Or so said Senate Banking Committee Chairman (and former Democratic candidate for president) Chris Dodd, on 12/7/2008 . . .
The more things change, the more things change . . . i.e. conventional wisdom is suspect nowadays, as it should be. Break out the grains of salt and sprinkle liberally.
Obama's *New* New Deal needs a new new name. Any ideas for the 2009 kickoff?
"You're only Human After all. . . You'll be Happier in a NASH" (1940, a year before Pearl Harbor).
Kelvinate this, folks! It's 1950 and the USA is on top of the world, ready to win the Third World War!
Happy Birthday, James Douglas Morrison / Jim Morrison (12/8/1943-7/3/1971): "The future's uncertain and the end is always near . . ." (The Doors, "Roadhouse Blues," 1969-1970). Indeed it is, indeed it is.
Today's Rune: Defense.
7 comments:
From the sleek elegance of the 1959 Cadillac to the lumpen brutality of the Hummer: what was in the mind of the GM executive who conceived putting a machine modelled on armoured vehicles on to the civilian streets of US cities, at barely 13 miles per gallon? But then Lutz has argued that that hybrids like the Toyota Prius "make no economic sense" and once called global warming "a total crock of shit".
Ed Pilkington, "The Road to Ruin," The Guardian, 12/3/2008
How are you?
Lutz is a singular voice in the industry Erik. 40 odd years as a "car guy" who worked for all of the major American manufacturers, today he is playing his curmudgeon role, while working as head of global production for GM.
What is missed often is that GM and the others play to what the desires of consumers is. By trying to catch up in real time, they are always a step behind the changing patterns of consumer shifts. They have never, never, been very good at looking to the future reality.
Once the current crisis is passed through you'll see a different industry, one engineered towards even less humans involved in the assembly process.
Obama's "New, New Deal"..."The Big Deal" ?
Yeah, Roadhouse blues sounds pretty prophetic now.
Weird coincidence-- Morrison's father died this week. According to the New York Times Obit, his father was in command of the fleet that was involved in the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Both father and son had huge influences on the '60's.
Another coincidence, Elmer Valentine, who owned the Whiskey-A-Go-Go, where the Doors got their start, died as well.
RE the Hummer: it was not only an ecological travesty, it was a piece of shit. It shipped with historically high levels of manufacturing defects.
The title of this post strikes me as ironic. I've had at least a couple of all of the "big 3's" cars & the only ones that were not only good, but I would go so far as "great" were my Chryslers (or Dodges...I kind of lump them in together.) I'd kill to have my '94 Intrepid back...I really would! (Unfortunately Katrina took her.)
48 Dodge,53 plymouth,55 Ply,62Dodge,75Plywagon,82 Le Barron, 90 Spirit,84 Rampage,94 Dakota,99Concord,05 Chrysler 300,86 Le Barron convertable. This is my list since 1957. What in hell is J.M. doing to promote OUR cmpany.WE are going down the tubes because of no advertizing. When a company gets down to it's five bucks; it spends it on advertizing. A.C.
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