In the comments, please order the following items in preference order:
Speeding
Tailgating
Changing lanes without signalling
Running over skunks
Cutting off Subarus with CT plates.
Showing posts with label Cars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cars. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
From the Vicelike-Hold-On-The-Obvious-Department
All the self congratulatory blather from Congress and Detroit over the Cash-For-Clunkers program is starting to get on my nerves.
These people are acting as if giving Americans $3 billion in free money to buy cars was an insight of unparalleled brilliance.
That's like paying me to shoot guns or play Halo. I hear the Russians were inspired to start a similar stimulus program where they pay old men to drink vodka and pass out in the Metro.
These people are acting as if giving Americans $3 billion in free money to buy cars was an insight of unparalleled brilliance.
That's like paying me to shoot guns or play Halo. I hear the Russians were inspired to start a similar stimulus program where they pay old men to drink vodka and pass out in the Metro.
Friday, February 27, 2009
He's Mister Snow Miser
Last several years? "Hmm, I live in Minnesota. 6-8" of snow, I think I'll hope that, assuming I can get home at all, I don't get stuck in an 8" drift because my Saturn has about 3" of ground clearance and they don't plow very well the first night on my back streets and will I make it up the alleyway to my driveway and over the plow-ridge or will I be able to make it UP the little hill so I can come DOWN the alleyway and try to make that tight turn in lots of churned-up snow with no momentum and I think I wore the right shoes for shoveling my car out at 12:30am."
Tonight? "Hmm, I live in Minnesota. 6-8" of snow, I'll just pop the Jeep into 4WD and - Holy Crap! By Finnegan's shiny tunic, I'm home already."
Mileage? Immeasurably low.
Satisfaction? Immeasurably high.
Tonight? "Hmm, I live in Minnesota. 6-8" of snow, I'll just pop the Jeep into 4WD and - Holy Crap! By Finnegan's shiny tunic, I'm home already."
Mileage? Immeasurably low.
Satisfaction? Immeasurably high.
Friday, November 21, 2008
Inconsistency And Its Discontents
I keep hearing people say "Detroit should make cars people want to buy." I think I've even said it myself.
But how do we reconcile this with the fact that (as of last summer, anyway) GM has 19-20% of the US car market. Clearly that's a long way from the 50% they used to have but its still a lot of cars. And aren't people buying GM cars because they want to?
Another thing we hear is "GM put all their eggs into selling SUVs and now that gas is more expensive, they are hosed."
Sometimes you hear both of these things in the same conversation which is inconsistent and annoys me. SUVs, as any look at a parking lot can tell you, were staggeringly popular for a long time.
Maybe when people say "Detroit should make cars people want to buy," they really mean "Detroit should make cars that I want to buy," or maybe "Detroit should make cars that more people want to buy."
Or maybe "Detroit should make cars I approve of." I guess that would include those cute little European cars that, if you are lucky, you can fit a 6-pack and a ham sandwich in the trunk, and when you mash the throttle down, it makes a noise like the dog farted and then you have to swipe your credit card to buy some carbon offsets.
By the way, GM makes those in Europe, but they can't sell them here becauese they weren't built by the UAW.
But how do we reconcile this with the fact that (as of last summer, anyway) GM has 19-20% of the US car market. Clearly that's a long way from the 50% they used to have but its still a lot of cars. And aren't people buying GM cars because they want to?
Another thing we hear is "GM put all their eggs into selling SUVs and now that gas is more expensive, they are hosed."
Sometimes you hear both of these things in the same conversation which is inconsistent and annoys me. SUVs, as any look at a parking lot can tell you, were staggeringly popular for a long time.
Maybe when people say "Detroit should make cars people want to buy," they really mean "Detroit should make cars that I want to buy," or maybe "Detroit should make cars that more people want to buy."
Or maybe "Detroit should make cars I approve of." I guess that would include those cute little European cars that, if you are lucky, you can fit a 6-pack and a ham sandwich in the trunk, and when you mash the throttle down, it makes a noise like the dog farted and then you have to swipe your credit card to buy some carbon offsets.
By the way, GM makes those in Europe, but they can't sell them here becauese they weren't built by the UAW.
You Greedy Bastard
Rick Wagoner is the CEO of GM.
Rick Wagoner recently asked Congress for a $25 beeeeelyon dollar bailout of the auto industry.
Rick Wagoner makes 14.4 million dollars a year.
Rick Wagoner flew to DC in his private corporate jet. Cost of this little jaunt: $20,000.
