Buy American! Buy Big 3! Buy Ford!

Everytime something happens with a Big 3 automobile, we get a lot of crap thrown away by the Big 3 haters. Outside of wear and tear, I haven't have any major problems with my 2002 Ford truck built in . Same goes for my 99 and 93 that I used to have.

From the AP

WASHINGTON – Toyota suspended U.S. sales of some of its most popular vehicles — including the best-selling car in America, the Camry — to fix sticking gas pedals that could make the cars accelerate without warning.
In another blow to the world's No. 1 automaker, Toyota Motor Corp. said Tuesday it would halt some production at six assembly plants beginning the week of Feb. 1 "to assess and coordinate activities."
The company said it would stop selling eight models of cars and trucks, a significant portion of its fleet. The suspension comes after a recall of the same models last week involving 2.3 million vehicles.
Toyota has said it was unaware of any accidents or injuries due to the pedal problems associated with the recall, but could not rule them out for sure.
"This action is necessary until a remedy is finalized," said Bob Carter, Toyota's group vice president and general manager.

The ultimate brand name in reliability takes a whack. The Camry. I was hoping the Toyota Pious would be mentioned as well, but that wasn't listed.

If you're looking for quality in vehicles, I'd look at Ford (outside of the Fusion which is a foreign car built in Mexico....thanks NAFTA). If you want cars with good gas mileage, Ford has it.  They may not be able to deliver a good football team, but in 16 years of driving, I haven't have any major problems with a vehicle that wasn't over 10 years old. They were also all built here in America, from companies based here in Michigan keeping our jobs here at home where they belong.

Amateur Hour. Brian Deese as GM boss? Even I'm more qualified than this guy.

I have about as much faith in this guy than I did of Gary Bettman when he was first named NHL commissioner. Gary Bettman has been a disaster for the NHL. Bettman was a lawyer who was the VP for the NBA and had no hockey experience whatsoever.

Now who is Brian Deese? He's a 31 year old Yale law student whose work experience includes work at two political think tanks and hosting of a radio show.

From Foxnews:

Deese grew up in a Boston suburb, the son of a political science professor at Boston College. He moved to Vermont and attended Middlebury College, where he studied political science and also took time to host a campus radio show called "Bedknobs and Beatniks," described in one write-up as "a format of music, news, discussion and banter."

He graduated college in 2000 and then it was onto a pair of non-profit think tanks: the Center for Global Development and the Center for American Progress.

Eventually Deese went to Yale for a law degree, but a few credits short of graduating, he went "on leave" to work on Senator Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, quickly becoming her top economic policy staffer.

Last summer, Deese moved to the Obama campaign as a deputy economic policy director and, just before this current gig, he served on Obama's transition team as an economic adviser.

Great. We're about the same age, and I'm more qualified than this guy. At least I have the degree and some business experience. However, there is no way I am qualified for this job. Put Iacocca in charge. We don't have time for this much of a learning curve.

This isn't a startup business. This isn't another think tank. This isn't even a law firm. If it was any of those three, I wouldn't bat an eye about Deese's qualifications. The first has a bit of trial and error, and the last two he is qualified or would be with a shorter learning curve. However, we're putting an almost lawyer who worked at a think tank in charge of General Motors, once the biggest company in the world.

Has Deese ever dealt with a payroll? Does he have any business expereince? Accounting experience? Does he know how the factories and dealerships work? Does he understand franchise contracts? Does he understand supplier contracts? Labor contracts? For the most part, I doubt it. He's going to be the one telling all these auto executives what to do? How's he going to answer all their questions? All Deese is going to know is the yesman company line, that being Obama.

For this type of a job, we need someone with a doctorate degree from the school of hard knocks, like Iacocca. However, I don't think he's the yesman that Barack Obama wants running the show.

Does Deese even drive an American car?

The Hummer to soon be a foreign truck?

Well, I won't be buying one of these anytime soon. If true, Hummer is no longer an American car company.

From the AP?

DETROIT – General Motors Corp. took a key step toward its downsizing on Tuesday, striking a tentative deal to sell its Hummer brand to a Chinese manufacturer, while also revealing that it has potential buyers for its Saturn and Saab brands.

GM has an agreement to sell its Hummer brand to Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Co. of China, said a person briefed on the deal.

The Detroit automaker announced Tuesday morning that it had a memorandum of understanding to sell the brand of rugged SUVs, but it didn't identify the buyer. A formal announcement of the buyer was to be made Tuesday afternoon, said the person briefed on the deal. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the details have not been made public.

