Mrs. R and I have been busy of late preparing to send our daughter, La Scholar, off to college. As those of you in similar straits know well, one must have the proper form of transportation for one's mobility, mustn't one? However, locating that fine chariot is proving to be a Sisyphean task. That's just one reason why my literary output has been reduced of late. The others will remain undiscussed.
Everywhere we go, enticed by come-on Internet ads featuring "too good to be true just sold it this morning" creampuffs, we are finding acres of large pickups and SUVs and not the economy car we seek. We are also discovering that the used car business is oblivious to the run-down economic conditions of the current day. Prices for small and medium-sized used cars rival those of small houses! The increase in the average price of such a vehicle shot up significantly from the time we went shopping for our son Translator's wheels just two years ago!
One has to wonder - besides the obvious increased interest in economical transportation - just how the so-called free market effect is working right now. Sure, with smaller cars in demand, their prices will increase. But the prices of the neglected and abandoned highway behemoths littering the lots are no lower despite the lack of demand. One would think that their prices would be lowered to entice the unknowing into taking one of these dinosaurs off for an expensive life of fast freeway fun and fuel-hardy adventure.
For new car producers, the news isn't very good lately either. GM is losing billions thanks to Rick Waggoner's arrogant insistence on sticking too long with the strategy of building big pickups and SUVs even when faced with blatant evidence that it was time for a change. Thousands of long-term GM line workers are paying for his hubris with their jobs, their benefits, and with their pensions. Waggoner's counterparts at Ford (Alan Mullaly) and Chrysler (until recently Daimler's Dr. Dieter Zetsche) share in the blame, doing the same harm to their blue collars from the same contaminated pool of arrogant hubris.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - John Bambenek
"should the American economy ever recover from the radical effort to shrink the government to a size that can be drowned in a bathtub through economic collapse"
You do know that the government has grown faster and larger under President Bush than any other President in history, don't you?
Just saying. Don't let the facts get in the way of your Chicken Little ranting.
2 - bliffle
Well, realist described it as an 'effort' not as a successful program.
I have a problem reconciling the extraordinary growth of the Federal Government with the oft avowed administration principle of shrinking the government.
What does it mean that even as the budget explodes and government increases alarmingly that we seem to have fewer government services than ever?
What is wrong? How can the contradiction be explained? Or was it the underlying ideology that was faulty?
And what are all those people doing, spying on each other?
3 - John Bambenek
I think you mistake the "administration" for "conservatives". I don't recall Bush shrinking any government or making any real attempt to do so.
Fewer government services? How do you justify that? What government services (that are funded or created by the federal government, specifically) have been cut?
4 - Ruvy
I'll have to get this guy to help me with my writing. Wit, humor and poetry all combined into one nasty, critical piece of vicious home truths packaged for you consumption.
And you guys can't even appreciate it!
Vanity of vanities. All is vanity! [Ecclesiastes 1:1]
5 - Baritone
Ruvy,
I tend to agree with you. It is an artful piece of writing and does in fact hold a number of truths.
B
6 - Baronius
The auto industry is suffering the consequences of their failure to respond to the market. Foreigners are buying up our property, even our landmarks. Can we survive it? Of course we can. We've survived it before.
7 - Dr Dreadful
Why, Baronius, does your comment remind me of the legend of Achilles, and in particular the eventual downfall of that seemingly invulnerable warrior at the hands of an effete Trojan named Paris?
8 - Jet
Another new trend is thieves stealing older luxury cars-because their gas tank is bigger. They drain off the gas and leave the car on the side fo the road.
Who would've thought that a car would be worth less than the contents of its tank?
9 - Baronius
Dread, I'm not taking the auto makers' side on this. They were stupid, as were many of their customers. They were stupid in the exact same way they were thirty years earlier, which is amazing to me.
It's just that I remember these same conversations, about 30 Rock being bought up (by the Japanese, I think) and Detroit falling to Japanese imports. Maybe our current economic hard times will be fatal, I don't know; but the fact that we've had thirty years of increasing prosperity tells me that these problems aren't necessarily fatal.
I think it'd be peachy if the world economy grew at a steady pace, with America always a little bit out in front. And the funny thing is, if you look at the long-term trend lines, that's what's been happening. India finally removed the government boot off the throat of small business, and they've been booming. China is allowing business too, although they still delight in the literal boot on the throat. But America is still out in front, healthy as a horse.
10 - Arch Conservative
Wether it be a washing machine or a government the more parts and layers you add to anything the less effective and efficient it becomes.
