Obama vs. General Motors

[BrentAllen]

I used to have a Suburban. When the a/c went out AGAIN, I got rid of it and picked up a Toyota Sequoia - best move I ever made. I can get more gear in my Toyota than I ever could in the Suburban. With the spare tire under the carriage instead of in the cargo area, I have lots more room. Better gas mileage, better ride, better warranty, just an all-around better vehicle. I know it doesn't look as big as the Suburban, but when it comes to loading it up, it will hold more (and it was much less than the Suburban).

 

Beavah,

I don't think it was fuel economy standards that sunk GM. From what I've heard, the hybrids and sub-compacts are the ones sitting on the lots, not moving out the doors. I won't buy GM because of quality, not gas mileage.

[Narraticong]

Interesting that Mr. Obama wants to tell the automakers what vehicles they need to produce. More fuel efficient, smaller cars. In other words, he will by default tell the consumer what we will purchase and drive.

 

But the consumer does not seem to be agreeing... When gas prices were through the roof, all those little cars were selling quickly. But now that the price of fuel has settled down a bit, the consumer has gone back to purchasing those gas guzzling SUV's and trucks! Look around at storage lots and they are filled with those cute little fuel efficient cars. Automakers have found themselves with a severe overage of them. People are buying bigger again, at least for now.

 

You may ask what happens when gas prices go up again? My answer is that I will once again pay more per gallon, but I can probably make some extra money by pulling those little tiny buggers out of snowbanks during the winter with my big gas guzzling Dodge Ram!

[GernBlansten]

If they are selling out of their inventories of high profit SUVs and trucks, why are they needing a gov bailout? I saw an ad today, buy a Ram, get a Caliber for free.

 

The big 3's business model hinged on selling high profit SUV and trucks. This works when gas prices are low and expected to stay low. But when the public saw what happened last year to fuel prices, they lost their faith that gas will remain cheap. Consumers wanted fuel efficient autos, and Detroit now had to compete with high quality Asian models. Historically, Detroit didn't produce quality economy cars and the perception of the consumers was their product line was still not at par with their foriegn competitors.

So when they had to compete head to head with the Asians, they lost.

 

Gas prices are artificially low right now because of the recession. When or if we come out of this recession, oil prices will skyrocket to their previous levels. If GM and Chrysler are not aligned with products to meet consumers demand, which they weren't last time, they won't survive. Why do you think the Asian manufacturers have done relatively well? Because the Japan PM dictates their models? No, because they produce quality models the consumers want.

 

Now, is Obama demanding GM quit producing SUVs? No. We are telling them if they want us to loan them money, they need to align their product line to what consumers are buying. Quality fuel efficient cars. They can still build and sell SUVs. Nobody is banning that.

 

Say you own a small business that sells buggy whips. You need a loan. You go to the bank and apply. The banker says he will loan you money, but you need to expand your product line. You can still sell buggy whips, but you need to also sell something the banker thinks is a long term viable product. That is exactly what we, the banker, are demanding of GM and Chrysler.

[JoeBob]

LisaBob,

I can't agree with you that the Democrat Party isn't pleased about the current state of affairs. Google 'Never waste a good crisis".

The Obama Bear Market: Never waste a good crisis

http://www.independent.org/blog/?p=1496

Financial Crisis - Courtesy of Barney Frank and Chris Dodd

Healthcare Crisis - Courtesy of ambulance chasing lawyers

Global Warming Crisis - Courtesy of Al Gore's Carbon Footprint ponzi scheme, despite ten years of cooling...

The Dems have gleefully leveraged 'crisis' into abosolutely monsterous spending: "Mr. Obama's $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents -- from George Washington to George W. Bush -- combined." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123629969453946717.html

Tax and spend.

If I were in the financial advice business, I'd be setting up a program to help big companies and wealthy individuals move out of the US. Haliburton has already gone to Dubai.

BTW, LisaBob, are we related?

;^)

JoeBob

[JoeBob]

GernBlansten,

 

Why will the price of oil go back up? Because the Dems won't allow us to drill in the US! Remember when oil prices were high before the election and the Dem controlled congress voted to allow more drilling? Then after the election they changed their minds? Alaska wants to to drill ANWAR. A chinese company is setting up to drill off of Florida out of Cuba. Who do you think would be more environmentally responsible?