Sichuan Tengzhong deals in road construction, plastics, resins and other industrial products, but Hummer would be its first step into the automotive business.

Government's war on the auto industry

Right now, the biggest enemy to our auto industry is the government. First of all, I titled this "Government's war on the auto industry." I did not title this the Obama Chicago Mob war on the auto industry, or even the democrat war on the auto industry. They are some of the biggest villans, but they are one of many.

The first Bush was not a friend of the industry. Clinton was not either. He signed NAFTA and GATT. Ross Perot warned us of a giant sucking sound of jobs with the passage of those two trade agreements. He was right. Al Gore wanted to outlaw the internal combustable engine. Bush basically sat on his hands and then bailed out Wall Street along with his parters McCain and Obama on this. Both McCain and Obama lectured us about manufacturing and threw the auto industry under the bus. Obama was the only reason I voted for McCain. Only reason.

Right now the auto industry is double flanked by a significant number of pols in both parties. On the Democrat side, our industry's best ally is John Dingell. Dingell did his best, but the CULT of global warming, knocked him out for a radical in Henry Waxman. They also knocked out Joe Knollenberg, one of the two best friends of the industry on the Republican side. The other one is being targetted. Thad McCotter. McCotter is one of the few true friends of the auto industry left.

The Republicans have their own jerks. McCain was one. Bob Corker and Richard Shelby the party switcher is another. Corker got his wish with a GM bankruptcy. Guess what. Saturn's gone. Where's Saturn based? Spring Hill, TN. Great job standing up for your state, son. With "friends" like those two, we don't need any enemies. I hope both of these individuals get a nice primary challenge when they are next up for election.

The doubleflank is the global warming left like Pelosi, Waxman, Gore and Obama and anti-UAW right like Corker, Bush, and Shelby. One wants to punish the industry because they want cars banned except for the rich elite, and the other wants to unionbust at the cost of the entire company. I have mixed views on unions but I damn well don't want to see my industry destroyed.

The biggest threat is this cult of global warming. This global warming cult based on temperature data of 150 years (1860-today - and keep in mind we are coming out of a 500 year mini ige age from around 1300-1850), a microsecond of time by earth standards that is billions of years old. I'm not going to debate global warming here, except that any 150 year data set is worthless). It may exist. It may not. I'm not convinced that it is a problem even if it does exist, and I damn well am not buying any doomsday crap based on what we breathe out - CO2.

Regardless of the truth of fiction of global warming, I have a hard time with supporting government regulation over every aspect of our lives, and the rapid destruction and dismantling of our state's industry that built the middle class in our country.


What we have today and in the future was a long time coming. Many dominoes have fallen so far in the government war on the auto industry. Unless you've tuned out the news, today GM, once the largest company in the world, has filed for bankruptcy. Some of you here reading may not care. You will, when this affects your state, and your city, and it will. Believe me, it will.

Plants are closing, in Michigan and elsewhere. These people need to find work. They have families. Many are moving away to find work. Some are going on welfare. Many will take early retirement and look for other work. Dealers will close. Suppliers will close. The ripple effect will follow. Schools will have lower enrollment. Less money. Less tax money is collected because of lost jobs and at the local and state levels, relocation. The much ballyhooed services industry is losing money too. Auto workers and their families won't be spending as much money on tourism and luxuries.

In the Chrysler case, the government forced it to go under a large part of foreign ownership because Obama likes the Fiat. With its bankruptcy, so far, they are losing 25% of its dealerships. That's a lot of jobs. The UAW and the Government combined owned 65%.

In the case of General Motors, to begin with, 2100 dealers will be closed or placed on standby, as will 14 plants, seven in Michigan, including the Lake Orion plant which hits close to home in this family. GM's also off the NYSE and Dow.

This is supposed to "save" the industry? Thousands of dealers, dozens of plants, God knows how many suppliers, and all that this supports? What about the Mexico or foreign plants? GM's plant closings alone will cost 21,000 jobs.

All of that is subject to change by the courts as well. It could be worse.

Now as for the government dicates, here's a question. When has big government run anything top notch? Look at the US Senate. You will not find a bigger group of jokes on the face of the earth. From Levin and Stabenow doing nothing for Michigan, to Durbin, Obama, McCain, (formerly) Ted Stevens, Robert Byrd the pork king, Corker, Shelby, Specter, Feinstein, Boxer, Biden, and 1/2 of Obama's cabinent that came from that joke of a political body. Now the government and Obama want even higher CAFE standards, and are pushing the Big 3 away from what they do best. Trucks and SUV's.

