Time to cut Detroit a break

I'm still pushing to reroute the river and give Detroit to Canada.

At least then we can stop sending our school tax dollars down there to be squandered. They sure have problems with their local politics.

Tom

 

NAIL ON HEAD! :amen:

... Brad

 

The one I know best is China. GM buyers are after prestige here. Domestic manufacturers trying capture that market share use advertising slogans like "Omnipotence...ultimate freedom" (from the Great Wall Hover {an SUV} ad).

"...In China I think Toyota will have a hell of a time because the world war II attrocities were so bad it will take another generation at least for the animosity to go away in total..."

This is exactly true.

FWIW, I do not think a bailout is the best approach. Something more along the lines of a performance bond might make sense. Achieve sales, fuel efficiency, emissions goals etc., or give the money back. If GM top managers believe what they say, it should be no problem to put salaries, bonuses and stock options into escrow accounts

 

Again, isn't that also due to unwarranted easy credit that allowed people to purchase items they didn't have a hope in hell of ever paying off?

During the height of the American housing boom, Canada received a lot of flak from certain neocon "faux news" pundits, due to having much tighter control over credit. That appears to have been the right decision

As a fiscal conservative, I absolutely am against any sort of taxpayer-funded bailout. First of all, this becomes an added component of the Debt, which is almost 100% funded by foreign interests. Second, this "bailout" only serves to reward the very crooks who created the mess. Third, this bailout rewards imprudent financial decisions

I'm not trying to be a hardass here, but we're all responsible for our decisions in life. There is no grand conspiracy that makes us do this, last time I checked nobody pointed a gun to my head and forced me to buy a house or a vehicle

 

Yes, I have said this before as well. In the EU and China - also South America- , GM can hold its own. To me, that points to smart marketing, giving the customer what they need and want.

If you ever happen to go to any EU country on business, or on vacation, check out the offerings from Opel or Vauxhall. Maybe not the most exciting cars on the planet, but they get the job done

Now explain to me why in North America, GM bet the farm on pickups and suv's. There are plenty of offerings from their EU subsidiary companies, not the token offerings now in the pipeline

 

Don't even THINK of that! Seriously, you can keep it!

 

I find it interesting that the horrible biological weapons experiements carried out by Unit 731 - headed by Shiro Ishii - were not prosecuted under the various War Crimes tribunals once WW II ended.

Indeed, many of those involved in human subject terminal experiments went on to cushy careers in Japan and even the US. The US very conveniently looked the other way and whitewashed those war crimes, as the results of those war crimes were used to start American biowarfare programs

For example, USAMRIID had a huge early lead by using the results of Japanease biological torture. This wasn't limited to just biological agents, Unit 731 also did vivisection without anesthesia, froze limbs to study the effects, cut limbs off to study blood loss in a tramatic amputation, used flamethrowers on children and adult Chinese, etc etc.

Small wonder Japan fears having a powerful CHina right next door

Oh, and guess where Ishii ended up after the war? At a certain Amercian taxpayer funded biowarfare agency located in Maryland.

 

Here is a different tact. In my long experience of car ownership the US carmakers blew it royally and for decades. There is either no recovery or a recovery that will take so long (many generations) that it is not a good business plan.

I think the US car makers should leave the car making to those who know how to do it right, like Toyota. Instead they should retool and start a new US industry preferably using materials of which the US has a large supply vs. the rest of the world. (Think oil in the Mid East). We in the US need jobs and new forms of electrical power. Perhaps the US should become the world leader in renewable power sources (Manufacturing, not just research) and use what ever rare materials the US is abundant in as part of the process. Detroit and co should be the center of that new industry. Why chase a dead horse when you can invent a new and much needed product and corner the world market because we have what ever certain component (materials) at hand, thus we would not be dependent on foreign materials for our new industry.

Detroit has the workers, factories, railroads, shipping and all the rest. The only thing they don't have is a product, so with all the need, INVENT ONE which will benefit mankind. Instead of dragging us down with air and water pollution, and using materials like toxics in batteries and steel manufacturing, why not re-tool for the next millennium and produce a needed product void of all that pollution, and in great and growing demand?

 

And I know just the thing, unobtanium. Just mix it with some polluted ground water, smog, and CO2 and it consumes itself giving off energy and some new car smell.
Seriously, alternative energy production on national scale will leave its own trail of pollution. Think covering every roof with solar cells will not leave some scars somewhere? Did you know that one of the benefits of the horseless carriage was the elimination of all the horseshit our cities were drowning in?