Or, if he prefers, Chrysler or Ford.
Yesterday and today I listened, off and on, to a local talk show host, Dave Ross, discuss a possible bailout of the US auto makers. Ross, who ran for Congress as a Democrat in 2004, was sympathetic to the auto makers and to their principal union, the United Auto Workers. But there was one very strange thing about his programs, both yesterday and today. Mixed in with his discussions of the problems of the US auto industry were Ross's commercials for the Toyota Prius, which is not manufactured by a US auto maker, or even in the US.
And that inspired me to suggest an alternative solution to the problems of our big three auto manufacturers: Dave Ross should help them out by buying one (or more) of their cars. Which car he buys is, of course, up to him. All three make fuel efficient cars so, if that is his main criterion, he will have many to choose from. Both GM and Ford make some models with very good reliability — I don't know whether Chrysler does — so, if Ross looks, he should be able to find a US-made car with both good gas mileage and good reliability. Which is what he says he likes about the Prius.
Ross can't bail out the US car companies by himself, but he can set an example for other people. And there are, in my opinion, enough muddled leftists like Ross in our country so that they could bail out all three car companies without any help from the taxpayers. And they would get something in return, brand new cars. A million extra sales would do a lot for GM, Ford, and Chrysler, and I think there are at least a million muddled leftists in this country who could afford a new car, right now. (Some wealthier leftists might want to buy extra cars and donate them to the poor, especially the working poor who need to commute by car to their jobs. And, if any do, I will applaud their acts of charity.)
(Ross might have to give up those Toyota commercials, but that is a sacrifice he should be glad to make for his country. Or he could use more than one car, as many do.)
Cross posted at Jim Miller on Politics.
(Some background on Ross for those unfamiliar with his program; He's something of a rarity in the talk show business; he's a successful leftwing talk show host. Even in this area, that isn't easy to do. He's popular enough so that he ran for Congress in 2004, and lost 52-47 to Republican Dave Reichert, not a bad showing against a man who had been a popular King County sheriff.
If I were choose a single phrase to describe his views, I would call him a muddled leftist. He often talks about economic issues, but does not appear to know enough about economics to pass Economics 101 — at least before grade inflation. He generally drops what little critical ability he has when he is interviewing someone on the left. That may explain why Democratic politicians in trouble often go on his show to defend themselves. And why he was such a sucker for Valerie Plame and her husband.)
Posted by Jim Miller at November 19, 2008 11:11 AM | Email ThisOtherwise, your're right. What a step in the direction of intellectual honesty it would be for all the concerned leftists to put their money where their mouth is, and actually transfer some of their wealth, publicly and directly, to the downtrodden victims whom they like to portray in their conservative-bashing anecdotes.
Usual theory of liberalism: I am so perceptive that I see a problem that requires solving, and YOU must be taxed to pay for it.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on November 19, 2008 11:50 AMFor example, if the Big Three fell, their market share would go to Honda (maker of the FCX Clarity fuel cell car powered by hydrogen, which is the most effective alternative fuel and which is being leased in California) and other efficiently run businesses.
The senior management of Honda would manage new plants and middle managers in the US and elsewhere that were not effectively managed by GM and Ford.
In recent times, many American jobs were outsourced in technical trades up until the point that American workers are now competitive, efficient and hard working. However, top management has never been put to this test as they are now.
The problem with as you call them 'muddled leftists', is that they're only charitable with others' money and not their own.
Posted by: Rick D. on November 19, 2008 12:00 PMWe also have a Suburban to transport about 6-8 people, dog and clothing over the pass with a snowmobile trailer. It is the only vehicle capable of it. So there!!
John Bailo, sometimes, just sometimes. If you recall, there was a ton of demand for trucks, SUVs and other vehicles. Those vehicles were also the profit makers. How can you blame management to supply vehicles the market wanted?
The problem was how slowly they responded when the market changed. And you really can't blame management to retool and supply vehicles like the Focus with little profit margin. This is with the humongous labor and benefit costs that come from producing these cheaper vehicles.
So, it all goes back to how onerous the salary structure of Detroit vehicles versus other parts of the country.
Posted by: swatter on November 19, 2008 12:16 PMhttp://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html?_r=2&oref=slogin
Bankruptcy was created JUST FOR THIS PURPOSE!
To get out of bad business practices, re-structure, and rebuild the business model and the products so that the business can compete. It's so simple. Even Democrats should understand. But they are in the tank for the UAW so it won't happen...at least not until the Big 3 piss away another $25 Billion.