Some of the inside stories I have heard are leaking what the Obama people have been yapping about. I am paraphrasing this to protect this individual who doesn't want his name out there. People with 30 years of auto experience in both foreign and domestic cars are being dictated to by government bureaucrats from Obama's admin, people with no manufacturing experience, no auto industry experience, no business experience, no finance experience, and no engineering experience. Big government at work.

One was telling the auto industry to make a car that was electric and liquid natural gas with enough combined fuel to go 500 miles to reduce the number of gas stations. They were quoting BTU's (energy measurement) of natural gas and battery life that they had looked up by some advocacy group.

This was nearly impossible based on the laws of physics due to the size of the car needed for that. Common sense. The number of batteries and natural gas tank would be gigantic. We'd have to drive busses. The individual mentioned the laws of phyics, and the Obama bureaucrat said that they needed to tell Congress to change that law or use an executive order. Good luck with that.

Lastly, I'm hearing a lot of preaching by Granholm and the others in both parties about diversifying the economy. Yeah, I support that. Who doesn't. However, diversifying the economy should not mean that we throw manufacturing under the bus. We need to protect our manufacturing. We need to keep these jobs home, not in China. We need to stop throwing our blue collar heritage, culture, and manufacturing under the bus. The next person who runs his mouth about these jobs not coming back needs to be forced to drink soup for a week.

When it comes to the auto industry, the government has failed this country. It has failed with big regulations, trade agreements, micromanagement, and its jihad with the cult of global warming. The best thing the government can do is reduce the regulations, enact fair trade agreements so our manufacturing isn't dead, stop the heavy taxes and red tape, and work for energy independence in a proper fashion, by an all of the above policy including drilling and refining, as well as nuclear technology.

Who cares about the possibility of global warming if your state is being turned into an economic depresssion. It's time to put Michigan first.

Chrysler, Specter's defection (good riddance), Pennsylvania grassroots v estabishment, Souter

A lot of major things have gone on the past week that I haven't posted about because of my time constraints.

First, Chrysler declared bankruptcy. Who knows what will happen. It's now in the hands of a judge. In Bankruptcy court, judges are a blind draw, and they drew Arthur Gonzalez (who was also the judge in Enron and Worldcom). At least they didn't draw a rookie. Judges have a lot of discretion in bankruptcy law, and there's a lot of speculation on what will happen, as well as a lot of people running their mouths. I have little to almost no knowledge of bankruptcy law, so I won't be making any predictions here. I'm not happy with some of the actions taken by the Obama foreign car loving task force, but that's no longer the big issue here with this filing.

Secondly, Arlen Specter took the path of less resistance for 2012 and switched parties.

A bunch of FOOLS are yapping about this being the social issues and the far right, yadda yadda yadda. Bullshit. The GOP establishment in DC supported him, and was going to do so against Toomey again. The RNC supported him. The NRSC supported him. Bush campaigned for him in the last election. So did the more conservative senator at the time Rick Santorum (at the cost of some of his base). The NRA endorsed him. Against Toomey. That would likely happen again. Most DC establishment will back the incumbent. Period. Most PACS will support an incumbent unless there's a bad history on those issues. That wasn't changing in 2010.

It is not new that Specter had some union support. It is not new that Specter was pro-abortion to a degree. It is not new that Specter was not a social conservative at all. That was not held against him here. He had a lot of Washington support, and would have had it from the Republican establishment, even from conservatives. He's actually been generally good on firearms issues for someone from Philly, so that's not been an issue with him. The NRA endorsed him - even against Toomey. This isn't new, and wasn't changing in 2010.

Specter did not switch parties because the Republican culture in Washington DC disliked him. They didn't and they supported him. Senator John Cornyn of Texas was one of his biggest backers, and he's the head of the NRSC. Specter switched parties because the primary voters in Pennsylvania had enough of his 30 years and Washington and are about to send him home. What was the straw that broke the back? It wasn't social issues. It was the big spending. We have had ENOUGH of the big spending. The grass roots has had enough. We had enough of the bridges to nowhere, the Bush spending, and the Obama spending that is 100 times worse than even the Bush spending. Specter is a big part of the problem. See ya. DO let the door hit you on your way out.