 

The Dems plan to keep the cost of gas high, even by adding capricious gas taxes, so that they can manipulate the demand for unpopular compact cars.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/opinion/27sat1.html

 

You would think that they'd learned something from the last time they tried to manipulate the housing markets, by making banks give loans to people that couldn't afford them...

[Beavah]

Yah, BA, I agree with yeh, eh? I'm not a fan of government-imposed fuel economy standards. Don't like Uncle Sam tellin' industry how they should do things. The irony is only that as much as the Big 3 fought CAFE, if they'd have instead spent as much time and money complyin' they would have been better off.

 

JoeBob, sorry, mate, there's no amount of domestic drillin' that can even scratch the price of oil. Yeh need to listen to the likes of some old-school Republicans like T. Boone Pickens, who really understand the domestic oil industry and reserves.

 

Oil prices depend on only a few things in the long run, eh? Industrial and developing market demand, major producer supply and quality, and the strength of the dollar. Developin' market demand had been skyrocketin' until the economic collapse, major producer supply at best static, and the dollar weakening. Since the collapse the dollar has strengthened and industrial and developin' market demand have collapsed. But that's short-term, eh? If the economy recovers, the dollar is goin' to fall because of all the bucks we've been printin' like mad, and demand is goin' to increase. Gas is goin' to go back up to $4 a gallon and then higher. Plan on it.

 

Best national security move we could possibly make is to slap a Patriot Tax on gasoline of $2 or more a gallon, and increase it every year. It would do more to harm our enemies than all the soldiers we've sent overseas. Unlike CAFE or fair housing rules, it's not the government tellin' industry how to get the job done, it just uses the market to get the job done a year or two earlier than when we'll be forced to anyways.

 

But by and large, we Americans are stoooopid. For 30 years we watched as our enemies in the Middle East deliberately manipulated supply so as to keep oil prices low enough that we wouldn't change our habits. They knew we had a short attention span, and our politicians when they couldn't be bought are only short-term thinkers. They win. They're rich, we're broke, and our dollars fund roadside bombs blowing up our kids.

 

Pains me as a conservative to watch. Real conservatives are fiscally responsible. And not stupid. Nah, we don't want government tellin' industry what to build. But it's sometimes necessary for government to provide for the common defense.

 

Beavah

 

[GernBlansten]

JoeBob, you lost me when you think the Chinese are drilling Florida oil off the Cuban coast. You do realize that Cuba is 90 miles from Florida. In order to do that, it would require slant drilling the likes never seen before except in the blockbuster movie Armageddon. The deepest offshore oil well is under 3 miles deep. Just don't work out to drill 90 miles away for oil that's at most 3 miles deep.

 

Now if you base your opinion on something as fantastically fictional as that, well, we have nothing to discuss.

 

[SR540Beaver]

Like Beavah, you can count me as another conservative who doesn't buy the drill here, drill now, pay less mantra. That was a bumper sticker slogan made up by talk radio to stir up the "true believers". Oil is a global market. Any oil drilled here would go on that world market. Even if we were able to flood the market with cheap and easily produced oil (which we can't), the other producing nations would just cut back their production to maintain the price. The slogan is a nice sentiment, but has no basis in reality. Talk radio also likes to make the claim that their is a ban on oil drilling in the US. That is false. There are protected wilderness areas where drilling isn't allowed. Other than those limited protected areas, the rest of the country is wide open for drilling. Another issue with drilling here is that it just doesn't pay. Much of the oil here has to be forced out of the ground as opposed to the middle-east. It is cheaper and easier and therefore more profitable to drill elsewhere. Oil companies operate to make a profit. They will go where it is cheaper and easier to produce oil every time. Bush or Cheney with their ties to the oil industry and having a majority in congress could have appealed to the oil company's patriotic duty if they had wanted to. They knew the bottom line for the oil companies was profit and there is more to be had elsewhere.......as well as drilling here not really changing anything on the global market.

[packsaddle]

I agree with Brent on the GM quality thing. We had GM vehicle after vehicle in our fleet and they (sometimes literally) fell apart. The Fords did better but I wish we could have procured some of the Toyotas Brent mentioned.

I have an Expedition and we've never had any trouble (except maybe for parking ) but I still envy those Sequoias.

 

ok, that's the part that I thought I had submitted a while back...catching up.

 

I agree with Beavah's assessment of both the inflation of the currency and the assessment of our "stoopid" lack of strategic planning with regard to energy. I would like to ask how many of you have viewed a documentary entitled, "Blood and Oil"? It encapsulates a major piece of our energy policy that really began with WW2. And the policy hasn't changed yet...but it will. If we don't choose our path, circumstances will make the choice for us.