And to whom does that responsibility fall ???
Yes...
Also of note is that simply from the perspective of the buyer, the Prius is a foolish purchase. One will never recoup the extra cost of purchase in gas savings, especially if one keeps the Prius long enough to require an expensive battery pack replacement. By that measure, people like Ross who promote or drive Prisuses are simply doing do as a green badge and not as a smart purchase. And even the green badge is questionable because it harms the environment a lot more to make a Prius than it does to make, say a Toyota Yaris. Because of the extra entropy in creation of the Prius' battery and much more complicated systems, those losses will never be recouped by whatever small marginal carbon footprint is saved between the Yaris and the Prius in fuel.
I can understand the extravagant purchase of say, a Mercedes Benz as a badge of success. That owner clearly wants to pay more for a very refined product. But the Green Badge of the Prius is often purchased by everyday folks at a considerable foolish cost for no gain at all. Not very smart. But then again, since when the those on the left use reason to formulate their ideas.
Posted by: Jeff B. on November 19, 2008 12:30 PMBut you are right about him being a fine amateur Gilbert and Sullivan performer -- and I love Gilbert and Sullivan.
Duffer - I heard someone else on the program say that this morning; I don't know whether Ross agreed. But there is some truth to the argument; cars, whether from the US or from the Japanese manufacturers, are lasting longer than they did twenty years ago.
Incidentally, for many years, Japan forced their car buyers to buy new cars often by imposing extremely stringent "safety" checks on cars after they were four years old. I don't know if they still do that.
Swatter - On the whole, I've been happy with my Ford Focus (a 2004 ZX5), though I now think I should have spent a little more and got the mid-range model for some of the extras. But I have found zero defects in the four years plus that I have had the car. (Granted, I drive the car a lot less than most, about 5,000 miles a year.)
Posted by: Jim Miller on November 19, 2008 12:34 PMThe market blames management for having insufficient foresight and strength to get past the difficulties of the last few years. Period. Management agreed to the labor terms just as they agree to supplier terms and costs. Whenever a company is dragged down by market forces, management is ultimately responsible.
i don't really care whether or not the labor contracts are the source of the problem. If they are the primary problem, then management is responsible for not signing them or creating non-union plants/subsidiaries.
Posted by: iconoclast on November 19, 2008 12:41 PMI have a 1994 Toyota landcruiser with 200.000+ miles on it. Besides tires, shocks and oil I have replaced nothing. Sorry to say my 1991 Ford Tarus was in the shop all the time. I then learned they all had trans problems. Which yes I had to have my replaced at 40.000 miles. )-:
No to bail out
Posted by: Army Medic/Vet on November 19, 2008 01:03 PMWas Boeing foolish for offering 5% per year raises on the engineer's union this past week? I would think so, unless they are planning on moving out of the State in the near future. And did they take the stockholders' concerns into account.
Management is in the job to make money for the stockholders. Do you fault management for keep building the SUVs and trucks while they were more profitable?
If you were in that position, do you think you could unilaterally take on the unions and force them to cutback? I doubt it and I doubt you could still do it today. The cheap cars just won't cut it for the Detroit carmakers. They need the big profit/big tickets vehicles to make it on their own. So, back to the BIG decision. What would you do as Senior Management to make your company profitable when the market changes to the low profit vehicle? No, I can't blame them. Again, it all goes back to the labor costs and the inflexibility to modify the labor agreements.
Posted by: swatter on November 19, 2008 01:13 PMI'll keep my 45mpg tiny Subaru to drive when gas is $4/gallon, and now return to one of our more comfortable and safer cars as gas has dropped under $2/gallon.
Bailout the automakers? No. This is not the airlines post 9-11, nor the railroads when there were not alternatives.
We've seen a lot of other American car manufacturers go by the wayside - what's different now?
Bankruptcy is designed for this.
Posted by: BA on November 19, 2008 01:46 PMMy wife drives an '05 Jeep Grand Cherokee. She likes to garden and hauls plants and supplies in it, along with our 135 lb German Shepherd.
The GMC has been extremely reliable, having zero trips to the dealer so far. The Jeep had numerous electronic and programming issues when new, but has been very reliable since then.
Little front wheel-drive disposable cars don't interest or suit me. We don't drive that many miles, but when we hit the road, I prefer a larger vehicle, for comfort as well as safety.
Posted by: Saltherring on November 19, 2008 02:36 PMMy wife drives an '05 Jeep Grand Cherokee. She likes to garden and hauls plants and supplies in it, along with our 135 lb German Shepherd.
