Bankruptcy and Reorganization for Detroit?

OK, how did this get into a discussion of Subaru building their plant

**on** a landfill?

From the Subaru site

The Subaru Clean Plant Consider this: When you carry out your trash at home on the next collection day, you'll be sending more trash to landfills than the entire Subaru manufacturing plant in Lafayette, Indiana (SIA). The Subaru plant was the first auto assembly plant to achieve zero landfill status - nothing from its manufacturing efforts goes into a landfill. It's all reused and recycled.

That is true. And it is meeting the requirements of creating wealth in every regard.

However, if the part that had failed had been redesigned (to cost no more initially) in time to be built into that vehicle such that it never failed in the first place, I submit that that will have created wealth too (and even more-so because it skips the repair event, the costs of which actually subtract from the overall "wealth", but also the costs of the redesign and re-tooling required would have to be subtracted out from the net wealth), though it doesn't meet the classic definition. And though the effect would be "silent" (for the owner of the car - the proverbial tree that no-one is there to hear), it would be real. Thousands/millions of such improvements would result in measurable increase in standard of living over time - the so-called march of technology (though I wonder if some technological "advancements" are net losses, but to assess that, sometimes you have to put an artificial dollar value on intangibles, or at least be very thorough in your "bookkeeping" to register *all* effects).

Ahh! The light just went on. You have educated an ignorant consumer (me). Thanks for the first explanation/clarification that made total sense. Am I the only one that when they heard the commercials thought they meant it was built on top of a landfill?

Correct.

Doesn't add up.

The Great Depression occurred during an era of gold backed dollars.

Depends on the type of government spending. As an example, wise spending in infrastructure is a good thing. Spending money on wars is a bad thing.

Huh? HUH?!?!?

The North American market is the biggest market for GM, Ford, and Chrysler. They don't have to adjust anything. Their vehicles are specifically designed from the beginning for this market.

The only worry for GM, Ford, and Chrysler is caused by their decision to act as distributors, rather than manufacturers, of their small cars.

Toyota has only recently approached GM as the world's largest auto maker. It isn't that Toyota "can use their global resources much better". Its in the execution: they **do** use their global resources much better.

Right. And what you have is a few thousand people where, in an attempt to defeat them, the US has a military of hundreds of thousands of people. Plus the military bureaucracy of many thousands more, and then all the suppliers. Adds up to employing the efforts of millions to try to defeat thousands which, of course, is impossible anyway as observed by Che Guevarra.

The great depression was in the central banking era.

The US federal government likes war. It also likes poor spending decisions on infrastructure.

Goto

and tell me how ford doesn't have fueleffecient vehicles to sell. The point is that they cannot quickly reactto changing market conditions. They are stuck flat-footed when buyerpreferences shift.

The problem is specifically that they have product locked down into specific markets. They can't easily sell US made vehicles elsewhere nor can they easily sell elsewhere made vehicles in the US. It is really a poor use of resources and creates a huge upfront cost and time lag to react to shifting market preferences.

They make a good number of small cars for overseas markets.

GM can't just decide to import a car without the UAW throwing a fit. When it decided to bring a Holden (Holden is as GM as pontiac) car to the US market, still making it in the Aussie facilities, the UAW through a fit. This was for a relatively low production speciality car.

The US federal government has done much better than that. By bombing people's weddings and what not it has increased the number of enemies.

Aside from being a totally idiotic idea it amounts to a trade subsidy which will break WTO rules and in return US exports will taxed extra heavily by importing nations.

Graham

Spot on !

Graham

Bill Putney wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:

I didn't say it was the same, I said it was similar, and I pointed out that it's legalized.

Of course, the Constitution doesn't give any authority to collect SS tax, or Medicare, or every tax on every utility you pay for, or a license fee, or any number of thousands of other taxes that aren't income tax.

But just because the government says it's legal doesn't make it any less of theft than it was before. The effect is the same.

Lloyd wrote in news:66f03627-372f-4efc-8557- snipped-for-privacy@u14g2000yqg.googlegroups. com:

Arson is a crime against someone elses property. Very similar to the legalized theft that the government acts in, in that it's the taking or destruction of someone elses property.

Running a red light puts others at harm.

I'll take that as a "Yeah, I guess it is theft, because I have no other answer!"

Thanks!

"Ted Mittelstaedt" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.ipinc.net:

snipped-for-privacy@j39g2000yqn.googlegroup

The 9th amendment clearly takes care of state's right. The 2nd is clearly for individuals as well, hence the phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms".

edward ohare wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Sounds like some common sense is prevailing in Florida!

If there's one thing that consistent about government agencies is that they ALWAYS have excesses and waste that can be cut.

Lloyd wrote in news:cd744a12-fde5-4ef9-ac5d-a6b86af32ab3 @v15g2000yqn.googlegroups. com:

No, it's more than 32k.

So what. It's offset from the free money they're mailed each year because of the AMT.

Only a completely statist would say all $3 trillion that the US Federal government spends each year is "essential".

Back to reality, it's not really my opinion. Do you remember 1995? Hell, the government admitted to it in 1995 during the so-called "government shutdown". They even labeled it as "shutting down non- essential services".

Anyway, the "essential" services are clearly labeled in the Constitution. Feel free to point out where it says things like "EPA", "NASA", "HUD", etc.

BS. We can change our tax structure any time we want. If the imports want to be more competitive, they can get _their_ governments to not lay corporate taxes on their industries.

Hey, the rest of the world paying their auto workers poverty wages is an illegal subsidy of their industries, the way I see it.

So we should have just stayed out of WWII?

Which is why I included the words "I will leave it to you to determine if the taxation that our government does is authorized by the Constitution, but...". I was way ahead of you. :)

We should never have gotten into it on the front end. It was partly our fault we got into it on the back end.

When one looks at it objectively, it was partly American industrialist's sales of goods to Germany that enabled their aggression. For certain, it is possible that they might have gotten material from somewhere else.

Once the monster arose there, we still stalled. Those same people that supplied the Germans with material supplied ships and war material to Britain.

It was Pearl Harbor that galvanized the US effort against the Axis. In that effort, the same people that supplied the Germans, and the British supplied the Allied forces.

Win, Win, Win!

War is a racket!

Nope. The Bush administration talked about 9/11 and said that Saddam funded terrorism (which indeed he did), but they never came out and said he was involved in 9/11.