If you'd like to think about the future some more, also take a look at an article called "Eating Fossil Fuel". You can google it and find copies at numerous sites. I'm curious to read your thoughts.

[BrentAllen]

I'll be the first to admit I'm no expert on world energy policy and oil, and I honestly don't know if the high cost of gasoline this past summer was due to OPEC or to the futures traders. I suspect the latter. Or maybe it was the evil oil companies. I don't think it was purely the market driving the cost, but more the market manipulators. This conservative still believes in the market economy, and I don't think we will see a true alternative energy until one is created that competes with oil on its own (no government subsidies).

 

What exactly do we hope to see with an alternative fuel/energy source?

 

More control of supply?

Lower cost?

Financially hurting OPEC?

Save the planet from the bogus global warming?

 

And at what cost are we willing to make the switch? As with everything else, the real cost is going to be much higher than anticipated.

[SSScout]

It all boils down to desire.

 

Do you want to make cars (or widgets) or do you want to make money?

 

Henry Ford early on realized that it would be a good thing if the workers in his factories could afford to buy (and want to buy) the products they produced.

 

If you want to make money, then design and connive to do so. If you want to make cars, then design them to be efficient, dependable and useful. You will make money. If you desire to make too much money, well, see what happens? Making things that are designed to be used is different than making things that are designed to be sold.

 

One of the ironic things is the gigabucks the CEOs have been paid are, in my opinion, "make believe" money; that is to say first, it isn't cash it is for the most part 'promised ' money. Second, the multi millions that have been amassed by these giants of industry, are pretty much unusable for any real purpose. If the stocks are cashed in, the stock market drops. If the cash in the banks is used to buy yachts or private islands, this does not improve the industrial base and help support the folks that must buy the products that they make.

It is ,therfore, entirely appropriate that if our tax money, borrowed tho it may be from our grandchildren, is used to prop up or delay the demise of an industry, that conditions be palced on it's use and that it's users be held accountable for the required use AND that all this be held up for the publics perusal and consideration.

 

My '96 Mercury Villager (Nissan Quest that it is) has 206,000 miles and I anticipate many more canoe and camp trips.

[Beavah]

I honestly don't know if the high cost of gasoline this past summer was due to OPEC or to the futures traders. I suspect the latter.

 

Mostly da latter, eh? OPEC was maxed out on production tryin' to keep the cost down, so that western nations wouldn't start switchin' to alternatives.

 

But those "futures traders", they were your fellow Americans' 401(k) and pension funds and da guy next door who bought energy ETF's on E-Trade, eh? Nuthin' nefarious about it. Just that all da other investments didn't look good, so people were buyin' commodities. That's the way the free market works. People put money in the best investment they can.

 

Yeh better believe that's goin' to happen again when we hit the post-recession inflation cycle. Commodities are one of da things that traditionally hold value in inflationary times.

 

Me, for energy policy, I'm lookin' for the long-term health of the country. We need affordable domestic energy that won't make a mess of da mountains and rivers we all love. Don't much care what it is, want the market and smart Americans to sort that out, not the government showerin' money on one technology just because it's got better lobbyists or more constituents in a state with a senator higher on the seniority list.

 

I ain't givin' up my truck, but I expect to pay the real cost for it. Don't want to be subsidized by havin' the government (my fellow citizens) pay for keepin' the company afloat or for da pollution cleanup costs or any of that. Like a good scout, I expect to pay my own way for my choices.

 

Beavah

 

[SR540Beaver]

I've had a different experience with my 2004 Chevy Siverado crew cab truck than some of you other guys. I bought it brand new in July 2004 and it has been a great truck. It has hauled scouts and equipment from one end of the state to the other. I also hauled scouts and equipment to Arkansas and back for high adventure shakedowns and then to the trail head in the Pecos Wilderness in New Mexico. I've never had an issue with the truck. I've got almost 90,000 mile on it now.

[Trevorum]

I've told you guys about my Ford F150 that exploded in my driveway at 3 in the morning. Even worse was the way the scumbag company stonewalled us.

 

Never, ever, ever buy a Ford. Don't let your friends buy Fords.

 

 

 

But I agree with SR540Beav about Chevy. We bought a Silverado to replace the Ford and it's been reliable.

 

 

 

(This message has been edited by trevorum)

[Trevorum]

(duplicate post)(This message has been edited by trevorum)