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| Automotive Foibles |
| 02.15.07 (3:50 pm) [edit] |
| The big news here in Canada, and especially in Ontario, is the lay-offs happening in the automotive industry. Daimler-Chrysler is laying off 2000 people in Canada, along with thousands of more from Ford and GM. The reason for this is not rocket science: The "big three" build crappy cars that have to be discounted so heavily to move that they make no profits. Shit, they make losses so big I can't count the zeros. The America makers just can't get their shit together, having had 20+ years to do so. That is what happens when you take your customers for granted. The really ironic thing is that there have never been more cars produced in Canada; but they are produced by Honda and Toyota, who then export them in drives to the USA under NAFTA. CAW's Buzz Hargrove may whine and want import quotas but Honda and Toyota continue to expand in Canada but in non-union plants. Try as they might, the CAW has not been successful in organising those plants. In my opinion, this is what should happen: Daimler should shitcan Chrysler all together and sell MB products at the Chrysler stores. Forget the cachet crap, move metal. Ford and GM should merge and axe any design 1) more than 10 years old and 2) doesn't make money. The real salvation of the US makers lies in actually doing something different: making real, new technology available to customers waiting to buy them. Build an electric car that can go 100 km at 100 km/h and customers would beat a path to the showroom. I know I would. Will we see this day? I doubt it. GM's Global Product Development CEO, Bob Lutz, is 75 years old He's stuck in SUVs and Tail Fins. The corporate structure of that place is so moribund that all they can design is cars people Lutz's age want to drive. So, in the long term, they are fucked. And I am glad of it. Any organisation that treated its customers like shit for so long deserves a slow and painful death. |
| Idiot of the Year |
| 02.02.07 (1:01 pm) [edit] |
|
Greetings Reader, Well, it really is time to update the rant. For the year 2007, I am going to devote my blog to the 2007 Idiot of the Year, none other than President George Bush. Now, you don't have to be Einstein to realise that you don't throw good after bad. It just doesn't get you anywhere. Well, that pesky Iraq thing is really going to mega shit. Everybody in the world knows that they Americans need to get the fuck out of there as soon as they can start the Humvees. Al Qeda in Iraq? You can be sure Iraq's new government, when given the power, will take care of them in the first days. Hell, even the democratically elected leader of Iraq wants you gone. Everybody knows that the only way for this mess to sort itself out is for the Americans to leave and let 'em at it! That is, everybody but our Learned Genius, Bush. His great response is to send 20,000 more soldier's assess to be shot at. US losses now often exceed 100 a month. It is pretty obvious that the soldier's morale is breaking down as they see their mission as unwinnable and futile. Recent US documentaries and news stories have shown military members using language that would have been unthinkable a year ago. Bush, the Great Military Leader, has violated one of the most basic principles of war: reinforce success, not failure. Bush is wasting his forces and tying them down. This allows China to flex its muscles and allows a lunatic like Hugo Chavez to get into his antics. You know, there is something seriously anti-democratic about a ruler who can start, continue and conclude military action against any person, institution or country at any time. Regan may have been a space cadet but at least he went along with the withdrawal from Lebanon in 1983. He, or whomever wrote his scripts, did not make the military blunder of reinforcing failure. George is certainly a ray of hope. A ray to Exxon-Mobil, which declared a record profit of $76bn in 2006. Well, we know that these pesky terrorists and flakes like Hugo Chavez are financed by the American love of driving 6 litre V-8 trucks to Walmart. George says he knows this and proposes that the US fuel economy laws tighten by, get this, ten percent, in order to keep those pesky A-Rabs at bay. Never mind that US autos gulp gas at a rate of double that of Europe or Japan. Hell, you could gain 10% by inflating everybody's tires to the right pressure.Oil is big business, my friends. See the pump prices recently? Well nuthin' like high gas prices to piss off voters! So now that Exxon and the boys have reaped their vast rewards, we are seeing prices head lower. They have us used to paying 90+ cents a litre and any time the price dips below that, we are just as happy as clams. Never mind that three years ago we paid 69 cents a litre. People are ued to paying over a buck now. We're trained. Gas prices will stay lower, too. High gas prices would put too much heat on during the next presidential election, or should I say dynasty change and will be kept low. If a democratic is installed, gas prices will stay low or else the oil companies would be forced to really invest in clean technologies. If by some sort of miracle the GOP gets elected expect high prices and no new technology. So there is the first of 2007's posts. I think I will get more on the ball this year and tap more out here. The idiot of the year should provide tons of material. |