry shrugged off a weakening labor market and waning consumer confidence in June,
surpassing analysts’ estimates and completing the best first half for vehicle sales since 2008. General Motors Co. (GM),
Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler Group LLC reported better than predicted gains from the year-earlier period in which they dominated the U.S.
market because of vehicle shortages at Toyota (7203) Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. caused by Japan’s tsunami. The 22 percent June
increase for the industry gives reason for optimism after analysts under- estimated demand following
lower than projected sales in May. Enlarge image A GM Buick Verano moves along the production line at company's assembly plant
in Lake Orion, Michigan. Photographer: Jeff Kowalsky/Bloomberg Enlarge image The U.S. auto industry has continued a
steady recovery since 2009 when GM and Chrysler restructured in government-backed bankruptcies. The industry is adding
back workers to meet demand, with light-vehicle sales this year on track to reach 14.3 million, the average of 16 analysts’
estimates, a 38 percent gain from 2009’s 10.4 million. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg Light-vehicle sales accelerated to 14.1 million
seasonally adjusted annualized rate, according to researcher Autodata Corp., beating the 13.8 million light-vehicle average of 15 analyst
estimates surveyed by Bloomberg. The world’s second- largest auto market remains on pace for the best annual sales total since 2007. “The
auto market continues to be the one bright spot in an otherwise complicated and generally negative marketplace,” Jesse Toprak, an analyst at
researcher TrueCar.com, said in a telephone interview. “The industry was able to carry a more than 14 million selling rate despite the rollercoaster ride we experienced in the economy and financial markets last month.” Beating Estimates GM sales climbed 16 percent in June, beating
the 7.6 percent increase that was the average estimate of 11 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. Deliveries rose 20 percent for Chrysler and 7.1
percent for Ford, topping analysts’ average estimates for gains of 18 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively. Nissan Motor Co. (7201) sales rose
28 percent, exceeding the 21 percent average estimate. Along with holiday marketing and discounted sales to fleet customers, U.S. automakers
had success with some car models. Chevrolet Malibu sales rose 32 percent from the previous June, while Ford Fusion sales increase 17 percent,
putting both midsize sedans among the industry’s top 10 models for the month. While Toyota and Honda fell short of analysts’ estimates, they
led the industry’s gains in June. Toyota’s deliveries increased 60 percent, and Honda’s rose 49 percent, compared with projections for 66
percent and 51 percent gains. Toyota Camry sales rose 50 percent, while Honda Accord deliveries soared 84 percent and Civic sales jumped 57
percent. The U.S. auto industry has continued a steady recovery since 2009 when GM and Chrysler restructured in government- backed
bankruptcies. The industry is adding back workers to meet demand, with light-vehicle sales this year on track to reach 14.3 million, the average
of 16 analysts’ estimates, a 38 percent gain from 2009’s 10.4 million. It would be the industry’s third year of at least 10 percent sales increases,
which hasn’t happened since 1971 to 1973.
Links
Link: Generic
New competition hurts the auto industry
Bethel 9 --Director of Frazier Capital Valuatio; Masters in International Finance and European Business (Stephen, December 1 2009, “The
Valuation of Auto & Recreational Vehicle Dealership Operations,” Chapter 2, Frazier Capital, http://www.fraziercapital.com/books/auto/2.pdf)
Second, rivalry
between existing competitors involves such variables as the number of competitors, the
relative strength of the competitors, the strength of their competitor`s relationship with car/truck distributors and
manufacturers, the industry growth potential, the amount of fixed costs needed, service differences, and quality of cars available. Third,
pressure from substitute products can hurt the auto industry. The auto industry faces competition not
only from within, but also from other forms of transportation such as trains, subways, bicycles, metro transits
and others. One needs to focus on substitute products and the minimum switching costs for potential customers, and high profit earning
industries which can afford to reduce margins in order to broaden their market into the seller's market.
Transportation funding is zero sum
Heymsfield 11 --Former Staff Director, House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure (David,
"Let the Games Begin," http://transportation.nationaljournal.com/2011/02/transforming-the-highwaytrust.php)
If rail is moved to the Trust Fund, its funding will be determined by the available revenues and decisions on how they should be allocated
between highways, transit and rail. The effects of this change seem unpredictable until we know the level and composition of the fund’s
revenues. Until
recently the user fees supporting the fund have been adequate to cover growing highway
and transit programs. This is no longer the case. The existing fees will not even cover existing programs,
much less a new rail program. The Administration is opposed to increasing the current user fees. If the new revenues are not user
fees and cannot be tied to any mode, we can expect major disputes on how the new revenues should be divided.
It will be a zero sum game in which a dollar going to one mode will not be available for the other two.
It’s anybody’s guess what the end result will be, and how it will compare to what would have occurred if rail was not moved to the Trust Fund.
Public policy trades off
Slack et al 9 --Professor Emeritus in the Department of Geography at Concordia University (Brian,
Jean-Paul Rodrigue-- professor at the Department of Economics and Geography at Hofstra University,
member of the Global Agenda Council on Advanced Manufacturing, , Claude Comtois-- professor of
geography at the University of Montreal, 2009, Second edition of the textbook “The Geography of
Transport Systems,” Chapter 3, Hofstra University,
http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch3en/conc3en/ch3c1en.html)
It is generally advocated that a form of modal equality (or modal neutrality) should be part of public policy where each mode would compete
based upon its inherent characteristics. Since different transport modes are under different jurisdiction and funding mechanisms, modal
equality is conceptually impossible as some modes will always be more advantageous than others.
Modal competition is
influenced by public policy where one mode could be advantaged over the others. This particularly
takes place over government funding of infrastructure and regulation issues. For instance, in the United States the
Federal Government would finance 80% of the costs of an highway project, leaving the state government to supply the remaining 20%. For
public transit, this share is 50%, while for passenger rail the Federal Government will not provide any funding. Under such circumstances,
public policy shapes modal preferences. The technological evolution in the transport industry aims at adapting the transport
infrastructures to growing needs and requirements. When a transport mode becomes more advantageous than
another over the same route or market, a modal shift is likely to take place. A modal shift involves the
growth in the demand of a transport mode at the expense of another, although a modal shift can involve an
absolute growth in both of the concerned modes. The comparative advantages behind a modal shift can be in terms of costs, convenience,
speed or reliability. For passengers, this involved a transition in modal preferences as incomes went up, such as from collective to individual
modes of transportation. For freight, this has implied a shift to faster and more flexible modes when possible and cost effective, namely
trucking and air freight.
Either they aren't efficient or they link
Hilmola 11 (Olli-Pekka, "Benchmarking efficiency of public passenger transport in larger cities,"
Benchmarking 18.1, Proquest)
Argued development steps are further supported from the environmental perspective too; we
analyzed relationships of
different measures of private car use, and found interesting as well as statistically strong connection between share of private
car use (or motorized vehicle) and measured DEA efficiency. In Figure 5 [Figure omitted. See Article Image.] is shown this relationship between
space used DEA model (small) and share of private car use - linear regression enjoys R2 -value of 35 per cent (this regression relationship was
also found to be < 0.001 statistically significant in regression analysis, see Appendix). As could be clearly noted, lower
the efficiency of
the public transportation DEA model, the correspondingly higher use of private cars. This relationship holds very
nicely until the level of 0.9 DEA efficiency - interestingly some cities having frontier performance could have high car use or other way around.
Similar statistically significant relationships were found within both larger DEA models (space and services; see Appendix for regression
analysis); these also repeated similar causal relationship of private car use and DEA efficiency, which was having strong explanation power until
frontier efficiency.
Note: DEA=data envelopment analysis
Public transportation and cars are zero sum
PTUA 10 (Public Transport Users Association, "Common Urban Myths About Transport,"
http://www.ptua.org.au/myths/compete.shtml)
Public transport advocates and planners have spent a great deal of effort explaining the way in which public transport modes like trains,
trams and buses work best when they are combined into a network, with modes complementing one another rather
than operating as competing fiefdoms. Because of the 'network effects' unleashed, improvements to bus services actually lead to more
patronage on trains as well, and vice versa. The
road lobby, in the same have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too spirit that gave us balanced
transport, has attempted to apply this same argument to public transport and cars. It's not about cars versus
public transport, said Roads Minister Tim Pallas in November 2007, quoting almost verbatim from an RACV policy document: RACV does not
subscribe to the cars versus public transport argument. We believe both are necessary and complementary.... To ensure the various modes of
transport complement rather than compete, transport should be planned as an integrated system rather than a set of separate modes. ---Royal
Automobile Club of Victoria, RACV Directions 2007 People are tempted to accept this argument also because we are naturally drawn to
avoiding conflict. After all, if the organisation charged with promoting private car use says it doesn't oppose public transport, surely that's a
good thing? So what if lots of new roads get built, as long as there's some support for public transport too? Many of us have seen car
dependence enacted as policy for so long that we try to make the best of a bad situation, proclaiming (like the curate in the old cartoon) that
actually, parts of it are excellent! The notion of 'integrated' or 'balanced' transport is enduringly popular for just this reason. This myth loomed
especially large in the Eddington 'East-West Needs Assessment' of 2008, the most significant recommendations of which were a $9 billion road
tunnel and an $8 billion rail tunnel in inner Melbourne. Not only did Eddington hold to the RACV line that the road and rail tunnels would not
compete with one another: he actually urged the two be done in combination and that there is a special benefit to doing so. I do not support and I have not adopted - a 'road versus rail' approach to transport planning.... Instead of favouring one mode over another, I have looked for
the right combination of modes that offer the best options for meeting Melbourne's east-west transport needs.... my recommendations.... I
believe.... deserve fair consideration as a balanced and measured response to tackling some of Melbourne's major transport dilemmas. ---Sir
Rod Eddington, Investing in Transport - Overview, Introduction, p.6. With any package, if you take pieces of it and leave pieces behind, then you
diminish the totality of what the package could do. ---Sir Rod Eddington, ABC Stateline, 4 April 2008 Yet what
does it really mean to
claim that roads and public transport are 'complementary'? It could only mean that building roads
actually promotes public transport use - in the way better buses promote travel by train - or at the very least, that building
roads has no effect on the amount of travel by public transport, relative to the amount of travel by car. But of course this is nonsense:
build a freeway, and people respond by making more car trips, including trips they may previously have made by public transport. This we know
from common sense, and also from the evidence: every freeway built to date has filled with new traffic, often within just a couple of years, and
led to a decline in public transport's share of travel. The decline in public transport mode share with the opening of new roads has been seen
most clearly where the road runs parallel to an existing train line. When the Mulgrave and South Eastern Freeways were linked in 1988, figures
from The Met showed that 20% of peak passengers on the Glen Waverley line had shifted to using their cars within weeks of the road being
opened. So while in 1987 there were seven inbound peak-hour expresses on the Glen Waverley line, by 1995 the drop in patronage had
reduced this number to two, and today there is just one. But aside from the localised effects of particular roads, the shift away from public
transport can also be seen in Melbourne-wide figures. The graph below, from the 2007 Victorian Budget papers, shows public transport's share
of motorised trips in Melbourne since CityLink opened in 2000. The graph shows mode share declining in each of the next four years - a decline
that was only arrested when an increase in petrol prices and CBD employment from 2005 caused train patronage to increase significantly. Even
then, mode share in 2006 remained below the level in 1999. Interestingly, the 2008 Budget papers indicated that despite further strong
patronage growth on trains, mode share had slipped again, from 8.8 to 8.6 percent of motorised trips. The 2008 graph seems to have tried to
obscure this fact by an otherwise fairly pointless dilation of the vertical axis. Subsequent Budget papers suggest that mode share may indeed be
on the rise again, though the method by which the government estimates overall travel has changed. By the 2010 Budget, the former Brumby
Government had gone so far as to retrospectively decide that mode share had actually been increasing all along! Even an unbiased observer
would have cause to question whether this is more about face-saving spin than honest re-estimation, given that all credible sources from the
early 2000s (including State and Federal transport departments, and the Census) clearly show public transport patronage stagnating and car use
increasing strongly in the period from 2000 to 2004. All of which is consistent with the original estimates of declining mode share over that
period. The failure to consistently increase mode share stems from government policy that continues to favour car travel and to marginalise
public transport for anything other than peak hour CBD travel. If the State Government had really believed in its aim (first proclaimed in 2002)
of increasing public transport mode share to 20% by 2020, an obvious way of demonstrating this would have been to rebalance transport
funding away from roads and towards public transport infrastructure, such as suburban rail extensions. Yet as a recent report from the
Australian Conservation Foundation shows, in the decade from 2000 to 2010 Victoria spent three times as much on road construction as on
non-road transport infrastructure, and actually spent less on the latter as a proportion of Gross State Product than any state bar Tasmania. And
this all-too-familiar disparity has continued, even while public transport patronage soared to record levels from 2006 onwards. Because this
patronage surge occurred in spite of government's neglect of public transport, our system now struggles to cope with patronage levels that are
still moderate by the standard of large European or East Asian cities. Usage patterns are also highly uneven: in suburbs like Doncaster, where
transport follows the 'complementary' strategy of building big new roads and running buses on them, public transport use and car use have
increased at about the same (modest) rate, as one might intuitively expect. Quite plainly, there
is no 'network effect' between
cars and public transport: just a 'zero-sum game', where more travel of one sort means less of the
other, all other things being equal. (Of course population growth means all things are not equal, but if we really planned public transport with
20% mode share in mind, there would be ample room to accommodate additional travellers on an expanding system: car use need not have to
grow at all.) Freeway-building
doesn't assist public transport (not even buses, as another page explains), and good
public transport is designed to reduce traffic, not just be a sideshow to continued growth in car use.
Public transit competitive with autos
Lewis and Williams 99 (Daniel, Ph.D., President, Hickling Lewis Brod Economics, Inc., and Fred
Laurence, Ph.D., United States Department of Transportation, 1999, “Policy and Planning as Public
Choice: Mass Transit in the United States,”
http://www.fta.dot.gov/documents/Policy_and_Planning_as_Public_Choice.pdf)
In urban America, public transit serves three market niches that are not adroitly served by private autos and
other travel modes. First, in nearly every urban area, transit serves a basic mobility function for children, elderly
people, people with disabilities who are unable to drive, people who cannot afford their own cars,
and motorists whose car is in the shop. Secondly, in certain urban areas, rapid transit enables a critical number
of commuters to bypass severely congested roadways and thus save travel time for themselves and motorists alike. Third, in a
number of commercial centers, urban neighborhoods, retirement communities, and towns with large college campuses, transit
facilitates a pedestrian friendly streetscape in which walking, elevators and bicycling are more common than driving.
Link: HSR
No job creation-- built overseas
Business Insider 12 ("California Demonstrates Exactly How To Screw Up High Speed
Rail," 1/10/12, http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-0110/news/30610106_1_chsra-california-high-speed-rail-authority-acela-express)
California has a history of farming out its infrastructure projects. Exhibit A: The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. It is years behind schedule.
The budget for the eastern span has ballooned from $1.3 billion to $6.3 billion. And the landmark 525 ft. tower of the "self-anchored
suspension" bridge was fabricated in ... China. For more on collapsed bridges and buildings in China (pics), the high-speed rail accident, and the
economics of having a big part of the Bay Bridge built there, read.... Our Chinese Bay Bridge. The
high-speed rail system will have
content. Building the civil works and laying the track will be done by local workers. But design and
engineering will be done overseas by companies with expertise in the field. Trains will be manufactured
overseas as well, though companies might promise to assemble them in the U.S. Mere crumbs. U.S. Taxpayers will fund the project—as
they fund highway construction. But part of the funds will go to foreign companies and advance their technologies .
High-speed rail is a worldwide business, and the leaders have become export powerhouses. Another sector that American
industry abandoned.
even more foreign
Poaches employees from auto industry
Picone 11 (Brian, "High Speed Rail: Hardly an Investment in Future," 9/8/11, http://highspeedtraintalk.blogspot.com/2011/09/another-slant-on-poorer-people-having.html)
High speed rail proponents are fond of touting such projects as “investments in our future.” However, the term “investment” is misleading.
Investment implies that the party doing the investing will also suffer the consequences if an endeavor loses money. But when high speed rail
projects lose money — as they do almost universally — the taxpayer is on the hook, not the politicians who vote in favor of them. Even
advocates of high speed rail admit that such projects almost never cover their operating costs . Iñaki Barrón de
Angoiti, director of high-speed rail at the International Union of Railways in Paris, admits that while he favors such projects, they “are not a
profitable business.” He goes on to point out that only two high speed rail routes in the world actually break even – one from Paris to Lyon and
one from Tokyo to Osaka. Of course, rail proponents fail to mention the
11 other countries that consistently require large
taxpayer subsidies to keep their lines operational. Furthermore, the French and Japanese systems claim profitability based
on flawed accounting principles. The French accounting system treats taxpayer subsidies for the high speed rail as “commercial revenues." This
makes the French program’s $1.75 billion in profits much less impressive – especially considering that, according to a 2008 study by Amtrak,
French taxpayers spend close to $10 billion per year subsidizing the high speed rail system. The Japanese system has an even worse record.
Within two decades of being established, Japan’s high speed rail system had accumulated such massive amounts of debt that the entire system
had to be privatized. Japanese taxpayers were then stuck with the system’s $280 billion in debt, which they are still paying off today. If Japan
and France are the world’s two best examples of high speed rail success, then perhaps we should reconsider. Even China, a nation that is no
stranger to infrastructure investment, is shying away from high speed rail. In 2010, the Chinese Academy of Sciences urged the government to
reconsider further investment in high-speed rail, due to the current system’s tremendous debts. According to Zhao Jian, a professor at Jiaotong
University in Beijing, “high speed rail is a big loss … the operation cost is too high.” Claims that investment in high-speed rail will create new jobs
are dubious. The California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) predicts that 98% of its future riders are folks that would otherwise drive or fly to
their destinations. This means that nearly
all of the employment created by such high speed rail projects will
simply be re-allocated from the airline and automobile industry. This may change the composition of
employment in the U.S. economy, but not the level — while still giving the appearance of job creation.
HSR steals auto customers-- their author
Dutzik et al. 10 — Tony Dutzik, Senior Policy Analyst with Frontier Group specializing in energy,
transportation, and climate policy, holds an M.A. in print journalism from Boston University and a B.S. in
public service from Penn State University, et al., with Siena Kaplan, Analyst with Frontier Group, and
Phineas Baxandall, Federal Tax and Budget Policy Analyst with U.S. PIRG, holds a Ph.D. in Political
Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a B.A. in Economics from the College of
Social Studies at Wesleyan University, 2010 (“Why Intercity Passenger Rail?,” The Right Track: Building a
21st Century High-Speed Rail System for America, Published by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, Available
Online at http://americanhsra.org/whitepapers/uspirg.pdf, Accessed 06-10-2012, p. 15-16 KA)
Passenger rail is a cleaner form of transportation than car or air travel, emitting less global warming pollution and less health-threatening air
pollution. Building a high-speed rail network in the United States would attract passengers who otherwise would have taken cars or planes,
reducing the country’s global warming emissions and cleaning up our air. Modernizing
our tracks would also benefit freight
trains, taking large trucks off of highways and adding to the environmental and health benefits of investment in rail. Passenger
rail already emits less global warming pollution than cars or planes, and these savings will increase as the United States develops a high-speed
rail network. The Center for Clean Air Policy (CCAP)/ Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) study showed that today, passenger rail travel
emits 60 percent less carbon dioxide per passenger mile then cars and 66 percent less than planes. The faster diesel trains that would likely be
used to upgrade current service would emit slightly more emissions, but would still emit much less than cars and planes and would draw more
passengers than current passenger rail.30 (See Figure 3, next page.) Electric trains show the most potential for global warming emission
reductions, even using today’s carbon-intensive electricity grid. The CCAP/CNT study surveyed the technology used on three different popular
electric train lines, in France, Germany and Japan, and found that all would produce lower carbon dioxide emissions per passenger mile than a
fast diesel train when powered by the U.S. electric grid. One train, used on the German ICE line, would produce about half the emissions of
America’s current passenger rail system.31 Electric trains are not only more energy efficient, but they are faster, and could eventually be
powered at least partially with emission-free renewable energy. By attracting
travelers who otherwise would have taken
cars or planes, building a high-speed rail network would be much more effective at reducing global warming emissions than our current
passenger rail system. The CCAP/CNT study estimated that building the high-speed rail corridors [end page 15] planned by the federal
government using fast diesel trains, with top speeds of 99 mph, would attract enough passengers to reduce U.S. global warming emissions by
6.1 billion pounds, the equivalent of taking almost 500,000 cars off the road.33 Passenger rail reduces harmful air pollution as well, especially
when it is powered by electricity. For example, a passenger on an electric train in Germany produces about 93 percent less air pollution than
someone traveling by car, and 91 percent less than someone making the same trip by plane.34 Although the electricity produced in the United
States would create more emissions, electric trains would still be much cleaner than diesel trains, cars or planes. When tracks are upgraded for
better passenger rail service, freight traffic needs are considered as well, allowing more freight trains to travel faster and with fewer delays and
adding to the environmental benefits. Rail transport is much more fuel efficient than truck transport for freight—various studies estimate that
train transport is three to nine times as efficient as truck transport for the same amount of freight.35 The resulting fuel savings add to the
emissions reductions from improving passenger rail.
HSR trades off with cars
Peterman et al 09 --Coordinator Analyst in Transportation Policy (David Randall Peterman,
Coordinator Analyst in Transportation Policy John Frittelli Specialist in Transportation Policy William J.
Mallett Specialist in Transportation Policy, December 8, 2009, Congressional Research Service, “High
Speed Rail (HSR) in the US” KA)
In heavily traveled and congested corridors, proponents contend that HSR will relieve highway and air traffic congestion, and, if on a separate
right-of-way, may also benefit freight rail and commuter rail movements where such services share track with existing intercity passenger rail
service.34 By alleviating congestion, the notion is that HSR
potentially reduces the need to pay for capacity
expansions in other modes. On the question of highway congestion relief, many studies estimate that HSR will have little positive
effect because most highway traffic is local and the diversion of intercity trips from highway to rail will be small. In a study of HSR published in
1997, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) estimated that in most cases rail improvements would divert only 3-6% of intercity automobile
trips. FRA noted that corridors with short average trip lengths, those under 150 miles, showed the lowest diversion rates.35 The U.S.
Department of Transportation’s Inspector General (IG) found much the same thing in a more recent analysis of HSR in the Northeast Corridor.
The IG examined two scenarios: Scenario 1 involved cutting rail trip times from Boston to New York from 3 1⁄2 hours to 3 hours and from New
York to Washington from 3 hours to 2 1⁄2; Scenario 2 involved cutting trip times on both legs by another 1⁄2 hour over scenario 1.
In both
scenarios, the IG found that the improvements reduced automobile ridership along the NEC by less than 1%.36
The IG noted “automobile travel differs from air or rail travel in that it generally involves door-to-door service, offers greater flexibility in time
of departure, and does not require travelers to share space with strangers. Consequently, rail travel must be extremely competitive in other
dimensions, such as speed or cost, to attract automobile travelers.”37 Planners of a high speed rail link in Florida between Orlando and Tampa,
a distance of about 84 miles, estimated that it would shift 11% of those driving between the two cities to the train, as well as 9% of those
driving from Lakeland to either Orlando (54 miles) or Tampa (33 miles). However, because most of the traffic on the main highway linking the
two cities, I-4, is not travelling between these cities, it was estimated that HSR would reduce traffic on the busiest sections of I-4 by less than
The final environmental impact statement for the project states that the reduction in the number
of vehicles resulting from the HSR system “would not be sufficient to significantly improve the LOS [level of service] on I-4, as
2%.38
many segments of the roadway would still be over capacity.”39 The estimated cost of the HSR line was $2.0 billion to $2.5 billion,40 or $22
million to $27 million per mile.
High speed rail trades off- Europe proves
Regional Aviation News 7 (May 2007, Regional Aviation News,
http://search.proquest.com/pqrl/docview/205016092/13793A8A049491DEC35/1?accountid=11091 ,
“High-Speed Rail Takes Market Share from Regionals”, SS)
The greening of Europe also includes an attack on short-haul road service which is significantly impacted by
the growth of high-speed rail service on the Continent and in Britain. Citing the increasing car travel hassle,
European rail officials, who recently testified before the Senate, said high-speed rail is consistently winning market
share form traffic. Of course, regionals would remind them that their success has come with subsidies that put auto
industries at a competitive disadvantage.
Link: Rail
Rail hurts auto sector: shifts jobs overseas
Pollin and Baker 09 (Robert, Dean, " Public Investment, Industrial Policy and U.S. Economic
Renewal," December 2009, Center for Economic and Policy Research,
http://www.peri.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/working_papers/working_papers_201-250/WP211.pdf)
At the same time, particularly within a shorter-run framework there are problems with relying too heavily on rail
systems as the primary focus of public transportation investments. The most evident shorter-term concern is that these systems
require years of planning and spending before they come on line and communities enjoy the benefits. But in addition, the
United States, at present, has virtually no capacity to build mass transit systems and vehicles. Subway
cars used in the U.S. are supplied by French, German and Japanese companies. Other kinds of mass transit
vehicles are built either in South Korea or Germany. As Jonathan Feldman (2009) reports, the U.S. was once a technological leader in this field,
and could become so but this will take years of steady support in terms of research and development as well as public procurement contracts.