The GMC has been extremely reliable, having zero trips to the dealer so far. The Jeep had numerous electronic and programming issues when new, but has been very reliable since then.
Little front wheel-drive disposable cars don't interest or suit me. We don't drive that many miles, but when we hit the road, I prefer a larger vehicle, for comfort as well as safety.
Posted by: Saltherring on November 19, 2008 02:36 PMJobs bank programs -- 12,000 paid not to work
$31/hour to read crossword puzzles....who do you think pays for this nonsense?
Posted by: iconoclast on November 19, 2008 04:05 PMRead somewhere today that the Big 3 is not interested in any shape or form with bankruptcy. The kitty is all in. It is all or nothing. WOW!!! If that is the attitude, then yes, management is to blame also.
The thing about another bailout for these clowns (if they get this one) is that it won't take long before they come a-callin' again.
Posted by: swatter on November 19, 2008 04:23 PMI have to ask -- why is there no demand for cars? I look around and I see lots of crappy cars driving around...probably polluting like crazy. I see people driving gigantic dinosaur cars...even with cheap gas, they don't need such huge cars.
We could restart this industry by:
1. Getting rid of Detroit.
2. Taking the two good cars, Equinox and Volt and forming a company the way GM formed Saturn, that gets rid of all the old ideology.
3. USA Autos would be funded as a startup by the taxpayers, but sold on the stock exchange...reinvigorating the stock market.
The reason there are lots of "crappy cars" driving around is that they are cheap, and usually paid for. I know this because I own one. I never want to make another monthly car payment as long as I live.
The void for cars like the Volt or Equinox could be easily filled by Toyota or Honda. The japanese understand this market very well.
The heavier trucks and SUVs mentioned by Saltherring@16 might not be produced easily by Toyota/Honda, and that's the class of vehicles that you're saying shouldn't be produced by "USA Auto". You might want to look around at construction sites, farms, boat ramps, etc. at what sort of vehicles are prevalent. There's still quite a legitimate need for these, so who is going to produce them?
Posted by: Smoley on November 19, 2008 07:49 PMI'm the same as you, but that's not my point.
What I'm saying is that there's a disconnect between the buyer and the seller.
The car companies are not coming up with the right combination of financing, pricing and product to make the consumer buy.
It's the same thing that happened to housing. They made houses too big, too expensive and then started whining when no one came to the party.
That's why all these bailouts are wrong, wrong, wrong.
We need to get back to business practicalities -- like running the show as if the Customer were King -- not someone just to hustle and rip off.
My truck is used primarily to haul machinery for my custom farming business. The back end of the Jeep is often filled with plants, gardening supplies, groceries and/or the aforementioned dog. Rural folks do have different needs and lifestyles, and as such, require heavier-built vehicles. Attempting to tow my (7,300# empty) equipment trailer with a Toyota Tundra would likely break it in half. I'm certain the Japanese could build a hell of a truck for Americans who require such a vehicle, but I'd still rather buy American.
Posted by: Saltherring on November 19, 2008 08:29 PMMaybe.
But I drive one because it will last for over 300,000 miles. This is my 4th. I have never bought a new one. I've only bought one that was "certified pre-owned".
I drive one because I like the sturdy "thunk" when I close my doors. My last one, 1997, became a Mercedes sandwich when I was hit from behind by a Chevrolet 2500 pickup while stopped at a traffic light. She hit us going close to 40mph and shoved us into a Dodge Ram with a tow ball and steel gate. The Benz was totalled front (tow ball into radiator) and back. BUT my son and I walked away from the accident.
No Prius will allow that.
Our household of 3 has 4 vehicles (our family of 5 has 7). Of those there are 4 German cars (at least one of each), an Izuzu that sits and the other 2 are American. My son chose to buy his Jeep and we bought the Ford F150 almost 10K undervalue from our previous employer.
We simply will NOT buy any American glorified lawn mowers that Congress prefers we all drive. We will NOT ever buy a brand new car (the chrissy queen and her onerous taxes AND the 30% drive off the lot depreciation) and we will not support the thuggery of the unions to the big 3. Thinking back, the last new American car we bought was the year Mercury came out with the Villager minivan (1993?). Our cars are an '86, a '94 a '96 and a 2000. Before my Dad died last year, he was still driving a diesel Benz that he bought in 1980. Someone ELSE is driving it now. They just last.
We will not buy an American car with its planned (and predictable) obsolescence when we can buy a German one that will happily go 300,000 miles and more... with us SAFELY tucked inside.