We have seen Bush and the GOP, the supposed champions of a smaller, less intrusive federal government grow our government and spending exponentially.
Now it is 2008. We all know that Obama is a socialist whose wet dream is to tax and spend us all into oblivion.
What evidence do we have that supports the notion that McCain would be much better?
They are all drunk with power and a sense of self -importance wether they have a D or an R next to their name. Half of them are so sure that they know what's best for the public and they're going to do whatever they think that is come hell or high water and the other half just doesn't give a damn one way or the other as long as they can be the center of attention.
But when we elect one of these two stooges to be president and a handful of other stooges to make our laws in congress we will have no one to blame but ourselves.
Not only is our federal government becoming larger, more complicated and less effective but the global popluation as well is growing...adding more and more who have more and more different views and ideas about this world. Sooner or later we will reach a catastrophic tipping point.
It's inevitable.
11 - Dan Miller
Does anybody else remember Madman Muntz and his television receivers? He reverse engineered existing TV receivers back in the 1950s by removing parts until they ceased to work. Then he put the part lack of which made the device cease to work back in. Made lots of TV sets, which he sold inexpensively, and in the process became rather wealthy.
Perhaps we need a Madman Muntz to fiddle around with the Government a while. Couldn't do much harm, and might do a bit of good.
Dan
12 - Joanne Huspek
I don't know, R. I don't think the auto workers have caught on yet. I am continually harassed by drivers of monster pick ups and SUVs. I know, it's because I am smugly driving a Prius that on a bad day will average 45 mpg.
WAKE UP, DETROIT!
Nah, that won't do it either.
13 - Dr Dreadful
Baronius, I'm not being a Chicken Little here either. Just posting a little warning against over-confidence.
I'll leave the 'sky is falling' stuff to Realist and Ruvy.
At least Ruvy tells us our impending downfall has an external cause. Realist just blames it on economics.
Realist in particular reminds me of Private Fraser, a character in the classic British sitcom Dad's Army, about the exploits of a valiant but inept Home Guard unit during World War 2. Fraser was a lugubrious Scotsman who delighted in predicting dire outcomes for the various scrapes the platoon got themselves into. His catchphrase, delivered with wide staring eyes and a sepulchral tone (he was an undertaker by profession), was: "We're all doomed... DOOOOOMED!!!"
You can probably catch excerpts from the show on YouTube if you've a mind.
14 - bliffle
Dan, you're not an electronics engineer are you?
Muntz made modular TV sets, the idea being that if e.g., the horizontal drive amplifier went out you'd replace the subassembly instead of taking the TV in for the repairman to debug and fix. But the modules were too expensive and interchangeability was poor so the whole thing would have to be tuned up afterwards. Besides that, mostly what failed were tubes, so pretty soon a couple guys started making and selling tube testers that could be standing out in a drug store so the TV owner would take a handful of tubes down to the store and test them.
Muntz TVs were expensive and difficult to repair. Also, the modules were much more expensive than tubes. So he failed.
Muntz also tried to make a car, the "Muntz Jet". i knew a guy who had one. It never ran right. The car was a failure.
Muntz was just a hustler trying to cash in on the postwar market for TVs and cars.
Why do you think that would be a good model for any business or government? Muntz products were expensive and poor. What are you proposing?
If you want to see what happens when a fool just tries messing around with a management system just look at the Bush administration: disaster.
15 - Baronius
Dread, I understand. Clearly, I'm trying to pick a fight because I'm bored. Maybe Arch and Realist are right and the end is near for western civilization. But I don't think they are right, and anyway I'm probably happier than either of them.
16 - Dave Nalle
I've got two words for the young Realista - Geo Metro. $600 bucks and it will run for years at 45mpg. How can you go wrong?
But don't wait. They're actually going up in price.
Dave
17 - Dave Nalle
For new car producers, the news isn't very good lately either. GM is losing billions thanks to Rick Waggoner's arrogant insistence on sticking too long with the strategy of building big pickups and SUVs even when faced with blatant evidence that it was time for a change. Thousands of long-term GM line workers are paying for his hubris with their jobs, their benefits, and with their pensions. Waggoner's counterparts at Ford (Alan Mullaly) and Chrysler (until recently Daimler's Dr. Dieter Zetsche) share in the blame, doing the same harm to their blue collars from the same contaminated pool of arrogant hubris.
Ok, I'll grant you the bigwigs shortsightedness and idiocy. But at the same time, what about the Saturn Volt - scheduled to roll out this fall and the first true US-made electric car? Any credit for that?
