it's run by the fiat, the head of fiat who is essentially an unknown figure to people here in detroit. at general motors the ceo is ed whitaker. he was the former ceo at at&t. the government asked him to be chairman when general motors got their bailout. he essentially replaced the ceoate at general motors from last year, fritz henderson. even if you think back to last year's show rick wagoner was still the ceo at general motors. >> ifill: bottom line after this year of government aid and credit year of tough times no more happy talk in detroit. >> this is always a place that runs on optimism. hopes and dreams are always part of the d.n.a. in detroit. people aren't walking around in hair shirts or anything like that. it's a sober atmosphere. i do think that that's appropriate given that two companies went through bankruptcy were still in a deep recession. we don't know when we'll be climbing out of it. >> ifill: micheline maynard of the "new york times," thanks again for joining us. >> thank you, gwen. >> brown: and now a very different auto story, through poetry. >> we stand in the r

in april, chrysler goes bankrupt and merges with fiat. ceo robert nardelli out, fiat's ceo in. and april 27, bondholder res ject a final deal and three days later, g.m. becomes in effect government motors, filing for chapter 11 protection and emerging 40 days later with $50 billion in taxpayers dollars. fritz henderson the ceo, and the uaw ron gettelfinger taking concessions in return for piece of the new company. meantime ford, gained sales and market share with the new taurus and fusion. which later wins motor trends car of the year award. by july, the government cash for clunkers program has given $1 billion to new car buyers disperse sales as g.m. claims the electric volt will get 230 miles a gallon. they dump pontiac and tries to sell saab, the turn, hummer and opel. most of the deals go south. vetoing the opel sale and parting ways with fritz hernedson november. i'm not a car guy ed whitacre now in charge after the sacking of henderson. g.m. and detroit shook up with the outsiders running all of motown's not quite so big three. in chicago, i'm jeff flock, fox business net

fiat now h a majority stake in the company and pla to roll out new chrysler prodts in a couple years based on its platform. one other noceable change this year, a lack of gli. except f volkswagen's rollout, the show washort on flash and futuristicroducts. that disappointed mototrend 's detroit edit. >> it gaves a good idea of ere the auto companies were heed or what they were thinking about. they would get a reaion from people who came here durin the public days. i think a lot of t people will end up missing th. on the other hand given what general moats and chrysler went through this ye and gin what the entire auto industry has beethrough in the last year, ihould say, i think a little bitore of a do to earth attitude is what you would pect and what we're gettg this year sflrt analysts thi will be a revery year for the auto industry. ey estimate auto makers cod sell 11.5 million vehicles in the u. this year. that about a million more than last year. by then, they're optimistic the pie in the s concepts he likes will come ck. >> bwn: gwen ifill picks up on the auto story nowith more o

but basically, what i wanted to address was, if we're dealing with a fiat currency, how can you stop inflation? what can do we do to stop inflation? that's what happens when your money is not backed by gold or tooken off the gold standard like the house joint resolution. host: thanks. we'll get a response. guest: well, it's clearly the responsibility of the federal reserve to maintain a stable price level, and although they have increased the money supply a great deal in response to the current economic crisis, the fed perfectly well understands that it has to reverse that policy or else we are going to be back into a 1970's hyper inflation situation, and they've already talked a lot about how to do this and when to do this, but they have not yet decided to actually begin tightening, and my fear is that they will wait too long, and so i think a certain amount of inflation is almost inevitable, but hopefully the fed will not allow it to go too far. host: next, pennsylvania. greg, good morning, a democratic caller. erie, go ahead. playerstown, new jersey, mark on our independents line,

i went to that fiat to find david and it is interesting because they never used his material before and for some reason i had the mr. again notion the files or somewhere else because it was all about the jewish but it did not take me long to figure out that most of the people were nine jews. what is interesting about the information is that is not only the date of birth about world war ii activities but also what happened after the war. emigrating to australia in 1950. today in been pressing the day she is in prison and purse as an example. it had the date of the immigration and where they went and what ship and in the case of the united states, and that it even had the initial address. there was nothing on the cards that would indicate if the people were nazi war criminals but of course, i knew that deprivation from other sources. i knew practically all nazi war criminals emigrated through anglo-saxon countries posed as refugees and then allowed to emigrate and come to the country's as refugees. i made up a list of those that i knew were nazi war criminals and it went looking for them

