Quotes of the week: Friedman, Lutz and Beebe
Friday, December 12th, 2008Thomas Friedman, New York Times (Dec. 9, 2008) — On the Detroit 3 auto bailout.
Our bailout of Detroit will be remembered as the equivalent of pouring billions of dollars of taxpayers money into the mail-order-catalogue business on the eve of the birth of eBay.
Bob Lutz, vice-chairman of General Motors (Fox News interview) — Giving meaning to Friedman’s quote above and giving us a reason to refuse a bailout for GM.
Let me just get one thing straight here: There’s a lot of talk about well, General Motors doesn’t make the right kind of cars or General Motors built trucks too long. At $1.50 per gallon, the American public wants sport utilities and large pickup trucks.
Andrew Beebe, managing director of Suntech Energy Solutions (Greentech Media) — On President-elect Obama’s appointment of Steve Chu as energy secretary.
This was a choice –- in line with what now seems to be the norm for this incoming administration –- that was simply based on the ‘the best person for the job,’ and not on who helped the most or which constituency needs placating.
Tyler Hamilton is editor-in-chief of Corporate Knights magazine and a business columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the clean technology and green energy market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper.