And while we're assignign responsibility, why aren't these unionized workers reading the writing on the wall, taking early buyout offers and retraining for jobs which fit with the modern economy? Don't they have as much of a duty to be responsible for their own employability as GM management does to run their company halfway sensibly? A $150K severance package is enough to set up a nice little shop doing natural gas conversions or solar panel installations - requiring skills which aren't that far from those of an engine assembly worker or a sheet metal worker.
Dave
18 - Realist
You should be VERY worried, Dave - I mostly agree with you.
19 - Clavos
At least Ruvy tells us our impending downfall has an external cause. Realist just blames it on economics.
Actually, as wild-eyed as they both are, I find Realist to be far more of a realist than Ruvy.
At least Realist's apocalypses are rooted (if not grafted)in the real world, not in mythology books written millenia ago by fallible humans.
20 - Ruvy
Actually, as wild-eyed as they both are, I find Realist to be far more of a realist than Ruvy. At least Realist's apocalypses are rooted (if not grafted)in the real world, not in mythology books written millenia ago by fallible humans.
I read the economic gobbledygook that corporate execs put out for a (small) living, and frankly, they all sound like a bunch of excuse makers trying to cover their big asses with one small cloverleaf.
Clavos, do you really expect a guy who planted figs or pushed oxen for a living to be able to talk about "corporate footprints", "economic headwinds", and "exiting non-performing properties"?
And do you seriously think that any Judean or Israelite would have listened to them had they done so? Not that they listened then or listen now.... But we're not stoopid, you know. "Corporate footprints", "economic headwinds", and "exiting non-performing properties" along with all the other catch phrases these execs use, are just so much bullshit for the coupon clippers.
Prophesying an arrow that will be have intelligence (a smart missile, used by the States in Iraq) two thousand years before they existed, on the other hand, is not.
Realist, in citing the evidence around him portending the economic collapse of your country, is only giving proof to the words of the ancient prophets of my people in plain English that even you can understand.
That's why I usually like his articles. But this piece was especially poetic - "fuel-hardy adventures in a used up car-nation" indeed!
21 - Clavos
As usual, you missed the point, Ruvy.
Your millenia-old "prophecies" (and those of the Christian books) are the bullshit.
"Intelligent 'arrows'" indeed.
It's your (and other fanatics') interpretations (after the fact) of those so-called prophecies that make them seem prescient, not the actual mumbo-jumbo written thousands of years ago.
That's the same principle fortune tellers, tarot card readers, palmists and other charlatans use, with about the same level of credibility: zero.
22 - Dr Dreadful
Yeah, Ruvy, that prophecy is totally understandable if you realize how valuable arrows were and how loath a warrior or hunter would have been to waste any of them.
You can easily imagine a Hebrew archer on the battle line, firing again and again, watching some of his arrows find their mark and some not, feeling the quiver on his back getting lighter with each shot as the enemy gets uncomfortably close, and thinking to himself, "Now if only my arrows were smart and could find their own way to their targets!"
Like an awful lot of prophecies, that one's just wishful thinking.
23 - Ruvy
Comments 21 & 22:
Call bullshit all you want. Arrows - missiles with artificial intelligence - were used, and continue to be used - as called by the prophets of my people. When the prophecies happen, you should pay attention, instead of scoffing. Just because some Christian preacher has been selling you shit all your lives and you're sick of it, does not subtract from the truth of the Torah and the Tana"kh.
I know that doesn't square with your view of the world, but reality usually doesn't square with what logicians work it out to be. That is why physicists worked out theories of quantum physics.
24 - bliffle
Dave asks: "what about the Saturn Volt - scheduled to roll out this fall and the first true US-made electric car? Any credit for that?"
If the Volt is any more window dressing than the EV-1 was they'll get credit. But it may just be another frustrating experience for customers.
25 - Dave Nalle
If cars could run on hype and customer loyalty then the EV1 was a huge success.
As for the Volt, it looks like it's been pushed back and won't be out until 2010. But they've improved the design along the way, including a design idea which I came up with independently and apparently wasn't as stupid an idea as I thought - running a gas generator to charge the batteries while the car is operating. Apparently that increases the range to 360 miles at a run.
BTW, the Honda FCX hydrogen fuel cell car is actually available now - if you live in SoCal and are willing to lease rather than buy.
Meanwhile, innovative tinkerers are coming up with bizarre and amazing things. A guy in our biodiesel coop was able to convert his diesel truck to run on water for about $1200. It breaks the water down into hydrogen and oxygen and then burns them. Most of the expense was for the equipment to separate the water into its component atoms.
Dave