hoover

Toyota: Examining the Solar-Car Rumors

Technical problems are only one obstacle to developing solar and other alternate energy cars. The other problem, and possibly the biggest, is overcoming the media and political obstacles. The oil and energy industries worldwide do not want alternate energy for ANYTHING for obvious self preservation reasons. So, GM's decision to further develop the Volt electric plug-in hybrid (after dumping the whole idea several years ago) is smart. It divides the energy industry against itself, because the electric utility industry will sell more power while the oil industry will sell less. Divide and conquer is the only way progress will be made on alternate energy. The result may be that GM actually proceeds to build the cars. Once electric cars overcome the negative feed of information from oil sources (assuming they do overcome it) it could open the way toward eventual partially powered solar electric cars.

Will the White House Bail Out Detroit?

I'm sorry but making sense is not an option in the current political climate. Government buying cars? That would be the dreaded DEMAND side economics. That does not move more wealth into the wealthy as in SUPPLY side economics. So, bad idea. Breaking up big companies so new ideas can be hatched by entrepreneurs and real competition between real car companies takes place. OMG. That might actually work. Both of your ideas make some sense so they will be immediatly rejected.


On Dec 12 03:58 PM L Moore wrote:

> The government should buy a large number of cars from detroit and
> give them to taxpayers. It would be just as good as any infrastructure
> stimulas package that might get passed for Obama.
>
> You want to stop losing jobs? Put a ban on M&A. And, take big
> companies, break them up, and make several smaller ones of of them.

Should We Really Bail Out the Big Three Automakers with $73.20 Per Hour Labor?

I would assume that about $45 of that is real wages and the rest benefits. Also, I believe new contracts that cover new hires are in the $20 to $25 per hour range. Auto workers obviously make too much. But, I would rather concentrate my rage on grossly overpaid executives, AND I would rather concentrate on banking and financial executives than auto executives. Auto companies at least make a useful and necessary product. What do banks produce? Paper with numbers on it, paper shuffling people, colossal debts, misery, and a system of compensation that would make the Mafia feel guilty. Why do companies need to borrow so much from banks anyway. What ever happened to companies that used their internally generated funds to support their operations? They have all gotten hooked on the banker's debt drug. Fix the problem by NOT bailing them out -- let them fail and feel good about it. I used to work for a large corporation that produced a useful product and had a slogan, "PAY FOR PERFORMANCE," for managers. Lousy performance and you're gone. If applied to bankers they would all be on the unemployment line where they belong.