Conundrums over coffee, why not? If the news is gonna be bad all day, might as well get the first bit down with some of the caffeine/upper that will course through my veins right up until I close my eyes again. I’m gonna be having a word with someone about that pretty quick here, including I’m gonna recommend to my countrymen that we boycott Speed Giant Starbucks…also McDonalds, the Fast Fat Giant…but that is another subject and another post.
Y’know what, though? Boycotting Starbucks and McDonalds is NOT altogether a separate subject from Detroit, but I am fresh off two brutal years on message boards, at one of which…The Board That Shall Not Be Named…connecting dots fell inexplicably between unwelcome and verbotin, liable to produce accusations of derailing, shilling, trolling and general imbecility. As well, there is economy of words to think about, and frequency of publication…read that, Productivity.
I am advised to pick up the pace, which puts me in mind of a quote that I heard sometime over this election cycle, “Perfection is the enemy of Good.”
I want to say that it was Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower’s granddaughter who said it, attributing it her grandfather and our 34th president. I Like Ike, was the slogan of the time. I Like Ike, I am told, was the bona fide sentiment of the time. Anytime is the right time to slip in an excerpt from President Eisenhower’s farewell address, one excerpt better than the next. Who could disagree except Warmongers, Profiteers, Heartless Bastards, Conscienceless Uber Rich, Entrenched Paper Pushers and Self-Serving Politicians?
President Dwight D. Eisenhower
Farewell Address
… Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow …
If the automobile industry is the backbone of American manufacturing and the housing industry is the backbone of American financial markets, but we will not meaningfully change the American Driving Paradigm and we will not meaningfully change the American Housing Paradigm…except to infuse them with Government Grab cash…then let us call a spade a spade and know that we aren’t changing diddly squat.
Not changing diddly squat = Business As Usual.
Business As Usual = how we got into this mess.
One driver/one vehicle (finances cooperating, also an insured recreational vehicle waiting to leap into off-hour action) is NOT a sustainable paradigm.
Unsustainable paradigms are, in a word, unsustainable.
If your hands are steady and your eye is keen, you can probably hold a pencil with its point to a tabletop and balance a plate on its eraser. But you will never be able to let go of the balancing act. The pencil will never support the plate without you supporting the pencil. Plate balancing on pencil tops is not, without continuous intervention, a sustainable paradigm.
On logistics and environment alone, everyone motoring around in a private coach is not a sustainable paradigm. Then there is that pesky energy issue. Do we or do we not mean to break free of our dependence on foreign oil? Truly, truly…I know from whence I speak…America is behaving right now like an alcoholic Last Gasper, ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING FOR ANOTHER DRINK.
Presupposing bus lines with fares paid in tokens, an opinion and a bus token will get you a bus ride, am I right? Not to say that mine are necessarily correct but they ARE considered opinions and they ARE different. Barack Obama was big on defining insanity as doing the same thing expecting different results. I don’t know where HE picked it up, but I first heard that line on the Recovery Circuit. No doubt about it, doing the same thing over and over expecting different results IS a brand of Nuts.
When I say that my opinions are considered, I have submerged myself in the euphemistically entitled National Dialogue for more than two years now. At the cost of savings, at the cost of peace of mind, at the surprising cost of even a couple of friendships, this has been my LIFE. To the voices of Experience who are liable to claim that two years is nothing, I will contend that:
A.) American politics is a high-stakes soap opera, with an implausible cast of one-dimensional characters acting and re-enacting thin repetitive story lines that can be followed, then abandoned, then picked up again as boredom or illness dictate.
B.) A child can see that the people with Experience HAVE BEEN DOING IT WRONG.
C.) Don’t let my being broke fool you…I am not without background and education that speak particularly to Making Money.
All-Hood-No-Robin Henry Paulson announced that, shock of shockers, buying crappy assets will NOT solve our problems and that outright cash infusions will better do the trick. They would do the trick for me, I know that. I’ll be gettin’ back to Henry Paulson, HE can bank on THAT.
In the meantime, other than to meet Special Needs (including commerce) and to satisfy the Luxury Class (see attendant taxation), I really really think that we ought not to be rolling even one car off the line that isn’t at least a hybrid.
As to Hank the Bank’s fresh affinity for outright cash infusions, how ’bout this for the proverbial Troubled Auto Industry?
Federal, state and municipal governments buy fleets of cars for use by some of our many many many many many many many government employees, yes? Let us conduct wholesale Fleet Modification through bulk purchase (at discounted rates) of General Motors cars…think Government Mobility. Snap up their inventory, move on to Chrysler and Ford inventories before kicking GM into production of more old-school vehicles.
I will argue that Government Transportation, while not durable, DOES effectively constitute a portion of our Infrastructure. We will know that we have updated and standardized that bit of Infrastructure at X point in time at Y cost. A fresh start, as it were, with old stuff. It will ensure Z probable years without recurrence of that expense and, at the same time, reveal who/what has…how shall I put it…an irregular replacement rate.
All those people who “need” new cars but can’t get financing? Even when the Fall of Rome is regularly cited as a historical perspective on our Dire Straights, we are too good to drive Second Hand? Seller financed G-Cars…get ‘em while they’re cheap, and drive baby drive.
Sell off our current government fleets at lively public auctions. Inexpensive but animated Community Gatherings, are these not good for morale in Trying Times? Renaissance Faire meets Rosie the Riveter. Come to think of it, I am acquainted with a man in Washington who could be relied upon to well orchestrate such an Event. Not a Politician but a Used Car Guy…that oughtta inspire confidence. 
B-b-but what about Unemployment?
Unemployment is a different thousand words.
