earths gettin' cooler. Sunspots ftl

amen Harness.

Frankly I'd say let them tank. Good riddance.
This isn't just an issue of tons of jobs, its simply quality and demand.

Look a the world market reports. the big three have literally no footprint outside of the united states. Sure Eurotrash cars are trash but you'll still hit better gas mileage. Sure Honda may not make the best they could but you know what, the civic is still in the top 10 world wide cars owned.

humm... bailout to hold a failed company up that can no longer compete..... OR use the same money in unemployment checks. One way gets rid of that union that sucking the lifeblood out of the industry, and conveniently removes a poorly functioning aspect of the industry[the big three].

Hell even here our internal sales are tanking
http://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/page/2 ... autosalesC

There, I'm done:)
no more posting till the new year.
Merry Christmas.

the earth goes through climate cycles. scientists have looked at the duration and frequency of these cycles and concluded that the earth was in a "mini" ice-age which ended in the late 1800s and would would warm over the next 200+ years. are we contributing to the warming? i don't think we are and there are real, legitimate scientists who believe the same.

the main problem is that anyone in the media that openly desputes or even questions the claims of Al Bore and the far Left are labeled fascist Holocaust deniers (they liken denying man-made global warming to denying the Holocaust happened). how can there be real scientific, political, and economy discussion if only one side is taken seriously?

the global warming movement is very deceiving. The most powerful people behind this philosophy are usually radical leftish, bordering on communism and socialism, that are using Global Warming as a way to try and control what the people can and can't do, use, and say. they give no face time to deniers, calling them names and publicly humiliating them just to avoid debating the topics, while pushing their ideas on everyone.

if global warming really is being caused by us, we face a few major problems:
Larger centralized government telling us what lightbulbs we can and can't use is not the answer. Gvt's shouldnt be making laws banning products. if we're helping global warming along, consumers will slowly stop purchasing bad products in favor of "green" ones and companies would then produce less bad and more green. Some people may be willing to spend more money for an 8cyl hummer with 9 MPG burning gasoline, but this is their absolute right.

The U.S. is the strongest, most powerful country in the world, but our population doesnt compete with China and India. most developing countries dont give a shit about global warming because of 1 thing: it hurts economies. China openly stated it wont sign any Kyoto*-like agreement that would harm it's economy and laughed at the other countries for doing so. the U.S. changing it's policies is only a very, very small change in the overall global, global warming agenda.


*the Kyoto treaty is a huge anti-US agreement anyway. it's extremely biased against the U.S. and offers little to no punishment for small developing countries that don't have or dont enforce "green" laws. this is why even Clinton rejected the Treaty whole-heartedly even though he was for Green laws.




I've seen news clippings from the 1970's about Global Cooling. what ever happened to that...we're in the same climate cycle right now and the scientists of the day had "consensus" that "the science was settled" and the earth was cooling because of human industrial improvements. they were wrong then and we are wrong now.


i mostly agree with harness's non-climate-related auto maker statements. only thing i'll comment on is to reiterate my point that huge V6/V8 trucks and SUVs are still in very high demand and the U.S. automakers still make them the best. The Tundra is a very fine truck and belongs in the same group of trucks. ive driven a 2008 and it was very pleasing. i agree that Toyota is very forward-thinking. the fact that they put so much money to make a good pickup speaks to the truth that the U.S. market is very big in truck platforms and Toyota built was in demand.

i completely disagree with other's statements that the U.S. makers build vehicles no one wants. this couldnt be further from the truth. not all American vehicles are top-notch and worth purchasing, but it's not like they're conceptually wrong design like a 3 axle taurus. the foreign jobs are similarly equipped for less money, plain and simple.

If you have something bad happening right in front of your face then you NEED to do something about it, even if your not 100% sure it will fix the problem, regardless of the cost involved and regardless of what your political views on the topic are. Ignoring the situation is by far the worst solution to any problem.

This pretty much sums up the global warming issue to me.


It's not a real problem. Lets forget about it and hope were right. If were not right then well I guess were screwed.

It is a real problem and lets try and do something about it before its too late, if it isnt already. If it dosent work then at least we can say we tried. Paying for the changes is really gonna suck but fuck it, people can change.


ALL POLITICS ASIDE why is the second option really that bad? Is it because it will inconvience alot of people or because some people wont be able to have the toys they currently have? Fuck that man its time people start changing their selfish ways and get something done that can only help the future of the planet.

the problem with doing something is that it hurts our economy greatly and will only hurt it more. significantly more than we all know. if it turns out we're not responsible, we're actually hurting our country and all countries that depend on us.