Finally, to
the extent that overall transportation funding is shifted to rail systems, this would represent
an additional blow to the U.S. auto industry.
Impacts
Jobs
Auto sector key to jobs and economy
Associated Press 12 ("U.S. automakers post best monthly sales since 2007," 4/3/12,
http://www.ohio.com/business/u-s-automakers-post-best-monthly-sales-since-2007-1.291157) CS
If car sales stay at the same rate as March, they would end the year at 14.4 million, up from 12.8 million in 2011. While that’s still below the 17
million of the booming mid-2000s, it’s far higher than the industry’s downturn in 2009, when 10.6 million vehicles were sold. Jesse Toprak, vice
president of industry analysis at car buying site TrueCar.com, expects continued strong sales this year, thanks to compelling new products,
improvements in consumer confidence and the stock market and low interest rates. “The good news is that the recovery has legs,” he
said. He expects total sales of 14.5 million in 2012. That would be a faster pace than many were predicting at the start of the year, and it builds
on a strong performance in January and February. As recently as October, J.D. Power and Associates lowered its 2012 forecast from 14.1 million
vehicles to 13.8 million because of high gas prices and continuing economic uncertainty. The
auto sector’s recovery is helping
the entire economy. “Auto is important because it creates so many other jobs,” said Sung Won Sohn, an
economics professor at California State University. “Think about the things that go into an auto: glass, textiles, rubber .
There’s a lot of financing activity. We are talking about a very significant portion of job creation.” Sohn said a lot of
pent-up demand remains in the U.S., from people who couldn’t afford cars during the recession to those
who waited for Japanese inventories to improve after last March’s earthquake. The average age of a vehicle on U.S. roads has reached 10.8
years, and many need to be replaced. GM’s U.S. sales chief, Don Johnson, says pent-up
demand will continue to fuel sales
well into next year. Sohn said high gas prices are actually helping persuade people to trade in older, less-efficient vehicles. High car
prices don’t seem to be holding buyers back, either. TrueCar said the average vehicle price reached a new record of $30,748 in March, around
$2,000 more than the same month last year. Even though drivers are switching to smaller cars, they’re appointing them with expensive luxuries
such as leather seats and navigation systems, Toprak said.
Economic decline increases the risk of war—strong statistical support.
Royal 10 — Jedidiah Royal, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of
Defense, M.Phil. Candidate at the University of New South Wales, 2010 (“Economic Integration,
Economic Signalling and the Problem of Economic Crises,” Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal
and Political Perspectives, Edited by Ben Goldsmith and Jurgen Brauer, Published by Emerald Group
Publishing, ISBN 0857240048, p. 213-215)
Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict . Political science
literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defence behaviour of
interdependent states. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow.
First, on the systemic level, Pollins (2008) advances Modelski and Thompson's (1996) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that rhythms
in the global economy are associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often
bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crises could
usher in a redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin. 1981) that leads to uncertainty
increasing the risk of miscalculation
about power balances,
(Feaver, 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of power could lead to
a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner. 1999). Separately, Pollins (1996) also
shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small
powers, although he suggests that the causes and connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown.
Second, on a dyadic level, Copeland's (1996, 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that 'future expectation of trade' is a significant
variable in understanding economic conditions and security behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific
benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the expectations
decline, particularly for difficult [end page 213] to replace items such as energy resources,
of future trade
the likelihood for conflict
increases , as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crises could potentially
be the trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent
states.4
Third, others have considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess (2002) find
a strong correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn. They write,
The linkages
between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually
reinforcing . Economic conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour .
Moreover, the
presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to which international and external
conflicts self-reinforce each other. (Blomberg & Hess, 2002. p. 89)
Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in
the likelihood of
terrorism
(Blomberg, Hess, &
Weerapana, 2004), which
has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions .
Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government. “Diversionary theory" suggests that, when
facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increased incentives to
fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995). and
Blomberg, Hess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated.
Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater for
democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office
due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods
of weak economic performance
in the United States, and thus weak Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force.
In summary, recent economic scholarship positively correlates economic integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises,
whereas political
science scholarship links economic decline with external conflict at systemic, dyadic
and national levels .5 This implied connection between integration, crises and armed conflict has not featured prominently in the
economic-security debate and deserves more attention.
This observation is not contradictory to other perspectives that link economic interdependence with a
decrease in the likelihood of external conflict, such as those mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter. [end page 214] Those
studies tend to focus on dyadic interdependence instead of global interdependence and do not specifically consider the
occurrence of and conditions created by economic crises. As such, the view presented here should be considered ancillary to those views.
Heg
Auto industry key to heg-- innovation and spillover
Ronis 06 (STATEMENT OF DR. SHEILA RONIS, DIRECTOR MBA/MS PROGRAMS, WALSH COLLEGE; VICE
PRESIDENT, NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION, TROY, MICHIGAN CHINA’S IMPACT ON THE
U.S. AUTO AND AUTO PARTS INDUSTRIES HEARING BEFORE THE U.S.-CHINA ECONOMIC AND SECURITY
REVIEW COMMISSION ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION, July 17, 2006
http://www.uscc.gov/hearings/2006hearings/transcripts/july_17/06_07_17_trans.pdf)
You will hear from my colleagues in the Department of Defense right here who are experts in the Diminishing Manufacturing Sources and
Material Shortages. or DMSMS. community. Mission capable systems and readiness are put at risk when DMSMS issues are left unresolved.
What isn't understood is the reality that the
auto industry affects DMSMS because the industrial infrastructure that
supports the Department of Defense is shared by the auto industry. When a tier supplier to the auto
industry goes under. whether it is a machine tool company or in microelectronics. it reduces DoD's ability to function
whether we say so or not. I think we might as well say so. When government R&D investment in an industry
deteriorates. it's only a matter of time before an industry is in trouble. Manufacturing R&D by the federal
government has almost disappeared. Young people no longer view working in manufacturing as a possible career so We're losing
our ability to train the next generation of scientists and engineers. We're losing critical to defense
industries from shipbuilding to machine tools. high performance explosives and explosive components. cartridge and propellant actuated
devices. welding and even the nuclear industry. All of these industries share the bottom of the base with the auto
industry. and that is what has become a national security issue. We need to maintain a capability to be
globally competitive in both product and process innovation. We must regain our manufacturing prowess and
leadership. We need to reinvigorate the Manufacturing Extension Partnership Program at NIST. We need to prioritize those technologies
that are critical to regaining and then maintaining leadership and competitive advantage in the overall industrial base so China does not
become the world's leader in technologies we need to be a superpower. China
is rapidly becoming the manufacturing
capital of the world. For example. Chinese officials have very publicly stated that they want to become the foundry capital of the world
and have a worldwide monopoly on cast parts. They have a plan to win. And we don't.
Global conflict
Khalilzad 11 – Former US ambassador, former Professor @ Columbia
(Zalmay Khalilzad, PhD, United States ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United Nations during
the presidency of George W. Bush and the director of policy planning at the Defense Department from
1990 to 1992 (2/8/11, National Review, “The Economy and National Security; If we don’t get our
economic house in order, we risk a new era of multi-polarity,”
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/259024/economy-and-national-security-zalmay-khalilzad)
We face this domestic challenge while other major powers are experiencing rapid economic growth.
Even though countries such as China, India, and Brazil have profound political, social, demographic, and economic problems, their economies
are growing faster than ours, and this could alter the global distribution of power. These trends could in the long term produce a multi-polar
world. If U.S. policymakers fail to act and other powers continue to grow, it is not a question of whether but when a new international order
will emerge. The
closing of the gap between the United States and its rivals could intensify geopolitical
competition among major powers, increase incentives for local powers to play major powers against one another, and
undercut our will to preclude or respond to international crises because of the higher risk of escalation.
The stakes are high. In modern history, the longest period of peace among the great powers has been the era of U.S.
leadership. By contrast, multi-polar systems have been unstable, with their competitive dynamics resulting in
frequent crises and major wars among the great powers. Failures of multi-polar international systems produced both
world wars. American retrenchment could have devastating consequences. Without an American security blanket, regional powers could rearm
in an attempt to balance against emerging threats. Under this scenario, there
would be a heightened possibility of arms races,
miscalculation, or other crises spiraling into all-out conflict. Alternatively, in seeking to accommodate the
stronger powers, weaker powers may shift their geopolitical posture away from the United States.
Either way, hostile states would be emboldened to make aggressive moves in their regions. As rival powers rise, Asia
in particular is likely to emerge as a zone of great-power competition. Beijing's economic rise has enabled a dramatic military buildup focused
on acquisitions of naval, cruise, and ballistic missiles, long-range stealth aircraft, and anti-satellite capabilities. China's strategic modernization is
aimed, ultimately, at denying the United States access to the seas around China. Even as cooperative economic ties in the region have grown,
China's expansive territorial claims -- and provocative statements and actions following crises in Korea and incidents at sea -- have roiled its
relations with South Korea, Japan, India, and Southeast Asian states. Still, the United States is the most significant barrier facing Chinese
hegemony and aggression.
Navy
Auto industry spurs manufacturing-- key to navy
Ronis 06 (Prepared Statement of Dr. Sheila Ronis, Director, MBA/MS Programs, Walsh College; Vice
President, National Defense University Foundation, Troy, Michigan CHINA’S IMPACT ON THE U.S. AUTO
AND AUTO PARTS INDUSTRIES HEARING BEFORE THE U.S.-CHINA ECONOMIC AND SECURITY REVIEW
COMMISSION ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION July 17, 2006
http://www.uscc.gov/hearings/2006hearings/transcripts/july_17/06_07_17_trans.pdf)
In May 2001. the U.S. Department of Commerce`s Office of Strategic Industries and Economic Security. in partnership with the Carderock
Division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center. completed a three-year national security assessment of the U.S. shipbuilding and repair industry.
Some of the findings were disconcerting though related to both DMSMS and the auto industry. According to the study. employment in the
industry has "dropped sharply since the early 1980s. when total private employment was close to 180.000 workers. Survey estimates indicated
that employment would decline to about 83.500 in 2000." In addition. "orders
for U. S. warships have declined 60 percent
people no longer view working in a shipyard as a viable
way to make a living. Consequently. according to DOC. "survey responses indicate that labor shortages have reduced
profits. impacted construction costs. and delayed project completion for most shipyards." According to the
during the 10 years since the end of the Cold War." Young
study. the basis for U.S. ship-building superiority has been the research and development expertise that currently resides in Navy`s laboratories.
acquisition commands. and certain shipbuilders and universities. Collectively. these organizations have conceived and designed most of the
state-of-the art hull. mechanical. electrical. power projection. air defense and undersea warfare capabilities that are operational today. With
reduced research and development budgets. some of that capability now is becoming fragmented." Many
lower tier companies
supply to both the auto industry and shipbuilding. but the auto industry is much larger. This situation in
shipbuilding also exists in other industries. such as machine tools. the high performance explosives and explosive components industry.
cartridge and propellant actuated device sector and welding and all
of these industries share the bottom of the base
with the auto industry. We need to maintain a capability to be globally competitive in product and process
innovation - we must regain our manufacturing prowess and leadership. We cannot become a country that manufactures
little. We need to reinvigorate the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. We
need to prioritize those technologies that are critical to regaining and then maintaining leadership and
competitive advantage in the overall industrial base so China does not become the world`s leader in
technologies we need to be a superpower. China is becoming the manufacturing capital of the world. A small example is that
Chinese officials have publicly stated they want to become tl1e foundry capital of the world to have a world-wide monopoly on cast parts. The
Casting Emissions Reduction Program (CERP) of the U.S. Army is an excellent example of ways that Congress can provide mechanisms for
industry and the military to work together to stem the erosion of the industrial base to everyone`s benefit.
Solves great power wars
Conway et al 7 [James T., General, U.S. Marine Corps, Gary Roughead, Admiral, U.S. Navy, Thad W. Allen, Admiral, U.S. Coast Guard, “A
Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower,” October, http://www.navy.mil/maritime/MaritimeStrategy.pdf]
Deter major power war.
No other disruption is as potentially disastrous to global stability as war among
major powers. Maintenance and extension of this Nation’s comparative seapower advantage is a key
component of deterring major power war. While war with another great power strikes many as improbable, the nearcertainty of its ruinous effects demands that it be actively deterred using all elements of national
power. The expeditionary character of maritime forces—our lethality, global reach, speed, endurance,
ability to overcome barriers to access, and operational agility—provide the joint commander with a
range of deterrent options. We will pursue an approach to deterrence that includes a credible and scalable ability to retaliate against
aggressors conventionally, unconventionally, and with nuclear forces. Win our Nation’s wars. In times of war, our ability
to impose local sea control, overcome challenges to access, force entry, and project and sustain power
ashore, makes our maritime forces an indispensable element of the joint or combined force. This
expeditionary advantage must be maintained because it provides joint and combined force commanders with freedom of maneuver.
Reinforced by a robust sealift capability that can concentrate and sustain forces, sea control and
power projection enable extended campaigns ashore.
Manufacturing
MANUFACTURING AND THE AUTO INDUSTRY ARE INTRINSICLY LINKED – THE AUTO
INDUSTRY IS THE BIGGEST SECTOR.
AMERICAN ECONOMIC ALERT 8. [“Can US Manufacturing Industry Be Saved?” Dec 4,
http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/view_art.asp?Prod_ID=3087 DA 7/16/10]
But if
the Big Three fail what will be left of the U.S. manufacturing base? Televisions, computers,
cell phones, radios and other electronics have already been ceded to Asia, particularly to China .
The U.S. barely makes cruise ships, Boeing is becoming a relic, and U.S. factories dwindle as China assumes her spot as the factory floor to the
"If the automotive sector is dramatically downsized, the overall manufacturing sector
takes tremendous hit," Alan Tonelson, research fellow for the United States Business and Industry Council, said, adding much
of U.S. manufacturing is somehow related to the auto industry.
world.
Manufacturing Impact: Econ
ECONOMIC COLLAPSE
VARGO 3. [Franklin, National Association of Manufacturers, “CHINA'S EXCHANGE RATE REGIME AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE U.S. ECONOMY”
Federal News Service, 10-1, Lexis]
I would like to begin my statement with a review of why manufacturing is vital to the U.S. economy. Since manufacturing
only represents about 16 percent of the nation's output, who cares? Isn't the United States a post-manufacturing services economy? Who
needs manufacturing? The answer in brief is that
the United States economy would collapse without
manufacturing, as would our national security and our role in the world. That is because
manufacturing is really the foundation of our economy, both in terms of innovation and
production and in terms of supporting the rest of the economy. For example, many individuals point out that
only about 3 percent of the U.S. workforce is on the farm, but they manage to feed the nation and
export to the rest of the world. But how did this agricultural productivity come to be? It is
because of the tractors and combines and satellite systems and fertilizers and advanced seeds,
etc. that came from the genius and productivity of the manufacturing sector. Similarly, in services -can you envision an airline without airplanes? Fast food outlets without griddles and freezers? Insurance companies or
banks without computers? Certainly not. The manufacturing industry is truly the innovation industry, without
which the rest of the economy could not prosper. Manufacturing performs over 60 percent of
the nation's research and development. Additionally, it also underlies the technological ability
of the United States to maintain its national security and its global leadership. Manufacturing
makes a disproportionately large contribution to productivity, more than twice the rate of the
overall economy, and pays wages that are about 20 percent higher than in other sectors . But its
most fundamental importance lies in the fact that a healthy manufacturing sector truly underlies the entire U.S. standard of living -because it is
Manufacturing accounts for over 80 percent of
all U.S. exports of goods. America's farmers will export somewhat over $50 billion this year, but
America's manufacturers export almost that much event month! Even when services are
included, manufacturing accounts for two-thirds of all U.S. exports of goods and services. If the
U.S. manufacturing sector were to become seriously impaired, what combination of farm products
together with architectural, travel, insurance, engineering and other services could make up for the missing twothirds of our exports represented by manufactures? The answer is "none." What would happen
instead is the dollar would collapse, falling precipitously -- not to the reasonable level of 1997,
but far below it -and with this collapse would come high U.S. inflation, a wrenching economic
downturn and a collapse in the U.S. standard of living and the U.S. leadership role in the world.
That, most basically, is why the United States cannot become a "nation of shopkeepers."
the principal way by which the United States pays its way in the world.
Economic decline increases the risk of war—strong statistical support.
Royal 10 — Jedidiah Royal, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of
Defense, M.Phil. Candidate at the University of New South Wales, 2010 (“Economic Integration,
Economic Signalling and the Problem of Economic Crises,” Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal
and Political Perspectives, Edited by Ben Goldsmith and Jurgen Brauer, Published by Emerald Group
Publishing, ISBN 0857240048, p. 213-215)
Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict . Political science
literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defence behaviour of
interdependent states. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow.
First, on the systemic level, Pollins (2008) advances Modelski and Thompson's (1996) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that rhythms
in the global economy are associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often
bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crises could
usher in a redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin. 1981) that leads to uncertainty
increasing the risk of miscalculation
about power balances,
(Feaver, 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of power could lead to
a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner. 1999). Separately, Pollins (1996) also
shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small
powers, although he suggests that the causes and connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown.
Second, on a dyadic level, Copeland's (1996, 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that 'future expectation of trade' is a significant
variable in understanding economic conditions and security behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific
benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the expectations
decline, particularly for difficult [end page 213] to replace items such as energy resources,
of future trade
the likelihood for conflict
increases , as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crises could potentially
be the trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent
states.4
Third, others have considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess (2002) find
a strong correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn. They write,
The linkages
between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually
reinforcing . Economic conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour .
Moreover, the
presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to which international and external
conflicts self-reinforce each other. (Blomberg & Hess, 2002. p. 89)
Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in
the likelihood of
terrorism
(Blomberg, Hess, &
Weerapana, 2004), which
has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions .
Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government. “Diversionary theory" suggests that, when
facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increased incentives to
fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995). and
Blomberg, Hess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated.
Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater for
democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office
due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods
of weak economic performance
in the United States, and thus weak Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force.
In summary, recent economic scholarship positively correlates economic integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises,
whereas political
science scholarship links economic decline with external conflict at systemic, dyadic
and national levels .5 This implied connection between integration, crises and armed conflict has not featured prominently in the
economic-security debate and deserves more attention.
This observation is not contradictory to other perspectives that link economic interdependence with a
decrease in the likelihood of external conflict, such as those mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter. [end page 214] Those
studies tend to focus on dyadic interdependence instead of global interdependence and do not specifically consider the
occurrence of and conditions created by economic crises. As such, the view presented here should be considered ancillary to those views.
Manufacturing Impact: Readiness
AUTO INDUSTRY MANUFACTURING KEY TO CONVENTIONAL READINESS.
Gallagher 6 (Paul -- an economic analyst and editor for Executive Intelligence Review -- EIR – June 9th -- http://www.larouchepub.com/eirtoc/2006/eirtoc_3325.html)
Auto production plants which are being idled in the United States this year and next—a total of nearly 80 million square feet of capacity full of very
diverse and capable machine tools—are also being rapidly sold off at auctions, and their unmatched machine-tool
capabilities lost to the national economy. Rather than simply being "idled" with the possibility of workforces returning and work resuming, these plants are
disappearing under auctioneers' hammers almost as fast as they are shut down. A list of 65 major auto plants shutting down, and their capacities which may be lost, was featured in EIR, May 12, 2006
The pattern of auctions, of which two examples are shown here, makes clear
that the automakers and major auto supply producers, seeing at least 65-70 of their plants as unutilized capacity, do
not plan or expect that capacity to come back into use for production of automobiles; rather,
underutilization will continue to grow by outsourcing under conditions of rampant globalization. The pattern also presents a challenge to Congress to act fast to
and in the LaRouche PAC pamphlet, Economic Recovery Act of 2006.
save this huge unutilized chunk of the auto sectors' machine-tool design and production capability, and use it for missions more urgent to the nation's economy than producing cars and light trucks to fill the ranks of lengthening traffic jams
across the country. Lyndon LaRouche has proposed, and his LaRouche PAC is mobilized to get through Congress, a Federal Public Corporation to adopt the capacity the automakers are discarding, and use it to help build a new national
infrastructure from high-speed rail lines to electric power. `No Longer Required' EIR's investigation shows that three major auto plants, closed within six months or less, were auctioned off in their entirety in the second half of May; and a
fourth auction, in late April, sold off machinery for production of electrical systems from four different plants of Delphi Corporation: in Rochester, New York; Athens, Alabama; and Dayton and Moraine, Ohio. The complete plant contents
auctioned were the General Motors transmission plant in Muncie, Indiana, hammered away in a three-day sale May 16-18; the metal stamping and machining plant known as "Chrysler machine," sold off in Toledo, Ohio on May 24-25; and
the Delphi electrical systems plant in Irvine, California, auctioned on May 23. The Toledo plant's auction sale notice is shown in the illustration, marked "no longer required" by Chrysler. The featured machines in the sale included some of
the largest and most capable metal presses used in the auto industry. The case of Muncie Manual Transmissions LLC, "one of the largest gear manufacturers in North America," is shown here in the auction company's brochure. Its
illustrations make clear that most of the machines in this plant are quite new, built and bought since 1995. Virtually all of its machinery was auctioned off from May 16-18. "The building will be empty now," said one person present, and
GM's plan is to demolish it immediately. That plant has some 600,000 square feet of production space, and had 300 remaining production workers before being closed. The workforce had recently used about 500 major machine tools in
the plant; many had a replacement value of $500,000-1,000,000 each. All sold, according to the auction brochure, and the entire plant full of machinery apparently brought about $30 million. So a rough estimate might be that the machine
tools were sold for 15 cents on the dollar of their replacement value for production. It is no secret that the purchasers at these auctions include other U.S. firms, scrap outfits, and foreign firms employing machine tools, including for
production for export to the United States. People in the business indicate that the pace of these sales has been brisk for more than a decade; but the size of the auctions has definitely grown in the past two years or so, with large plants
like this going under the hammer. "We also see a lot of aerospace tools" from Boeing and other companies, said one. As for the city of Muncie, it has been told to hope that the GM jobs that were lost, will be matched by new jobs gained—
from a Sallie Mae "center for debt management"! Machine tools and productive skills will be "no longer required" there. Dissipation of Bankrupt's Assets In Delphi's case, a full 25 out of its 33 auto parts and supply plants in the country are
on the management's list to close down or sell; in addition, others, like the Irvine electrical systems plant, have been closed in recent months. The management under CEO Steve Miller, who was brought in last year to declare the company
bankrupt, are flouting the principles of bankruptcy by hiding the accounts of the company's outsourced foreign operations (already 75% of its total work!) while bankrupting and trying to liquidate only the U.S. capacity. On May 28, calls to
the lawyers for parties contesting Delphi's filing in New York Federal bankruptcy court, found that with the exception of the UAW's lawyer, none of those attorneys was aware that the productive assets of the "bankrupt" company were
being auctioned off. Sources say that the UAW has attempted to protest and stop the auctions of Delphi's plant and equipment in the court, but has been unable to do so. The attorney representing Delphi's shareholders said that the
actions would not be permitted unless Delphi had sought and received permission from Judge Robert Drain to sell the machines. None of the attorneys knew whether Delphi had gotten Drain's approval, nor could this be learned from the
judge's clerk. In any case, it is clear that the intention of Delphi's management is "globalization by bankruptcy," and that critical productive machinery of the "bankrupt" company is being dissipated—a violation of at least the spirit of the
law—through auctions to other firms, other divisions, and other countries, because it does not intend to emerge from bankruptcy to produce again in the United States. And vital high-technology productive machine tools and other
capacity of the U.S. national economy, essential for producing the infrastructure of productivity, are being lost. Had Congress already acted along the legislative lines LaRouche is calling for, this capacity could have been purchased by a
Another month's set of
U.S. auto sales reports came in on June 2 and showed the urgent need to diversify the "product" of the auto industrial sector in this way, as it will not come
back to building more autos for sale. Ford's U.S. sales through May are 3.3% below a year ago; Daimler-Chrysler's, 4.1% down; Ford-Volvo's 6.3% down; GM's,
Federal Public Corporation and saved for use in the critical purposes of building a new national economic infrastructure, and creating skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled employment.
4.6% down; Nissan's, 8.4% down. Toyota, Hyundai, and Mazda's sales are still up for the year, but the overall national trend is down. Total sales of cars and light trucks fell from a 16.7 million annual
rate last May, to a 16.3 million rate this May, and the annual sales rate for January-May 2006 as a whole, is only 16.4 million units, compared to 16.9 million for all of 2005, and 17.1 million in 2004.