I'm a believer in the rights of companies to pay their executives whatever they want, but I question the sense of a man who is flinging cash around by the bucketfull while asking the American taxpayers to write him a check.
I know he's arguing, essentially that the auto industry is too big to fail. I counter 'too dumb to bail."
Show a little sense next time, Rick.
Rick Wagoner recently asked Congress for a $25 beeeeelyon dollar bailout of the auto industry.
Rick Wagoner makes 14.4 million dollars a year.
Rick Wagoner flew to DC in his private corporate jet. Cost of this little jaunt: $20,000.
I'm a believer in the rights of companies to pay their executives whatever they want, but I question the sense of a man who is flinging cash around by the bucketfull while asking the American taxpayers to write him a check.
I know he's arguing, essentially that the auto industry is too big to fail. I counter 'too dumb to bail."
Show a little sense next time, Rick.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Screw You, Detroit -- With Apologies To My Father
Dear Dad,
I know you bought bonds in an American car company, and I'm certain that you'll take a haircut if it goes bankrupt.
But I can't support handing these staggeringly incompetent companies billions of dollars in taxpayer money, when they look like lost causes.
The 25 billion that was supposed to be a loan to Ford, Chrysler and GM, --allowing them to retool and create more fuel efficient cars -- is suddenly being discussed as a band-aid cash infusion just to get them through the next few months.
At which point we'll give them another 5o billion, a possibility that prompts me to ask (not for the first time ) "How badly do you have to fuck up in this country before we pull the plug?"
Let them declare Chapter 11. Here's why.
Argument 1: Bankruptcy is not the end of the world. Every time I turn on a TV, I see one of the Big 3 CEOs jacking his jaws into a microphone, telling me that if his company has to declare bankruptcy, the economy will collapse. This is manipulative bullshit. 5 million people will NOT be thrown out of work and Michigan will not vaporize into dust and get hoovered up by the Japanese.
Many high profile companies have filed bankruptcy in recent years and are still around: Delta Air Lines, United Air Lines, Global Crossing, as well as steel producers and retail firms. They continue operating, people come to work and life goes on.
Some workers would probably lose their jobs, but that is going to happen anyway. The US auto industry can turn out 5 million more cars a year than its customers want to buy. Keeping that kind of excess capacity around for no reason would be even dumber than paying workers not to work. Except GM acutally does that. Which brings me to my next point.
Argument 2: Enough rewarding failure. Why do the slack-jawed idiots who run America's car manufacturers get to stick their noses into the money trough, when their decisions have been so spectacularly bad?
GM has 20% of the US car market. Why does it need 8 brands? And why do those 8 brands sell rebadged versions of the same cars? Case in point: The Chevy Aveo is, with the exception of the front bumper, the exact same car as the Pontiac G3. (It was bad enough the first time around.)
And it gets worse: the Chevy Venture minivan is nearly identical to the Pontiac Montana. You'll go crosseyed trying to tell the difference between the unlovely Saturn Outlook, pondorous GMC Acadia, and lumbering Buick Enclave.
Badge engineering is so appallingly stupid because it requires GM to market the same car 2 or 3 different ways, wasting money and diluting any value that these exhausted brands still have. Does Toyota (which has roughly the same percentage of the US car market as GM) sell the Camry 3 different ways?
Argument 3: Going into bankruptcy is the only way these companies can get the legal cover to reorganize.
GM knows its dealer network is too big and too expensive, but cutting brands and dealership agreements is a long, expensive and painful process. Bankruptcy can get it done quickly enough to make a difference, and without igniting a legal firestorm that would make the incendiary bombing of Tokyo look like a burnt-out match.
And I haven't even mentioned the unions yet. Pensions, health care and wages for the unions add $2,000 or more to the cost of every car that comes off an assembly line in Detroit. Want to know why the Corolla feels like better ride than the Ford Fusion? The Japanse don't have the UAW making them pay janitors $28 an hour to sweep floors, and handing other workers full pay and benefits to stay home.
Any solution to this disaster has to include sharp reductions in these giant costs, or in another 6 months we'll see the same 3 CEOs back in Washington looking for another handout.
Let em sink. Sorry, Dad.
Love,
MeatAxe
PS. I just have to add this: According to James Sherk, a labor policy analysts at The Heritage Foundation, reports that workers at the Big Three earned between $71 and $76 an hour for a total of $130,000 in 2006. By contrast, employees at Japanese plants made between $42 and $48 an hour for about $80,000. The average American private sector worker earned about $25 an hour in 2006. (h/t to Redstate)
This means that when Barney Frank was on NPR this morning complaining that Republicans were blocking the Detroit bailout in order to strip the UAW of righteous concessions that it had won from the rapacious car manufacturers, a river of shit was flowing out of his mouth.