Yes it would totally suck paying for it but the outlook of the worst case sceniaro is far to great to be ignorant towards.

Too MANY WORDS!

more insight into the auto bailout: http://blog.heritage.org/2008/12/11/mor ... -industry/

yes the Heritage Foundation is right wing, but it's not some random blog site. they are a multi-million dollar non-profit lobbying body that Ronald Reagan went to directly for advice on economic issues. It's now the single strongest advocate of Reaganomics, self-responsibility, self-discipline, and limited government.

interesting article i found about the cost of the bailouts: http://cnsnews.com/public/content/artic ... rcID=40964

found a good pic

the right hand side is kinda funny...
"resistance to change?" the Consititution doesnt put the government in charge of making sure we don't accidentally kill ourselves by no wearing seat belts. are we better off wearing them? absolutely. but should the government force us to wear them? no, it should be personal choice.

fumbled electric vehicles....what lol? electric cars arent the future in their current state. even the upcoming Chevy Bolt, which features the best electric car technology available, still only travels about 60 miles/charge. how's that the future of cars?

sub-par quality...true for years. not anymore, however. look at long-term reliability tests and GM/Ford arent near the bottom.

Slow on hybrids...this is the best one. where on the top 10 list of cars sold this year are the hybrids? the prius isnt even mentioned. other hybrids that were added to existing cars didnt have this stat calculated iin the top10 lists. they're probably listed elsewhere tho. the Civic or accord or both have hybrid versions but i dont think they sold as well as hoped. 2 of the top 3 cars sold were full-sized pickups. most people dont want hybrids, at least current hybrids. less horsepower, slower acceleration, and siginifantly higher sticker price to save some 4 MPG over the full gas model? no thanks. most americans apparently agree.

too focused on trucks and SUVs??? WTF? people buy what they want, not what is pushed on them. if GM and Ford only produced pickups, i doubt pickup sales would go up. ford/GM sales would go down as people go to other companies for the cars they want.

Executive pay...i think they may giant mistakes managing the UAW but besides that...who cars about their pay? GM employs something like 70,000 people and has/had billions in assets. you aint gonna pay some dude a few hundred grand and expect things to go smoothly. you need to pay the best and the brightest, who demand a very high premium for their services and have the skill and insight of running a huge corporation. not saying they're without flaws...but saying they're overpaid is very hard to prove when they're getting relatively similar salaries as other CEOs/CFOs/etc.

the rest are either very accurate and true or at least not wrong.

not mentioned was the always increases government regulations requiring ALL the automakers to spend millions retooling their plants and re-engineering their cars due to unnecessary regulations.

this grand link misses a few key words, Worldwide... SUV's and large trucks only have a market in the US. Show me some worldwide figures and the Ford/GM listings don't even exist on them.
Link to confirm:


Ill post a link once I find an asian auto report, but there is a reason that the big 3 are failing, their cars are overpriced and fail to meet quality that overseas consumers want.

Ever wonder why you dont hear about SUV's in Europe? lets not forget that a liter of petrol over there is at:



Sitting right around approx 3 us dollars PER Litre at least at the cheapest.
Lets do a little quick math:
Liters per gallon: 3.78541178 liters (thanks to google)
3$ x 3.78541178 liters = 11.3562$ Per Gallon in Europe (google again)

It was alot lower than that in the past too, who the hell would want an SUV when a liter costs you 5 euros?
Taken en quote from an '06 source:
"Petrol prices in Europe than the US IF you apply the exchange rate. In England we pay 1GBP per litre. This is $1.98 per litre or $6.50 per gallon."

their price has nearly doubled in two years, that is because they have heavy taxes against fuel guzzlers as well as strict pricing to force high cost of fuel, The makes a great demand for fuel efficient cars.

Instead of following suit like other foreign countries we're stuck propping up a dying industry because they prefer to big huge hunks of crap.

<passes the flag off> /end rant

most euro countries dont have oil supplies like we do and rely on Scandinavian countries and Russia for oil. also you couldnt drive an SUV down the streets of most european cities.

regardless...the US Automakers could be completely self-sustaining without selling a single car outside NA. when you lose $1500-2500 per every car sold, it doesnt matter how many or where they are sold.