Tampa Prep 2009-2010 Impact Defense File

AT: Australian Prolif

It is probably also useful to point out in this general context that Australia is perhaps the exception to the presumed rule that if the nuclear umbrella were withdrawn too quickly, it might itself seek to acquire nuclear weapons. That was certainly the case in the 1950s and ’60s when active consideration was given to Australia’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, regardless of the ANZUS Treaty and the US nuclear umbrella. However, sanity prevailed, and it can be fairly confidently predicted that is not a prospect likely to raise its head ever again in Australia.

AT: Auto Industry Collapse

The collapse of the auto industry is inevitable – Iraq War

Chicago Sun-Times 06 (Jesse Jackson, Chicago Sun-Times, December 12 2006, “Another Iraq Casualty: U.S. Auto Industry,” http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1212-29.htm)

One casualty of the debacle in Iraq seldom gets much press, but the inevitable focus on the mess in Iraq too often overshadows other vital challenges. The American automobile industry is hemorrhaging. Today, Ford will announce that it will offer buyouts to 85 percent of its salaried work force. Ford is looking to lay off a staggering 52,000 employees by September 2007. Chrysler has already been merged with the German automaker Daimler-Benz. General Motors is gushing red ink. This industry has been America's industrial stronghold since Henry Ford perfected the assembly line. After World War II, President Eisenhower's defense secretary, Charlie Wilson, wasn't far off when he said, ''What's good for America is good for General Motors and vice versa.'' GM was America's signature company. Its unionized employees won what became the foundation of the American Dream: secure jobs that paid a family wage, with health care, pensions and paid vacations. Now that social contract is being shredded by the global marketplace. The foolish, ideological commitment to mindless trade policies over the last several decades has devastated Detroit. U.S. automakers must now compete with companies from Europe and Japan that bear no health care costs. General Motors has about three retirees for every one autoworker; Ford has two for every active employee. Toyota in this country has about 100 retirees in total. The health care and pension costs put U.S. automakers at a staggering cost disadvantage: over $1,200 a car. If they compete on price, they lose money. If they don't compete, they lose market share. At the same time, we desperately need the industry to move to hybrid and alternative-fuel cars. Detroit is ready to build cars that use alternative fuels made from corn or grasses. But the oil industry that resists putting in the E85 (85 percent ethanol) pumps. These would cut the demand for oil drastically -- and put a crimp in their record profits. The Ford layoffs alone will hit Michigan, New Jersey, Georgia, Missouri and Ohio big-time, and states like Kentucky will feel the pain. It won't stop with the auto jobs. The auto suppliers, housing markets, hotels, the retail industries that depend on the demand generated by relatively well-paid auto employees will be depressed. We see the pain caused by the steel industry's decline. But the steel industry is a pimple compared with the rash of economic losses that the decline of Detroit will cause. Obviously, this crisis requires urgent, intense national action. Are we prepared to let the auto industry die? If not, what steps can be taken to relieve the burdens of their health care and pension costs? What should be expected from the automakers in return in terms of investment, jobs guarantees, fuel efficiency and alternative-fuel cars? What penalties or incentives should be provided to the oil industry to force proliferation of alternative-fuel pumps in gas stations? How does all this fit into a concerted drive for energy independence? Yet when the CEOs of the auto industry sought to meet with George W. Bush before the election, he canceled two meetings with them. When they finally met, an obviously distracted president gave them all of one hour, and nothing was decided. This is catastrophic. Understandably, the president and his advisers are focused on what may be the worst foreign policy debacle in our history, in Iraq. But the collapse of Detroit may well be the equivalent defeat in our economic history. Surely our auto companies' futures cannot be left to a market in which their competitors enjoy massive state subsidies and mercantile trade policies. We need a considered national policy for our industrial future. We tend to think of Iraq as a crisis ''over there.'' In fact, it is taking casualties here at home. The cost of the war is evinced not just by the brave men and women who are sacrificing life and limb, not just by the literal trillions of dollars that will be wasted, but by the collapse of America's own economy. It remains neglected as our leaders focus on troubles abroad rather than threats here at home.
The US auto industry is in a recession – too many factors

Krisher 08 (Tom Krisher, Canadian TV, Globe and Mail, May 13 2008, “US auto industry is in a recession, GM exec says,” http://ctv2.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080513.wgmoutlook0513/business/Business/businessBN/ctv-business)

The U.S. auto industry is in a recession, General Motors Corp. president and chief operating officer Fritz Henderson said Tuesday. The automaker's No. 2 executive said GM is selling below trends for the third straight year. He blamed the sales drop on the troubled housing market, tight credit and higher gasoline prices that are sending consumers from trucks to cars at a rate much faster than the company has ever seen. But Mr. Henderson told a conference of banking and insurance industry officials in Warren, Mich., that it has cut costs and rolled out new products. GM also is seeing sales growth in emerging markets. He also said the first quarter was about in line with GM's expectations, but April's sales drop surprised the company. He said GM sees more downside risk than upside opportunity for the remainder of 2008. The Detroit-based auto maker cut its industry wide U.S. sales outlook for 2008 to between 15.3 million and 15.5 million light vehicles from 16 million at the beginning of the year, largely due to plummeting sales of trucks and sport utility vehicles. That's still higher than Ford Motor Co., which is forecasting 15 million. Some industry analysts have gone below 15 million, a 14-year low. Mr. Henderson said the 11-week strike at parts supplier American Axle and Manufacturing Holdings Inc. has had only a minimal effect on the company's retail sales, largely because it had built up a large inventory of pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles at a time when the market shifted to smaller vehicles. American Axle makes axles, drive shafts and stabilizer bars mainly for GM's larger vehicles. Mr. Henderson said the strike cost GM $800-million (U.S.) in earnings before taxes in the first quarter, and he said the company agreed to American Axle's request to kick in $200-million to help end the work stoppage by the United Auto Workers. "We agreed to do that because we think it would be the most helpful thing we could do" to end the strike, mr. Henderson said. "We're working hard to not be involved in those day-to-day negotiations." Mike DiGiovanni, GM's executive director of global market and industry analysis, told the conference the economy will rebound in the second half of the year but the pace would be sluggish. "We're starting to think that perhaps the trough of this downturn is going to occur in the second quarter," he said. Mr. DiGiovanni said the threat of a huge credit crunch has passed, and he predicted home prices likely are to fall further. Home construction, which has a big impact on pickup truck sales, may be near the bottom of a slump, and the rate of decline is slowing, he said. "I guarantee you pickup sales will come back," he said. GM in the past has focused its advertising too heavily on trucks, but is in the process of shifting that "to a new plan that's really going to focus on miles per gallon," Mr. DiGiovanni said. He also said GM will roll out 14 new cars and crossover vehicles in the next 18 months, but only one new truck. GM shares fell 36 cents, or 1.7 per cent, to $20.40, in morning trading.

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