Now I'm not a big fan of purges. However, there needs to be a limit. Part of the major problem with the GOP the last eight years is that they acted like democrats on the fiscal issues outside of tax cuts. Tax cuts work great, but they need to be accompanied by spending cuts. The problem is credibility. Every single time the republicans try to run as democrat-lite, it KILLS us. There needs to be difference between the parties. Now I don't expect every Republican candidate to be a cookie cutter. The Mark Kirk distict in Illinois North Shore could not be won by an ideal Republican candidate in another somewhat democrat leaning district, Michigan's 1st (Stupak) They would get killed in each other's district. I understand that.

However, there needs to be a minimum standard for Republican candidates. Low taxes, lower spending and less government. Voters at the minimum, should be able to expect that from the Republicans. This is the worst aspect of Bush's presidency. We no longer are known for less government. That needs to change, and change fast.

Third, Pennsylvania's primary. Hotline said it best. STAY AWAY FROM MY (their) PRIMARY This is the one that's pissing me off. Right now, both the NRSC and DSCC is rumored to be playing games in this primary. First off Pat Toomey has won a democrat leaning house district three times. His seat voted for Gore and I believe Kerry at the same time it voted for Pat Toomey and Charlie Dent. Pat Toomey replaced a democrat, Paul McHale. He won that district by 10 points. Pat Toomey did not represent the Lancaster or York suburbs. He represented the Leigh Valley in Eastern PA. Allentown and Bethelem. He won that seat in 98, 2000, and 2002 - despite Gore and Ed Rendell. Pat Toomey is not a joke candidate, and he has won independent and democrat votes.

The NRSC is rumored to push one of their own candiates. I hope that backfires on them if they do so. This is a choice for Pennsylvanians. We have primaries in this country for a reason. We do not have coronations. After seeing the results of Washington based politics in the GOP over the last eight years, it's been a disaster. Time to step aside and let the experts take over. The voters in the primary election. You people in the NRSC were a DISASTER in 06 and 08 with your games. My advice to republicans reading this. Until they prove otherwise, don't donate a dime to NRSC/NRCC and only give to candidates.

Many democrats there are not happy that the Democrat leadership is supporting Specter in their primary. They don't trust him either. Specter is out for Specter. Period. He switched because the Republican voters in Pennsylvania had enough of him and were going to vote for Pat Toomey. They had enough of the spending. So he's going to take his chance in the democrat primary. We'll see how they like a candidate who was a major supporter of the war, the death penalty, the Patriot Act, and Clarence Thomas. Why should the democrats vote for Specter, when they can get a real democrat in the primary?

If both establishments run their people, I hope they both lose the primary, just to send a message. These fools still haven't gotten yet. It's the Peter principle in action.

Fourth - The retirement of Souter. Many on the right believe the sky is falling and some are posting ridiculous speculation that the pick will be Bill Ayers or someone like that. That's ridiculous. Won't happen.

This isn't the worse case scenario. On an ideological basis, he's probably the 2nd or 3rd most left wing (behind Breyer who is the Scalia of the left and MAYBE Stevens). Souter is also 69 years old, the youngest of the liberal wing. Souter could have possibly served another 10-20 years if he wanted with today's life spans. The one real bad thing of his retirement IMO is the 4th Amendment implications with the cases like Arizona v Gant possible going the other way. Souter was the swing vote on that issue.

On the Liberal side
Stevens is 89
Ginsburg is 76 (and fighting Pancreatic Cancer, good luck to her there)
Breyer is 70
And Souter is retiring at 69

On the Generally Conservative side
Scalia is 73
Thomas is 60
Roberts is 54
Alito is 59

And the swing vote, Kennedy, is 72

The worse case scenario Obama can do is put someone crazy on there in philosophy like Cass Sunstein, Erwin Chemerinsky, or Harold Koh and who is about 45 years old or so. The second worst case scenario is appointing Granholm who is about as qualified to be a SCOTUS justice as I currently am based on experience. More than likely Obama will be picking someone from the far left (difference than crazy far left like Sunstein) and between 50-55. I hope it's not one of Reno's crew (Eric Holder, Seth Waxman or Jamie Gorelick) or the Chermerinsky crowd. We'll see what happens.

Volokh has some good discussion about this

Government sends message to auto industry

70% of the Union members in Michigan voted for Obama is the exit polls are accurate. They may or may not be, but it's probably close. I know the UAW push was probably close to unprecedented, and was a major reason for Obama's win. The thanks given for that? Their best ally losing his committee chair.