Use It or Lose It International Association of Machinists president Thomas Buffenbarger charged in a Washington, D.C. speech May 15, "We have lost the ability to manufacture the means of our
Every week that
more of it is lost, irretrievably. Auto skilled trades
workers, machinists, and others among America's dwindling base of industrial production workers, realize that the loss of machinetool and other skilled engineering employment in the United States, could end technological progress in our
economy, and ruin our national security. In LaRouche PAC's one-hour documentary DVD on retooling and saving the auto industry, "Auto and World Economic
Recovery," the auto unionists and Midwest elected officials interviewed all stressed the potential threat: The United States could find itself in a war,
needing new munitions and related industrial production, with effectively all of our machine-tool
design and production capability exported to other nations. These nations may not be allies, in part
because of their exploitation by the very same low-wage outsourcing which made them the repositories of the
machine tools now being auctioned off from Rochester, Toledo, and Irvine.
prosperity," and now Congress has given away "the ability of this country to defend itself" by outsourcing its machine-tool production in aerospace-defense and auto.
Congress delays emergency legislation to save this remaining industrial power,
READINESS CHECKS NUCLEAR CONFLICT WITH CHINA AND OTHERS.
Record 95 (JEFFREY prof , Department of Strategy and International Security @ USAF Air War College -- Parameters, Autumn, pp. 20-30. http://www.carlisle.army.mil/USAWC/parameters/1995/record.htm
In terms of training, sustainability, and weaponry,
it is always better to be ready and modern than unready and
obsolete. What Congress does not look at, because it is constitutionally incapable of doing so in a coherent fashion, is the broader and far more critical question: Ready for what? What
exactly should we expect our military to do? Against whom do we modernize? Have we correctly identified future threats to our security and the proper forces for dealing with those threats? Are we
breathlessly and blindly pursuing modernization for its own sake, or are we tying it in with the quality and pace of hostile competition? These are the questions I would like to address. Informed lineitem judgments on readiness and modernization hinge on informed judgments at the level of strategy, whose formulation is the responsibility of the Executive Branch. Our present strategy portends
an excessive readiness for the familiar and comfortable at the expense of preparation for the more likely and less pleasant. Introducing Realism Into Our Assessments The basis of present strategy is
the Administration's Bottom-Up Review, a 1993 assessment of US force requirements in the post-Soviet-threat world. The assessment concluded, among other things, that the United States should
maintain ground, sea, and air forces sufficient to prevail in two nearly simultaneous major regional contingencies. For planning purposes the assessment postulated another Iraqi invasion of Kuwait
(and Saudi Arabia's eastern province) and another North Korean invasion of South Korea--two large and thoroughly conventional wars fought on familiar territory against familiar Soviet-model
armies. Congressional and other critics rightly point to disparities between stated requirements for waging two major wars concurrently and the existing and planned forces that would actually be
available. Shortfalls are especially pronounced in airlift, sealift, and long-range aerial bombardment. Critics also note that the Bottom-Up Review more or less ignores the impact of Haiti- and Somalialike operations on our capacity to fight another Korean and another Persian Gulf war at the same time. Few in Congress or elsewhere, however, have questioned the realism of the scenario. How
likely is it that we would be drawn into two major wars at the same time? What are the opportunity costs of preparing for such a prospect? The prospect of twin wars has been a bugaboo of US force
planners since the eve of World War II--the only conflict in which the US military was in fact called upon to wage simultaneously what amounted to two separate wars. Chances for another world war,
however, disappeared with the Soviet Union's demise. Moreover, two points should be kept in mind with respect to World War II. First, the two-front dilemma came about only because of Hitler's
utterly gratuitous declaration of war on the United States just after Pearl Harbor--a move that has to go down as one of the most strategically stupid decisions ever undertaken by a head of state. Had
Hitler instead declared that Germany had no quarrel with the United States, and therefore would remain at peace with it, President Roosevelt would have been hard put to obtain a congressional
declaration of war on Germany, or, with one, to pursue a Germany-first strategy. Second, during World War II the United States was compelled to pursue a win-hold-win strategy against Germany
and Japan, respectively, even though we spent 40 percent of the GNP on defense, placed 12 million Americans under arms, and had powerful allies (unlike Germany or Japan). We sought to--and did-defeat Germany first, while initially remaining on the strategic defense in the Pacific. In the decades since 1945, US planners persisted in postulating scenarios involving at least two concurrent
conflicts, even though we have never had the resources to wage two big wars at the same time. Recall that the Vietnam conflict was a "half-war" in contemporary US force planning nomenclature.
More to the point, our enemies have without exception refused to take advantage of our involvement in one war to start another one with us; not during the three years of the Korean War, the ten
years of the Vietnam War, or the eight months of the Persian Gulf crisis of 1990-91. States almost always go to war for specific reasons independent of whether an adversary is already at war with
another country. This is especially true for states contemplating potentially war-provoking acts against the world's sole remaining superpower. In none of the three major wars we have fought since
1945 did our enemies, when contemplating aggression, believe that their aggressive acts would prompt war with the United States. If prospects for being drawn into two large-scale conventional
prudence dictates maintenance of sufficient military power to deal quickly and
effectively with such conflicts one at a time. And for this we are well prepared. Our force structure remains optimized for interstate conventional
combat, and it proved devastating in our last conventional war, against Saddam Hussein's large--albeit incompetently led--Soviet-model forces. Though most
national military establishments in the Third World, which today includes much of the former Soviet Union, are incapable of
waging large-scale conventional warfare, the few that are or have the potential to do so are all
authoritarian states with ambitions hostile to US security interests. Among those states are Iran,
Iraq, Syria, a radicalized Egypt, and China. Russia can be excluded for probably at least the next decade. Russia's conventional military forces have
conflicts at the same time are remote,
deteriorated to the point where they have great difficulty suppressing even small insurrections inside Russia's own borders. The humiliating performance of the Russian forces in Chechnya reveals the
extent to which draft avoidance, demoralization, disobedience, desertion, political tension, professional incompetence, and the virtual collapse of combat support and combat service support
China is included not just as a potential regional
threat but as a potential global threat. We need to be wary of today's commonplace notion that
the United States is the last superpower, that we will never again face the kind of global and robust threat to our vital
security interests once posed by the Soviet Union, and before that, the Axis Powers. The present planning focus on regional
conflict should not blind us to the probable emergence over the next decade or two of at least one regional
superpower capable of delivering significant numbers of nuclear weapons over intercontinental
distances and of projecting conventional forces well beyond their national frontiers. China comes first to mind. China's vast and talented
population and spectacular economic performance could provide the foundation for a military challenge in
Asia of a magnitude similar to that posed by the growth of Japan ese military power in the 1930s. Our
capacity for large-scale interstate conventional combat is indispensable to our security. It served us well in
capabilities have wrecked what just a decade ago was an army that awed many NATO force planners.
Korea and the Persian Gulf, where we continue to have vital interests threatened by adversaries who have amassed or are seeking to amass significant, and in the case of North Korea, vast amounts
of conventional military power.
(Optional) That causes extinction
Straits Times -2K 6-25-00.
Conflict on such a scale would embroil other countries far and near and -- horror of horrors -- raise the possibility of
a nuclear war. Beijing has already told the US and Japan privately that it considers any country providing bases and logistics support to any US forces attacking China as belligerent
parties open to its retaliation. In the region, this means South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and, to a lesser extent, Singapore. If China were to retaliate, east Asia
will be set on fire. And the conflagration may not end there as opportunistic powers elsewhere may try to overturn the
existing world order. With the US distracted, Russia may seek to redefine Europe's political landscape.
The balance of power in the Middle East may be similarly upset by the likes of Iraq. In south Asia , hostilities between India and Pakistan, each
armed with its own nuclear arsenal, could enter a new and dangerous phase. Will a full-scale SinoUS war lead to a nuclear war? According to General Matthew Ridgeway, commander of the US Eighth Army which fought against the Chinese in the Korean War, the US
had at the time thought of using nuclear weapons against China to save the US from military defeat. In his book The Korean War, a personal account of the military and political aspects of the conflict
and its implications on future US foreign policy, Gen Ridgeway said that US was confronted with two choices in Korea -- truce or a broadened war, which could have led to the use of nuclear weapons.
here is little hope of winning a war against
If the US had to resort to nuclear weaponry to defeat China long before the latter acquired a similar capability , t
China 50 years later, short of using nuclear weapons. The US estimates that China possesses about 20 nuclear warheads that can destroy major American cities.
Beijing also seems prepared to go for the nuclear option. A Chinese military officer disclosed recently that Beijing was considering a review of its "non first use" principle regarding nuclear weapons.
Major-General Pan Zhangqiang, president of the military-funded Institute for Strategic Studies, told a gathering at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington that although
the government still abided by that principle, there were strong pressures from the military to drop it. He said military leaders considered the use of nuclear weapons mandatory if the country risked
dismemberment as a result of foreign intervention. Gen Ridgeway said that
civilisation.
should that come to pass, we would see the destruction of
Manufacturing Impact: Heg
MANUFACTURING IS KEY TO HEG – innovation, leadership, readiness.
VARGO 3. [Franklin, National Association of Manufacturers, “CHINA'S EXCHANGE RATE REGIME AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE U.S. ECONOMY”
Federal News Service, 10-1, Lexis]
I would like to begin my statement with a review of why manufacturing is vital to the U.S. economy. Since manufacturing only represents about
16 percent of the nation's output, who cares? Isn't the United States a post-manufacturing services economy? Who needs manufacturing? The
answer in brief is that the
United States economy would collapse without manufacturing, as would our
national security and our role in the world. That is because manufacturing is really the foundation of our economy, both in
terms of innovation and production and in terms of supporting the rest of the economy. For example, many individuals point out that only
about 3 percent of the U.S. workforce is on the farm, but they manage to feed the nation and export to the rest of the world. But how did this
agricultural productivity come to be? It is because of the tractors and combines and satellite systems and fertilizers and advanced seeds, etc.
that came from the genius and productivity of the manufacturing sector. Similarly, in services -- can you envision an airline without airplanes?
Fast food outlets without griddles and freezers? Insurance companies or banks without computers? Certainly not. The
manufacturing
industry is truly the innovation industry, without which the rest of the economy could not prosper. Manufacturing
performs over 60 percent of the nation's research and development. Additionally, it also
underlies the technological ability of the United States to maintain its national security and its
global leadership. Manufacturing makes a disproportionately large contribution to productivity,
more than twice the rate of the overall economy, and pays wages that are about 20 percent higher than in other sectors. But its most
fundamental importance lies in the fact that a healthy manufacturing sector truly underlies the entire U.S. standard of living -because it is the
principal way by which the United States pays its way in the world.
GLOBAL NUCLEAR WAR.
KHALILZAD 95. [ZALMAY, Zalmay, Rand Corporation, The Washington Quarterly]
Under the third option, the
United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the
rise of a global rival or a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance, this is the best long-term guiding principle and vision. Such a
vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because a world in which the United States exercises leadership would have
tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be more open and more receptive to American values -- democracy, free markets, and the rule of law.
would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major
problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts.
Finally, U.S. leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile global rival , enabling the United
States and the world to avoid another global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a global nuclear
exchange. U.S. leadership would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a multipolar balance of power system.
Second, such a world
Steel
Key to steel industry
Agence France Presse 09 (“Global steel industry awaits China, US auto turnaround”, April 12, Lexis)
Steel is on edge and the global industry is cutting back hard, hanging on for either a budget blast from China, new credit for vast
Middle Eastern building schemes or resurrection of the US auto industry. Demand has dwindled and steelmakers,
notably the giant of them all, ArcelorMittal, are damping down surplus furnace capacity while waiting for credit to flow, construction cranes to
turn and factories to roll. A decision by ArcelorMittal last week to pursue temporary production cutbacks, slashing European output by more
than half from the end of April according to a union source, dramatises the extraordinary ride and role of steel in the last few years. In just
months the global industry has gone from a boom driven largely by China, emerging markets and a property extravaganza in the Middle East to
a narrow line between excess capacity and the costs of waiting for recovery. "Over the past six months, demand for steel has dropped
dramatically and, as a result, producers have
been cutting production," analysts at Barclays Capital said in a study last week. In
current demand shock to lead to excess steel capacity." Consequently,
the bank said, steel plants should operate at rates below 75 percent of capacity until 2012. "The steel market is not very
different from base metals as a whole, but steel has reacted more rapidly and dramatically since
September," said commodities analyst Perrine Faye of London-based FastMarkets. She said the future of the steel industry
depended on three factors — the impact of Chinese economic stimulus efforts, a pick-up in the Middle East construction sector and a
revival of the once mighty US auto industry. "Chinese imports and exports are at a standstill. Everyone is waiting for the
another report, Morgan Stanley predicted "the
Chinese stimulus package to see if it will revive demand. Thomas Albanese, chief executive at steel maker Rio Tinto, said earlier this year that
the company foresaw "a short, sharp slowdown in China, with demand rebounding over the course of 2009, as the fundamentals of Chinese
economic growth remain sound." In the Middle East, according to Faye, the big problem is a shortage of credit, notably for real estate
developers and builders. Construction planners had "counted on a higher price for oil and on credit to finance their huge projects." In addition,
demand for such facilities, especially in the Gulf, has died. "They were hoping that Americans and Europeans would buy apartments. But
property prices have collapsed in the Middle East as well." In the United Arab Emirates more than half the building projects, worth 582 billion
dollars or 45 per cent of the total value of the construction sector, have been put on hold, a study by Dubai-based market research group
Proleads found in February. In Dubai, one of the states of the UAE, prices in the real estate sector have slumped by an average of 25 percent
from their peak in September after rallying 79 percent in the 18 months to July 2008, according to Morgan Stanley. Faye said the
fate of
the steel sector was in addition tied to that of the struggling US auto industry, once a thriving steel
market but one in which two of its giant players, General Motors and Chrysler, are staring at
bankruptcy. The two companies are currently limping along thanks to billions of dollars in
government aid. "We are waiting to see if the auto sector in the US will get out of the crisis intact ," she
said.
Steel Impact: Heg
STEEL INDUSTRY KEY TO MILITARY READINESS AND HEG.
AISI 8. [7/1 American Iron and Steel Institute, U.S. STEEL INDUSTRY CRITICAL TO KEEPING US FREE, 2008,
http://www.steel.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=2008&TEMPLATE=/CM/HTMLDisplay.cfm&CONTENTID=24325]
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As we reflect on our country’s independence this Fourth of July, we should pause to recognize those who fought for our freedom more than 230 years ago. But we
should also recognize those who continue to keep our country free today: the men and women in uniform who offer their noble service in order to preserve America’s national security.
“Members of the United States Navy, Marine Corps, Army, Air Force and Coast Guard, both at home and overseas, risk their lives everyday to ensure that Americans continue to have the
freedoms that our country is founded upon. It is their commitment to our country that has made America what it is today – a beacon for freedom and democracy, “Andrew G. Sharkey, III,
the U.S. steel industry is continuously
working to serve the military in their efforts to defend our nation .” Sharkey said domesticallyproduced steel is important to “improve our military platforms, strengthen the nation’s
industrial base and harden our vital homeland security infrastructure .” Congressman Peter J. Visclosky (D-IN),
Chairman of the Congressional Steel Caucus, has noted that “to ensure that our national defense needs will be met, it is
crucial that we have a robust and vibrant domestic steel industry. It is poor policy to rely on
foreign steel for our national security – instead, we need a long-term investment in domestically-produced, high-quality and reliable steel
that will serve and strengthen our national security interests.” Protecting the nation’s vast infrastructure is essential to
our homeland security. This became an issue in recent times when it was discovered that substandard steel imported from China was being used
president and CEO, American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), said. “Our veterans represent the very best of America and
by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to construct the border fence between the United States and Mexico. Members of the Congressional Steel Caucus,
including Congressman Visclosky (D-IN), have worked to introduce legislation that will help strengthen the domestic steel industry in order to address issues of
substandard steel imports. “AISI and its members greatly appreciate the Congressional Steel Caucus’ support for the steel industry and their vigilance on behalf of
the U.S. steel industry work to produce high quality,
cost-competitive products that are used by the military in various applications ranging from aircraft
carriers and nuclear submarines to Patriot and Stinger missiles, Sharkey said. Land based vehicles, such as the Bradley Fighting Vehicle,
America’s national security,” Sharkey said. In addition, thousands of skilled men and women of
Abrams Tank and the family of Light Armored Vehicles, also utilize significant tonnage of steel plate per vehicle. The up-armored Humvee, in use by the U.S. Army,
includes steel plating around the cab of the vehicle, offering improved protection against small arms fire and shrapnel. In fact, the steel plating underneath the cab
These critical applications
require consistent, high quality domestic sources of supply. “We as a country need to make
sure that our national defense needs will be met, making it critical for the United States to have
a robust and vibrant domestic steel industry that will serve to strengthen our national security
interests,” Sharkey noted. Historically, American-made steel and specialty metals have been integral components of U.S. military strength and they continue
is designed to survive up to eight pounds of explosives beneath the engine to four pounds in the cargo area.
in this role today. The Department of Defense’s (DOD’s) primary use of steel in weapons systems is for shipbuilding, but steel is also an important component in
ammunition, aircraft parts, and aircraft engines. DOD’s steel requirements are satisfied by both integrated steel mills and EAF producer mills. “With the desire
never to be dependent on foreign nations for the steel used in military applications, it is critical that U.S. trade laws be defended, strengthened and enforced so that
American-made steel can continue to play a vital role in our nation’s security,” Sharkey said. “On this
Independence Day, let’s pledge to work to uphold that ideal.” AISI serves as the voice of the North American steel industry in the public policy arena and advances the case for steel in the
marketplace as the preferred material of choice. AISI also plays a lead role in the development and application of new steels and steelmaking technology. AISI is comprised of 29 member
companies, including integrated and electric furnace steelmakers, and 138 associate and affiliate members who are suppliers to or customers of the steel industry. AISI's member companies
represent approximately 75 percent of both U.S. and North American steel capacity. For more information on safety tips for consumers, visit AISI’s Web site at www.steel.org.
GLOBAL NUCLEAR WAR.
KHALILZAD 95. [ZALMAY, Zalmay, Rand Corporation, The Washington Quarterly]
Under the third option, the
United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the
rise of a global rival or a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance, this is the best long-term guiding principle and vision. Such a
vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because a world in which the United States exercises leadership would have
tremendous advantages. First, the global environment would be more open and more receptive to American values -- democracy, free markets, and the rule of law.
would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major
problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and low-level conflicts.
Finally, U.S. leadership would help preclude the rise of another hostile global rival , enabling the United
Second, such a world
States and the world to
avoid another global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a global nuclear
exchange. U.S. leadership would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a multipolar balance of power system.
(Optional) STRONG MILITARY READINESS DETERS ALL CONFLICT.
Spencer 00. [Jack, MA from Limerick, Policy Analyst @ Heritage Foundation, The Facts About Military Readiness, 9-15,
http://www.heritage.org/Research/MissileDefense/BG1394.cfm]
The evidence indicates that the U.S. armed forces are not ready to support America's national security requirements.
Moreover, regarding the broader capability to defeat groups of enemies, military readiness has been declining. The National Security
Strategy, the U.S. official statement of national security objectives, 3 concludes that the United States "must have the capability
to deter and, if deterrence fails, defeat large-scale, cross-border aggression in two distant theaters in
overlapping time frames." 4 According to some of the military's highest-ranking officials, however, the United States cannot achieve
this goal. Commandant of the Marine Corps General James Jones, former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Jay Johnson, and Air Force
Chief of Staff General Michael Ryan have all expressed serious concerns about their respective services' ability to carry out a two major
theater war strategy. 5 Recently retired Generals Anthony Zinni of the U.S. Marine Corps and George Joulwan of the U.S. Army have even
questioned America's ability to conduct one major theater war the size of the 1991 Gulf War. 6 Military readiness is vital because
declines in America's military readiness signal to the rest of the world that the United States is not prepared to
defend its interests. Therefore, potentially hostile nations will be more likely to lash out against American allies
and interests, inevitably leading to U.S. involvement in combat. A high state of military readiness is more likely
to deter potentially hostile nations from acting aggressively in regions of vital national interest, thereby
preserving peace.
US steel key to national defense
Price et al 10 (Alan H., lawyer at Wiley Rein and head of the firm’s international trade practice, *and Timothy C. Brightbill, JD, Adjunct
Professor of Law at Georgetown University and a partner at Wiley Rein LLP, *and Christopher B. Weld, lawyer at Wiley Rein, *and Tessa V.
Capeloto, lawyer at Wiley Rein, October 2010, “The Reform Myth: How China is Using State Power to Create the World’s Dominant Steel
Industry,” http://www.steel.org/~/media/Files/AISI/General%20Docs/reform%20myth.ashx)
Investments like the Anshan investment also raise national security concerns.
The U.S. steel sector plays a critical role in our
national defense, and in building and maintaining the nation's critical infrastructure. The Anshan transaction
could provide the Chinese government with direct access to, and information concerning, current and future U.S. infrastructure,
energy and defense projects that may be critical to national defense. Moreover, as Anshan itself has acknowledged,
the investment could provide the Chinese government with potential new technologies in the steel production industry.
Steel Impact: Econ
Weak steel industry collapses the U.S. economy and military readiness
Shaiken 2. [Harley, Prof of Global Economy, Cal-Berkeley, Detroit News, 3-22, http://www.detnews.com/2002/editorial/0203/25/a11446451.htm]
But because an advanced industrial economy needs a vibrant steel industry, not just a source of steel products,
the U.S. steel industry needs some temporary resuscitation and long-term structural support to survive. More
than 30 firms have gone bankrupt since 1998 -- and far more would likely have fallen over the edge without President George W. Bush's
recent modest measures. The hard lesson of this debacle might well have been that it's easier to see an industry like steel implode than to
rebuild it when it's needed. Why does America need a steel industry? Steel executives want to keep their companies afloat
and the steelworkers union wants to preserve members' jobs. But beyond their immediate concerns, an
important, long-term public interest is involved. First, steel provides critical linkages throughout
manufacturing. A healthy steel industry can spur innovations in downstream industries such as autos. These
industries would enjoy earlier access to new processes and products. U.S. steel firms, for example, are spearheading an international
consortium on advanced vehicle concepts. It doesn't help that three of the largest U.S. firms involved are in bankruptcy. Second, steel
remains an important source of well-paid, middle-class jobs. While more than 70,000 jobs are threatened at
bankrupt steel producers, an additional 250,000 jobs at suppliers and firms dependent on steelworker
spending are impacted, according to Professor Robert Blecker at American University. A collapsing steel industry cuts a wide
swath of destruction through communities. Finally, a domestic industry provides more stable sources of
supply, which is pivotal in a national security crisis. Steel is genuinely a strategic industry unless we are thinking
about aluminum aircraft carriers and mahogany tanks.
Economic decline increases the risk of war—strong statistical support.
Royal 10 — Jedidiah Royal, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of
Defense, M.Phil. Candidate at the University of New South Wales, 2010 (“Economic Integration,
Economic Signalling and the Problem of Economic Crises,” Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal
and Political Perspectives, Edited by Ben Goldsmith and Jurgen Brauer, Published by Emerald Group
Publishing, ISBN 0857240048, p. 213-215)
Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict . Political science
literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defence behaviour of
interdependent states. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow.
First, on the systemic level, Pollins (2008) advances Modelski and Thompson's (1996) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that rhythms
in the global economy are associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often
bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crises could
usher in a redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin. 1981) that leads to uncertainty
increasing the risk of miscalculation
about power balances,
(Feaver, 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain redistribution of power could lead to
a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to challenge a declining power (Werner. 1999). Separately, Pollins (1996) also
shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small
powers, although he suggests that the causes and connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown.
Second, on a dyadic level, Copeland's (1996, 2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that 'future expectation of trade' is a significant
variable in understanding economic conditions and security behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific
benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the expectations
decline, particularly for difficult [end page 213] to replace items such as energy resources,
of future trade
the likelihood for conflict
increases , as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crises could potentially
be the trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent
states.4
Third, others have considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess (2002) find
a strong correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn. They write,
The linkages
between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually
reinforcing . Economic conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour .
Moreover, the
presence of a recession tends to amplify the extent to which international and external
conflicts self-reinforce each other. (Blomberg & Hess, 2002. p. 89)
Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in
the likelihood of
terrorism
(Blomberg, Hess, &
Weerapana, 2004), which
has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions .
Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government. “Diversionary theory" suggests that, when
facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have increased incentives to
fabricate external military conflicts to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995). and
Blomberg, Hess, and Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated.
Gelpi (1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater for
democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office
due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods
of weak economic performance
in the United States, and thus weak Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force.
In summary, recent economic scholarship positively correlates economic integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises,
whereas political
science scholarship links economic decline with external conflict at systemic, dyadic
and national levels .5 This implied connection between integration, crises and armed conflict has not featured prominently in the
economic-security debate and deserves more attention.
