Posted by
Bill Crawford on Sunday, May 24, 2009 8:32:30 PM
If I have to buy a car in the next few years, you can bet your sweet patooty it will be a Ford. The Big Three here are all treading water because of their baggage, not because they build lousy cars.
I am driving a fifteen year old Taurus L. It was a damned good car when it was new, and it is a good car now. I can't wait to see what happens when the White House gets through combing through the wreckage of GM and Chrysler and they finally get done deciding what is "fair". As with the results of the reorganization of GM, I'll bet the bulk of what is "fair" ends up in the lap of the UAW. Imagine a manufacturing company where "it's not what you know, it's who you know" carries the day.
So the government wants to build cars for us? Why the hell would you want to buy them? Because they mean well? I'm thinking about the EPA and their laudable goals to lower pollution a decade ago by adding MTSB to the gasoline in the cold months. It creates delays in delivery because there are different mixtures for every region of the country? But it's for a good cause. It raises the price per gallon and lowers mileage? Sorry. It turns out to be a carcinogen? My bad.
THAT'S the corporate management you want to take out a four year loan to support?
Here's another one for you: the companies have to average 35 MPG in a decade? Reality check: it ain't worth pouring money into the vehicles to make that happen unless your gasoline goes back to over $4.00 a gallon. So it is in the government's best interests for your fuel prices to skyrocket again. This is why Obama commented on the high prices last year by saying that the rise was not bad in iteself, just that it "happened too fast".
THIS is the "change we can believe in"? You must be out of your mind. This is a ticket to an enduring recession. FDR and his New Dealers took whatever recovery that was starting in 1934 and created a recession that lasted until WWII. Check the numbers on unemployment and GDP growth in the 1930's- it's all there, folks.