simplesimon

Mid-Year 2009 Recap: What's Ahead

Confronting reality is never pleasant. I thank you for not sugar coating anything. The house I am still living in cost a whopping $18K brand new in 1971. As a working stiff wage earner, I am all to painfully aware that wages did not keep up with the Ponzi bubble you describe above. It was reported by the 'competition' in the campaign that McCain had voted against raising the minimum wage 9 times. Couple that with labor competition from illegal aliens, outsourcing, downsizing, and shows like "Flip This House"...we should have known these 'empty boxcars' were on a collision course with a train wreck. Your last sentence re. those in "The Beltway" being the architects of fraudulent credit issuance, and that which I mention here, is the most relevant concluding remark that could possibly have been made -ever- by anyone on SA. A lot of people will go to jail..."the usual suspects", of course...but not many in Congress will face charges= who set up this 'lose-lose' game to begin with.

The Future of GM's Brands

This all right on target. I thought as a retired design artist, I'd submit some 'great' ideas for vehicle design - one of which was something based upon the Stutz Bearcat. Both F and GM replied with a form letter that they don't consider design ideas. ...really?....well there's your problem! "To hell with John Q Public. ..we don't give a damn what you want or like, or need."...I also slammed GMAC on repoffreport.com, along with hundreds of others, for undoing all the billions spent on good PR...and for dragging the entire auto industry down into hell with themselves = another example of , and revealing of, the thinly veiled contempt GM has for John Q Public. I say let them go under. Then some companies that DO care can emerge, an do very well...like reintroducing novel and exciting new designs! You know? Actually care about the buyer? Wow...how refreshing that would be!
Incidentally, we bewail and bemoan how costly it is to mount a nationwide ad campaign for the presidency...and the truth is it is like spare change found down in your couch compared to what is spent on car ads all day every day...don't you think that makes cars twice as costly as they should and could be? "Oh to hell with the buyer".
Yes....both GM and F should go ahead and file for bankrupcty and let's get on with the 21st century and a return to good ol' American engineering and design know how...and perhaps a new generation of young executives who operate their companies with integrity, like Zappos.com...where the CEO has a cubicle right in their with the res of the grunt employees!

General Garbage

Lots of negative comments about the original article , vis general garbage. Even though I've seen my share price go down, this is still a venerable old company with a triple A rating, and already a billion in contracts in place for wind turbines for Europe. In my humble opinion, there is no reason whatever for GE shares to be lower than $38. This temporary lull is just a reflection of the more pandemic fear mongering among investors worldwide. The right question is why billions in wind energy for Europe? The same reason we all thought the home equity as our personal ATM machine, and gas hogs were permanently the wave of the future....only 'other, poor people drove fuel efficient cars; not boastful, status conscious, brand racist elitist me".....if we insist on faulting anyone, it should be Detroit and everyone else totally asleep at the wheel. In the immortal words of Johhny Cash, "How high's the water, Mama?"


On Jun 19 11:18 AM confused investor wrote:

> Talk about Wind Energy stocks and GE stock goes down, talk of Nuclear
> Energy and GE stock goes down, talk about the need for increased
> transportations and fuel efficient locomotives and GE stock goes
> down... I just don't get it as I watch GE stock crumble for being
> in the right place/business at the right time.

Industries to Avoid, Industries to Buy

Brother, did you stir the pot! Let me complement you on a few things. The Big Three auto makers summary is accurate. "Disregard for the consumer" you mention on their part may go down in history as something pandemic among our "latter day" corporate mind set/conspicuous status conciousness...no need to belabor the golden parachute for execs who ran the company in the ditch. I'm pointing to what I would call the mind disease of this turn of the millenia. The American Indian had it right when they described the pale face as "Wasichu"-which means spider= busy spinning webs of deceipt for the purpose of capturing and sucking dry the hapless churl, the brand racists, and the body worshiping desperate hosuewives, drooling over 'the lives of the rich and famous'- and damn morality, full speed ahead. I wonder if anyone ever really took their "Business Ethics" class seriously.
Today we watch with glazed eye as thousands of homes are systematically destroyed by fire, flood, earthquake, tornado, hurricane, and mortgage meltdown...and think it will not happen to us! A clue...it will keep happening, and even accelerate until we all fall back and rethink this whole thing. Is it really important to buy the Hummer, and the million and a quarter home, on lots "starting in the low $300,000"? Has anyone really evaluated why we are called "the great Satan"? Porn anyone? How about a trip to Vegas where nothing you do will ever come to light...a clue...every move you make in Vegas is recorded on video. And the whole world is tune in to be entertianed by our stumbling, wretched collapse.