There is NO WAY that assembling cars -- which is essentially unskilled labor -- should earn a worker 130k a year. It is utterly unsustainable in this environment.
(And if you don't think its unskilled, I suggest you read this.)
I know you bought bonds in an American car company, and I'm certain that you'll take a haircut if it goes bankrupt.
But I can't support handing these staggeringly incompetent companies billions of dollars in taxpayer money, when they look like lost causes.
The 25 billion that was supposed to be a loan to Ford, Chrysler and GM, --allowing them to retool and create more fuel efficient cars -- is suddenly being discussed as a band-aid cash infusion just to get them through the next few months.
At which point we'll give them another 5o billion, a possibility that prompts me to ask (not for the first time ) "How badly do you have to fuck up in this country before we pull the plug?"
Let them declare Chapter 11. Here's why.
Argument 1: Bankruptcy is not the end of the world. Every time I turn on a TV, I see one of the Big 3 CEOs jacking his jaws into a microphone, telling me that if his company has to declare bankruptcy, the economy will collapse. This is manipulative bullshit. 5 million people will NOT be thrown out of work and Michigan will not vaporize into dust and get hoovered up by the Japanese.
Many high profile companies have filed bankruptcy in recent years and are still around: Delta Air Lines, United Air Lines, Global Crossing, as well as steel producers and retail firms. They continue operating, people come to work and life goes on.
Some workers would probably lose their jobs, but that is going to happen anyway. The US auto industry can turn out 5 million more cars a year than its customers want to buy. Keeping that kind of excess capacity around for no reason would be even dumber than paying workers not to work. Except GM acutally does that. Which brings me to my next point.
Argument 2: Enough rewarding failure. Why do the slack-jawed idiots who run America's car manufacturers get to stick their noses into the money trough, when their decisions have been so spectacularly bad?
GM has 20% of the US car market. Why does it need 8 brands? And why do those 8 brands sell rebadged versions of the same cars? Case in point: The Chevy Aveo is, with the exception of the front bumper, the exact same car as the Pontiac G3. (It was bad enough the first time around.)
And it gets worse: the Chevy Venture minivan is nearly identical to the Pontiac Montana. You'll go crosseyed trying to tell the difference between the unlovely Saturn Outlook, pondorous GMC Acadia, and lumbering Buick Enclave.
Badge engineering is so appallingly stupid because it requires GM to market the same car 2 or 3 different ways, wasting money and diluting any value that these exhausted brands still have. Does Toyota (which has roughly the same percentage of the US car market as GM) sell the Camry 3 different ways?
Argument 3: Going into bankruptcy is the only way these companies can get the legal cover to reorganize.
GM knows its dealer network is too big and too expensive, but cutting brands and dealership agreements is a long, expensive and painful process. Bankruptcy can get it done quickly enough to make a difference, and without igniting a legal firestorm that would make the incendiary bombing of Tokyo look like a burnt-out match.
And I haven't even mentioned the unions yet. Pensions, health care and wages for the unions add $2,000 or more to the cost of every car that comes off an assembly line in Detroit. Want to know why the Corolla feels like better ride than the Ford Fusion? The Japanse don't have the UAW making them pay janitors $28 an hour to sweep floors, and handing other workers full pay and benefits to stay home.
Any solution to this disaster has to include sharp reductions in these giant costs, or in another 6 months we'll see the same 3 CEOs back in Washington looking for another handout.
Let em sink. Sorry, Dad.
Love,
MeatAxe
PS. I just have to add this: According to James Sherk, a labor policy analysts at The Heritage Foundation, reports that workers at the Big Three earned between $71 and $76 an hour for a total of $130,000 in 2006. By contrast, employees at Japanese plants made between $42 and $48 an hour for about $80,000. The average American private sector worker earned about $25 an hour in 2006. (h/t to Redstate)
This means that when Barney Frank was on NPR this morning complaining that Republicans were blocking the Detroit bailout in order to strip the UAW of righteous concessions that it had won from the rapacious car manufacturers, a river of shit was flowing out of his mouth.
There is NO WAY that assembling cars -- which is essentially unskilled labor -- should earn a worker 130k a year. It is utterly unsustainable in this environment.
(And if you don't think its unskilled, I suggest you read this.)
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