GM arrogance at all time high for product suggestions

Everybody knows how to design and build automobiles except the people who
work in the industry, there are thousands of ideas sent to automakers every
year 99.9% of them useless
in one way or another but if one of them is even close to what comes out
there is a lawsuit that’s why automakers and everyone else dosnt accept
ideas without backing like patents etc.
everyone sues the automakers for one thing or another it is a large part of
the cost of cars,
there are thousands of lawyers who do just that for any reason, much of the
goofey crap you see in autos today are CYA like all those stickers and
warning labels

We do need to change the whole transport system.

Public transport for the most part with trains for long distance.

In the city and for shorter distances small cars like golf carts with
batteries.

Fast big cars shoud be relegated to special tracks where people can
visit to kill each other in style.

Easy to say, but we also have to undo a lot of things that have taken place
over the past 50 years or so.  Like suburbs.

People used to live, work, and shop close to home, often in walking distance
since there was not other method of transportation.   While transporting
people can be greatly improved, getting them to work in some industrial
parks is going to prove challenging.

Probably the most difficult single item to get over is attitude.  Car
drivers are a fierce independent group that just don't want to take a bus
and be dependent on the bus schedule.  Try to get them out of the SUV or
Hummer and into a small car and they go into shock.

Disclosure:  I drive a full sized sedan with a V-6.  At home, my car is 25
feet from the door.  At work, my car is 50 feet from the door. I could
change if alternates were available, but I prefer not too.

 

The long jorney starts with one small step.

You need to make a map and give a statement of directions.

Then make steps over a long time to facilitate the change in an
orderly way.

Create the environment for public transport within cities and make it
increasingly harder to use big personal transport in the cities until
they have been banned there.

At the same time tax oil and big cars ever more and just allow slow
moving small cars in the cities and have them all made the same way
tata nano with interchangable parts and cheap.

At the same time make trains and other public transport for long
distance ever better.

Letting the likes of GM control how they can skim the money from you
to them is not a good idea.

This is what Europe has done, to some extent.  Still, a lot of people own
cars....and they often buy smaller very fuel efficient ones.

We have all but lost our train service.   If "service" is a keyword, then we
HAVE lost it.  Amtrak is a joke in most of the country.

Inner city transportation varies a lot, from fairly good to fairly
inexistent.

America suffers from size.  Europe does not.

We can do better than we have done up to now, if we decide that we want
to, and are dedicated to do better.

There is a very good reason why they *have* to buy small, fuel
efficient cars: taxes on cars, registration, taxes  on fuel, etc., are
many times that what the average US driver pays. Why? Well, it
supports their wonderful socialized system of benefits.

-----------------------------------

President Barack Obama today will propose a six-year plan to
rehabilitate the nation=92s transportation infrastructure with an
initial $50 billion to help spur an economy that=92s lost jobs for three
straight months.

Obama will announce the program to fix the nation=92s roads, railways
and runways to union families at a Labor Day rally in Milwaukee
scheduled for 3:10 p.m. New York time, the White House said in a
statement.

Two months before congressional midterm elections, Obama will call for
the formation of an =93infrastructure bank=94 and request money to rebuild
150,000 miles (241,400 kilometers) of roads, construct and maintain
4,000 miles of rail, and overhaul 150 miles of runways, the statement
said.

President Barack Obama today will propose a six-year plan to
rehabilitate the nation’s transportation infrastructure with an
initial $50 billion to help spur an economy that’s lost jobs for three
straight months.

Obama will announce the program to fix the nation’s roads, railways
and runways to union families at a Labor Day rally in Milwaukee
scheduled for 3:10 p.m. New York time, the White House said in a
statement.

Two months before congressional midterm elections, Obama will call for
the formation of an “infrastructure bank” and request money to rebuild
150,000 miles (241,400 kilometers) of roads, construct and maintain
4,000 miles of rail, and overhaul 150 miles of runways, the statement
said.
*********
OH SH*T!!! HIM AGAIN!!

wrote:



