Think It Through Before Speaking
My Mother has been following the economic meltdown on television. It isn’t a nice thing because she hasn’t been in the market for some time and when she left had to listen to some level of grief from her friends that she was going to lose money by moving to cash. I don’t doubt in the slightest that she is using what she hears to remind her friends of their giving her a hard time. It isn’t a nice trait in a person, but I inherited it.
I drop by and listen to whatever she has on and hear Senators from Southern states talking about how they can’t ask the taxpayers in their states to bail out the auto companies. I think of the Senators in the states that have the plants that will be closing if the auto industry collapses and wonder how willing they will be to vote for assistance to Southern states after the next hurricane hits.
People don’t think things through. If Ford goes belly up, it won’t just be the assembly plants that close, it will be every Ford dealership in the country. When this is talked about, it is necessary to understand the real scope of the problem, and it isn’t just factory workers in the Midwest who will be affected. This is going to hit every state and every town of any size in the country. Every warranty is now invalid. No parts will be available. The value of the vehicles will plummet.
We have to bail these jerks out, but let’s do it on our terms, not theirs. Let’s start building the vehicles the country needs, not the ones the marketing department wants to sell. Let’s start paying management what they are really worth, not what they think they are worth.
It is estimated that the “Big Three” spends $1,500/vehicle for health care, so a single-payer health system would radically reduce costs for all of American industry and put us on the same footing as competing nations.
We must do something given the current economic realities, but it needs to be “business-like”, not another Hank Paulson XMas Club.
10 comments
otoh, they could probably afford that $1500 if they were better designers.
but yeah… i want little and zippy and green. i want to be able to plug it in one day, and pour used cooking oil into it the next day, and exchange its propane tank at the next circle k i come to. i want to live in a world where the vw golf is a big car. i want to be able to take it apart and put it back together again with a socket wrench, a screwdriver, and a pair of pliers.
also, it’d be nice if it were cute, or stylish, and had a killer stereo and heated seats.
The reality is that most people spend their time in cars at city speeds traveling short distances. We need some 95% solutions – vehicles that match the way we drive 95% of the time, not that meet demands for that last 5%.
Climate control and comfortable seats are more important that raw power.
I didn’t bother to buy a car in Frankfurt because I could hop on a bus in front of the building I lived in with a wait of no more than 15 minutes and get to a tram station and go anywhere I wanted in Europe without ever bothering with a cab unless I was running late. The fare was four hours of travel to any point on the system and the ticket was dispensed by a vending machine. It was even cheaper if you bought a monthly pass.
If I had a car, any parking I found would cost more than a week’s worth of tram tickets for the first hour.
The whole situation is dumb.
i wrote a review of the [at the time] brand-new malibu [the reborn version, when they first brought it back]. that review has since disappeared from the intarwebz, but i loved the car, drove it from here to nyc to chicago and back to here. not a lot of power but cute, great gas mileage, good climate control, excellent sound, nice ride even at high speed [except for going downhill]… and the most gosh-awful, horrible, uncomfortable seats ever designed and built.
having grown up in the southwest, i was wondering how i was going to survive nyc, but i handed the keys to the parking garage attendant the day i got there and never once even thought of the car until the day i left. i could walk, take a bus, take the subway, get a cab if i absolutely had to. i loved it.
and trains. i love train travel. much as i love road trips and driving, if there had been a way to do that particular trip by train, i would have.
The summer I worked in Graz, Austria 30 years ago, I had no need of a car at any time during the summer. In town, I bought a monthly metro pass (streetcars were great there). For the few concerts I played in other cities, I bought some sort of rail pass (I can’t remember if Eurailpass existed at that time or not). I rode in other people’s autos perhaps three times all summer; they took me to concerts we played in towns that did not have direct rail service… that was very few towns indeed.
Would I live that way now, in Houston, TX, USA, if I had a choice?
YES!
The whole situation is dumb.
Yup. Speaking as someone who was once a highly awarded industrial designer, it’s been dumb for a couple decades. Once upon a time, design was about function and form. Now, it’s all about minimizing cost (total cost from concept to retail) and maximizing profit. Once it was about a fair ROI, now it’s about maximum ROI. Sadly however, it’s not about maximizing profits for R&D, it’s about maximizing profits for the Exec’s and shareholders whilst minimizing return to employees (wages and benefits) and minimum return to the company for investment in R&D.
It’s all about maximizing greed. That’s the definition of ‘Capitalism’ now. These exec’s all need to be lined up against a wall and stoned. They only care about their personal short-term gains. If they were at all intelligent, they would realize that it can’t work (and hasn’t worked).
When the right began spewing their garbage about ‘Intelligent Design’ I, as a qualified engineer, found it a hilarious oxymoron. I don’t see how one can postulate ‘Intelligent Design’ when one must first prove Intelligence. LOL I haven’t noticed any intelligence anywhere in at least 2 decades. I also must laugh at all the idiots preaching how we are made in ‘Gods Image’ like it’s something to be proud of! If they *really* thought about it, they would realize that they are really saying God is not very bright at all! LOL It proves to me He doesn’t exist, or He has given up on us as a failed experiment (which would actually restore my faith in His intelligence), because if he did exists and he is watching us, he’d be striking down anyone who compared us to Him in a fit of rage! LOL
IMNSHO, of course! LOL
If you have ever lived in an area with good public transport, you would own a car. It is just so much cheaper to live without one.
Austria may be different, but to get to and from the little town we lived in when my Dad was stationed there, there was a rural bus service that went through town a half dozen times a day and connected to trains at several points. If my Dad hadn’t needed to keep his weapon and stuff with him, I’m not sure he would have brought our car from the US. We lived in a tiny village near the Belgium border, but there was public transit and it was cheap. Other than our car, one person in the village owned a motorcycle and that was it.
Hmmmmmm! Maybe there is a God after all! :O And maybe He’s listening!
Well… if any more of the Bushmoron Cartel end up the same way, we just might assume that God has returned from his *Vacation*, or whatever! Maybe some justice isn’t far away. 😀
…So? I can hope can’t I? 😉 LOL
LMAO
It sounds like a stroke. At least he has health insurance. Talking to the Federalist Society should only cause that reaction in people who believe in the Constitution and the rule of law [unlike the Society].
I’m not being very kind, but I think the Constitution and the law are very important, more important than stupid lapel pins.
They don’t deserve kindness. A bullet would be too kind for them.
And yes, The Constitution and Law should be the primary concern of EVERY American and not just some nice slogans and pretty nick-knacks (which only go to making these criminals more wealthy than they already are) and cheap talk. Thankfully there are some, like you, that actually give a damn. Every American who believes the BS from these criminals are either too stupid to live, or criminals, or criminal wannabe’s.
It is amazing the number of people who are unaware that every oath of office, civilian or military, in the US is to support and defend the Constitution. There’s nothing about flags or people, just the Constitution. That document is the United States.