...freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength, and it's not a bailout, says Chrysler.
If they could make cars like they can sling you-know-what, they wouldn't need the non-bailout. If they invested wisely, spent money on R&D instead of slick marketing and instead of donating millions to the re-election campaigns of the same politicians who will now definitely be handing over billions of dollars of OPM, if they built a decent car, if they knew how to run a business - then they wouldn't need a slick marketing campaign to fleece the American people.
After my previous car died, we did our homework. The highest rated cars in the category we were interested in were Toyota and Honda - many of which are built in American plants by American workers. The American cars, for the most part, ranged from sub-par to outright junk. We went with the Toyota and are very happy. I've had exclusively American cars since 1981. Most of them were mediocre at best. The last one I was really happy with was my 1992 Saturn - which was made before GM took over Saturn. Our next two Saturns were simply inferior. None of my American cars could hold a candle to the quality of my Toyota (with the exception of the 1992 Saturn, which I got rid of only because it couldn't pass a government-mandated emissions test after 240,000 miles due to the fact that it was only running on three cylinders (!) - though even with that handicap, it was still holding up well. But like I said, that was a pre-GM Saturn, before the creativity and innovation were sucked out by the corporate vampires.
When you make junk, guess what? People don't want to buy it. No amount of Orwellian slogans, celebrity endorsements, scantily-clad women, or commercials shot in wide-angle with special effects will turn a rusty tin can into a gold ingot - which is to say, will turn a Chrysler into a Toyota or a Ford into a Honda.
Not enough people want to buy Chrysler's product. That's why they're failing! So what are we going to do? Force the American people through confiscatory taxation and/or inflation of the money supply and debt spending to reward Chysler's incompetence with billions of dollars plus the burden of having the government nationalize and run a business and engage in central economic planning. That's called Socialism - whether it is done by Democrats, Republicans, or both.
So, instead of allowing the old dinosaurs to fail and be replaced by upstart companies with new ideas, with an ear to the market, with the ability to allocate resources from the carcasses of the dying companies - we're going to prop up the Big Three like the main character from Weekend at Bernie's and try to revive the decaying corpse with a green blood transfusion. We're going to rob the hungry entrepreneur Peter to pay the bloated ne'er-do-well Paul. We're going to nationalize the out-of-date and out-of-touch industrial behemoth and try to turn it into a moneymaking operation, competitive with the leanest and meanest manufacturers run by the finest minds around the world - all using government bureaucrats to oversee it.
Yeah. That always works. Just ask the Soviet Union.
Prosperity is right around the corner, Comrades! Big Brother is watching!
6 comments:
Buy Chrysler - For Glory of Nation!
Dear Jim:
Funny, and so true! - but I want to keep the language a little more family friendly here.
Dear Eric:
I remember when imported cars started becoming more common when gas prices rose back in the 70s and the American companies refused to respond to the changing market. People who made intelligent choices and exercised their freedom to purchase a better product were painted as "unpatriotic." Some people even had their cars vandalized.
I fully expect a similar marketing strategy will be at play after the bailout. Similarly, I believe at some point it will also be seen as "unpatriotic" to divest oneself of phony IOU "dollars" by buying gold and investing offshore - when in fact, such things are an exercise in good stewardship for one's family.
Our Lord preached many parables about being a good steward, but very few about being a "good American" or a corporate drone for Chrysler.
It's ironic that we treat capitalism as a gospel to be spread abroad, but when capitalism takes action to punish the stupid decisions of a corporation in the free market, then all of the sudden we preach a different gospel, one of nationalization.
No wonder the world thinks we're crazy - we are!
I've long said nobody really believes in the free market. Just when it works for them.
Back in those 1970s, I switched to Toyota, bought a Corolla in 1977 I drove for 17 years and 170K miles. My late wife had a preference for Nissan Sentras.
I'm not a fan of this or any bailout.
That said, I drove my 1992 Plymouth Voyager LX with no problems until trading it earlier this year for a 2008 Chrysler Town and Country Touring which is doing just fine.
I'm wondering why the majority of the masses are entirely sold on the auto-bailouts. It appears that nearly all and sundry have imbibed the scheme as a certain necessity. Every time we hear that the big three aren't getting our money, the markets decline. Every time we hear that the discussions are back on, the markets expand. I would feel more confidence in my fellow-man if it were the other way around.
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