There are many ways to skin a cat.
A large company I worked for started van pools during some period when
either the gov encouraged it with tax policy or gas prices were high,
can't remember which.  Maybe both.
The company bought and maintained the vans, maybe 20 or so from my
guess at seeing them parked when they all streamed in.
Some had as few as 4 occupants, some as many as 8.
A driver was assigned and kept the van at home after he dropped
everybody off.  As I recall, he could use it locally as a perk for
driving.
Everybody using it paid something, but it wasn't much.  Probably what
they would pay for public transportation.  I saw the cost once and
that's what it looked like.
The vans were going from about 15-40 miles out, and those in the van
 lived within maybe a 4 mile radius of one another.
I worked with one guy in the pool.  He had to leave same time every
day.  According to him his drop off was near where the driver lived
and
that cost him about 15 minutes over driving his own car.  
That's the key to that kind of setup.  It has to have a small enough
passenger load so it's not costing too much time.
Then people have to get along on the commute.
I recall hearing one van pooler bitching about another's BO.
Anyway, after about 10 years the van pooling almost stopped.
Think when I left there were maybe 3-4 vans around.  Why?
Probably just not enough participants because people started thinking
they didn't need it.  Simple economics, most likely.
Salaries took off among the white collar workforce.
Gas prices never skyrocketed.
Since I never worked far enough from work or felt the financial
pressure to want to join a van pooling, I saw it as an unnecessary
restriction.
But it was a good option for some, and I would consider it if it made
sense for me..
Even now there are plenty of workers - mostly low-paid - who pool in
cars and vans to get to work.
As they say, necessity is the mother of invention.
That's the incentive you mentioned.
For some years I took the train to downtown Chicago.
It was a 10 minute walk to the train, a 15 minute train ride, and a
ten minute walk to work.  Read the paper on train in and back, and
drank a beer on the ride back.  Nice.
Driving would have been an hour each way, and parking would have cost
at least 4 times the train ticket.
Of course city and country are different worlds.
I live in a suburb now, but when I get called for jury duty in the
city I don't even think about driving.  Take a train and a bus.
Takes about 1 1/2 hours versus maybe 50-60 minutes driving.
But no stress.
If I worked there I might drive.  Don't know really.  You do what you
have to do.

--Vic
 
 

How could it be that one of GM=92s most valuable assets, listed at $30.2
billion, is the intangible asset known as goodwill?

That=92s the amount GM said its goodwill was worth on the June 30
balance sheet it filed last month as part of the registration
statement for its planned initial public offering.

By comparison, GM said its total equity was $23.9 billion. So without
the goodwill, which isn=92t saleable, the company=92s equity would be
negative.

This is hardly a sign of robust financial strength!

GM listed its goodwill at zero a year earlier. It=92s as if a $30.2
billion asset suddenly materialized out of thin air.

In the upside-down world that is GM=92s balance sheet, that=92s exactly
what happened.

Indeed, the company=92s goodwill supposedly is worth more than its
property, plant and equipment, which GM listed at $18.1 billion.

The amount is about eight times the $3.5 billion GM is paying to buy
AmeriCredit Corp., the subprime auto lender.

Another twist: GM said its goodwill would have been worth less had its
creditworthiness been better.

Talk about a headscratcher.

We have a new name

Goodwill Motors!

Pretty much all that is left or is it really there?

Apparently you have not traveled around the US very much or you would know
that what works in Europe would not work for much of the US, or Canada, for
that matter.

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news:2ff90892-ca0a-4b3a-bf07-
Mike, it is not so much that it works so well in Europe, as it is MADE
to work there; all by big government.

That is what our socialist poster wants here in the US, as well.

*****
It works in Europe because they have to make it work, for the reasons
previously
mentioned.

A person doesnt have to be a socialist to want to conserve our natural
resources
and decrease air pollution.

But it is not an "either/or" situation.   We can have a good lifestyle and
improve the way we do things.  What big government does in Europe, big
industry may do in the USA.  As fuel/energy prices go through the roof.
we may want a little relief.

You bring up another problem with socialism.   To provide the "free"
services everything one does must be taxed.     Vehicles are taxed as well
as the fuel they use is taxed at rate much higher then in the US, in
addition to VAT tax.

Some like to refer to the value of the Euro vis a v the dollar but they
forget the higher prices in Europe.    One of the reasons GM and Ford do not
import the vehicles they build in Europe is it costs more to build there
than in the US.


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Mike, it is not so much that it works so well in Europe, as it is MADE
to work there; all by big government.

That is what our socialist poster wants here in the US, as well.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope that some evil capitalist pig discovers the largest oil field
in history near your back yard. I hope that the supply is so great
that gasoline drops to 25 cents a gallon, and 80 per cent of America
buys large SUV's and the largest SUV factory in the history of mankind
is built near your front yard. Take a hike with your socialist ass
over to Europe (who many Europeans secretly wish to be like the US) if
you think it is so good there.

On Sun, 5 Sep 2010 22:59:47 -0700 (PDT), jr92


So you hope he gets rich?


Now I'm confused...