This observation is not contradictory to other perspectives that link economic interdependence with a
decrease in the likelihood of external conflict, such as those mentioned in the first paragraph of this chapter. [end page 214] Those
studies tend to focus on dyadic interdependence instead of global interdependence and do not specifically consider the
occurrence of and conditions created by economic crises. As such, the view presented here should be considered ancillary to those views.
Aerospace
Key to aerospace-- industrial base
Ronis 06 (Prepared Statement of Dr. Sheila Ronis, Director, MBA/MS Programs, Walsh College; Vice President, National Defense University
Foundation, Troy, Michigan CHINA’S IMPACT ON THE U.S. AUTO AND AUTO PARTS INDUSTRIES HEARING BEFORE THE U.S.-CHINA ECONOMIC
AND SECURITY REVIEW COMMISSION ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION, July 17, 2006
http://www.uscc.gov/hearings/2006hearings/transcripts/july_17/06_07_17_trans.pdf)
The very ability of the United States to remain a superpower is at stake. Offshoring the auto industry
could make the U.S. military industrial base in the United States completely unable to comply with
American preference legislation because the erosion of the auto industrial base also erodes defense.
General Motors, Ford, Delphi, Northrop-Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin – they all share the bottom of the industrial base. The United
States cannot sustain the kind of growth it has enjoyed for the last several decades if the industrial
base continues to steadily erode. Increasingly, a number of U.S. companies in specific industries find it
impossible to compete in world markets. This is of particular concern for the industrial base that
supplies the U.S. military, automotive and aerospace
Aerospace vital to the economy
Hernnstadt 8 – Director of Trade and Globalization @ IAMAW
Owen, director of the Trade and Globalization Department, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, “Offsets and the
lack of a comprehensive U.S. policy,” Economic Policy Institute, http://www.sharedprosperity.org/bp201.html
Aerospace is an especially important industry for a nation's economic and physical security, and perhaps no
other country has benefited more from the aerospace industry than the United States.9 The Final Report of the Commission on the Future of
the United States Aerospace Industry states that the
industry "contributes over 15 percent to our Gross Domestic
Product and supports over 15 million high quality American jobs" (Aerospace Industry Commission 2002, 1-2). U.S.
aerospace has been identified as a major source of "technical innovation with substantial spillovers to other
industrial and commercial sectors" and "high-wage employment, which spreads the benefits of rising
productivity throughout the U.S. economy.…" The Aerospace Commission also noted the industry's contribution to the
nation's "economic growth, quality of life, and scientific achievements…." (Aerospace Industry Commission 2002, 1-2). Despite the importance
of aerospace, the deterioration of the industry at home has continued at a dramatic rate. Nearly 500,000 jobs have been lost in the U.S.
aerospace industry since 1990 (Aerospace Industry Commission 2002, 8-12; see also AIA 2007), and several hundred thousand more workers
have lost their jobs in related industries. Sadly, the fact of these enormous job losses comes as no surprise. More than 10 years ago, in Jobs on
the Wing, authors Randy Barber and Robert Scott predicted that "up to 469,000" jobs in the aerospace and related industries "could be
eliminated by 2013 because of offset policies and increased foreign competition" (Barber and Scott 1995, 2). In a later study, Scott predicted
that by 2013 the industry would suffer a loss of over 25% "of the total jobs in aircraft production in 1995" (Scott 1998). These gloomy
predictions are apparently reinforced by U.S. government reports. According to the Department of Labor, the outlook for employment in the
U.S. aerospace industry is not rosy: between 2002 and 2012 aerospace employment in the United States will "decrease by 18 percent" (U.S.
Department of Labor 2004). The
future health of the industry depends in large part on its ability to attract new
workers, but the crisis in employment and the prediction that the crisis will deepen does not bode well for attracting new workers. In its
final report, the Aerospace Commission summarized this concern: The U.S. aerospace sector, once the employer of choice for the "best and
brightest" technically trained workers, now finds it presents a negative image to potential employees. Surveys indicate a feeling of
disillusionment about the aerospace industry among its personnel, whether they are production/technical workers, scientists or engineers. The
majority of newly dislocated workers say they will not return to aerospace. In a recent survey of nearly 500 U.S. aerospace engineers,
managers, production workers, and technical specialists, 80 percent of respondents said they would not recommend aerospace careers to their
children. (Aerospace Industries Commission 2002, 8-5) While the Aerospace Commission found that "U.S. policy toward domestic aerospace
employment must reaffirm the goal of stabilizing and increasing the number of good and decent jobs in the industry," this policy has yet to be
embraced, let alone implemented (Aerospace Industries Commission 2002, 8-12). Far from embracing any sort of effective industrial policy
when it comes to aerospace, the
U.S. government continues to relegate policy development in this area to
private parties, just as it does with offsets in general. The inherent weakness to this approach is
obvious—private U.S. companies must compete with foreign companies that have the full support of
their governments. If a sale means transferring production and/or technology, private companies are in a difficult position. Given that
their interests do not always align with the national interest, they can be expected to maximize corporate returns, even though the use of
offsets, which can deeply affect an industry as essential to the nation's economy and security as aerospace, can be detrimental to U.S. national
interests. Should there be any doubt about the seriousness of the competition from foreign entities and governments, one has only to look at
the success of companies like EADS. What were once fledgling industries are now U.S. competitors who benefit from a sophisticated approach
to offsets that moves jobs and technology their way.10 As succinctly stated by the Aerospace Commission, "…foreign
nations clearly
recognize the potential benefits from aerospace and are attempting to wrest global leadership away
from us" (Aerospace Industries Commission 2002, 1-2). A country that truly understands the importance of adopting a comprehensive
aerospace policy based on offsets is China. As reported in the 2005 Report to Congress of the of U.S.-China Economic and Security Review
Commission, "…Chinese firms have used their leverage to extract offsets—agreements to transfer some of the aircraft production along with
related expertise and technology—as part of the deals"; the report further concludes, "China nurtures its domestic aviation and aerospace
industry by exploiting the international competition already in the industry" (U.S.-China Review Commission 2005, 30). Indeed, as summarized
in one U.S. government report: China
is likely to be the largest customer—and possibly an emerging competitor—of the U.S.
aerospace industry in the future.
Economic decline causes global war
Royal 10 [Jedediah, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction – U.S. Department of Defense, “Economic Integration, Economic Signaling
and the Problem of Economic Crises”, Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal and Political Perspectives, Ed. Goldsmith and Brauer, p.
213-215]
Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict. Political science
literature has contributed a moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defence behaviour of
interdependent states. Research in this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions
follow. First, on the systemic level, Pollins (2008) advances Modelski and Thompson's (1996) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that
rhythms in the global economy are associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and
the often bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as
economic crises could usher in a redistribution of relative power (see also Gilpin. 1981) that leads to uncertainty
about power balances, increasing the risk of miscalculation (Feaver, 1995). Alternatively, even a relatively certain
redistribution of power could lead to a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to
challenge a declining power (Werner. 1999). Separately, Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with parallel
leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and
connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown. Second, on a dyadic level, Copeland's (1996,
2000) theory of trade expectations suggests that 'future
expectation of trade' is a significant variable in
understanding economic conditions and security behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states are
likely to gain pacific benefits from trade so long as they have an optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the
expectations of future trade decline, particularly for difficult to replace items such as energy resources, the likelihood
for conflict increases, as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crises
could potentially be the trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist
moves by interdependent states.4 Third, others have considered the link between economic decline and
external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess (2002) find a strong correlation
between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of economic downturn.
They write: The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing. Economic conflict tends
to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour. Moreover, the presence
of a recession tends to amplify the
extent to which international and external conflicts self-reinforce each other. (Blomberg & Hess, 2002. p.
89) Economic decline has also been linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg, Hess,
& Weerapana, 2004), which has the capacity to spill across borders and lead to external tensions. Furthermore, crises generally reduce the
popularity of a sitting government. "Diversionary
theory" suggests that, when facing unpopularity arising
from economic decline, sitting governments have increased incentives to fabricate external
military conflicts to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995). and Blomberg, Hess, and
Thacker (2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated. Gelpi (1997),
Miller (1999), and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the
tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater
for democratic states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being
removed from office due to lack of domestic support. DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods of weak
economic performance in the United States, and thus weak Presidential popularity, are statistically
linked to an increase in the use of force. In summary, recent economic scholarship positively correlates economic
integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas political science scholarship links economic
decline with external conflict at systemic, dyadic and national levels.5 This implied connection between
integration, crises and armed conflict has not featured prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention.
Aerospace K2 Econ Ext.
Aerospace is the backbone of the manufacturing base
Platzer 09 [Michaela Platzer, Specialist in Industrial Organization and Business “U.S. Aerospace
Manufacturing: Industry Overview and Prospects”, 12/3/09,
http://www.dtic.mil/cgibin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA511133&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf, accessed
6/18/2012]
Aircraft and automobile manufacturing are considered by many to be the technological backbones of the
U.S. manufacturing base. As the Obama Administration and Congress debate how to strengthen American manufacturing, aerospace
is likely to receive considerable attention. Defense and commercial sides of the industry facing difficult business conditions for the near and
medium term. This report primarily provides a snapshot of the U.S. commercial (non-defense, non-space) aerospace manufacturing industry
and a discussion of major trends affecting the future of this industry. The large commercial jet aviation market is a duopoly shared by the U.S.
aircraft manufacturer Boeing and the European aircraft maker Airbus, with fierce competition between these two companies. The regional jet
market is dominated by two non-U.S. headquartered manufacturers, Brazil's Embraer and Canada's Bombardier, both of which utilize a high
level of U.S.-produced content in their products. The general aviation market includes companies such as Cessna and Gulfstream.
Aerospace manufacturing is an important part of the U.S. manufacturing base. It comprised 2.8% of the
nation’s manufacturing workforce in 2008 and employed over 500,000 Americans in highskilled and high-wage jobs.
More than half (61%) of the nation’s aerospace industry jobs are located in six states: Washington state, California, Texas, Kansas,
Connecticut, and Arizona. Several smaller aerospace manufacturing clusters are found in states such as Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Missouri, and
Alabama. Other aerospace centers are beginning to emerge in southern states, such as South Carolina, where Boeing is now building a second
production line to produce the 787 Dreamliner. Aerospace
manufacturing contributes significantly to the U.S.
economy, with total sales by aerospace manufacturers (including defense and space) comprising 1.4%
of the U.S. gross domestic product in 2008.
Aerospace innovation spills over and is key to the global economy
Bugos 10 [Glenn E Bugos, former Cal Institute Professor, president of the NASA Ames Research Center,
“The History of the Aerospace Industry” 2010,
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/bugos.aerospace.industry.history, accessed 6/18/12]
The aerospace industry ranks among the world's largest manufacturing industries in terms of people
employed and value of output. Yet even beyond its sheer size, the aerospace industry was one of the defining industries of the
twentieth century. As a socio-political phenomenon, aerospace has inflamed the imaginations of youth around the world, inspired
new schools of industrial design, decisively bolstered both the self-image and power of the nation
state, and shrunk the effective size of the globe. As an economic phenomenon, aerospace has consumed the
major amount of research and development funds across many fields, subsidized innovation in a vast array of
component technologies, evoked new forms of production, spurred construction of enormous
manufacturing complexes, inspired technology-sensitive managerial techniques, supported dependent
regional economies, and justified the deeper incursion of national governments into their economies. No other industry has so
persistently and intimately interacted with the bureaucratic apparatus of the nation state. Aerospace technology permeates
many other industries -- travel and tourism, logistics, telecommunications, electronics and computing,
advanced materials, civil construction, capital goods manufacture, and defense supply. Here, the aerospace
industry is defined by those firms that design and build vehicles that fly through our atmosphere and outer space.
Aerospace is key to the American economy – jobs, innovation, and exports
AIAA 10 (Aerospace Industries Association of America, September 18, 2010, “Aerospace and Defense:
Second to None,” National Aerospace Week, http://www.nationalaerospaceweek.org/wpcontent/uploads/2010/04/whitepaper.pdf)
As the U.S. economy continues to move through uncertain times and the nation grapples with a growing debt, America’s aerospace
industry remains a powerful, reliable engine of employment, innovation and export income. Aerospace
contributed $77.5 billion in export sales to America’s economy last year. 1 Conservatively, U.S. aerospace sales alone account
for three to five percent of our country’s gross domestic product, and every aerospace dollar yields an extra $1.50 to
$3 in further economic activity. 2 Aerospace products and services are the bedrock of our nation’s security and
competitiveness. We strongly believe that keeping this economic workhorse on track is in America’s best
interest. To accomplish this, government policies must support robust funding of defense priorities, research and development, a 21st
century air traffic control system, a level playing field abroad and a robust industrial base. Additionally policies that promote science,
technology engineering and mathematics (STEM) will help reenergize an aging aerospace workforce with an infusion of younger employees.
This paper explains what’s at stake and how to ensure that the economic and national security benefits of our industry are bolstered and
broadened. It’s particularly important this year. With sixty percent of aerospace sales dependent on federal contracts, ill-considered
budget cuts could jeopardize our national security, civil and space transportation infrastructure and
economy.
IL
K2 Econ
US auto industry bolsters healthy economy- contributes in many ways
Zino 10 (Ken, April 22, The Detroit Bureau, http:/www.thedetroitbureau.com/2010/04/u-s-automobileindustry-makes-500-billion-dollar-contribution-to-the-economy/, “U.S. Automobile Industry Makes $500
Billion Dollar Contribution to the Economy”, SS)
The U.S. auto industry provides a substantial contribution to U.S. economic health, according to the latest
study released this morning by the Sustainable Transportation and Communities group at the Center for Automotive Research (CAR). The nonprofit research organization looked at the economic
and employment impact of automakers, parts suppliers, and
dealerships in contributing to the economies of all 50 states. The automotive industry spends $16 to
$18 billion dollars a year on research and product development, half a trillion dollars on employee
compensation, and is the major leader of the overall manufacturing contribution to the gross
domestic product. It is difficult to imagine manufacturing surviving in this country without the automotive Sector, said Kim Hill, director
of the Sustainable Transportation and Communities group at CAR, and the study’s lead. “The industry’s impact is huge on a
host of other sectors as diverse as raw materials, construction, machinery, legal, computers and
semiconductors, financial, advertising, health care and education. In this time of national introspection concerning
the value of the U.S.-based auto industry, it is clear the value is quite high,― Hill said. The study was written by Hill, Deb Menk,
project manager, and Adam Cooper, research associate. The complete study is available at www.cargroup.org. “The CAR study results
provide strong evidence of the deep vertical and horizontal integration of the
U.S. auto industry with so much of the U.S. economy,―
said Sean McAlinden, executive vice president of research and chief economist at CAR. “The study also illustrates the high
productivity potential of the U.S. auto industry and the importance of its role in leading the U.S. economy in
the current recovery. This study definitely proves that federal assistance to the industry last year will produce many benefits in jobs,
income, and public revenues for years to come,― said McAlinden. For the study, the authors assumed: Vehicle manufacturers (OEM) directly
employed 313,000 people Includes manufacturing, research and development, headquarters, and all other operational activities 686,000
people were employed in the automotive parts sector Includes a percentage employment from rubber, plastics, batteries,
and other non-automotive sectors 737,000 people were employed in the dealer network selling and servicing new
vehicles 1,736,000 people were employed in the entire industry The study shows that these 1.7 million direct jobs contribute to an estimated 8
million total private sector jobs More than $500 billion in annual compensation and More than $70 billion in personal tax revenues Therefore,
the employment multiplier for OEM activities is 10, while the employment multiplier for the entire industry is 4. The Center for Automotive
Research’s mission is to “conduct research on significant issues related to the future direction of the global automotive industry, as well as
organize and conduct forums of value to the automotive community. CAR performs numerous studies for federal, state and local governments,
corporations, and foundations. The Sustainable Transportation and Communities group focuses its research on the long-term viability and
sustainability of the auto industry, the surface transportation system, and the communities that lie at the heart of both the industry and the
system.”
Growing now-- key to US economy
Hirsch 11 (Jerry, "Carmakers' rebound is driving jobs in U.S.," LA Times,
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/aug/25/business/la-fi-autos-economy-20110825) CS
The Commerce Department said Wednesday that orders for autos and auto parts jumped 11.5% in July, the most in eight years.
That followed an earlier government report on industrial production that showed the auto industry was the
strongest segment of the manufacturing economy last month. This kind of expansion is important to the
economy. Including factories, suppliers and dealers, the U.S. auto industry employs about 1.7 million
workers and supports an additional 6.3 million private-sector jobs, according to the Center for Automotive Research
in Ann Arbor, Mich. The center said those positions represent more than $500 billion in annual compensation and more than $70 billion in
personal tax revenue. "Autos are certainly picking up. As we get into next year, this all depends on the state of the consumer," said Gary
Schlossberg, senior economist Wells Capital Management. Auto sales peaked at about 17 million in 2000 and held near that level until 2007
before crashing to just 10.4 million two years later. They were heading back into the 13-million range — helped by a wave of new models, low
interest rates and improving consumer confidence — only to be upended by the Japanese earthquake in March. Shutdowns at Japanese-owned
factories in Japan and the United States created inventory shortages that led to sharply higher car prices, lower demand and hundreds of
thousands of lost sales for dealers. But with those disruptions now in the rearview mirror, the industry is looking for sales to improve over the
rest of the year. The
health of the U.S. economy is so dependent on autos that economists such as UCLA's David
Shulman are watching car sales to assess whether the nation's recovery will accelerate or stall. "If you see a
13-million-unit sales rate in the fourth quarter, that would help a lot," said Shulman, senior economist at the UCLA Anderson Forecast. "It would
be very hard to see how the U.S. would go into recession with cars selling at that rate."
Growth: research, manufacturing, supplies, jobs
Zino 10 (Ken, "U.S. Automobile Industry Makes $500 Billion Dollar Contribution to the Economy,"
4/22/10, http://www.thedetroitbureau.com/2010/04/u-s-automobile-industry-makes-500-billiondollar-contribution-to-the-economy/) CS
The U.S. auto industry provides a substantial contribution to U.S. economic health, according to the latest
study released this morning by the Sustainable Transportation and Communities group at the Center for Automotive Research (CAR). The nonprofit research organization looked at the economic and employment impact of automakers, parts suppliers, and dealerships in contributing to
the economies of all 50 states. The
automotive industry spends $16 to $18 billion dollars a year on research and
product development, half a trillion dollars on employee compensation, and is the major leader of the overall
manufacturing contribution to the gross domestic product. It is difficult to imagine manufacturing
surviving in this country without the automotive sector, said Kim Hill, director of the Sustainable Transportation and
Communities group at CAR, and the study’s lead. The industry’s impact is huge on a host of other sectors as diverse
as raw materials, construction, machinery, legal, computers and semiconductors, financial,
advertising, health care and education. In this time of national introspection concerning the value of the U.S.-based auto
industry, it is clear the value is quite high,― Hill said. The study was written by Hill, Deb Menk, project manager, and Adam Cooper, research
associate. The complete study is available at www.cargroup.org. “The CAR study results provide strong evidence of the deep vertical and
horizontal integration of the U.S. auto industry with so much of the U.S. economy,― said Sean McAlinden, executive vice president of
research and chief economist at CAR. The
study also illustrates the high productivity potential of the U.S. auto
industry and the importance of its role in leading the U.S. economy in the current recovery. This study definitely
proves that federal assistance to the industry last year will produce many benefits in jobs, income, and public revenues for years to come,―
said McAlinden. For the study, the authors assumed: Vehicle manufacturers (OEM) directly employed 313,000 people Includes manufacturing,
research and development, headquarters, and all other operational activities 686,000 people were employed in the automotive parts sector
Includes a percentage employment from rubber, plastics, batteries, and other non-automotive sectors 737,000 people were employed in the
dealer network selling and servicing new vehicles 1,736,000 people were employed in the entire industry The study shows that these 1.7
million direct jobs contribute to an estimated 8 million total private sector jobs More than $500 billion in
annual compensation and More than $70 billion in personal tax revenues Therefore, the employment multiplier for OEM activities is 10, while
the employment multiplier for the entire industry is 4. The Center for Automotive Research’s mission is to “conduct research on significant
issues related to the future direction of the global automotive industry, as well as organize and conduct forums of value to the automotive
community. CAR performs numerous studies for federal, state and local governments, corporations, and foundations. The Sustainable
Transportation and Communities group focuses its research on the long-term viability and sustainability of the auto industry, the surface
transportation system, and the communities that lie at the heart of both the industry and the system.”
Key to econ-- jobs
US News 12 ("Is the U.S. Auto Industry on Track for a Comeback?," 1/9/12,
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/01/09/is-the-us-auto-industry-on-track-for-a-comeback)
CS
More than three years after bad management, a swooning global economy, and foreign competition gutted the U.S. auto industry, car
makers are revving up for a comeback at what's likely to be one of the snazziest auto industry shows in years. The North
American International Auto Show opened in Detroit this weekend for a nine-day run, and many eyes are on the annual pow-wow for clues
about what's in store for 2012. The initial signs look good. The past two months have seen decent sales numbers, a trend that's likely to
continue as the jobs outlook strengthens and Americans feel more financially secure, experts say. December was a good month for Nissan and
especially the "Big Three"—Chevrolet, Chrysler and GM—all of which posted sales increases for the month and year. [Read: New Economic Data
Points to Hope in 2012.] "The economy is such that people are feeling a little more comfortable about their job outlook and where they're
going," says Bruce Belzowski, research scientist at University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute. Economists
forecast
U.S. auto sales will jump to about 13.5 million in 2012, up from 12.8 million last year. While 13 or 14 million units sold certainly isn't
bad, Belzowski says it's not the 15 or 16 million units auto makers used to enjoy several years ago. Still, the auto industry's recovery
is playing a significant role in bolstering the broader economic recovery in the United States, primarily
because automotive manufacturing touches so many other areas of the economy, from manufacturing gas
caps to keeping the diner next to the plant open, says Aaron Bragman, senior analyst at IHS Global Insight. The resurgence in demand
also bodes well for the job market. Auto makers have already re-hired nearly everyone they laid off
during the recession, Bragman says, and if demand remains elevated, companies are likely to hire more to
keep up with production needs.
Key to economy: jobs, exports, manufacturing
AAPC No date (American Automotive Policy Council, http://www.americanautocouncil.org/industryfacts) CS
The American automotive industry provides a unique and significant contribution to the U.S. economy.
From job creation to domestic production to exportation and research and development, the
American Auto Industry is a leader in multiple arenas, not only here at home, but across the globe. The Center for Automotive
Research’s most recent report estimates that original equipment manufacturers, suppliers and dealers collectively
support nearly 8 million jobs, pay $500 billion in annual compensation and generate $70 billion in personal tax revenue. The
auto industry hires domestically. In a recent Gallup Poll, Americans were asked what the best way would be to create more jobs in
the U.S. “Keeping jobs here” scored highest, by a substantial margin. Ford, GM and Chrysler are just three of 16 major global automakers
competing in the U.S., but they employ two-thirds of America’s autoworkers: This is because four out of 10 Chrysler, Ford and GM employees
are based in the U.S. At Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai/Kia, BMW, Daimler and VW (the seven largest foreign automakers), only five in 100
employees are based here. Over the past six years, automakers and suppliers have exported nearly $600 billion worth of vehicles and parts.
The auto industry beat the next best performing sector (aerospace) by $74 billion. Last year alone, automakers and
suppliers out-exported the aerospace industry by $20B. Last year alone, Chrysler, Ford and GM, together, exported more than 800,000 vehicles
produced in the U.S. The cars bought each year in the U.S. each contain between 8,000 to 12,000 parts, using more than 3,000 pounds of iron,
steel, rubber, glass and semiconductors. Automakers and suppliers purchase 70 percent of rubber and approximately 20 percent of the iron,
zinc, aluminum and stainless steel produced in the U.S. While most automakers use some U.S. parts, Chrysler, Ford and GM’s vehicles contain
nearly twice as much domestic content, on average, as the average foreign automaker vehicle. One and half times more of the Chrysler, Ford
and GM vehicles bought in the U.S. are assembled here. (81 out of 100 vehicles Chrysler, Ford and GM sell in the U.S. are manufactured here.
Only 55 out of 100 cars sold by foreign automakers are made here.) More
U.S. production means more U.S. plants. For
example, Chrysler, the smallest of the domestic automakers, operates as many assembly plants as BMW, Mercedes, Hyundai, Kia, VW and
Mazda combined. More U.S. production means more U.S. jobs. Four in 10 employees at Chrysler, Ford and GM are based in the U.S., while only
five in 100 employees at their largest competitors are based here. Eight of the world’s top 25 corporate investors in R&D are automakers, and
the industry ranks third overall, ahead of software, aerospace and electronics manufacturers. In the U.S., nearly
one in 10 engineers
and scientists employed in the private sector work for automakers or auto suppliers. Ford and GM outspent
global leaders like GE, Oracle, Google, HP, Apple and Boeing. And 80 cents of every dollar Chrysler, Ford and GM invest in R&D is spent in the
United States. Those billions in R&D, and hundreds of billions in new plants and equipment, have translated into unprecedented improvements
in passenger safety, air quality, fuel efficiency and new products and features. America’s drivers and passengers enjoyed the safest roads on
record last year. Vehicle fatalities were the lowest on record, 25 percent lower than they were five years ago, even though Americans
collectively drove nearly 3 trillion miles last year. Auto emissions are 99 percent cleaner than they were in the 1970s .
