Mikey Moore is an idiot, but at least he has a dim grasp of what GM (and Chrysler, FTM) is all about these days. In future, neither one will be a “car company”.
1. Car companies need dealers to sell their wares. Chrysler and GM are “downsizing” (bankrupting and closing) dealerships as fast as possible- by Presidential edict.
2. Yesterday, the new Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood, said that the Government, which had promised to “stand behind” the warranties of Chrysler vehicles, will only do that for “new cars” starting with the next model year. This is an obvious incentive for the “car czar” to ensure that Chrysler builds as few new cars as possible. Essentially, I expect Chrysler’s “business model” to change from Ford (mass production) to Auburn/Cord/Duesenberg (a “coachbuilder” specializing in custom-built high-end toys for the elite’- like Moore- with a minimal mid-level semi-coachbuilt line for the upper middle class). (If you’re not “into” classic cars, Duesenbergs were custom-built like Lamborghinis; Auburns were the equivalent of LT-1 Corvettes.)
3. Car companies do not need dealers, or production of cars, if their primary responsibility is (as stated in the Chrysler “bailout”) to meet their “contractual obligations” to the UAW. Which means paying wages, paying pensions, paying medical, paying for the Dear Sirs and Brothers in the “Job Bank”, etc. In short, Chrysler (and, soon, GM) are both on their way to being what one columnist called “social-welfare program(s) with a money-losing manufacturing subdivision”.
4. The question arises, “How can these companies pay money to the UAW if they don’t make money by selling cars?” In a word, TARP. The Troubled Assets Rescue program, meaning taxpayers’ money, will be what the UAW is paid with. I strongly suspect that The One intends to transform Chrysler and GM into nothing but “holding companies”, in essence “false fronts”, whose sole purpose is to funnel TARP money to the UAW, in payment for “services rendered” in the last election and in anticipation of similar “services” in future.
5. The problem with this is, of course, “What happens when the TARP money runs out?” Or it would be, if The One believed it will. But He doesn’t. He thinks that he and his enablers in Congress can keep raising taxes, “monetizing debt”, and “creating” money forever- and claim with a straight face that they are “adding value” as they do.
No, it doesn’t work in the real world. But you are dealing with people who have never worked outside of academia, politics, and the media. They have little or no contact with reality outside of their endless cycle of lecture halls, campaign “war rooms”, newsrooms, and cocktail parties. Places where they never meet anyone who has an opinion different from their own. It is groupthink on a level never seen since the Vatican before the Lutheran Reformation. And it is likely to have even more serious consequences.
Now, as to Mikey’s own brainstorms (Yes, I did read his “letter”):
1. RE “bullet trains”; Compare and contrast, profit/loss conditions, NYC Transit System vs. San Francisco BART. Then compare both of the above to Amtrak and Conrail. Next, look at a world globe; compare the size of Japan and the UK, and their distribution of population/production centers, to the U.S.
Then ask yourself, “How can a system that is designed to operate profitably in countries smaller than the average American state, with population densities equivalent to a major American metroplex, operate even at the break-even level across an area and overall population densities only slightly different from Russia?”
Answer; It. Can’t.
Which is why such “mass transit” systems in the U.S. have always operated at a loss, and needed government (taxpayers’) subsidies. It’s called the “economy of scale”, and it cuts both ways. What works at the “micro” level (city transit) is rarely scalable to the “macro” level (long-range transport). Geography always trumps theory, Mikey.
2. If Mikey wants everything to be electric powered, the only way to generate the necessary power is; oil, coal, hydroelectric, or nuclear. All of which he opposes, especially nuclear. Wind and Sun, his two Holy of Holies, won’t cut it. Aside from their limitations (the sun doesn’t always shine, the wind doesn’t always blow), Ohm’s Law dictates that low-amperage sources (like solar and wind) can’t send power over long lines without unacceptable loss. Physics trumps theory every time, too. (And don’t bother demanding that Congress repeal that law; it was set by a higher authority, and no appeal has worked for the last six and a half billion years.)
3. As for his plan to make everyone in farm country ride buses, will the farm produce (i.e. food from same) ride the bus, too? If not, how will it get to market? For that matter, how do you farm productively enough to feed a world population of 6.5 billion + (or even 300 million or so Americans, FTM) without mechanical farming systems?
If you say “animal draft”, you flunk; if horses and oxen could do it, the machinery would never have been developed. Modern farming is a child of the Industrial Revolution; if you try to go back to the “old ways”, you are guaranteed to end up with about three-fourths of humanity starving to death (consider Sub-Saharan Africa, notably Ethiopia, Sudan, and Somalia). Mikey might never have to worry about where his next meal is coming from; most of us would not be so lucky, I suspect. (And I’m speaking as a farm boy, born, raised, and living in a farm state; I’ve been there, done that, including using horses.)
As I said, Mikey is an idiot. But I would dearly love to see him get a post in The One’s administration where he could try to enact his “dreams”. He and The One deserve each other.
And when the roof fell in on both of them, the look on Mikey’s face would be priceless.
(Sorry for the length of this post, but some forms of idiocy cannot be refuted in brief.)
clear ether
eon