But we all the know the real controllers among the democrats isn't the David Bonior wing or John Dingell wing of the party anymore. It's the foreign car lovers and American car haters and rich leftist elitists of San Francisco and Hollywood. Nancy Pelosi and the worst of them all in Henry Waxman. Waxman hates freedom and wants to ban everything for one reason or another. Be is free speech, smokes, trucks, SUV's, or especially guns. The worst of the worst of the left.

""If someone is so fearful that they are going to start using their weapons to protect their rights,it makes me very nervous that these people have weapons at all." - Waxman on MSNBC

And I'm nervous that this fascist has a major committee chair. People like Waxman are the reason why we need the ultimate check and balance - the Second Amendment. No, that's not a threat. It's a caution because if the Waxman crowd get everything they want their utopian view of society - that's when we'll need it. Until then, we still have the ballot box and the courts. Checks and balances.

The democrats just kicked out a sane democrat for this fascist, Waxman. John Dingell was an old time liberal. He was too independent for this spot. Mr. Universal Health Care himself wasn't leftist enough for this position. Why? Because he liked the evil auto industry. He didn't completely drink the global warming flavor-aid. At least not at the expense of his district. For that, the longest serving member of congress gets pushed out to pasture. That's the change on the horizon by the democrats. From a liberal like Dingell to a fascist like Waxman.

Now back to the Big 3 and the debate on bailouts, etc. I saw this interesting piece from Pat Buchanan. Buchanan's not always right on some things, and goes further than I do in some areas, but when it comes to trade issues, he's right on the money. Government taxed and regulated the hell out of manufacturing at home, and forced them to compete with both hands tied behind their backs against foreign competition.

Who killed the U.S. auto industry?

To hear the media tell it, arrogant corporate chiefs failed to foresee the demand for small, fuel-efficient cars and made gas-guzzling road-hog SUVs no one wanted, while the clever, far-sighted Japanese, Germans and Koreans prepared and built for the future.

I dissent. What killed Detroit was Washington, the government of the United States, politicians, journalists and muckrakers who have long harbored a deep animus against the manufacturing class that ran the smokestack industries that won World War II.

As far back as the 1950s, an intellectual elite that produces mostly methane had its knives out for the auto industry of which Ike's treasury secretary, ex-GM chief Charles Wilson, had boasted, "What's good for America is good for General Motors, and vice versa."

"Engine Charlie" was relentlessly mocked, even in Al Capp's L'il Abner cartoon strip, where a bloviating "General Bullmoose" had as his motto, "What's good for Bullmoose is good for America!"

How did Big Government do in the U.S. auto industry?

Washington imposed a minimum wage higher than the average wage in war-devastated Germany and Japan. The Feds ordered that U.S. plants be made the healthiest and safest worksites in the world, creating OSHA to see to it. It enacted civil rights laws to ensure the labor force reflected our diversity. Environmental laws came next, to ensure U.S. factories became the most pollution-free on earth.

It then clamped fuel efficiency standards on the entire U.S. car fleet.

Next, Washington imposed a corporate tax rate of 35 percent, raking off another 15 percent of autoworkers' wages in Social Security payroll taxes

State governments imposed income and sales taxes, and local governments property taxes to subsidize services and schools.

That's the left hook. Here's the kick to the head.

And under the 14th Amendment, GM, Ford and Chrysler had to obey the same U.S. laws and pay at the same tax rates. Outside the United States, however, there was and is no equality of standards or taxes.

Thus when America was thrust into the Global Economy, GM and Ford had to compete with cars made overseas in factories in postwar Japan and Germany, then Korea, where health and safety standards were much lower, wages were a fraction of those paid U.S. workers, and taxes were and are often forgiven on exports to the United States.

All three nations built "export-driven" economies.

The Beetle and early Japanese imports were made in factories where wages were far beneath U.S. wages and working conditions would have gotten U.S. auto executives sent to prison.

The competition was manifestly unfair, like forcing Secretariat to carry 100 pounds in his saddlebags in the Derby.

Japan, China and South Korea do not believe in free trade as we understand it. To us, they are our "trading partners." To them, the relationship is not like that of Evans & Novak or Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. It is not even like the Redskins and Cowboys. For the Cowboys only want to defeat the Redskins. They do not want to put their franchise out of business and end the competition -- as the Japanese did to our TV industry by dumping Sonys here until they killed it.