The single biggest problem of the US auto industry is called the union. Their contractual tantrums have made it impossible to compete. Their enablers in Congress won't allow them to do the one thing that would give them a chance of survival: declare bankruptcy and begin anew (as did the airlines which DID come out of bankrupty healthier. The foreign auto companies are thriving right here in the US because their costs are actually the cost of making a car. And they are mking them well.
Posted by: Ragnar Danneskjold on November 19, 2008 09:34 PMI'm looking at Jeff B.'s Prius comments #8.
I'd like to point out that the Prius is a classic free market approach to solving a problem, (or what a great many in the car-buying public think is a problem.) Isn't it great that a company saw that people had this concern and put their engineers to work to come up with a car that gets 48 mpg?
The r & d going on now, mainly due to the economic success of the Prius, may well lead to better batteries in the near future, both in terms of efficiency and environmental effects.
And in any case the evaluation of the environmental dangers of various toxic chemicals associated with battery production involves no controversial judgement calls???
How come so many right-wingers who aren't at all worried about global warming are suddenly so protective of the environment when it comes to the toxins associated with battery manufacture and disposal? Is this a subject that you are worried about in any capacity other than it's usefulness in bashing Priuses?
My take on the Prius is simple. As a conservative, I do not want CAFEs. I want consumers to solve the problem using the free market. The Prius is it--it's capitalism, isn't it fantastic?
Oh, and maybe the idiots running GM shouldn't have crushed all those electric cars after all.
Thanks all, New Left Conservative #1
Posted by: new left conservative # 1 on November 19, 2008 09:41 PMIt only works for that company because of the religious fervor of the cohort buying those cars - the well-heeled urban professors and administrators who profit socially by displaying their environmentaller-than-thou hardware. Not everyone can afford such paragons of glitz, and mobility is neccessary for anyone who works for a living, not just the elite.
And the company may just be using the Prius as a loss leader, to keep or increase market share. Try starting a company which markets PC automobiles with two separate power systems, and an enormously heavy battery (costs more resources to lug that around, remember) whose replacement cost will destroy any economies of operation - unless the socially sensitive owner dumps the car into the used market just before that replacement must occur.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on November 20, 2008 09:41 AMI've always wondered if the Toyota Prius would have been such a success if it looked exactly like a Corolla rather than have its own distinctive body shape?
I think you're on to something in that there are a significant number of people that buy these cars to show the world that they are more environmentally conscious than the rest of us. I suppose that's sort of like the yupster that buys a Porsche convertible wanting to show off. Human nature of the insecure individual, I guess.
Posted by: Smoley on November 20, 2008 12:44 PMIsn't the big-butted look more or less forced by the need to have a trunk AND that Giant Battery? It may have been impossible to cram all those mechanical works into a Corolla shape and still have room to spare for happily superior passengers.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on November 20, 2008 06:47 PMAll of a sudden conservatives are putting down people with money to spend.
Think about it this way. Technology changes over time. It may not ultimately go the direction of hybrids, but somehow I doubt that in ten years most new cars made will sit at stoplights heaving and shaking while their antiquated internal combustion engine spews exhaust into the atmosphere.
You don't need horsepower and a running engine to sit stationary at a traffic light.
And why shouldn't people buy it for its rather attractive body shape--people marry for that reason, and they buy plenty of other cars that are way less practical than a Prius for it also.
Get off your high horses about the Prius, and reserve your annoyance at the command-and-control idea behind CAFE. CAFEs will create unintended consequences: for one thing they will spark a real antagonism toward green cars, while Prius lights a new path that industry can follow voluntarily if buyers want it to.
Best all, New Left Conservative #1
All of a sudden conservatives are putting down people with money to spend.
Think about it this way. Technology changes over time. It may not ultimately go the direction of hybrids, but somehow I doubt that in ten years most new cars made will sit at stoplights heaving and shaking while their antiquated internal combustion engine spews exhaust into the atmosphere.
You don't need horsepower and a running engine to sit stationary at a traffic light.
And why shouldn't people buy it for its rather attractive body shape--people marry for that reason, and they buy plenty of other cars that are way less practical than a Prius for it also.
Get off your high horses about the Prius, and reserve your annoyance at the command-and-control idea behind CAFE. CAFEs will create unintended consequences: for one thing they will spark a real antagonism toward green cars, while Prius lights a new path that industry can follow voluntarily if buyers want it to.
Best all, New Left Conservative #1