28 Replies to “This Isn’t Your Father’s Pelosibile”

  1. “All new for 2012, the Pelosi GTxi SS/Rt Sport Edition is the mandatory American car so advanced it took $100 billion and an entire Congress to design it. We started with same reliable 7-way hybrid ethanol-biodeisel-electric-clean coal-wind-solar-pedal power plant behind the base model Pelosi, but packed it with extra oomph and the sassy styling pizazz that tells the world that 1974 Detroit is back again — with a vengeance.”
    Pretty funny.

  3. I was watching the talking idiots on CTV tonight preaching to me about how Obama ‘gets it’ on the auto bailout whereas Bush doesn’t and it occurred to me that CTV makes quite a bit of money from advertising for the auto workers.
    Nah, couldn’t be a factor, they are one of the pillars of our society.
    Is it just me or are Craig Oliver’s eyes growing closer together?

  4. That’s the ticket – a wind powered car.
    Just mount a big turbine on to the top to generate electricity from the wind blowing by. Run the electricity down to the electric motors to move the car.
    And then just step on it.
    The faster you go, the cheaper it gets to run.
    /genius at work

  5. foobert…now if you had all the politico’s running behind you spouting their hot air,well there you go!

  6. probably alot like the car homer simpson designed for his brothers car company. he managed to destroy the company in one fell swoop. congress is just a based in reality as the simpsons.

  8. foobert has created the perpetual motion machine!!!
    Especially if it has an intial power up source of political hot air.

  9. I fear this is satire’s last gasp. As more and more “young people” emerge from our swarmy, feminized educational system, many will see something like this and want to know where they can buy one.

  11. Think of the global warming that will be prevented by the failure of the big 3.
    The smartest thing the Dems could do is simply transfer the $25B directly into their own coffers, avoiding the middleman.

  12. “CTV makes quite a bit of money from advertising for the auto workers.”
    I was listening to one of the financial channels yesterday – can’t tell them apart – when one of the hosts began talking in hushed tones about the fact that “this could affect a lot of people…we get advertising from them…”
    At this point i realized we had said good-bye to the slightest idea of unbiased reporting.
    Yeah, it will affect a lot of people, but i’m still waiting for TV financial “experts” to advance the heretical notion that little is gained by propping up failing businesses and thereby punishing successful ventures.

  13. wyatt salt:
    Very interesting comment. I wonder if it’s possible to get a video recording of that program.

  15. I have no doubt that the “big 3” are going to get the bailout money with very little “real conditions” set. We are going to own a “big 3” vehicle and it will be parked in your driveway but it’s going to be invisible. When you see your dog lift his leg and pees in your driveway, you can always say that he is peeing on your invisible vehicle tires.

  16. In 3 articles, we have had 3 new tax’s.
    IE: thought police, bailouts and toilet tax.
    Kinda make a person wonder about the “experts”.
    Maybe they better think back to 14 to 1500 hundreds when the Bubonic plague was a factor on how long people lived.

  17. I wonder if Nancy P or Dingy Harry ever owned a Niva or Lada, seems they want the US to be the Soviet Socialist U S Republic of no more.
    One of Obama’s choices yesterday says “You should never let a good crisis go to waste”.
    In other words SOCIALIZE EVERY THING