basically what i wanted to address was, if we are dealing with a fiat trinity, how can we stop inflation? this so-called money -- with the currency that we're using is not backed by anything, what can we do to stop the inflation? that's naturally what happens when your money is not backed by gold or if this is taken off the gold standard like the house joint resolution. >> host: thanks, will get a response. >> guest: was clear the responsible federal reserve to maintain a stable price level. and although they've increased the money supply into the current economic crisis, does that perfectly well understand that it has to reverse that policy or else we are going to be back into a 1970's hyperinflation situation. and they've already talked a lot about how to do this and when to do this, but they have not yet decided to actually begin tightening. and my fear is that they will wait too long and so, i think a certain amount of inflation is almost inevitable, but hopefully the fed will not allow it to go too far. >> host: next is eerie, pennsylvania. read, good morning. a democratic call. eer

a lot of things people have not heard about that may sound fiat -- far out that you can see the depth of the sourcing and describe some of that you mentioned the watergate tapes water some of the other things? >> a vast array of books or material like that there are 600 footnotes in this book. we try to have nothing we could not point to there are websites and all kinds of different things in the footnotes you can hear the type -- tapes. there is one site written by a doctor a new diversity of texas for you can hear a lot of what we reported here. we tried very hard sometimes there is no way. sometimes only one person knows something. agreed to spend a great deal of time pointing to sources you can check. i would like to pick up on the vietnam issue. what bothered the kramerite most was vietnam because they believe we were giving up arms control power, projected power, and the opening to china but vietnam was the real burr. weaver not going to win the war. nixon eventually east -- send kissinger to deliver the message. that was the toughest parts of the book to write. in order to acco

we read about fiat, the italian firm, they had a fourth quarter loss of nearly $400 million.hey own a controlling stake in chrysler and posted his fourth quarter loss of 281 million bureaus and reported a loss for the full year. it warned that it would depend heavily this year and european programs to trade in older cars. rockville, maryland, independent college. caller: good morning. everybody thinks that with electric cars that that will be better for the environment. what everybody does understand that in order to recharge your batteries, you are plugging into a system where electricity is generated by coal-fired plants. that is more dangerous to the environment and gasoline. what they should do is use natural gas which the united states has plenty of rather than simply think that if you have an electric car that that is good for the environment. you have to plug it in an recharger with electricity which is generated by coal unless we go nuclear. an electric car makes sense for the environment. host: we have state of the union coverage tomorrow night starting at 8:00 p.m.

the continental currencies -- fiat money system.what happened to the continental currency is it crashed and that is what is going to happen now. guest: i agree with you that we are likely going to have inflation again but i don't think we want to go back to the gold standard. i know that is going to irritate a lot of people, friends of the gold standard, including my old friend congressman paul, but the gold standard can only work if other countries join the gold standard, otherwise the united states on the gold standard would buffer every single currency shop in the world. i don't think we want to do that. second, four years when people talk about the gold standard i would say on election platform, we don't have the gold standard, it is not because we don't know about the gold standard but because we do. it meant that you have to be willing to accept a lot of unemployment in order to maintain. we are not willing to do that. the reason why we don't have the gold standard is because the gold standard required us to accept a level of

the continental currencies -- fiat money system.hat happened to the continental currency is it crashed and that is what is going to happen now. guest: i agree with you that we are likely going to have inflation again but i don't think we want to go back to the gold standard. i know that is going to irritate a lot of people, friends of the gold standard, including my old friend congressman paul, but the gold standard can only work if other countries join the gold standard, otherwise the united states on the gold standard would buffer every single currency shop in the world. i don't think we want to do that. second, four years when people talk about the gold standard i would say on election platform, we don't have the gold standard, it is not because we don't know about the gold standard but because we do. it meant that you have to be willing to accept a lot of unemployment in order to maintain. we are not willing to do that. the reason why we don't have the gold standard is because the gold standard required us to accept a level of u

sergio, the head of fiat is trying to combine the two and restock a depleted pantry of new models chrysler needs to compete. it is an open question as to how well they can deal with the future. he has been making the statements of the past few weeks that they have things under control and chrysler will bounce back. given the amount of money the u.s. government and canadian government and politicians have put into making chrysler succeed, it will be closely watched in the future. host: and the headlines also, members of congress and try hybrid vehicles. what was that like? were they driving around the arena? guest: there are couple of places where during that pressed these people can try out the hybrid and other vehicles. -- the electric vehicles. host: the house members are coming back to the hill today to start all types of legislative work. is there anything we should look for on capitol hill as a result of this 20-member delegation to detroit this week? guest: right now we are in a lull after the storm. last year after the crisis there were several different efforts underway to try to h