Random thoughts

GM’s effort to target Toyota’s  customers  in the midst of their record recall notice seems in poor taste, especially in light of the record amount of taxpayer money that is now supporting GM.  This is like the arrogant rich kid who brags about being  smart when he was just lucky enough to inherit daddy’s money.  Kudos to Honda for expressly rejecting this tactic and Ford for just making money without taxpayer funds.   This is a big debit to GM’s karma account. Remember how many Toyotas are manufactured in this country.

Has anyone ever heard a peep from this administration about the government’s  responsibility for the economic crash, or do we just keep adding to the list of corporate demons?  First the oil companies, then insurance companies, then the health care providers and then the banks and financial institutions.  I need oil companies, insurance companies, health care providers and banks because they provide stuff and  services I need and want. I wish I could say this about the government .

After reading and writing about the financial crisis, I realize that the best analysis is devoid of political and partisan scapegoating.  The causes  were multiple and extended back more than 25 years. While much is clear in hindsight, at the time there were seemingly rational reasons for every stupid step toward the cliff.  How do smart people make such stupid mistakes?  One small stupid step at a time.

I have observed that there is an innate sense of trust on the social networking sites, especially Facebook.  We have connected with people we haven’t seen in decades, and there is an instant sense of trust.  Rules of etiquette on Facebook are unwritten but seemingly obvious just the same.  I wonder if the hours we spend on Facebook comes at the expense of television viewing.

With a more substantial majority than either party has enjoyed in decades and control of the White House, the Democrats have failed to pass any of the legislative initiatives other  than the stimulus package early in 2009(and the absurd cash for clunkers program) . It seems that either the bills they are trying to pass stink or that they must be incredibly politically incompetent.

I just completed a 600 mile drive from Bloomington, Indiana after visiting with my daughter at IU for her birthday.  Some thoughts on the ride home:

America is obese.  As a rule I pick a restaurant by looking at the patrons and thinking if I want to look like them in ten years.  That would eliminate just about every country breakfast stop including Cracker Barrel and the fast food joints that proliferate on the exits. I miss finding some local decent food. It is all corporate chains. I do tend to favor Waffle House when I am on the road, but I wish they would get some real butter instead of that Country Crock substance, and some real maple syrup even if they charged more for it.

Maybe because the men are too fat to see their own schmucks, they seem unable to hit the urinal. There is a reason we do not put these in our homes.  I can only guess that most of the highway lard asses just spray in the general direction to mark their territories before actually putting any of the urine in the urinal.  I have yet to see a bathroom without a trash receptacle so I do not understand why there is gum and cigarettes buttes in the urinal, except that they must feel entitled once they have marked their general area.

Most of us are sanipeds. That is a word I made up for people who use their feet to lift the toilet seat in a public restroom.  They should make toilet seats with a tab on the side to make it easier to lift the seat with your foot.

Self service gas pumps are a great idea. I am old enough to remember attendants.

Satellite radio is a godsend to road travel.  With satellite radio I actually prefer to drive 9-1/2 hours to Bloomington than to drive to the Atlanta airport, fly to Indianapolis, rent a car and then drive an hour to Bloomington. It maybe takes 2 or 3 hours longer to drive, but I have a comfortable seat and my own space (My wife, Debbie, joined me.) I can also haul stuff much easier and just throw it in my car.   I like to travel but flying is a miserable experience for me.

Channel 105 on Sirius is all Monty Python. A little Bloomberg, a blues station, then Classic Vinyl Rock station, the Eighties, Raw Dog Comedy and then …. whatever.  I even sought out liberal talk radio to get some balance in my life. The one I found was some woman from New York and was laced with profanity. Say what you want about conservative talk radio, it is far more civil.  The lefties seem as critical of the president as the righties do.

To the eighteen wheeler that cut me off and made me slam on my brakes.  Be more careful if you post that 1-800- HOW AM I DRIVING phone number on your truck. We all have cell phones and my wife had one of those portable pocket movie cameras. I called and reported you, reading all the data on the truck to the attendant.  The worst 18 wheelers are the ones on I-75 South from Chattanooga southward.  A fourth of them should be arrested.

It was easy to predict that the Cash for Clunkers would only drive up sales very temporarily as the expense of future sales.  Recent results have verified the sharp dropoff in auto sales when the program ended.

It was also easy to predict a backlash from consumers over the nationalization of GM and Chrysler.  This bailout was a self fulfilling failure. GM and Chrysler were down far more than other car companies. GM was down 45%, Chrysler was down 42% and Ford was down a mere 6%.

Yes this is only correlation but the stories of consumers avoiding the nationalized car companies are becoming common, even if they are rarely covered by the press.

While the very expensive bailout may have seemed attractive in the short term, it may have succeeded in destroying so much customer loyalty that it will prove disastrous in the long run.  GM would have been better served to have reorganized through an orderly and LEGAL bankruptcy.

I have wondered if the fact that Ford did not need a government bailout would positively impact its sales and how much of an effect it would have.  While uncertain this quote in the WSJ.com’s Political Diary adds some credence to the idea:

“Some customers really didn’t believe I was Henry Ford. They didn’t expect the great-great-grandson of Henry Ford to be selling cars in California. That’s a conversation-starter right there. A lot of people said they thought I’d be a jerk – arrogant. But I like talking to people. . . . About one-half [of customers are] Ford owners and one-half other brands, including the imports. Ford had a perception problem, but people now say they like Ford because we didn’t take any government money. It comes up a lot” — Henry Ford III, who is spending the summer as salesman at Galpin Ford in suburban Los Angeles, speaking with staff reporter Kathy Jackson of Automotive News.