While we think the Global Economy is about what is best for the consumer, they think about what is best for the nation.

Like Alexander Hamilton, they understand that manufacturing is the key to national power. And they manipulate currencies, grant tax rebates to their exporters and thieve our technology to win. Last year, as trade expert Bill Hawkins writes, South Korea exported 700,000 cars to us, while importing 5,000 cars from us.

That's Asia's idea of free trade.

How has this Global Economy profited or prospered America?

In the 1950s, we made all our own toys, clothes, shoes, bikes, furniture, motorcycles, cars, cameras, telephones, TVs, etc. You name it. We made it.

Are we better off now that these things are made by foreigners? Are we better off now that we have ceased to be self-sufficient? Are we better off now that the real wages of our workers and median income of our families no longer grow as they once did? Are we better off now that manufacturing, for the first time in U.S. history, employs fewer workers than government?

We no longer build commercial ships. We have but one airplane company, and it outsources. China produces our computers. And if GM goes Chapter 11, America will soon be out of the auto business.

Our politicians and pundits may not understand what is going on. Historians will have no problem explaining the decline and fall of the Americans.

Some of us have seen this coming for a long, long, time.

Big Government at it again

A special "thanks" to the democrats and Mr Bush.

From the Detroit News

WASHINGTON -- House leaders agreed late Friday to hike fuel economy standards 40 percent by 2020 to a fleet-wide average of 35 miles per gallon, a landmark deal that clears the way for a House vote by Wednesday.

The increase would be the first for passenger cars since 1985, marking a dramatic defeat for automakers, which have successfully foiled efforts to force increases for more than two decades.

U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Dearborn, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., finalized an agreement for raising corporate average fuel economy standards during a telephone call Friday evening.

(snip)

The deal will be very expensive for automakers. GM chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner has said a similar bill could cost the Detroit automaker more than $40 billion over the next decade. A Bush administration analysis of a similar proposal said it could cost automakers more than $100 billion.

Automakers grudgingly decided to support it because there were no other options, and their political capital is waning. They have criticized the CAFÉ system, saying it distorts the marketplace by forcing them at times to offer incentives to sell smaller cars in order to meet the requirements.

(snip)

It will no doubt hike the price of cars by forcing automakers to add expensive items like gasoline-electric hybrid engines and likely require automakers to make more lighter, smaller vehicles. It may force Detroit to shrink production of its SUVs and trucks, its largest most profitable vehicles.

If passed, the bill would give Democrats a big achievement to tout to voters who have put up with skyrocketing gas prices.

It would also hand President Bush a domestic achievement that would surely be part of his legacy, since it largely dovetails with his State of the Union proposal in January to hike fuel efficiency standards by an average of 4 percent per year over 10 years.

This also doesn't do jack to lower gas prices. We need less big government and less democrat/Bush sneering of American cars. Let the market decide.

If you want to lower gas prices, the first thing to do is open up domestic energy sources. ANWR, Coal, and especially nuclear. Put more research into cold fusion, and then afterward tell OPEC to perform unnatural acts on themselves.

Chrysler American Again

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I've been working some long hours lately. While this blog is important, paying bills comes first until I'm back in school.


Some big news here. Chrysler is sold to Cererbus Capital. It's official. From the AP

DETROIT (AP) — Chrysler became an American company again Friday as Cerberus Capital Management gained a controlling share from Chrysler's German owners and started on the long road to restoring the 82-year-old automaker's luster — and profits.

DaimlerChrysler AG transferred an 80.1 percent stake in Chrysler to New York-based Cerberus, one of the world's largest private equity firms, in a $7.4 billion deal. The German automaker retained a 19.9 percent interest in the new company, Chrysler LLC.

"After months of uncertainty, then a period of transition, we are beginning a new chapter in Chrysler's proud history — and we have the chance to write a terrific story," Chrysler Chief Executive Tom LaSorda said in an e-mail to employees.

With the closing, Chrysler becomes the first U.S. automaker in private hands since Ford Motor Co. went public in 1956. Chrysler, which plans a companywide celebration Monday where it will revive its five-sided star logo, will be free of the short-term quarterly earnings pressures that public companies face, since there will be no Chrysler shares.

This is a riceburner free zone.

While I'm a Ford family and only buy Ford products, I always root for all of the Big 3. When the Big 3 does well, there's more jobs and more wealth in Michigan, especially East Michigan. I hope Chrysler does well, and hope to see a return of the days when the Big 3 dominated.