Japans Cash for clunkers

[merrylander]

We could have insisted that the Big Three come up with better iron. Hell I recall the first Honda Civic, the one with the trailing link rear end and an engine that red lined at over 9000 RPM. After one Canadian winter they looked like Swiss cheese. The first Camrys were iron dogs as well. You could not keep fenders on a Datsun (Nissan).

Most of the blame belongs in management's lap, the people on the line built what they were given. But government fell flat on its ass with all the free and open market crap. Then we had all the States giving the Japanese companies tax holidays just so they would build plants here, no State government was giving the big Three any tax breaks.

Then came the constant bad mouthing of the Big Three regardless of what they built, like the recent yada yada about building gas guzzlers - that was exactly what the people were buying, they could not give away the compacts. For example, JD Power downed the Hummer because the people that bought them were not happy with the gas mileage - WTF did they expect?

H.L Mencken was right.

[Boreas]

Originally Posted by merrylander

Then we had all the States giving the Japanese companies tax holidays just so they would build plants here, no State government was giving the big Three any tax breaks.

What's worse is what went on during the debate over the loans to American car companies. The senators and congressmen, all Republican by the way, from those states were the ones arguing the loudest to "let free market forces work" and allow the industry to die. Of course, it couldn't have had the slightest thing to do with those foreign car companies who built in their states.

John

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by Boreas

What's worse is what went on during the debate over the loans to American car companies. The senators and congressmen, all Republican by the way, from those states were the ones arguing the loudest to "let free market forces work" and allow the industry to die. Of course, it couldn't have had the slightest thing to do with those foreign car companies who built in their states.

John

As an aside, one of the states doing some arguing was Ohio. Ohio has both domestic (GM and Chrysler) and Japanese (Honda and Nissan) plants. I guess they've decided the future lies with the Japanese and couldn't give a rats ass about the part of their economy that's dependent on the domestic end of the industry?

Maybe it's just me, but I don't understand the whole "let the industry die" mentality. We heard it about the auto industry, the banking industry, the economy in general, "Let it fail, let it die, let it hit bottom" seems to be the mantra with so many people. To me that is just so defeatist, fatalistic and "narrow of vision".

Especially when it comes to the general economy. Do these idiots have any idea what they are asking for? Maybe with a specific industry, the impact is only so bad, but the national economy? I guess if you have the mentality that it's only "somebody else" and not yourself that's going to do all of the suffering, -------then you don't care? But, just how in the hell do you build a strong nation with that sort of model-----"So long as I'm okay, I don't give a shit about you. Drop dead, asshole."?

Call me naive, but I don't see how this line of thinking could ever
build a strong nation.

"United we stand, divided we fall." makes much more sense to me.

Dave