  18. Good link. Funny.
    Too add some more fuel to the discussion this is a link to a good article that starts to slice the debate up a bit. I have generally been on the side of letting GM go into Ch 11 to reorganize, as opposed to Ch7 which is bankruptcy and liquidation.
    However, the argument on both sides has been too high level and too ideological…too big to fail must save (said in best Will Shatner voice) vs evil unions and stoooopid mgt let em die. Before one of those options is chosen a little deeper analysis was/is required. Lehman was allowed to go under without much thought, likely in a fit of pique, and it was the spark to to the tinderbox.
    This article starts to hint at some of the issues that a bankruptcy and liquidation of an enterprise that large would mean. It is difficult to isolate the explosion, as there are tons of counter party risks, large and largely unknown or unseen. Its not that you should be afraid of them, just unknown unknowns are always the problem, and the let them die crowd hasnt fully thought them through. The too big to fail crowd is being irresponsible in that they havent really diagnosed GM’s real problem let alone solved it (the union and mgt largely want to be left alone)
    Personally, I think GM needs to go for a Ch 11 bath but ONLY AFTER it produces a plan. The useful role that government can play is provider of the Debtor in Possession Financing, which is largely non existent at this stage, and I think the US government should take the radical step of long term loan to GM to immeadiately move to VEBA and get the stoopid health and benefits off the books, as a price perhaps the government can demand that VEBA cap the benefits or reduce them to lower the price.
    I will say that if GM Health has found that hey can provide that kind of gold plated health and drug benefit care can be provided for on $10 a month per individual or $21 a month per family, the rumoured premium, then they are running a pretty efficient health care system.
    The $70 per hour cost is a combination of cash per hour to existing workers, plus benefits plus the costs of retirees…the retirees (non productive overhead) are the burden GM has been carrying. Accelerating the shift doesnt change the risk for the US taxpayer, since you know they would have to carry the can in a GM bankruptcy.
    GM has to take a CH 11 bath no question, mgt needs to have some adult supervision attatched to it, and the retirees likely have to take a small haircut on their bennies…hey happened to my Dad when Massey Ferguson went belly up so people live through it.
    Uncontrolled explosions wont work, a liquidation this size brings about unintended and unecessary consequences. There is a path here, imho, but it is going to take a thoughtful and non panicky government to gore the necessary oxes and do it right.
    Here is the article
    http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/11/ill-considered-problem-of-gm-bankruptcy.html

  19. But, but Jim Stanford (economist at CAW) says they make the best cars in the world. It’s just the fault of us stupids for not buying them.
    Apparently, according to Stanford, auto workers and manufacturers shouldn’t be subject to the same financing/recessions issues and dislocations as the rest of us – because there are so many jobs at stake.
    Apparently, we the taxpayer are to destroy jobs elsewhere (that’s what taxation does) to save union jobs at $78 per hour per worker.
    Oh, I forgot, the workers already made “concessions” – they are “craftsman” who are entitled via taxpayer subsidies, $40 per hour plus massive benefits.
    Many industries (forestry, mining to name two from a long list) had to go through painful restructuring in the last major recession. But Stanford says we must be held hostage to the economic impact of this industry, which arrogantly refuses to accept their poorly run business are the real culprit (legacy costs and private jets anyone?).

  22. the whole industry needs wake up call, rite from the top to the bottom (car dealerships)
    the workers are over paid and under worked
    mtg has been humping the dog on the above file so as to not have to confront the unions
    unions have been ONLY confrontational
    dealerships treat most buyers like idiots, and as they are franchises they represent the marquise and cloud the reputations of the brand
    also, as they manufacturers claim to have closed the quality gap, they are admitting to have dropped the ball on this in the past, did they (unions and mtg) not understand that it is a uphill battle to regain a lost reputation

  23. I think I heard something the other day with Phil Edmonson calling for a car company run by David Suzuki. other than the last name and the fact that he likes big diesel busses, I think Dr.Fruitfy would prefer we all ride horses.

  25. One word: Trabant! The very pinnacle of state planned automobile technology. That is what the DemoCRAPS want sitting in your driveway. Pelosibile indeed.

  27. The argument that once you’ve bailed out the finacial sector and the auto industry, to whom will you first say ‘no’ is an argument now in play.
    The forestry industry has suffered for some time and rightfully, they’ve pointed out that they employ greater numbers of Canadians than the auto and aerospace industries combined.
    Why not them? Well, first they’re not Ontario/Quebec based (though these provinces do employ forestry workers too), but more importantly, forestry workers are largely ‘rural’ workers, not those living in the ‘burbs of Ontario’s cities who commute to the big factories. Thus, vote wise, they are expendable.
    A second note on the auto industry though: I’ve just been informed that due to low zinc prices, a major mining operation in B.C. may be closing down at a cost of 450 well paying jobs. This is directly related to the auto industry because auto usage constitutes a major part of the mine’s production.
    So the bad management/intractable CAW problems have a ‘trickle down effect’ even to rural British Columbia.

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