150+ new hybrid, all-electric and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are currently on the road. Chrysler, Ford and GM alone are putting millions of flex
fuel vehicles on the road each year. 2016 model year vehicles will offer 30 percent better fuel efficiency than last year’s fleet. Fleet fuel
efficiency averages will reach 35.5 MPG. Despite the fact that cars and trucks account for only 20 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions,
automakers are the only sector committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions of new products by
30 percent in just five years.
Manufacturing key to econ
Hill et al 10 (Kim, Debra Menk, Adam Cooper, "Contribution of the Automotive Industry to the
Economies of all Fifty State and the United States," Center for Automotive Research, April 2010,
http://www.cargroup.org/?module=Publications&event=View&pubID=16) CS
The United States automotive industry is a critical component of economic growth with extensive
interconnections across the industrial and cultural fabric of the U.S. This report outlines many known elements and highlights tremendously
important associations beyond the market space of manufacturing. It touches on the following elements as they relate to the automotive
industry: national and regional employment; research, development and innovation; state and local government revenues; foreign direct
investment; education; health care; U.S. trade; and quality of life. The paper is organized into two sections: Section I provides qualitative
context and current market metrics for the automotive industry, both of which are needed to truly appreciate the contributions of the industry
to the broader economy and gauge where the sector may be heading; Section II features an in-depth quantitative analysis of employment and
personal income associated with the automotive sector. Section II is subdivided into four primary sections to capture the distinct contributions
of suppliers, assemblers, and dealers to the national economy with a final summary section that describes the state-level employment
associated with the automotive industry. The
auto industry is one of the most important industries in the United
States. It historically has contributed 3 – 3.5 percent to the overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The industry directly employs
over 1.7 million people engaged in designing, engineering, manufacturing, and supplying parts and
components to assemble, sell and service new motor vehicles. In addition, the industry is a huge
consumer of goods and services from many other sectors, including raw materials, construction,
machinery, legal, computers and semi-conductors, financial, advertising, and healthcare. The auto
industry spends $16 to $18 billion every year on research and product development – 99 percent of which is
funded by the industry itself. Due to the industry’s consumption of products from many other manufacturing sectors, it is a major driver
of the 11.5% manufacturing contribution to GDP. Without the auto sector, it is difficult to imagine
manufacturing surviving in this country. Recently, the auto industry has fallen on tough times. However, the U.S. market is still
one of the largest motor vehicle markets in the world; consequently, many automakers sell and manufacture in the U.S. In fact, many
automakers make the lion’s share of their profits in North America. There has been a period of restructuring by the three U.S.-based companies
in order to right-size their operations and be able to respond to this fierce competition in the U.S. market. In the latest restructuring, a bursting
of the housing bubble and a collapse of the financial sector © Center for Automotive Research 2010 2 led to the current period of extremely
tight credit, making it nearly impossible for companies and consumers to make investments. During this period, many supplier companies,
dealerships and a couple of manufacturers found themselves fighting for survival and turning to the lender of last resort–the federal
government. This led to an amazing time of public introspection concerning the value to the country of a U.S.-based auto industry. In this
paper, the authors touch on many of the factors that support the auto industry’s importance and standing in the national economy, along with
an estimate of the industry’s employment and economic contribution to the national economy and to each of the 50 states and the District of
Columbia. As previously mentioned, over 1.7 million people are employed by the auto industry. In addition, the industry is a huge consumer of
goods and services from many other sectors and contributes to a net employment impact in the U.S. economy of nearly 8 million jobs.
Approximately 4.5 percent of all U.S. jobs are supported by the strong presence of the auto industry in
the U.S. economy. People in these jobs collectively earn over $500 billion annually in compensation and generate more than $70 billion
in tax revenues.
Key to manufacturing
Hill et al 10 (Kim--director of the Sustainability & Economic Development Strategies Group (SEDS) at
the Center for Automotive Research, Debra Menk--senior project manager in the Sustainability &
Economic Development Strategies Group, Adam Cooper, "Contribution of the Automotive Industry to
the Economies of all Fifty State and the United States," Center for Automotive Research, April 2010,
http://www.cargroup.org/?module=Publications&event=View&pubID=16) CS
The automotive industry is a very important industry in the U.S. economy; no other single industry
links as closely to the U.S. manufacturing sector or directly generates as much retail business and overall
employment. Manufacturing has been the backbone of the American economy, and the automotive
industry is its heart. A look at the entire production and supply chain provides a rich narrative of how a strong automotive
industry historically supports the growth and stability of many other industries, such as basic materials
suppliers of steel, plastic, rubber and glass, which are used for making bodies, interiors and trim, tires, gaskets and windows. Figure 1.4
provides a comparison of the value added per employee (measured in thousands of dollars per year) across several manufacturing industries.
The value added per employee can be thought of as the difference between the cost of materials and the sale price of the good. Effective
deployment of land, labor, and capital create value; in 2006, each employee in the motor vehicle assembly industry created $321,000 of value
in the final products shipped; fourth highest amongst manufacturing industries.
An economy is reinforced by the size and job
creating capability of its manufacturing base. Within the broad manufacturing landscape of the U.S., few industries are
as large or provide so many indirect and ancillary opportunities for job creation as the motor vehicle
industry. Figure 1.5 highlights the sheer size of the motor vehicle assembly and parts manufacturing industry which is the second largest
employer within the subset of manufacturing. Some industries inherently create more jobs than other industries. A high jobs creation
multiplier tends to be associated with industries that require large amounts of inputs from other
industries, source inputs from industries that have a high regional purchase coefficient, or pay above average wages. Figure 1.6 details the
employment multiplier for a select set of industries. The motor vehicle assembly industry, with its multiplier of 10, is an industry that meets all
of the above criteria.
Key to econ recovery-- jobs and spending
Huffington Post 11 ("Auto Industry Hiring May Drive U.S. Economic Recovery: Survey," 8/1/11,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/01/auto-industry-hiring-may-lead-recovery_n_914686.html)
The auto industry could lead an economic recovery in the United States, according to a recent survey by audit, tax
and advisory firm KPMG. Auto executives plan to do more hiring and more capital spending than executives
in any other sector in the next year, according to the survey. Sixty-two percent of auto executives said they expect to hire people
in the coming year, compared with an average of only 52 percent of executives across all sectors. Similarly, 71 percent of autos executives said
they expect to increase their capital spending in the coming year compared with an average of 59 percent of all executives. Two years after the
end of the U.S. recession, unemployment remains above 9 percent, U.S. consumer confidence hit a near two and a half-year low earlier this
month and the U.S. government reached a last-minute deal late Sunday to avoid a U.S. debt crisis. All this has raised questions about the speed
and strength of a U.S. recovery. The U.S. auto industry was hit hard during the financial crisis, which saw both General
Motors Co (GM.N) and Chrysler seek bankruptcy protection and government bailouts. It was hit again in March when an earthquake, tsunami
and nuclear crisis in Japan disrupted the supply chain. While
the sector is improving -- U.S. July auto sales are expected to hit an
annual rate of around 12 million vehicles, an improvement over May and June -- that figure still lags the 17 million-plus number sold in 2000.
A
full recovery could take years, but the next 12 months could see an improvement, according to the survey.
Helping econ recovery-- jobs
Waldron 12 (Travis, "Auto Industry Adds Thousands Of Jobs To Meet Growing Demand, Proving Auto
Rescue’s Success Yet Again," 5/23/12, http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/05/23/489024/autoindustry-add-jobs/?mobile=nc)
The automobile industry has been a consistent bright spot in the American economy over the last several
months, as automakers have added jobs to meet growing demand. And news from the industry is only getting better, as
new estimates expect automakers to sell 14.3 million cars in the United States in 2012 — 1.5 million more than they sold last year. Factories for
both foreign and domestic automakers are now working “at maximum capacity” and the
industry is adding shifts and jobs to
keep up with that rising demand, the USA Today reports: Some plants are adding third work shifts. Others are piling on worker
overtime and six-day weeks. And Ford Motor and Chrysler Group are cutting out or reducing the annual two-week July shutdown at several
plants this summer to add thousands of vehicles to their output. “We have many plants working at maximum capacity now,” says Ford
spokeswoman Marcey Evans. “We’re building as many (cars) as we can.” Chrysler and General Motors, the major beneficiaries of the auto
rescue, have both reported their best profits in more than a decade, and both were already planning to add jobs this year. With factories now
struggling to meet demand, both foreign and domestic auto companies are planning to add even more jobs — and, as the
Center for American Progress’ Adam Hersh and Jane Farrell noted in April, the industry has added more than 139,000 jobs in the last three
years. The
strength of the auto industry is yet another sign that letting it fail would have been a major mistake. Not only would it
have cost more than a million jobs at a time when the economy was struggling, it would have prevented the current growth that is helping
both the industry and the
American economy recover.
Multiplier across every state
Hill et al 10 (Kim--director of the Sustainability & Economic Development Strategies Group (SEDS) at
the Center for Automotive Research, Debra Menk--senior project manager in the Sustainability &
Economic Development Strategies Group, Adam Cooper, "Contribution of the Automotive Industry to
the Economies of all Fifty State and the United States," Center for Automotive Research, April 2010,
http://www.cargroup.org/?module=Publications&event=View&pubID=16)
The motor vehicle industry’s breadth and depth of operations extends into every state economy in the nation. The
industry impacts an unusually large number of individual communities because the supplier network is spread across many
states. Beyond that, motor vehicle dealerships have a presence in nearly every community in the country.
The tables in this section examine the estimated employment and income contributions of the industry to individual state economies. Even for
those states with relatively few direct jobs in the industry, the number of jobs supported by the industry is significant. In
many states, large numbers of jobs are generated due to the state’s proximity to manufacturing or technical facilities located in a neighboring
state. All
states see major additional impact from substantial numbers of spin-off jobs resulting from
the spending of direct and indirect employees of the industry. The automotive industry is a mature industry, with
assembly and parts manufacturing plants well established throughout most of the states east of the Mississippi, as seen in Figure 2.1, which
shows the top states for OEM employment, as a percentage of state population. Many states in the Midwest are well known for supporting a
strong base of manufacturing. The entire Midwest is connected by a strong and efficient network of road and rail systems. This transportation
integration provides intra-state and inter-state options for sourcing intermediate goods and supplies to manufacturing operations. It is this
broad, efficient network of suppliers (located across many states) which leads to the dispersion of total employment contributions from
manufacturing operations to all areas of the nation. Figure 2.2 below shows the impact of employment in the industry for motor vehicle
assemblers, parts, systems and components manufacturers, motor vehicle dealerships, and the suppliers to these operations. This map does
not include expenditure-induced employment. It is a portrayal of the direct impacts of employment and suppliers to the industry. As can be
seen, the
industry provides significant numbers of jobs to every state in the nation. Each individual state’s
in one state are not only
attributable to investment in that state, but are supported by the auto industry’s investments and
activities in nearby states as well. Therefore, an employment multiplier is not calculated for any individual state.
Employment multipliers apply to the national economy and are not applicable to, nor can be derived from, any one
economic impact is one effect of the total contribution of the industry to the nation. That is, jobs
state’s economy
K2 Steel Ext.
Key to steel
Hill et al 10 (Kim--director of the Sustainability & Economic Development Strategies Group (SEDS) at
the Center for Automotive Research, Debra Menk--senior project manager in the Sustainability &
Economic Development Strategies Group, Adam Cooper, "Contribution of the Automotive Industry to
the Economies of all Fifty State and the United States," Center for Automotive Research, April 2010,
http://www.cargroup.org/?module=Publications&event=View&pubID=16) CS
The automotive industry is a very important industry in the U.S. economy; no other single industry
links as closely to the U.S. manufacturing sector or directly generates as much retail business and overall
employment. Manufacturing has been the backbone of the American economy, and the automotive
industry is its heart. A look at the entire production and supply chain provides a rich narrative of how a strong automotive
industry historically supports the growth and stability of many other industries, such as basic materials
suppliers of steel, plastic, rubber and glass, which are used for making bodies, interiors and trim, tires, gaskets and windows. Figure 1.4
provides a comparison of the value added per employee (measured in thousands of dollars per year) across several manufacturing industries.
The value added per employee can be thought of as the difference between the cost of materials and the sale price of the good. Effective
deployment of land, labor, and capital create value; in 2006, each employee in the motor vehicle assembly industry created $321,000 of value
in the final products shipped; fourth highest amongst manufacturing industries.
An economy is reinforced by the size and job
creating capability of its manufacturing base. Within the broad manufacturing landscape of the U.S., few industries are
as large or provide so many indirect and ancillary opportunities for job creation as the motor vehicle
industry. Figure 1.5 highlights the sheer size of the motor vehicle assembly and parts manufacturing industry which is the second largest
employer within the subset of manufacturing. Some industries inherently create more jobs than other industries. A high jobs creation
multiplier tends to be associated with industries that require large amounts of inputs from other
industries, source inputs from industries that have a high regional purchase coefficient, or pay above average wages. Figure 1.6 details the
employment multiplier for a select set of industries. The motor vehicle assembly industry, with its multiplier of 10, is an industry that meets all
of the above criteria.
Auto industry largest steel consumer
RNCOS 10 --leading industry research and consultancy firm ("Auto Sector to Drive the US Steel
Industry," 12/17/10, http://www.rncos.com/Press_Releases/Auto-Sector-to-Drive-the-US-SteelIndustry.htm) CS
According to our research report “US Steel Industry Outlook”, the US economy is recovering fast from the post recessionary effects of volcanic
slowdown started in 2008. With balancing demand and the government support, the
steel industry has started showing
promising growth potentials in terms of both production and demand. A segment wise demand analysis has revealed that the
automobile sector will fuel steel demand, which is poised to grow at a CAGR of around 4% during 2010-2012. We have found that the
automobile industry is one of the largest consumers of steel in the US. The sector accounts for approximately 20%
of the entire steel consumption. In 2009, the automobile production plants capacity utilization rate was just over 50%. The rate is forecasted to
reach over 75% by 2012, which will be a testimony of the automobile sector revival in the US. Our research reveals that steel
forms the
majority of the vehicles curb weight and is the first preference of manufacturer due to its inherent strength and
safety. In 2009, steel (including flat steel and other categories) occupied over 58% of overall light vehicle curb weight of around 3800 Pounds. In
coming years, steel is expected to sustain its dominance on metal content share in vehicle total curb weight due to its cost effectiveness and
easy availability.
K2 Heg Ext.
Vital to innovation and hegemony
Clark 08 -- retired Army general and former supreme allied commander of NATO, is a senior fellow at
the Burkle Center for International Relations at the University of California at Los Angeles (Wesley K.
Clark, "What’s Good for G.M. Is Good for the Army," New York Times, 11/17/08,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/opinion/16clark.html?_r=4)
When President Dwight Eisenhower observed that America’s greatest strength wasn’t its military, but its economy, he must have had
companies like General Motors and Ford in mind. Sitting atop a vast pyramid of tool makers, steel producers, fabricators and
component manufacturers, these companies not only produced the tanks and trucks that helped win World War II,
but also lent their technology to aircraft and ship manufacturing. The United States truly became the arsenal of
democracy. During the 1950s, advances in aviation, missiles, satellites and electronics made Detroit seem a little old-fashioned in dealing with
the threat of the Soviet Union. The Army’s requests for new trucks and other basic transportation usually came out a loser in budget battles
against missile technology and new modifications for the latest supersonic jet fighter. Not only were airplanes far sexier but they also counted
as part of our military “tooth,” while much of the land forces’ needs were “tail.” And in those days, “more teeth, less tail” had become a key
concept in military spending. But in 1991, the
Persian Gulf war demonstrated the awesome utility of American
land power, and the Humvee (and its civilian version, the Hummer) became a star. Likewise, the ubiquitous homemade bombs of the
current Iraq insurgency have led to the development of innovative armor-protected wheeled vehicles for American
forces, as well as improvements in our fleets of Humvees, tanks, armored fighting vehicles, trucks and cargo carriers.
In a little more than a year, the Army has procured and fielded in Iraq more than a thousand so-called mine-resistant ambush-protected
vehicles. The
lives of hundreds of soldiers and marines have been saved, and their tasks made more achievable, by
the efforts of the American automotive industry. And unlike in World War II, America didn’t have to divert much civilian
capacity to meet these military needs. Without a vigorous automotive sector, those needs could not have been
quickly met. More challenges lie ahead for our military, and to meet them we need a strong industrial
base. For years the military has sought better sources of electric power in its vehicles — necessary to allow troops to monitor their radios
with diesel engines off, to support increasingly high-powered communications technology, and eventually to support electric propulsion and
innovative armaments like directed-energy weapons. In sum, this greater use of electricity will increase combat power while reducing our
footprint. Much research and development spending has gone into these programs over the years, but nothing on the manufacturing scale we
really need. Now, though, as Detroit moves to plug-in hybrids and electric-drive technology, the scale problem can be remedied.
Automakers are developing innovative electric motors, many with permanent magnet technology, that will have
immediate military use. And only the auto industry, with its vast purchasing power, is able to
establish a domestic advanced battery industry. Likewise, domestic fuel cell production — which will
undoubtedly have many critical military applications — depends on a vibrant car industry. To be sure, the public should demand
transformation and new standards in the auto industry before paying to keep it alive. And we should insist that Detroit’s goals include putting
America in first place in hybrid and electric automotive technology, reducing the emissions of the country’s transportation fleet, and
strengthening our competitiveness abroad. This should be no giveaway. Instead, it
is a historic opportunity to get it right in
Detroit for the good of the country. But Americans must bear in mind that any federal assistance plan would not be just an
economic measure. This is, fundamentally, about national security.
K2 Navy Ext.
Key to military fuel cells and dominance
ONR 09 –Executive branch agency within the Department of Defense, the Office of Naval Research
(ONR) provides technical advice to the Chief of Naval Operations and the Secretary of the Navy. (Office
of Naval Research, “ONR Partners with Car Industry to Test Energy-Efficient Vehicles”, March 18, 2009,
http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=43502)
ARLINGTON (NNS) -- The Office of Naval Research (ONR) teamed up with an automobile industry leader to explore
energy-efficient, environmentally-friendly viable transportation alternatives; a cutting-edge General Motors (GM) Chevrolet
Equinox fuel cell vehicle (FCV) is the result of the partnership. As the global automobile industry considers alternative energy
sources to replace the traditional internal combustion engine, Jessie Pacheco, a mail clerk at Camp Pendleton, makes his rounds in the FCVs.
The Office of Naval Research (ONR) has sponsored the GM FCVs at Camp Pendleton since 2006; two more scheduled to arrive later this year.
"These vehicles are the future," said Pacheco. "It's great to see people drive by me, giving me the thumb's up, and asking 'Where can I get
one?'" "Fuel
cell vehicle research is clearly a case where the Navy and Marine Corps needs are propelling
advanced technology that also has potential benefit to the public," said Rear Adm. Nevin Carr, chief of naval
research. Within the Navy-Marine Corps Team, ONR has researched power and energy technology for decades. Often the improvements to
power generation and fuel efficiency for ships, aircraft, vehicles and installations have direct civil application for public benefit. "There is not a
drop of oil in it," explained Shad Balch, a GM representative at Camp Pendleton. "The electric motor provides maximum instant torque right
from the get go." The
efficiency of a hydrogen-powered fuel cell may prove to be twice that of an internal
combustion engine, if not greater, added Balch. From an operational perspective, the fuel cell vehicle is quiet yet powerful, emits only
water vapor, uses fewer moving parts compared to a combustion engine and offers an alternative to the logistics chain associated with current
military vehicles.
The addition of fuel cell vehicles to Camp Pendleton provides a glimpse into the future of
advanced transportation technology that reduces reliance on petroleum and affords environmental stewardship benefits such as
reduced air pollution and a smaller carbon footprint for Navy and Marine Corps bases. "Partnering with the military gives us
critical feedback from a truly unique application. This will help us as we engineer our next generation
of fuel cell vehicles," Balch noted. Technology underwrites the solutions to both national and naval energy needs. As an ONR program
officer in the 1990s, Richard Carlin, Ph.D., recognized the potential of alternative fuel research to help meet the energy challenges of the future.
Today, as ONR's director of power and energy research, Carlin is pleased to see the positive reaction to the fuel cell vehicle research program.
"This is an example of where the value of investment in science and technology can really pay off," said Carlin. "Besides the potential energy
savings and increased power potential of fuel cell technology, the research and testing we are doing will address challenges like hydrogen
production and delivery, durability and reliability, on board hydrogen storage and overall cost." For example, through its testing ONR has made
advances in the storage necessary for achieving greater range in fuel cell automobiles. Dave Shifler, the program officer managing the
alternative fuels initiatives at ONR, emphasizes that partnerships are essential when bringing a new technology forward. "With
the right
partnerships, you can accomplish almost anything," stressed Shifler. "We have teamed with the Army from
the beginning on this research, sharing technical support, contracting support and usage of the GM
fuel cell vehicle." ONR fuel cell research has not been limited to vehicles and spans the operational spectrum:
from ground vehicles to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), to man-portable power for Marines and afloat. Hydrogen powered fuel
cell technology is one of many programs at ONR in the power and energy research field that is helping the Navy meet the
energy needs of both the warfighter and the public. ONR's partnerships in fuel cell vehicle research include: Headquarters
Marine Corps; the Marine Corps Garrison Mobile Equipment office; Southwest Region Force Transportation; Naval Facilities Engineering
Services Center, Port Hueneme; Department of Energy (Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy), South Coast Air Quality Management District;
California Air Resources Board; California Fuel Cell Partnership; Defense Energy Support Center, General Motors; Naval Surface Warfare Center
Carderock Division; U.S. Fuel Cell Council; U.S. Army TARDEC/NAC, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Environment. ONR
provides the science and technology (S&T) necessary to maintain the Navy and Marine Corps'
technological warfighting dominance. Through its affiliates, ONR is a leader in S&T with engagement in 50 states, 70 countries,
1035 institutions of higher learning, and 914 industry partners. ONR employs approximately 1400 people, comprised of uniformed, civilian and
contract personnel.
K2 Fuel Cells
Only the auto industry solves fuel cell production
Clark 08 -- retired Army general and former supreme allied commander of NATO, is a senior fellow at
the Burkle Center for International Relations at the University of California at Los Angeles (Wesley K.
Clark, "What’s Good for G.M. Is Good for the Army," New York Times, 11/17/08,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/opinion/16clark.html?_r=4)
For years the military has sought better sources of electric power in its vehicles — necessary to allow troops to
monitor their radios with diesel engines off, to support increasingly high-powered communications technology, and eventually to support
electric propulsion and innovative armaments like directed-energy weapons. In sum, this greater use of electricity will increase combat power
while reducing our footprint. Much research and development spending has gone into these programs over the years, but nothing on the
manufacturing scale we really need. Now, though, as Detroit moves to plug-in hybrids and electric-drive technology, the scale problem can be
remedied. Automakers
are developing innovative electric motors, many with permanent magnet technology, that will
have immediate military use. And only the auto industry, with its vast purchasing power, is able to
establish a domestic advanced battery industry. Likewise, domestic fuel cell production — which will
undoubtedly have many critical military applications — depends on a vibrant car industry. To be sure, the public should demand
transformation and new standards in the auto industry before paying to keep it alive. And we should insist that Detroit’s goals include putting
America in first place in hybrid and electric automotive technology, reducing the emissions of the country’s transportation fleet, and
strengthening our competitiveness abroad. This should be no giveaway. Instead, it
is a historic opportunity to get it right in
Detroit for the good of the country. But Americans must bear in mind that any federal assistance plan would not be just an
economic measure. This is, fundamentally, about national security.
