Douglas Korthof

The Horns of a Dilemma: What Lies Ahead?

It's really simple: no dilemma at all.

RAISE TAXES ON THE RICH, and impose a $5/gallon gasoline tax.

The very rich don't spend their money on production, they ship it to offshore tax hideouts; and a rise in gas taxes would start to penalize Big Oil and also force production of Electric cars.

Big Oil has been getting a free ride for too long; we pay their military bill, subsidize refineries, pay for the health damages caused by burning oil (kids raised in proximity to car exhaust have more permanent lung damage the closer they are), oil wars, urban runoff and other problems cause by burning oil.

About time to stop pandering to big oil, and start clamping down on free rides for the very rich. Let them pay their share, instead of slacking.

Funds Hold General Motors to the Bitter End

I think the execs bailed out, like rats leaving the sinking ship, selling at $1.60 or so -- many funds dumped, also.

Don't forget the main reason GM failed, hiring Lutz and refusing to sell the EV1 electric car, arresting its own customers who tried to buy the EV1, crushing instead of selling their own product, and selling control of the battery needed for the Toyota Prius (which GM owned!) to Chevron Oil.

Boy, that were dumb, DUMB, D U M B. Only boneheads like Wagoner, Lutz and Fritz could screw the pooch that badly.

The Most Significant Green Shoot Starts to Wilt

100,000 jobs lost at dealers -- well, those are not value-added, are they?

GM's overhead, from incompetent, overpaid losers like Wagoner and Lutz to fat margins for bloated dealers, is their big problem; and it arose from a culture of neglect, arrogance and animosity toward the customer and their own workers.

100,000 jobs at dealers -- another way to look at this, all those guys lounging around in cowboy hats waiting for suckers to wander by and be conned into buying a gas guzzler -- means $10 BILLIION savings (at $100,000 total cost per person fired, including burden and allocation, etc.).

Lean car dealers do it with less persons, lower margins, and more cars sold per square foot of floor space. Because, unlike GM, they have cars that people want to buy, and because companies like Toyota pay attention to customer requests.

GM jailed its own customers for trying to buy the EV1 (and failure to disperse, blocking the sidewalk, and so on); think of that!! What company survives by jailing its cash customers and refusing to sell their product??

Now if they would only decrease the money wasted on big display ads, expensive real estate (someone pays the mortgage on all that prime real estate on which the GM gas-guzzlers and chrysler monster-mobiles sit!) and other waste, fraud or abuse.