Boyz in LaHood or the true meaning of ‘climate change’ — by guest blogger Elanamama
Bookworm on Aug 13 2009 at 9:29 pm | Filed under: Climate change
We have been verbally pistol whipped by Al Gore and his gang of like minded Global Warming-Climate Change-Crap and Trade Thugs. Supermarket items no longer wear the prized badge of the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval. Instead, these products have been replaced with a ‘green message’ – Buy me and save the world.
The familiar adage, sticker shock, usually reserved for the audible gasp that leaves our lips as we shop for a new car, has become a high pitched shriek outside the dealerships. We have yet to see the real cost of climate change and I am not talking about the weather … it’s the political climate.
Detroit, like Washington, is deaf. The Big 3 refused to see that we were no longer satisfied and we stopped buying what they were producing. Did they worry? Hell, no. Why? Too big to fail mentality and you know what… they were right, if not on paper, too big to fail in the aisles of Congress. Once again, in their infinite lack of wisdom, Congress finds some loose change — $3 BILLION dollars of it — and their marketing department comes up with CASH FOR CLUNKERS. One BILLION dollars into the program, Ray LaHood, Transportation Secretary, has yet to release records of sales. An additional TWO BILLION is all ready in the supply line, which will insure that the ever fuel-efficient (not) Hummer, Cadillac SRX, Lincolns and Lexus’ will continue to be driven off the lots.
$4500 to save 2 mpg! Congressional Economics.
This is the very same Washington, D.C. that wants to ‘fix’ the healthcare system.
The words…Not with a bang, but a whimper, come to mind, because that audible gasp is but a whimper in the ears of the deaf.
(This link prompted the above rant.)
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6 Responses to “Boyz in LaHood or the true meaning of ‘climate change’ — by guest blogger Elanamama”
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“We have to destroy the health care system in order to save it!”
Actually I’m pretty satisfied with the cars that Detroit produces. I drove Ford Pickups for years and they served very well. I have had my current Dodge pickup for 3 years and am very impressed with the design and quality. Personally, I think the mantra of Detroit “…building cars customers don’t want…” is just another liberal meme that people repeat without really thinking about it much.
It is ridiculous that taxpayers are giving someone $4500 for buying a car that improves their average by 2 mpg. I’m not sure if this program was sold as a environmental program or stimulus program, but it certainly does almost nothing for the former, and probably next to nothing for the latter.
Actually the numbers are a little better than that:
So is it worth it?
This is what it will do to US energy consumption.
Lets assume:
500,000 cars are sold in the program and each vehicle improves mileage by 9.6 mpg.
Average car driven 12,000 miles a year.
This will save 143 million gallons of gas a year, or 7.4 million barrels of oil a year.
The US consumes 20 million barrels of oil a day (of which about 45% is used in cars) for a total of 7.3 billion barrels of oil a year.
This will lower the oil consumption in the US by .1% per year. Whether that’s worth $3 billion is a political judgement and whether you think one American should help buy a car for another.
It will take the drivers of those 500,000 new fuel efficient cars 7 years of driving to save $3 billion at $3 per gallon.
It doesn’t particularly help the Detroit union car makers since more than 50% of the cars purchased through the program are foreign (though most are built in the US).
I agree with Dennis that it’s a false argument that Detroit failed because they built cars people didn’t want. Detroit failed because their overhead was higher than non-union factories.
Detroit went after the high priced market because that was the only way they could compete with the higher overhead (labor costs and benefits).
If you build a car that costs you $15,000 and you’re non-union competitor can build a similar car for $13,500 you have only a few options: charge more for the car or cheapen the car by using lower cost materials. While Detroit builds cars that are as fuel efficient or better than foreign competitors they are considered flimsy or cheap, which is probably true given the cost factors.
When you are competing in the $40,000 market of cars the $1,500 difference is 4% instead of 10%, which is easier to absorb and compete.
I love my Corvette and will put it up against German engineering. I also love my Grand Prix, which has 200,000 miles of trouble free driving. I think I had to replace the alternator and plugs– oh and the fuel pump. I’d buy another if they still made Pontiacs.
There’s a new phrase to replace ‘sticker shocker’.
Obama shocker.
Remember, any efficiency improvements due to the new cars are at least partly offset by the fact that much of the energy content embedded in the old car is simply being thrown away.
Making steel, transporting steel, forging, stamping, and casting processes…all these things are pretty energy-intensive.
Elanamama says
> The words…Not with a bang, but a whimper, come to mind, because that audible gasp is but a whimper in the ears of the deaf.
When I look back on the long, slow decline of the British “Empire” over the last 100 years, I see that their hegemony died with a long whimper, and not a bang. I see the same in store for us. We became dominant after World War II, but we’ve been in decline for a while, and under Obama it is only accelerating (and rapidly!).
Americans remain a decent people – but the British remain decent, too. Apparently “decency” in and of itself has nothing to do, in either direction, with the ascendancy or decline of your nation or people as a power.
You can see in those parts of the world where Soviet Russia held sway the opposite effect of a non-decent hegemony, and the brutality, terror and misery that it can cause.
And if China were to assume hegemony, you have no idea how horrifyingly bad the situation will become for those subject nations and peoples under its sway. Benevolence towards those who aren’t Chinese isn’t exactly something the Communist leadership in China spend any time reflecting upon! An examination of China’s behavior in Africa over the last decade, and their ruthless exploitation of African workers under their control, makes that absolutely clear.
The Chinese have severe demographic problems that may make hegemony impossible. But they’ve got that powerful sense of national identity and love of country and love of their own culture that we had in the 40′s and 50′s, and that appears to be a powerful force in asserting dominance in world affairs. We’ll see.