This race for fuel cell batteries will determine geopolitical power for the future
Levine 10
Steve LeVine is a contributing editor at Foreign Policy and an adjunct professor at Georgetown
University's Security Studies Program. Foreign Policy November 2010
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/10/11/the_great_battery_race?hidecomments=yes
The Chinese government saw in the technology that Wan had mastered a potential future pillar of its economy. Starting virtually from scratch, Beijing announced last year it would become the
world's largest producer of the vehicles within the next few years. "China is committed to developing clean and electric vehicles," Wan told me when I met him in Chicago this summer.
the battery, among the most humble and unsexy of inventions,
might just be the most important technological battleground of the next two decades. The discovery
of the next key breakthroughs in the field could mean not just a fortune for a handful of companies, but the remaking of whole economies -- and
the rebalancing of geopolitical power that typically accompanies such shifts. A Chinese triumph could
"Batteries and clean vehicles are a national strategic priority." Indeed,
speed the country's global advance; an American one could give U.S. dominance a new lease on life.¶
Two developments have brought us to this pass. Developed countries and rising powers alike are looking to curb their oil-guzzling habits, for any number of reasons: climate change, unsavory
petrostate politics, the looming fear there simply isn't enough petroleum on the planet to satisfy everyone. The result is a new global interest in alternatives to petroleum and the internal
combustion engine -- most prominently advanced battery technology, the necessary precondition for the development of an affordable, powerful electric car.¶ But the world doesn't just need
a better car -- it also needs a better means of building and sustaining economies. Over the last 20 years, Asia's growth has been mostly driven by manufacturing exports, while the United
States' was fueled first by Silicon Valley's tech boom and later by elaborate (and ultimately ruinous) financial instruments. But those platforms have reached or are nearing their limits, and
in
the scramble to avoid another recession, the world's great economies are looking for the next big
thing, an engine of economic growth for the future.¶ These two aspirations -- for a less oil-dependent world and for a more
prosperous one -- are rapidly converging in a global race for a better battery. By 2030, experts say, advanced batteries will swell into a $100
billion-a-year business. They will also enable an electric-car industry on the order of half a trillion dollars, on a par with the global pharmaceutical industry and capable of spawning companies
on the scale of ExxonMobil, General Electric, and Toyota. "
It is a matter of national wealth and national economic advantage in a
way that few new things in society can be," Peter Harrop, who heads the Britain-based technology consulting firm IDTechEx, told me. "But it is a
high-stakes game . It is going to be beneficial [only] to certain companies in certain countries."¶ Two of the
likeliest beneficiaries are Japan and South Korea, the top producers of today's cutting-edge batteries and the favorites to develop tomorrow's. But the more interesting -- and
potentially world-changing -- rivalry is between the United States and China, both of which are
scrambling to get into the game. Each country has a great deal to win by establishing itself as an early
leader in advanced batteries, in competition or in partnership with East Asia's technological heavyweights. The contest has taken on
ultraserious geopolitical heft for the United States, at its lowest economic ebb in recent memory, and for China, eager to cement its position as a
globally influential superpower. Both countries' governments have adopted an unapologetically hands-on approach, attempting to drive innovation from the top down and viewing the project
through the lens of national strength. The analogies tend more toward the Manhattan Project than Microsoft.¶ On a July visit to the Smith Electric Vehicles plant in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.
President Barack Obama vowed that within five years, the United States would be making 40 percent of the world's advanced batteries. (It made just 2 percent in 2009.) "That's how we ensure
that America doesn't just limp along," he declared, "but instead that we're prospering -- that this nation leads the industries of the future." Obama's point man for this ambitious project
The ability of a country to manufacture batteries and vehicles will
defines his goals in equally sweeping terms. "
help to create wealth,
will help to provide resilience against oil-supply disruptions, and help to create jobs," David Sandalow, U.S. assistant energy secretary for policy and international affairs, told me. "And those, in
turn, will
create national power." ¶ But while U.S. officials have been sweeping in their rhetoric, China has been breathtaking in the scale and specificity with which it is
ordering up an electric-car industry. Beijing in recent years has issued government directives that, if realized, will result in the production of some 30 electric-vehicle models by 2012;
expanding lithium-ion battery manufacturing into a $25 billion-a-year industry by that same year; and the construction of about 100 charging stations this year alone across the country.¶ It's
not just the United States and China. Google the phrase "electric car" and the name of any reasonably sized country, and you will turn up yet another aspirant. More than a dozen would-be
contenders from South America to Scandinavia are talking about the technology in positively existential terms, even those with little plausible hope of coming up winners. German Chancellor
Angela Merkel hopes that "in the 21st century we are again the nation that is able to build the most intelligent and environmentally friendly cars." French Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo
Those who develop and manufacture the next-generation
technology for electric cars, these leaders believe, will be the haves. And those who don't will be at the mercy of those
has announced a government-industry plan to win "the battle of the electric car."
who do .
The shift in geostrategic power will unleash a wave of global conflict scenarios
Khalilzad 11 — Zalmay Khalilzad, Counselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies,
served as the United States ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United Nations during the
presidency of George W. Bush, served as the director of policy planning at the Defense Department
during the Presidency of George H.W. Bush, holds a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, 2011 (“The
Economy and National Security,” National Review, February 8th, Available Online at
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/259024, Accessed 02-08-2011)
Today, economic and fiscal trends pose the most severe long-term threat to the United States’ position as global
leader. While the United States suffers from fiscal imbalances and low economic growth, the economies of
rival powers are developing rapidly. The continuation of these two trends could lead to a shift from
American primacy toward a multi-polar global system, leading in turn to increased geopolitical rivalry
and even war among the great powers .¶ The current recession is the result of a deep financial crisis, not a mere fluctuation in the business
cycle. Recovery is likely to be protracted. The crisis was preceded by the buildup over two decades of enormous amounts of debt throughout the U.S. economy —
ultimately totaling almost 350 percent of GDP — and the development of credit-fueled asset bubbles, particularly in the housing sector. When the bubbles burst,
huge amounts of wealth were destroyed, and unemployment rose to over 10 percent. The decline of tax revenues and massive countercyclical spending put the U.S.
government on an unsustainable fiscal path. Publicly held national debt rose from 38 to over 60 percent of GDP in three years.¶ Without
faster
economic growth and actions to reduce deficits, publicly held national debt is projected to reach dangerous proportions. If interest rates were to rise
significantly, annual interest payments — which already are larger than the defense budget — would crowd out other spending or require substantial tax increases
that would undercut economic growth. Even worse, if unanticipated events trigger what economists call a “sudden stop” in credit markets for U.S. debt, the United
States would be unable to roll over its outstanding obligations, precipitating a sovereign-debt crisis that would almost certainly compel a radical retrenchment of
the United States internationally.¶ Such scenarios would reshape the international order. It was the economic devastation of Britain and France during World War II,
as well as the rise of other powers, that led both countries to relinquish their empires. In the late 1960s, British leaders concluded that they lacked the economic
capacity to maintain a presence “east of Suez.” Soviet economic weakness, which crystallized under Gorbachev, contributed to their decisions to withdraw from
Afghanistan, abandon Communist regimes in Eastern Europe, and allow the Soviet Union to fragment. If
the U.S. debt problem goes critical,
the United States would be compelled to retrench , reducing its military spending and shedding
international commitments.¶ We face this domestic challenge while other major powers are experiencing rapid economic growth. Even though
countries such as China, India, and Brazil have profound political, social, demographic, and economic problems, their economies are growing faster than ours, and
this could alter the global distribution of power. These trends could in the long term produce a multi-polar world. If U.S. policymakers fail to act and other powers
continue to grow, it is not a question of whether but when a new international order will emerge.
The closing of the gap between the United
States and its rivals could intensify geopolitical competition among major powers , increase incentives
for local powers to play major powers against one another, and undercut our will to preclude or
respond to international crises because of the higher risk of escalation.¶ The stakes are high . In
modern history, the longest period of peace among the great powers has been the era of U.S.
leadership. By contrast, multi-polar systems have been unstable , with their competitive dynamics
resulting in frequent crises and major wars among the great powers . Failures of multi-polar
international systems produced both world wars.¶ American retrenchment could have devastating
consequences . Without an American security blanket, regional powers could rearm in an attempt to
balance against emerging threats. Under this scenario, there would be a heightened possibility of
arms races, miscalculation, or other crises spiraling into all-out conflict . Alternatively, in seeking to accommodate the
stronger powers, weaker powers may shift their geopolitical posture away from the United States. Either way, hostile states would be emboldened to make
aggressive moves in their regions.¶ As rival powers rise, Asia in particular is likely to emerge as a zone of great-power competition. Beijing’s economic rise has
enabled a dramatic military buildup focused on acquisitions of naval, cruise, and ballistic missiles, long-range stealth aircraft, and anti-satellite capabilities. China’s
strategic modernization is aimed, ultimately, at denying the United States access to the seas around China. Even as cooperative economic ties in the region have
grown, China’s expansive territorial claims — and provocative statements and actions following crises in Korea and incidents at sea — have roiled its relations with
South Korea, Japan, India, and Southeast Asian states. Still, the United States is the most significant barrier facing Chinese hegemony and aggression.¶ Given
the risks, the United States must focus on restoring its economic and fiscal condition while checking and
managing the rise of potential adversarial regional powers such as China. While we face significant challenges, the U.S.
economy still accounts for over 20 percent of the world’s GDP. American institutions — particularly those providing enforceable rule of law — set it apart from all
the rising powers. Social cohesion underwrites political stability. U.S. demographic trends are healthier than those of any other developed country. A culture of
innovation, excellent institutions of higher education, and a vital sector of small and medium-sized enterprises propel the U.S. economy in ways difficult to quantify.
Historically, Americans have responded pragmatically, and sometimes through trial and error, to work our way through the kind of crisis that we face today. ¶ The
policy question is how to enhance economic growth and employment while cutting discretionary spending in the near term and curbing the growth of entitlement
spending in the out years. Republican members of Congress have outlined a plan. Several think tanks and commissions, including President Obama’s debt
commission, have done so as well. Some consensus exists on measures to pare back the recent increases in domestic spending, restrain future growth in defense
spending, and reform the tax code (by reducing tax expenditures while lowering individual and corporate rates). These are promising options. ¶ The key remaining
question is whether the president and leaders of both parties on Capitol Hill have the will to act and the skill to fashion bipartisan solutions. Whether we take the
needed actions is a choice, however difficult it might be. It is clearly within our capacity to put our economy on a better trajectory. In garnering political support for
cutbacks, the president and members of Congress should point not only to the domestic consequences of inaction — but also to the geopolitical implications. ¶ As
the United States gets its economic and fiscal house in order, it should take steps to prevent a flare-up in Asia. The United States can do so by signaling that its
domestic challenges will not impede its intentions to check Chinese expansionism. This can be done in cost-efficient ways.¶ While China’s economic rise enables its
military modernization and international assertiveness, it also frightens rival powers. The Obama administration has wisely moved to strengthen relations with allies
and potential partners in the region but more can be done.¶ Some Chinese policies encourage other parties to join with the United States, and the U.S. should not
let these opportunities pass. China’s military assertiveness should enable security cooperation with countries on China’s periphery — particularly Japan, India, and
Vietnam — in ways that complicate Beijing’s strategic calculus. China’s mercantilist policies and currency manipulation — which harm developing states both in East
Asia and elsewhere — should be used to fashion a coalition in favor of a more balanced trade system. Since Beijing’s over-the-top reaction to the awarding of the
Nobel Peace Prize to a Chinese democracy activist alienated European leaders, highlighting human-rights questions would not only draw supporters from nearby
countries but also embolden reformers within China. ¶ Since
the end of the Cold War, a stable economic and financial
condition at home has enabled America to have an expansive role in the world. Today we can no
longer take this for granted. Unless we get our economic house in order, there is a risk that domestic
stagnation in combination with the rise of rival powers will undermine our ability to deal with growing
international problems. Regional hegemons in Asia could seize the moment, leading the world toward
a new, dangerous era of multi-polarity .
AT Alt Causes
AT Steel not Produced in US
Buy America provisions mean steel is produced in the US
Department of Transportation 10 (Current list of provisions of the Buy America Act, 14 December 2010,
http://www.dot.gov/buyamerica/buy_america_.pdf)
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, Section 1605 – Buy American (100% Domestic Content of items below)
Buy American The Recovery Act prohibits use of recovery funds for a project for the construction, alteration, maintenance, or
repair of a public building or public work unless all of the iron, steel, and manufactured goods used in the project
are produced in the United States. Waivers The head of the Federal department or agency finds that: (1) It would be inconsistent
with the public interest; (2) Iron, steel, and the relevant manufactured goods are not produced in the United States in sufficient and reasonably
available quantities and of a satisfactory quality; or (3) Inclusion of iron, steel, or manufactured goods produced in the United States will
increase the cost of the overall project by more than 25 percent. Other There are provisions in the Recovery Act for the Federal Aviation
Administration, Federal Transit Administration, Federal Railroad Administration, and Federal Highway Administration to apply their own grant
requirements, including Buy America(n). All waivers have to be posted in Federal Register. U.S. international obligations (World Trade
Organization Government Procurement Agreement, U.S. Free Trade Agreements, U.S.-EC Exchange of Letters [May 15, 1995], and Canada-U.S.
Agreement on Government Procurement) apply. Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA) 49 U.S.C. § 50101 – Buy American (see
discretionary waiver when 60% Domestic Content of items below) Buy American The FAA will not obligate any funds authorized
to be appropriated for any project unless steel and manufactured products used in such projects are
produced in the United States. Waivers The Administrator has delegated authority to grant waivers to this requirement to Director
of Acquisition and Contracting; Regional Administrators; and Center Directors upon finding that compliance with the Act would: (1) It would be
inconsistent with the public interest; (2) The steel and goods produced in the United States are not produced in a sufficient and reasonably
available amount or are not of a satisfactory quality; (3) When procuring a facility or equipment under the Airport and Airway Improvement Act
of 1982: (A) the cost of components and subcomponents produced in the United States is more than 60 percent of the cost of all components
of the facility or equipment; and (B) final assembly of the facility or equipment has occurred in the United States; or (4) Including domestic
material will increase the cost of the overall project by more than 25 percent. Other Labor costs involved in final assembly are not included in
calculating the cost of components. U.S. international obligations (World Trade Organization Government Procurement Agreement, U.S. Free
Trade Agreements, U.S.-EC Exchange of Letters [May 15, 1995], and Canada-U.S. Agreement on Government Procurement) do not apply.
Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) 23 U.S.C. § 313 – Buy America; 23 C.F.R. § 635.410 (100% Domestic Content of items
below) Buy America The Secretary of Transportation shall not obligate any funds unless steel, iron, and
manufactured products used in such project are produced in the United States. Applies to iron and
steel products and their coatings that are to be permanently incorporated into the project. The FHWA, in
its 1983 rulemaking, determined that Buy America did not apply to raw materials and waived its application to manufactured products,
although in the statute, based on the public interest. Lack of adequate domestic supply resulted in a 1995 nationwide waiver for iron ore, pig
iron, and reduced/processed/pelletized iron ore. In 1994, a nationwide waiver for specific ferryboat parts came into effect. Waivers The
Secretary of Transportation may waive the requirement if the Secretary finds that: (1) It would be inconsistent with the public interest; (2) Such
materials and products are not produced in the United States in sufficient and reasonably available quantities and of a satisfactory quality; or
(3) Inclusion of domestic material will increase the cost of the overall project contract by more than 25 percent (this is a standing waiver
codified in regulations when alternate bidding procedures are used). Other Labor costs involved in final assembly are not included in calculating
the cost of components. All waivers have to be posted in Federal Register. All proposed waivers are first posted on the FHWA’s website for a
15-day comment period prior to publishing the final decision in the Federal Register. U.S. international obligations (World Trade Organization
Government Procurement Agreement, U.S. Free Trade Agreements, U.S.-EC Exchange of Letters [May 15, 1995], and Canada-U.S. Agreement
on Government Procurement) do not apply. Federal
Railroad Administration (FRA) High Speed Rail Program 49 U.S.C. Chapters
244, 246; § 24405 – Buy America (100% Domestic Content of items below) Buy America The Secretary of Transportation may obligate
funds for a project only if the steel, iron, and manufactured goods used in the project are produced in
the United States. Waivers The Secretary of Transportation may waive the requirement if the Secretary finds that: (1) It would be
inconsistent with the public interest; (2) The steel, iron, and goods produced in the United States are not produced in a sufficient and
reasonably available amount or are not of a satisfactory quality; (3) Rolling stock or power train equipment cannot be bought and delivered in
the United States within a reasonable time; or (4) Including domestic material will increase the cost of the overall project by more than 25
percent. Other The requirements only apply to projects for which the costs exceed $100,000. Labor costs involved in final assembly are not
included in calculating the cost of components. All waivers have to be posted in Federal Register. U.S. international obligations (World Trade
Organization Government Procurement Agreement, U.S. Free Trade Agreements, U.S.-EC Exchange of Letters [May 15, 1995], and Canada-U.S.
Agreement on Government Procurement) do not apply. National
Railroad Passenger Corporation (AMTRAK) 49 U.S.C. §
24305 Domestic Buying Preferences Amtrak shall buy only: (A) unmanufactured articles, material, and supplies
mined or produced in the United States; or (B) manufactured articles, material, and supplies
manufactured in the United States substantially from articles, material, and supplies mined,
produced, or manufactured in the United States. Waivers The Secretary may exempt Amtrak from this subsection if the
Secretary decides that: (A) for particular articles, material, or supplies-(i) the requirements are inconsistent with the public interest; (ii) the cost
of imposing those requirements is unreasonable; or (iii) the articles, material, or supplies, or the articles, material, or supplies from which they
are manufactured, are not mined, produced, or manufactured in the United States in sufficient and reasonably available commercial quantities
and are not of a satisfactory quality; or (B) rolling stock or power train equipment cannot be bought and delivered in the United States within a
reasonable time. Other The requirements apply only when the cost of those articles, material, or supplies bought is at least $1 million.
Federal Transit Administration (FTA) 49 U.S.C. § 5323(j); 49 C.F.R. Part 661 (Buy America Requirements); (See 60% Domestic
Content for buses and other Rolling Stock) Buy America No funds may be obligated by FTA for a grantee project unless
all iron, steel, and manufactured products used in the project are produced in the United States. Waivers
The Administrator may waive the general requirements if the Administrator finds that: (1) It would be inconsistent with the public interest; (2)
The materials for which a waiver is requested are not produced in the United States in sufficient and reasonably available quantities and of a
satisfactory quality; (3) The inclusion of a domestic item or domestic material will increase the cost of the contract between the grantee and its
supplier of that item or material by more than 25 percent. Rolling stock procurements (a) The Buy America prov isions do not apply to the
procurement of buses and other rolling stock (including train control, communication, and traction power equipment), if the cost of
components produced in the United States is more than 60 percent of the cost of all components and final assembly takes place in the United
States. Other Labor costs involved in final assembly are not included in calculating the cost of components. Post only “public interest” waivers
in Federal Register. U.S. international obligations (World Trade Organization Government Procurement Agreement, U.S. Free Trade
Agreements, U.S.-EC Exchange of Letters [May 15, 1995], and Canada-U.S. Agreement on Government Procurement) do not apply.
AT Causes Pollution
Cars are more efficient
Levinson 10 (Economic Development Impacts of High-speed rail David Levinson May 27, 2010 RP
Braun-CTS Chair of Transportation Engineering; Director of Network, Economics, and Urban Systems
Research Group; University of Minnesota, Department of Civil Engineering,
http://nexus.umn.edu/Papers/EconomicDevelopmentImpactsOfHSR.pdf) CS
That said, remember that real HSR (not the short term improvements to get to 90 or l 10 MPH. which may or may not be a good thing, but are
certainly not HSR) is a long term deployment, so it needs to be compared with cars I0 or 20 or 30 years hence, and the air transportation system
over the same period. Cars
are getting better from both an environmental perspective and from the
perspective of automation technologies. The DARPA Urban Challenge vehicles need to be bested to justify HSR. Cars driven
by computers. which while sounding far off is technologically quite near, should be able to attain relatively high speeds
(though certainly not HSR speeds in mixed traffic). Further they may move less material per passenger than HSR (trains are heavy), and so
may net less environmental impact if electrically powered. Aviation is improving as well, both in terms of its
environmental impacts and its efficiency. Socially-constructed problems like aviation security or congestion can be solved for far less money
than is required for any one high-speed rail line.
Growing efficiency now
WSJ 12 Wall Street Journal PRESS RELEASE June 21, 2012, 8:28 a.m. EDT Environmental and Energy Experts Laud New Auto Enthusiast
Website CarsOfChange.com http://www.marketwatch.com/story/environmental-and-energy-experts-laud-new-auto-enthusiast-websitecarsofchangecom-2012-06-21
"The
American public is embracing fuel efficiency and the auto industry is responding with new
technologies and new vehicles that use less gas, or get us there oil-free," says Ann Mesnikoff, director of the Sierra
Club's Green Transportation Campaign. "Cars of Change(TM) is the right resource at the right time to help Americans understand these
changes, and to help navigate these changes and make decisions about the best vehicles." Roland Hwang, Transportation Program Director for
the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), adds: "For too long the auto industry and environmentalists have been at loggerheads. But
the U.S. auto industry has become an agent of change for fuel efficiency and clean cars. We have
an unprecedented opportunity to work together to keep this country moving forward on innovation,
jobs, and a cleaner, healthier environment. CarsOfChange.com(TM) can play an important role in conveying how this process
today,
is unfolding through the cars, the technologies, and the dialogues it features."
Fuel efficiency now-- innovation
Chappell 12 Lindsay Chappell, Automotive News, US automotive industry seeks fuel-saving technologies Posted 12 June 2012
http://www.prw.com/subscriber/headlines2.html?cat=1&id=1014
The US auto industry has signed on to proposed federal mandates to dramatically improve vehicle fuel
economy. But for automakers to meet new standards, some technologies will have to be invented. “The auto
industry has agreed to meet targets that we don’t know how we’re going to meet,” said Tom Baloga, vice president of
engineering at BMW of North America. “We’re ready to make commitments to tough goals. What we need is time
and we need certainty.” The Obama administration, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration have widespread industry support for requiring nominal fleet averages of 54.5 mpg in 2026. (Because of various exceptions and
credits, the real-world average likely will be in the low 40s.) Current rules require a 2012 model year industry average of 29.7 mpg. “To
reach those numbers, there is technology that is going to have to be invented,” Baloga said. Already used
extensively are turbochargers, multispeed transmissions and aerodynamic improvements. But new technologies are in the works,
and automakers are betting on a few that seem plausible.
AT Alt Causes: Global Econ
Auto industry improving globally
Bastian 11 (Linda, "The U.S. Auto Industry is Jumpstarting the Manufacturing Sector," November
2011, http://www.areadevelopment.com/Automotive/November2011/auto-industry-backshoringsparks-manufacturing-0003211.shtml)
"Despite the woes you hear, the meltdown and uncertainty, the auto industry in the United States - and
globally - is doing pretty well right now," he noted. "For whatever reason, sales are decent in the 'New Normal/ but
nowhere near where they were four years ago. However, Detroit automakers are now profiting due to
restructuring. They closed a lot of factories due to the 2008 sales collapse when the credit markets closed. But now, with more
competitive labor agreements, it makes sense for them to build more in the United States, retool and
refurbish existing plants, and insource work now that labor rates are under control." Domestic Automakers on a Roll For example, in
July, GM announced that its powertrain plants in Ohio and Indiana would get the bulk of a $129 million investment. The plants
produce transmissions for Buick and Chevrolet models that incorporate eAssist fuel-saving technology. The monies are part of GM's
$2 billion investment in 17 facilities in eight states that are expected to create or retain 4,000 jobs. GM also broke ground on its $331
million expansion of its Arlington, Texas, assembly plant in October. The facility will make future Chevrolet Tahoes, Suburbans, GMC
Yukons, and Cadillac Escalades. When completed, the company could add 100 jobs to the plant's 2,500-plus positions. Recently,
GM's CEO Dan Akerson told Automotive News that he predicts flat industrywide U.S. auto sales in 2012. However, he believes the
company can continue to be prosperous due to a low break-even point that came about in part by its new UAW labor contract. The
newspaper also reported that GM told analysts it can turn a profit at a 10.5 million-unit U.S. sales pace, which is at least 16 percent
under the sale volume number Akerson anticipates next year. And in mid-October, Chrysler reached a tentative labor agreement
with the United Auto Workers (UAW). The accord would add 2,100 jobs and includes $4.5 billion of plant investments that,
according to the union, will produce new models plus upgraded vehicles and components by 2015. In particular, it has been reported
that three plants in southeast Michigan could attract over $1.2 billion in investment and 250 new jobs, in addition to nearly 2,800
jobs retained. More good news: If the tentative Ford/UAW agreement goes into effect, plans call for the manufacturer to add a third
shift - and 1,100 jobs - to its Chicago assembly plant in 2012. Also, over the next four years, 900 jobs are expected to be added to
that facility as well as to Ford's Chicago Heights stamping plant. The sputtering economy is even supporting a fairly new "green"
American car company: McLean, Virginia-based GreenTech Automotive plans to build a Mississippi assembly plant to produce hybrid
and electric cars. In August, it announced a joint venture deal allowing it to produce/sell its "green" cars in China. In September, it
announced the plant had successfully completed the certification process to export cars to Europe. Foreign Vehicle
Manufacturers Continue to Invest However, it's not only American auto manufacturers that are cautiously preparing
for the industry to rebound here and abroad. The "new reality" of industry prosperity also extends to
foreign vehicle manufacturers with operations in the United States, as well as to countless suppliers to
the automakers that reside near them in bulging clusters. The majority of this activity is taking place in two regions: the Midwest and
the South/Southwest. McElroy noted that - for at least a decade - America
has been quite an attractive place for
foreign companies to manufacture vehicles. Besides providing market proximity, America provides the
foreign automakers with "very good infrastructure," a dollar that has "weakened tremendously" against the yen
and other foreign currencies, and a highly trained and motivated work force. That's why foreign automakers from Europe, Korea,
and Japan "have all established operations in the United States - overwhelmingly in right-to-work states..." Clearly, non- American au
to /truck manufacturers are finding that "now"
is the perfect time to invest in the United States in
preparation for anticipated industry growth, sales, and success. For example, U.S. production of the 2012 Kia
Optima began in September at Kia's manufacturing plant in West Point, Georgia, after the completion of numerous expansions. The
company had recently added a third shift that raised the total jobs created at the plant to over 3,000. That same month - after being
operational for just a few months - Volkswagen's Chattanooga, Tennessee, assembly plant announced its 10,000th Passat had rolled
off its assembly line. Toyota said it would begin rolling out its first Corolla vehicles this fall from its new Blue Springs, Mississippi,
manufacturing facility - the carmaker's 10th U.S. plant. It's estimated the facility will eventually create 2,000 jobs. In September, the
company began four-cylinder engine production at its TMMAL (Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Alabama, Inc.) plant in Huntsville,
Alabama, where V6 and V8 engines also are made. It was reported that the additional production increased plant employment to
almost 1,000 workers and total investment to $637 million. Combined annual production for all three engines will total about
500,000 units. Recently BMW announced plans to hire 100 new professionals for jobs at its Spartanburg County, South Carolina,
facility. BMW expects to increase production capacity there to 240,000 units by 2012. In 2008 the automaker had said it would
invest $750 million for a 1.5-million-squarefoot expansion and create 500 more jobs on top of its 7,000-person work force. The
German company currently supports over 23,000 jobs in South Carolina and generates $1.2 billion annually in wages/salaries.
According to a 2008 university study, each BMW job has a multiplier of 4.3, and the company's economic impact for the state is
pegged at $8.88 billion. And earlier this year, Nissan announced it would create about 300 jobs at its Canton, Ohio, plant for
production of its Xterra SUV and Frontier pickup models. Carlos Tavares, chairman of Nissan Americas said that by 2015, 85 percent
of Nissan and Infiniti vehicles sold in the Americas would be built on U.S. sou, up from the current 69 percent. Indeed, ramping
up manufacturing capacity is one big trend now seen in the auto industry, pointed out McElroy. And
while experts predict more plants will be built in the next decade, McElroy predicts they won't be proliferating as much as they are
now. Supplier Side Gains Traction On the supplier side, McElroy said some of those auto-industry companies "are giant,
doing tens of billions of dollars in sales with tens of thousands of employees." Like the automakers, they too have all been doing
extremely well. "A lot of them went out of business in the last downturn or consolidated. But those companies that survived the
huge turmoil are
in pretty good positions right now," he explained. "They're also investing millions into
U.S. manufacturing facilities and technical centers. For example, Japanese company Denso and two German
supplier firms - Continental and Bosch's auto division - all have a presence in Detroit as well as in the U.S. South/Southeast." The
Midwest, in particular, continues to experience a major uptick in investments in auto technical facilities. "In the last decade, Toyota,
Nissan, Hyundai, and Kia have put big tech centers in Michigan," McElroy said. "And despite all the problems in the auto industry,
there is no greater collection in the world of automobile people, resources, and facilities than in this sta te... The Japanese and
Koreans all want to tap into that expertise. Honda has huge facilities [nearby] in Ohio and Indiana, for example."
AT Alt Causes: Oil
Oil prices low
Associated Press 7/28 ("Low energy prices hurt oil firms, 7/28/12, Daily News,
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/low-energy-prices-hurt-oilfirms.aspx?pageID=238&nID=26417&NewsCatID=348)
Global oil prices fall more than 40 percent The company’s sales fell to $117.1 billion from $121.2 billion a year ago. The main
reason for the fall was lower oil prices: prices are down more than 40 percent from the second quarter of 2011. At Shell’s
production arm, earnings fell 23 percent to $4.69 billion from $6.06 billion. The company’s shares were down 3.7 percent at ?26.875 in
Amsterdam. “Maintenance and outage issues have put pressure on the upstream business, whilst the deterioration in the oil price of late has
weakened profitability,” said analyst Keith Bowman of Hargreaves Landsdown in London. “At a time when investors are looking towards blue
chip reliability, the disappointment contained in the headline figures is palpable.” He said Shell remains his favorite pick in the sector. At Shell’s
“downstream” operations, which include refining and chemical sales, the company’s performance improved 20 percent to $1.3 billion,
excluding the impact of asset sales. Spanish energy company Repsol, meanwhile, says its second quarter net profits fell 45 percent from the
same period of 2011 to 274 million euros ($332 million), still due in the effect of lower oil prices on the value of its inventories. Repsol said
yesterday this figure does not include earnings at YPF, its former Argentine unit nationalized by the Argentine government in May, Repsol said
that for the first half of the year its profits were down 14.6 percent to 903 million euros. It calculated the effect of oil prices on its inventory
value at 328 million euros. Repsol said that, measured at current cost of supply and excluding the inventory effect, net income for the first half
of 2012 rose 3.1 percent to 894 million euros. Repsol shares were up about 0.4 percent at 11 euros in early trading. Oil
prices fell
yesterday in Asia after U.S. crude inventories swelled and a slowdown in South Korea’s economy
underlined that growth in demand for fuel could remain subdued. Benchmark crude for September delivery was
down 60 cents at $88.37 a barrel at midafternoon Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract added
47 cents to settle at $88.97 in New York on July 25.
AT Oil Lobbies
Oil lobbies weak-- Keystone proves
Tapper et al 12 (Jake Tapper, Kirit Radia, John Parkinson, Devin Dwyer, Staff Writers, Jan. 18, 2012,
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/president-obama-rejects-keystone-xlpipeline/story?id=15387980#.T-4peuZOxJM “President Obama Rejects Keystone XL Pipeline”)
The Obama administration today formally rejected a bid by Canadian energy company TransCanada to build a $7
billion oil pipeline linking the tar sands of Alberta to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. The Keystone XL
project, which was estimated to create thousands of U.S. jobs, became an election-year lightning rod,
embroiling President Obama, congressional Republicans, labor unions and interest groups in a heated
debate over jobs and the environment. The State Department, which holds the authority to approve or reject pipelines that
cross an international boundary, said in November that it would delay a decision on Keystone to allow for further study of the environmental
impact along its 1,700-mile route. Then in December, Congress tried to force the president to make a decision proposal within two months,
tucking the mandate into the payroll tax cut bill that Obama ultimately signed into law. But the president said today in a statement that the
congressionally imposed deadline did not provide adequate time for the State Department to finish a customary review of the pipeline's route
through six states. "The
rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans prevented a
full assessment of the pipeline's impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as
well as our environment," Obama said. "As a result, the secretary of state has recommended that the application be denied. And after
reviewing the State Department's report, I agree." Administration officials say the decision effectively hits the reset button on a review process
that has been underway for several years, but does not preclude TransCanada from resubmitting a proposal for reconsideration. "While we are
disappointed, TransCanada remains fully committed to the construction of Keystone XL," TransCanada president and CEO Russ Girling said in a
statement. "Plans are already underway on a number of fronts to largely maintain the construction schedule of the project. We will re-apply for
a Presidential Permit and expect a new application would be processed in an expedited manner to allow for an in-service date of late 2014," he
said. Labor
unions, oil industry groups -- even the president's jobs council -- have signaled support for
the plan, which also has bipartisan backing on Capitol Hill. But environmental groups warned it would have a
dangerous effect on ecosystems and human health, ratcheting up pressure on Obama to defer to his
progressive base in an election year. "This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary
nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the
American people," Obama said. Still, news of the rejection quickly sparked condemnation from members of Congress on both sides of the aisle.
House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, who has said pipeline construction would "create 100,000 new jobs," chastised the president and said
delaying the deal means Canadians may do business with China instead. "The president has said he'll do anything that he can to create jobs.
Today that promise was broken," Boehner continued. "The president won't stand up to his political base, even in the name of creating
American jobs." Rep. Joe Donnelly, a Democrat from Indiana, said he is "very disappointed" in the Obama decision. "They are missing an
opportunity to create thousands of jobs in America," he said. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi defended Obama, blaming Republicans for
effectively tying the administration's hands. "If the Republicans cared so much about the Keystone pipeline, they would not have narrowed the
president's options by putting it on the time frame that they did," Pelosi, D-Calif., said. Meanwhile,
environmental groups
claimed victory over the oil industry, which had spent millions lobbying intensely for approval of the
pipeline. "The Keystone XL fight was David versus Goliath; no one thought we could win," said Dan
Moglen of Friends of the Earth. The decision shows "sustained grassroots pressure aimed at holding the president accountable to
the public interest proved more powerful than all the lobbyists the oil industry could muster."
Link: Elections
Cars k2 Ohio
Auto industry key to Ohio
USA Today 7/5 ("Obama to stress auto bailout in Ohio," 7/5/12,
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2012/07/obama-to-stress-auto-bailout-inohio/1#.UBC27bSdZ2A) CS
Michigan isn't the only state where the car industry is big. Northern Ohio is loaded with auto suppliers -- and their voting
employees -- and that is why President Obama plans to stress the auto industry bailout during his bus trip today
through the region. As part of that pitch, Obama plans to announce that his administration is filing a complaint
with the World Trade Organization over Chinese import duties on some U.S. cars.
Manufacturing Popular
Manufacturing key to election
Bennish 11 (Steve, "Manufacturing seen key to saving economy," 7/18/11,
http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/world/manufacturing-seen-key-to-savingeconomy/nMtR8/)
“This poll is a stark reminder that while official Washington goes back and forth in our newest crisis, Americans still feel no one is
focusing on the real problems that matter to them: losing jobs, losing our manufacturing base, and the
decline of our position in the world,” said Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a labor/management group
that includes U.S. Steel and other companies in the strategic steel industry, and the United Steelworkers. The study included eight focus groups
nationwide, along with a random national survey of 1,202 likely voters. It found that across the spectrum, Democratic
and
Republican voters ranked job creation and rebuilding the nation’s manufacturing base at the top of
their list of priorities, the Alliance said. When asked to select the most important task for Congress and the
president, “creating new manufacturing jobs,” which ranked just below creating jobs more generally, saw a bigger gain
from 2010 (up 9 percent) than any other option, including deficit reduction, lower government spending, immigration reform, or
addressing health care. “Voters see manufacturing as the key to recovery, and though it may surprise some pundits, this is
the clear message from every voting demographic, including Tea Party and Republican voters,” Paul said. Alan H. McCoy, vice president,
Government & Public Relations for AK Steel, said the company, which is based in Butler County’s West Chester Twp., agrees that manufacturing
is key to the economic health of the state.
Automobility Good
Reject The Team
The car is necessary for freedom – their demonization risks societal collapse – only by
rejecting the team can we ensure future freedom
Sam Kazman, 29 September 2005, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
“Automobility and Freedom”,
http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/legitimate_government/automobility_and_freedom_20050
930137/
To re-legitimize the car means to make people recognize, once again, that it is a moral product. At CEI,
we joke that people in the auto and oil industries tend to feel more ashamed of their products than
heroin producers. They rarely tout the nature of automobility; they rarely run messages saying "It's a
great day for a drive." Why? Because to do so would be to encourage the gratuitous consumption of
allegedly dwindling resources.
So what is the industry doing? Worse than nothing. 1996 was declared to be the centennial of the car in
the United States. Detroit ran ads showing polls of people saying their car was more important than
their refrigerator and their hairdryer. Persuasive? Not one bit. Yet 1996 could have been an incredible
opportunity; it wasn't just the centennial of the car, it was also the fortieth anniversary of the
Montgomery bus boycott. Yet the industry, which could have publicized that historical connection, did
not say a word about it.
Not all businesses are this timid. The pharmaceutical industry has some wonderful ads about what
pharmaceuticals mean to life, and so does the steel industry. In terms of legitimizing energy, General
Electric used to have an absolutely beautiful commercial that starts with a child's hand turning on a light
switch; in space of 55 seconds, the ad then traces a chain of energy that runs from her home to jet
engines to hospitals to baseball games to trains to auto plants, then back to her home as the light goes
out and she's put to bed. CEI produced (on a much lower budget) its own public service spot, using the
theme of "Why not let there be light?" But you rarely see anything like this from the auto industry.
Instead, you have things like Ford Motor Company becoming the exclusive sponsor of Time magazine's
Earth Day issue.
Let me give you a thought experiment on how important re-legitimization is. Imagine taking a video
camera to someone stopped at a red light in a big empty car; the driver is the only person there. Stick
the video camera in his face and ask: "Was this trip really necessary? Couldn't you have carpooled?
Couldn't you have waited until you had several chores instead of zipping down the road to pick up a sixpack of soda?" I think in most cities you will get a semi-apologetic response. "Yeah, you're right. I guess
I'll try harder next time." Now suppose instead that you go to a Borders or a Barnes and Noble megabookstore. Take your video camera to the check-out line, to someone buying half a dozen paperbacks,
and ask: "Do you know how many trees died for the paper in those books, how many streams will be
polluted by the ink? Did you see whether your library has those books? Whether your neighbor has
them?" I think you'll get a totally different reaction. It will be along the lines of "get out of my face and
get out of my life." Why? Because people view reading as an inherently moral activity, and they're right.
To read is to become a better person. Cars, on the other hand, are viewed differently. They may be a
great convenience, but they are semi-sinful.
There is something wrong about that attitude. The challenge for the auto industry is to put cars on the
same moral plane as the book. The challenge is declare that cars have been instrumental in creating a
valued way of life for us, and that there is absolutely nothing wrong with bringing that way of life to two
billion Chinese.
What has been going on over the last decade and a half, in terms of the way industries are attacked,
involves the "demon-ization" of industry. It began with the tobacco industry. Today you can find
environmentalist documents that explicitly discuss the aim of putting the auto industry on the same
track that the tobacco industry was on twenty years ago—namely, headed for disaster but with no
understanding of what is coming. I am not going to make any apologies for the tobacco industry; I think
there is a real question as to whether, before warning labels appeared in the mid-1960s, that industry
wasn't misleading people for at least some period of time. But the point is that the industry
demonization approach has proven incredibly effective.
Inevitable And Ethical
Automobility inevitable and good – anything else is un-ethical
Justin Good, Cummings & Good Design, This essay was presented at the International Society for
Universal Dialogue Sixth World Congress, NO DATE, “Ecology, Freedom and Automobility”,
www.engr.uconn.edu/.../Automobility%20Justin%20Good.doc
The experience of driving is an experience of liberation most obviously because of the connection
between being free and being mobile and self-directed. These connections are rooted deeply in our
biology and our concept of freedom as autonomy, or self-rule. At the most primal level, automobility
answers to the same biological impulse that drives a crawling infant across the floor . Any technology
which satisfies a biologically-predisposed interest of ours is going to be felt as liberating. The interest
is related to the kinetic pleasure we feel in speeding down the highway, and the feeling of power and
control that operating a car can give. More importantly, the mobility which cars enhance illustrates our
concept of freedom as autonomy due to the ways in which cars give us new choices and options for
movement. In a defense of automobility as an intrinsic ethical good , Loren Lomasky argues that
automobility essentially complements human autonomy : In the latter part of the twentieth century,
being a self-mover entails, to a significant extent, being a motorist. Because we have cars we can,
more than any other people in history, choose where we will live and where we will work, and separate
these choices from each other. We can more easily avail ourselves of near and distant pleasures, at a
scheduled tailored to individual preferences. In our choice of friends and associates, we are less
constrained by accidents of geographical proximity. In our comings and goings, we depend less on the
concurrence of others.
Hegemony Impact Turn
Rejecting the automobile rejects hegemony
Courtney Herda, Yahoo! Contributor Network, Oct. 9, 2007, “The Double Edged Sword of Hegemony”,
http://voices.yahoo.com/the-double-edged-sword-hegemony-582739.html
The automobile and Henry Ford are synonymous with the " America n dream" and American mass
production and consumerism. The French film La Belle Americaine features as its heroine a General
Motors automobile, " symbolizing the prosperity of the French people and the commonplace
identification of Americanization with automobiles." (Kuisel 103) Cars represented the assembly line, an
American development that, to the French, seemed to have both positive and negative attributes.
While the technology boomed and efficiency grew by leaps and bounds, the individual, human spirit was
lost; this dichotomy was reflected in French attitudes at the time toward Americanization. Just as the
car was a symbol of mechanization, the car was also a symbol of growing French prosperity under
American influence and the loss of their purely "French" culture to Americanization. "The total stock
of privately owned automobiles more than doubled between 1951 and 1958 and half these cars were
new; by 1958 there was one car for every seven French citizens." (Kuisel 104) While the French bought
new cars en masse, American hegemony was still viewed as a menace. Los Angeles, the caricature of
America, was "captivated by the network of highways, the tens of thousands of cars moving from
suburb to work, and the ubiquitous Cadillacs." (Kuisel 112) The pervasive dichotomy of hatred for
Americanization and acceptance of the rising level of technology and standard of living illustrated the
way the French viewed automobiles. For the most part, acceptance of Americanization seemed to be
centered around an acceptance of the benefits, the luxuries and technology of a consumer-driven
world, and an outright rejection, at least on the surface, of the aspects of Americanization that
seemed to mar their heightened sense of culture.
Freedom Turn
Their rejection of the car is a rejection of freedom – the most important challenge
facing human kind is legitimizing the car – if we win their K is wrong you should vote
for us in order to prevent future villainous attacks on freedom
Sam Kazman, 29 September 2005, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
“Automobility and Freedom”,
http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/legitimate_government/automobility_and_freedom_20050
930137/
The basic challenge today is re-legitimizing the car, establishing a moral basis for its defense. About five
years ago, CEI asked Loren Lomasky, a philosophy professor at Bowling Green State University in Ohio,
to do a monograph on the car. We did not want a Chamber-of-Commerce-type defense of the car; we
didn't want statistics on car sales or car-related jobs or the auto industry's contribution to gross
domestic product. After all, a heroin producer could say the same things about contributing to the
economy, but that wouldn't do much for legitimizing his work. What we wanted was an ethical defense
of a car. And Professor Lomasky produced a very fine monograph, which is available on CEI's web site.
Basically, he concluded that the car is one of the three most liberating technologies ever developed (the
other two being the printing press and the microchip). It is one of the technologies that has most
enhanced our ability to engaged in the fundamental human attribute of self-directed action.
Detroit did more for freedom then your socialism will ever do
Sam Kazman, 29 September 2005, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
“Automobility and Freedom”,
http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/legitimate_government/automobility_and_freedom_20050
930137/
Lastly, the automobile vastly expands your range of economic opportunities. Throughout most of
history, where you lived was pretty much where you worked. That changed somewhat with the
Industrial Revolution; the question then became: Where could you move to in order to work and live?
But only with the car was there a true disaggregation of the two. With the car, working in one place still
left you free to live in a huge range of other places. And if you lost a job in one place, you no longer had
to pull up roots and move. Being able to choose where we live is incredibly important, because in large
part we are choosing who most of our friends are going to be. Professor Lomasky concludes that Detroit
did more to liberate and dignify labor than all of the Socialist Internationals combined.
Ruralism Turn
Only the car allows for appreciation of farms and what it means to be rural
Sam Kazman, 29 September 2005, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
“Automobility and Freedom”,
http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/legitimate_government/automobility_and_freedom_20050
930137/
The car's connection to freedom of physical motion may seem obvious, but Professor Lomasky examines
its less obvious contribution to several other aspects as well.
One of these in involves knowledge. Philosophers sometimes distinguish between knowledge by
description and knowledge by acquaintance. Knowledge by description is what you learn from reading,
knowledge by acquaintance is what you learn from experience. You can do all the reading you want
about Chicago, you can read everything you want about it, and maybe view everything on the Web. But
if you tell someone, "I really know Chicago," and they ask, "Have ever been there," and you say no, it is
clear that you've been pulling their leg. Much knowledge, especially of actual locales, is acquired by
going and seeing. For intermediate ranges, even for some very long distances, nothing exceeds the
ability of a car to allow a person to do that. When it comes to your city, the outlying areas, the farms
within a day's trip, nothing enables you to know them like the car. There may be exceptions, such as the
densely populated core areas of certain cities where you might learn far more by walking, but for most
of the world, at least the paved world, the best way is going to be the car.
Another liberating aspect of the car involves the issue of privacy. When you get into your car and close
the door, you have incredible control over your environment, such as what you listen to and whom, if
anyone, you're with. It may well exceed the bathroom as a privacy-enhancing chamber of twentiethcentury life.
But the car also allows people to achieve privacy in another way. The dense, urban lifestyle is something
that a lot of people do not like, and quite often that includes immigrants to this country who have left
precisely that style of life. There is a wonderful book by Joel Garreau called Edge City (1991), in which he
interviewed some immigrants from India who were living way out in the boondocks of a Houston
suburb. Why was there an Indian community out there? You might think that Indians are accustomed to
density. But that's just it; as one immigrant explains, in India you have no privacy. There is no such thing,
because you live in a house with thirty family members. So when you get your first taste of privacy in the
United States, it becomes very, very precious.
Inequality Turn
The car is crucial to equality – it provides mobility which would otherwise be
monopolized by the aristocracy
Sam Kazman, 29 September 2005, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
“Automobility and Freedom”,
http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/legitimate_government/automobility_and_freedom_20050
930137/
A century and a half ago, the legal scholar Sir Henry Maine observed that the evolution of human society
was a movement from a society of status towards a society of contract. In traditional society, what you
were depended on the circumstances of your birth. Born a serf, you remained a serf all your life. Born an
aristocrat, you remained an aristocrat all your life. Modern society, however, is a society of contract, in
which what you can become depends upon what you can do. In a similar way, I think, much of our
recent history has involved not just evolutionary movement, but also literal movement. We've become a
society of far greater physical movement. Traditionally, for most people, where you lived depended
upon where you born. Aristocrats, of course, have always been able to get around, but that was a
freedom common people did not previously enjoy. What is new in this century, as a result of the
automobile, is that physical mobility has become accessible to just about everyone who is free.
Ethics Turn
The car is a special object – their kritik is just jealous of how ethical we are
Sam Kazman, 29 September 2005, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
“Automobility and Freedom”,
http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/legitimate_government/automobility_and_freedom_20050
930137/
My essential theme is that the car is just not another consumer item, and not just a very important
consumer item; rather, that it is something incredibly special, something that ranks with only a
handful of other technologies that can truly be said to have liberated mankind . In a sense, the car is
morally different from most other consumer goods. It has a major ethical dimension, and that is
something we are losing sight of. Moreover, it is this special moral feature that accounts for the
increasing barrage of ideological attacks on the car.
Democracy Turn
America liberated the world through the autmobility
Sam Kazman, 29 September 2005, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
“Automobility and Freedom”,
http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/legitimate_government/automobility_and_freedom_20050
930137/
Let me begin by offering some background. The car was invented in Europe, but it was democratized in
America. When Henry Ford introduced the Model T in 1909, it sold for $825. By 1925, it sold for only
$260. Europe was using a carriage-trade approach toward manufacturing cars, the same as it did with
horse-drawn carriages: a small group of men did everything. Consequently, in Europe, it took about
3,000 man-days to build one car. Once Henry Ford got going, it took 70 man-days. In Europe, therefore,
the car was a plaything of aristocrats. America made it something everyone could afford.
Environment Turn
Horses are net worse for the environment – we should worship the car
Sam Kazman, 29 September 2005, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
“Automobility and Freedom”,
http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/legitimate_government/automobility_and_freedom_20050
930137/
Second, remember what the car replaced—horses. You think cars are dirty in terms of what they emit?
A horse produces about forty-five pounds of manure per day. That's not all; in the late 1800s, New
York City was disposing of 15,000 horse carcasses a year. Now, it is one thing to find a rusted hulk of a
car on the roadside, but if you come upon a horse carcass, it is a different order of disgust. Then, too, if
early cars were unsafe, the things they replaced were even more unsafe. Horses were not a very safe
mode of transportation, and controlling them was especially a problem for women and the elderly.
Which brings me to a little side issue; the late political scientist Aaron Wildavsky observed that the
world is made safer by dangerous products. These products are dangerous, they have risks, but they
replace products that are even more dangerous. For all of the car's problems, what it replaced was a
very dangerous, very dirty type of transportation, which made cities, and especially the high-density
cores of cities, incredibly filthy places.
Biopolitics Turn
Attacks on the car are a worship of government control
P.J. O’Rourke is a correspondent for The Atlantic, the H.L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato
Institute, a contributor to magazines ranging from Rolling Stone to The American Spectator, Nov. 2009,
“Driven Crazy”, http://reason.com/archives/2009/11/03/driven-crazy
Why do politicians love trains? Because they can tell where the tracks go. They know where
everybody’s going. It’s all about control. It is all about power . Politics itself is nothing but an attempt
to achieve power and prestige without merit. That is the definition of politics. Politicians hate cars .
They have always hated cars, because cars make people free. Not only free in the sense that they can
go anywhere they want, which bugs politicians in the first place, but they can move out of the political
district that the politician represents.
Capitalism Turn
Their kritik is an assault on capitalism
Sam Kazman, 29 September 2005, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
“Automobility and Freedom”,
http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/legitimate_government/automobility_and_freedom_20050
930137/
Finally, there is the fact that cars are privately owned mechanisms that operate in a politically managed
infrastructure of roads. Politically run entities, of course, are notorious for being poorly run. But when
things go wrong with traffic, such as congestion, it is always politically easier to blame the privately
owned car rather than the political management of the road.
The car proves why communism is bad – we must reject their kritik – it is an attempt
to collapse capitalism
Sam Kazman, 29 September 2005, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
“Automobility and Freedom”,
http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/legitimate_government/automobility_and_freedom_20050
930137/
The car has had a huge impact not only on those who have, but also on those who don't. Waldemar
Hanasz, an Assistant Philosophy Professor at Rockford College, drew on his experience as a Polish
émigré to examine the car's contribution to the fall of Communism. For people living behind the Iron
Curtain, the car symbolized both Western technology and Communist inequality. Foreign cars were the
most visible example of class privileges in the supposedly classless Soviet society. Every Soviet citizen
dreamt of three things—an apartment, a telephone, and a car. Meanwhile Politburo members could be
seen regularly driving their luxurious foreign cars through Moscow's streets.
In the 1940s the Soviet government arranged for showings of the film, The Grapes of Wrath. It assumed
that this socialist saga of displaced American farmers would show the Russian people how cruel life in
America was for the downtrodden. The plan backfired. As the audiences saw scene after scene of
farmers traveling across the country in their battered trucks, searching for work, they were struck by
one thought—in America, even the poor have their own cars.
Fem Turn
The car is crucial to feminism
Sam Kazman, 29 September 2005, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
“Automobility and Freedom”,
http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/legitimate_government/automobility_and_freedom_20050
930137/
Alan Pisarski, a leading transportation analyst, did a very interesting paper for us on what he calls the
automobile's "democratization of mobility." He finds that, over the last few decades, the car has been
the major factor that has allowed large numbers of women to enter the job market. Without the car, it
would be nearly impossible to manage dropping off the kids at daycare, working full-time, picking up
groceries, and getting the kids back from daycare. It would be impossible to do this on any mass-transit
schedule. Only the car makes it possible.
Racism Turn
Cars were key to the success of the civil rights movement
Sam Kazman, 29 September 2005, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
“Automobility and Freedom”,
http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/legitimate_government/automobility_and_freedom_20050
930137/
The vision behind today's attacks on the car is largely an environmentalist vision. It's easy to forget that
throughout history there have been other types of planning visions as well. In the South, in the first half
of the twentieth century, the vision was white, not green. It was embodied in the Jim Crow laws. It's
significant that one of the turning points in the civil rights struggle against those laws succeeded, in large
part, because of the car.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955 began when Rosa Parks, a black woman, refused to give up her
seat on a bus to a white passenger. The boycott was a lengthy affair, marked by violence and the focus
of national attention. But few people today realize that one major factor in the ultimate success of the
boycott was the fact that its participants had access to cars. Here you had a government-regulated,
segregated bus monopoly, and the way people got around that was to organize car pools and church
van pools. Had it not been for the car, the bus boycott, which lasted for a whole year, would very likely
have broken down.
Let me read to you some quotes from people who lived through that event, from a National Public Radio
production entitled "Will The Circle Be Unbroken?"
Said one participant: "Many people offered their cars and … would pick up people before they went to
work every day. Some taxi drivers said that they would drive for free to help pick the people up."
But as the narrator explains, the police commissioner threatened to arrest any cab driver who charged
less than the minimum fare. (The police chief must have been an antitrust scholar who knew predatory
pricing when he saw it!)
From other participants:
"We had church vans carrying people. And those of us who had automobiles, we had really a system."
"Nobody passed anybody walking without stopping and picking them up."
There was a huge amount of police harassment. "Negroes were arrested for running a red light when
there wasn't a red light there, and arrested for running a stop sign and there wasn't a stop sign there.
They were arrested for speeding and sometimes they were standing still."
It didn't matter; this turning point in the civil-rights movement occurred because people had access to a
form of transportation that was free of government control.
Only the car breaks down racism
Sam Kazman, 29 September 2005, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
“Automobility and Freedom”,
http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/legitimate_government/automobility_and_freedom_20050
930137/
He reaches similar conclusions for the entry of minorities into the market place. When immigrants come
to this country, the first thing they want is a job; the second thing they want is a car. And once they have
access to a car, their range of job choices increases dramatically, as does their range of residences. And
at that point their lifestyles become middle class in nature. If we restrict mobility in the name of
something like global warming, then the last groups that gain mobility, women and immigrants, will
probably be the first groups to lose it.
A2 – Urban Sprawl
The doesn’t cause a sprawl
Sam Kazman, 29 September 2005, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute,
“Automobility and Freedom”,
http://www.freedomadvocates.org/articles/legitimate_government/automobility_and_freedom_20050
930137/
There's is a myth that urban sprawl, and the popularity of the vehicles that make it possible, are the
fault of General Motors' destruction of urban transit systems. The claim is that GM bought up the rights
to produce electric buses and then switched everyone into cars. But if you go back to the history of that
epitome of automobile life, Los Angeles, it indicates something quite different. When the car was first
introduced, Los Angeles already had what was probably the best, most extensive public transit system in
the world. It had trolleys going into just about every neighborhood. What happened when cars came?
People found that cars were incredibly more convenient than trolleys. It wasn't that GM or the auto
industry connived to kill the trolley. LA residents, who were well served by public transit, had a huge
preference for the car. It wasn't the car that kept the trolley out; it was that the trolley couldn't compete
with the car.
***AFF
AT: Cars key to the economy
Auto Industry not long term, won’t recover fully
Smitka 12 (Michael Smitka, April 26, 2012, professor of economics at Washington and Lee University,
has conducted research on the auto industry for more than two decades, Washington and Lee
University, http://news.blogs.wlu.edu/2012/04/26/the-auto-industry-and-the-economy/ “The Auto
Industry and the Economy”, KA)
But looked at from another angle, the news remains grim. Sales
may be up sharply but are still 2.5 million units below the
16.3 million average pace of the previous 15 years. In the mid-2000s, the industry employed 3 million
workers. Despite the recent gains, we are still more than 500,000 jobs below peak. On the employment front,
the glass is not yet half full. Will recovery add back all these jobs? On the negative side, the U.S. is now the third-largest car market,
behind China and the European Union. As the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and other economies grow, sales
will rise and investment to assemble cars locally will increase. Over time, design and engineering jobs will follow. We face long-term,
and not just short-term, challenges as the industry continues to globalize. China, for example, is serious about
electric cars. But in the face of an outcry by Congress over a failed solar panel venture, the U.S. has pulled the plug on
electric vehicle startups, refusing to disburse funds for firms that have finished the engineering stage
to hire the workers and buy the parts needed to commence production. If the Chinese market grows,
we can expect to see technology — high-tech jobs — flow to where the money is. It's not just batteries, either. For
the first time ever, more than half of the finalists for the Automotive News PACE supplier innovation competition were based outside the U.S.
As an independent judge for the competition, one firm I visited this year was Continental, a German company launching a new telematics
system that will facilitate hands-free services outside the luxury segment. The first company to adopt the system is GM — but it will be on
Chevys sold in China, not in the U.S. That's where the growth is. The hardware was developed at Continental's telematics R&D center outside
Chicago, but the software engineering was done in Shanghai, where the electronics "black box" is also assembled. We're a player, but with
globalization, we're not as big a player as in the past. On the flip side, there is encouraging news: BMW and Mercedes chose to
base plants in the U.S. to make key global products, while Korean and Japanese assemblers and suppliers continue to move jobs here:
Production follows sales, and Toyota, Honda and Nissan — the Japanese Big Three — now have full-fledged vehicle engineering capabilities in
the U.S. Given current exchange rates, we remain an attractive production base, with a wide array of suppliers and specialized engineering
the slower the recovery, the more we
will see new technologies and the accompanying skilled jobs shift to where the sales are. On net, I doubt
we'll ever fully recover.
firms, good infrastructure, stable politics and a robust ability to overcome shocks. But
Oil Prices High
Oil prices high: Middle East instability
Bloomberg 7/29 ("Oil Trades Near Week High Before Central Banks Meet on Economy," 7/29/12,
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-07-29/oil-trades-near-week-high-before-central-banksmeet-on-economy)
Oil traded near the highest level in a week in New York on speculation that U.S. and European policy makers will act to boost
growth and concern that unrest in the Middle East may spread and disrupt supplies. Futures were little changed,
heading for the first monthly gain in three. The European Central Bank and the U.S. Federal Reserve are scheduled to meet separately this week
to discuss the economy. The Syrian government’s use of “indiscriminate violence” will hasten its collapse, U.S Defense Secretary Leon Panetta
said. The Middle East produces about a third of the world’s crude. Enbridge Energy Partners LP (EEP) (EEP) said it’s unsure how soon it can
resume an pipeline that supplies oil to Chicago-area refineries after a leak. “The
market is riding high on the talk of
stimulus,” said Jonathan Barratt, the chief executive officer of Barratt’s Bulletin, a commodity-markets newsletter in Sydney. “We also
have some geopolitical concerns.”
That tanks the auto industry
Hamilton 08 (James, "How Oil Prices Are Affecting the Auto Industry," 8/4/08,
http://seekingalpha.com/article/88819-how-oil-prices-are-affecting-the-auto-industry)
This is very much the pattern we observed in previous oil price shocks, with an abrupt drop in the
demand for Detroit's money makers and shift into more gas-stingy imports. The resultant hit to incomes in the
auto sector is one of the mechanisms whereby an oil price increase can contribute to an overall U.S.
recession. It's interesting to compare what we've observed so far this year with what happened during the oil price shock and economic
recession that followed Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. With the loss of oil production from both Iraq and Kuwait, the price of oil shot
up quickly, nearly doubling between July and October, after which it fell back down almost as dramatically. By contrast, the
oil shock of
been a more gradual affair, caused by booming demand from China confronting stagnating
global production. Although the price increases occurred more gradually, in percentage terms the cumulative change in oil prices over
the last year is almost as big as we observed in the fall of 1990. In terms of the consequences for auto sector
employment, the number of U.S. workers employed in motor vehicles and parts fell by 62,000 workers in the
2008 has
month of November 1990, with a cumulative loss of 94,000 auto jobs before the recovery began in April 1991. By comparison, auto
employment this past year fell by 83,000 workers, cumulatively about the same size disruption as in 1990, but spread out over a longer period.
In terms of the effect on GDP, the contribution of motor vehicles and parts to real GDP fell by $15 billion
between 1990:Q3 and 1990:Q4 and an additional $15 billion between 1990:Q4 and 1991:Q1. That corresponds to about 0.2% of GDP each
quarter, or a hit to the annual growth rate of real GDP of about 0.8% each quarter.
Ext. Oil Prices High
Oil high: Draghi pledge
Fox Business 7/26 ("Oil Prices Gain on Draghi Pledge," 7/26/12,
http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2012/07/26/oil-prices-get-boost-from-ecb-presidentcomments/)
Oil futures rose for a third straight day on Thursday after a pledge by the European Central Bank to protect the
euro zone eased some worries about the region's debt crisis. A drop in U.S. jobless-benefit claims for
last week also supported crude's advance and with the ECB comments overshadowed worries about slowing global growth and
the euro zone's troubles. ECB President Mario Draghi, at a conference in London, pledged to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro zone. He
also said tackling high sovereign borrowing costs comes within the central bank's mandate. The euro rallied to a two-week high against the
dollar on Draghi's comments, encouraging investors to buy dollar-denominated commodities such as oil and copper. "The
comments by
Draghi are likely to bring that confidence back," said Eugen Weinberg, head of commodities research at Commerzbank. In
London, September Brent crude settled at $105.26 a barrel, gaining 88 cents, after hitting a session high of $106.18. U.S. September crude
closed at $89.39, rising 42 cents, after having gained earlier to a session high of $90.47.
Turn: Environment
US cars key to global emissions.
West ‘12
(Larry, 20-year professional writer and editor who has written many articles about environmental issues
for leading newspapers, magazines and online publications citing from: John DeCicco, author of the
report and senior fellow at Environmental Defense, “U.S. Autos Account for Half of Global Warming
Linked to Cars Worldwide,” http://environment.about.com/od/globalwarming/a/autoemissions.htm)
U.S. automobiles and light trucks are responsible for nearly half of all greenhouse gases emitted by automobiles
globally, according to a new study by Environmental Defense.The study, Global Warming on the Road [PDF], also found that the Big Three
automakers—General Motors, Ford and DaimlerChrysler—accounted for nearly three-quarters of the carbon dioxide released by cars and
pickup trucks on U.S. roads in 2004, the latest year for which statistics were available.“Cutting
greenhouse gas emissions from
U.S. automobiles will be critical to any strategy for slowing global warming,” said John DeCicco, author of the report and
senior fellow at Environmental Defense, in a press release. “To address global warming, we’ll need a clear picture of what sources are
contributing to the problem. This report details, by automaker and vehicle type, the greenhouse gas contributions from America's auto sector,
for the first time.”Carbon dioxide emissions from personal vehicles in the United States equaled 314 million metric tons in 2004. That much
carbon could fill a coal train 55,000 miles long—long enough to circle the Earth twice. Cars and trucks made by GM gave off 99 million metric
tons of carbon dioxide or 31 percent of the total; Ford vehicles emitted 80 million metric tons or 25 percent; and Daimler Chrysler vehicles
emitted 51 million metric tons or 16 percent, according to the report.
Global warming leads to extinction
Mazo 10 – PhD in Paleoclimatology from UCLA, Jeffrey Mazo, Managing Editor, Survival and Research
Fellow for Environmental Security and Science Policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies
in London, 3-2010, “Climate Conflict: How global warming threatens security and what to do about it,”
pg. 122
The best
estimates for global warming to the end of the century range from 2.5-4.~C above preindustrial levels, depending on the scenario. Even in the best-case scenario, the low end of the likely range is 1.6°C, and in the worst
'business as usual' projections, which actual emissions have been matching, the range of likely warming runs from 3.1-7.1°C. Even keeping emissions at constant 2000 levels (which have already been exceeded), global temperature would still be expected to
reach 1.2°C (O'9""1.5°C)above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century." Without early and severe reductions in
emissions, the effects of climate change in the second half of the twenty-first century are likely to be
catastrophic for the stability and security of countries in the developing world - not to mention the associated human tragedy. Climate
change could even undermine the strength and stability of emerging and advanced economies, beyond the knock-on effects on security of
widespread state failure and collapse in developing countries.' And although they have been condemned as melodramatic and alarmist, many
informed observers believe that unmitigated climate change beyond
the end of the century could pose an
existential threat to civilisation." What is certain is that there is no precedent in human experience for such rapid change or such
climatic conditions, and even in the best case adaptation to these extremes would mean profound social, cultural and political changes.
AT Green cars
Oil companies prevent green cars
Diamond 11 (Regina L. Diamond studies Arts And Sciences at Rutgers University in New Brunswick,
NJ.,2011, Student Pulse Vol. 3 No. 01 http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/353/big-oils-strangleholdon-america “Big Oil's Stranglehold on America“)
Big oil’s ruthless supply and demand tactics have monopolized the entire energy industry by
shredding competitors’ attempts to offer alternatives. Consumers are thus forced to surrender their
right to choose due to the aggressive techniques being used by the oil industry to prevent the use of
clean energy. Unfortunately, the American government has historically sided with the oil tycoons . In the movie
Who Killed the Electric Car the executive director for Energy and Climate Solutions, Joseph J. Romm accurately declares, “There’s no question
that the people who control the marketplace today, the oil
companies, have a strong incentive to discourage
alternatives except the alternatives that they themselves control.” This seems rather unfair considering the alarming
amount of evidence that shows the ill effects the use and production of fossil fuels cause to the environment. The ideal solution would be to
replace oil with one of the safer alternatives that have been introduced into the markets over the past forty years; however, the American
economy, being driven by capitalism and big oil interests, has protected the status quo and prevented change from occurring. There is a
significant need to revise the profit motive as it pertains to energy and the environment. Presently, the oil industry controls the environmental
future of America, which does not bode well for the future. Over
the past forty years there have been several notable
attempts to revolutionize technology, all of which have been stomped into the ground by the oil
industry. The first occurred in 1985 when Ronald Reagan tore down the solar panels from the roof of the White House. The incident and the
events surrounding it were documented in Joshua Green’s essay, “Better Luck This Time.” In “The Specter Haunting Alaska” Peter Canby tells of
another win for the oil industry. Canby gives details on Donald Hodel’s decision to drill in Alaska despite explicit warnings from
environmentalists of disastrous results for the environment. Most recently, the California Air and Resource Board made an attempt to soften
the blow that the oil industry is taking on the atmosphere. They passed the Zero Emissions Vehicle Mandate in1990, which
stated that each year car manufacturers were required to produce a small percentage of vehicles that did not produce harmful emissions. This
by the auto industry to infiltrate the use of electric vehicles was stopped by the oil industry but not without
the help of the United States government. This disturbing occurrence was documented in the movie Who Killed the Electric
effort
Car. It is absolutely necessary for a major revision to take place in order for the environment to have any chance at survival. These attempts
were made by influential people, over the past four decades, yet still remain unsuccessful, suggesting that there is little hope for the
environment.
AT Electric Cars
Electric cars bad-- China proves
Koebler 12 (Jason, "Chinese Electric Car Pollution More Harmful to Humans Than Gas Cars," 2/13/12,
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/02/13/chinese-electric-car-pollution-more-harmful-tohumans-than-gas-cars)
It's a line the American public has been hearing for a while—switch to an electric car and save the environment. But in China, where there
are more than 100 million electrically-powered scooters and cars, alternatively-powered vehicles may be worse for the
environment than gasoline-powered vehicles, according to a report released Monday by a team from the University of
Tennessee. The problem in China comes from the way most electricity is generated—more than 75
percent of power in China is generated by coal. So, rather than look at vehicle-emissions alone, where electric cars easily beat
gas- and diesel-powered cars, the researchers studied the environmental impact of the whole power chain. [See a
slide show of the 10 states that use the most energy per capita.] "An implicit assumption has been that air quality and
health impacts are lower for electric vehicles than for conventional vehicles," Chris Cherry, one of the University of Tennessee
researchers, explains. "Our findings challenge that by comparing what is emitted by vehicle use to what people are actually exposed
to." Essentially, the human health risk with electric vehicles is moved from the exhaust pipe to the areas surrounding coal power plants.
"Electric vehicles are much cleaner when you consider carbon emissions," Cherry says. "But coal
power plants emit a number of
different pollutions that have very clear health impacts." Those emissions include fine particles—metals,
acids, allergens, and dust that the Environmental Protection Agency says "have shown a significant
association … with premature death from heart or lung disease." [Are Cars' Internal Computers Vulnerable to Attacks
By Hackers?] About 10 years ago, China set out to revolutionize its streets with electric cars, something that Cherry calls "perhaps the single
largest adoption of an alternative fuel in the history of mobility." But because China has a large population that lives near these coal power
plants, the emissions from the plants affect nearby humans almost four times as much as gas-operated cars. America has been slower on the
uptake. Last year, the Department of Energy estimated that America will have about 1 million electric cars on the road by 2015.
Collapse Inevitable
Globalization makes collapse inevitable
Steve Schifferes Globalisation reporter, BBC News, Detroit , February 2007, “ The decline of Detroit”,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6346299.stm
Globalisation has been a powerful force that has accelerated change in the world econom y over the
past half-century. It has affected the fate of companies as much as countries. And nowhere has been
the change more dramatic than in the US car industry. Fifty years ago, American car companies
dominated the world, especially the mighty GM, the world's biggest industrial company, many of
whose factories were based in Flint, Michigan, 40 miles north of Detroit.
Already Collapsed
Steve Schifferes Globalisation reporter, BBC News, Detroit , February 2007, “ The decline of Detroit”,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6346299.stm
In the 1950s the Detroit area had the highest median income, and highest rate of home ownership, of
any major US city. But times are very different now. GM, under pressure from its competitors, is no
longer making money in the American car market - and it has been closing plants all across Flint. Now
there are only 6,000 GM workers in Flint, compared to 100,000 at the peak , and the town and
workers are suffering. "Flint has the highest rate of unemployment, poverty and homelessness in
Michigan," Claire told me.
Jobs go to India and China
Steve Schifferes Globalisation reporter, BBC News, Detroit , February 2007, “ The decline of Detroit”,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6346299.stm
GM has already told the unions it wants to cut the generous retirement and health care benefits it
promised its workers in the halcyon days of success . The company does plan to build more car plants
in the future - but in emerging markets like China and India, not in the United States.
Failure to adapt makes decline inevitable
Steve Schifferes Globalisation reporter, BBC News, Detroit , February 2007, “ The decline of Detroit”,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6346299.stm
Now, according to Professor Garel Rhys of Cardiff University, the US Big Three are facing their greatest
challenge ever in their entire postwar history. What has led to the decline of US car manufacturers in
their home market? While it was inevitable they would eventually lose their monopoly position,
their failure to adapt their production methods and meet changing consumer tastes has accelerated
their decline.
Car dominance is unsustainable
Steve Schifferes Globalisation reporter, BBC News, Detroit , February 2007, “ The decline of Detroit”,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6346299.stm
But the near-monopoly conditions in the American market bred complacency - and the assumption
that the American lead in technology and marketing was unassailable.
According to Stephen D'Arcy, head of Global Automotive Practice at PriceWaterhouse Coopers, in the
long run " the US monopoly was an unsustainable anomoly."
In the 1950s and 1960s, US firms failed to innovate in the design of cars, preferring to make money by
increasing the size and weight of their vehicles by adding extras like air conditioning, power steering,
and fancy sound systems.
Mass production means no innovation
Steve Schifferes Globalisation reporter, BBC News, Detroit , February 2007, “ The decline of Detroit”,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6346299.stm
It was left to European manufacturers to develop disc brakes, rack-and-pinion steering, air-cooled and
diesel engines. And the mass production system discouraged innovation because it was so expensive
to introduce fundamentally new models. Meanwhile, Toyota was also making a virtue of adversity,
changing its production system to become leaner and more efficient than its rivals.
Industry is in decline now – any gains go over-seas
Steve Schifferes Globalisation reporter, BBC News, Detroit , February 2007, “ The decline of Detroit”,
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6346299.stm
And Chrysler - now owned by German firm Daimler - also announced its own downsizing programme
and is effectively up for sale. There is real doubt in the industry that all three can survive. GM hopes
to survive as a global car company which increasingly operates outside the US. And Ford may survive
by selling some of its more profitable European subsidiaries. But even if they manage this, it is sad
end to what was once a central element in the American industrial dream.
09’ disproves your impact
Steven Rattner, a longtime Wall Street executive and a contributing writer for Op-Ed, was the lead
adviser on the Obama administration’s auto task force in 2009, February 23, 2012, “Delusions About
the Detroit Bailout”, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/24/opinion/delusions-about-the-detroitbailout.html?_r=1
As a presidential aspirant, Mr. Romney evidently hasn’t felt a need to be consistent or specific as to
what should have been done to address the collapse of the auto industry starting in late 2008 . But the
gist is that the government should have stayed on the sidelines and allowed the companies to go
through what he calls “managed bankruptcies,” financed by private capital. That sounds like a
wonderfully sensible approach — except that it’s utter fantasy. In late 2008 and early 2009, when G.M.
and Chrysler had exhausted their liquidity, every scrap of private capital had fled to the sidelines.
Auto Bad: Death
Auto Industry death good – solves systemic death and saves the environment
Cliff Mason, CNBC, Nov 5, 2008, “Save The Auto Industry? Nope, Let Them "Die",
http://www.cnbc.com/id/27558718/Save_The_Auto_Industry_Nope_Let_Them_Die
If we let the auto-makers live, can we at least question our reliance on them , given the perennial problems of
the automobile industry and the fact that
cars are practically weapons of mass destruction , killing 37,248 people
in this country last year? We're talking about vehicles that weigh about a ton and can travel at speeds upwards of a hundred miles per
hour? And we give them to 16 year olds? Frankly, I'd feel safer just giving every teenager in this country an AK-47. Last week The New York
Times ran a feature about lowering the drinking age and accidents caused by drunk driving. I've always been a proponent of lowering the
drinking age, but how come no one ever suggests raising the driving age? I get that if you're a kid growing up in the suburbs, like
I was,
you have no social life without a car. In fact, pretty much anyone living in suburbia is stranded
without a car. But that's not because suburbia is inherently automobile dependent, it's at least in part
because of public policy. We spend billions on highways, we already bailed out Chrysler once, and
meanwhile Amtrak is constantly struggling to get funding. We need to stop fretting about deaths caused by drunk
driving and realize that in addition to being worse for the environment than mass transit, having everyone
driving around in cars is dangerous period, drunk or sober.