Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Finance, the economy & Economics Bailing out the auto industry - yes or no?

Would it also be fair to say that it is deeply rooted in a certain gender?

Passion. Speed. Power. Why don't we men devote as much energy to acquiring those characteristics in our own bodies as we do in our cars? Oh, wait. I know the answer. The former would require a great deal of discipline and effort. For the latter we need only get a loan.

I have long help the opinion that the ability to travel great distances at will and in comfort has been for the entire history of humanity a measure of luxury. One's wealth is in large part judged by where and how one has traveled.

So maybe one of the strings that needs to be attached to the (topic alert) auto bailout is a study on how to re-direct America attitudes towards the automobile/auto culture?

That’s a tough one Julia. It requires a decrease in testosterone levels which do eventually arrive. But then you are left with just a shell of the former man. It’s all about declining frontiers for men and the feeling of being fenced in with few new boundaries to break through.

Now…..there was something about a bailout?

I’m sure you knew this Iss,(maybe not) but you just described the $100 bill test. If your passenger in the front seat was unable to reach out and rip the taped $100 bill on the dashboard off due to the G forces pinning him back in the seat, your car had just passed the test.

But maybe we can try the test in a slightly less powerful car, and that $100 bill that had just been ripped from the dashboard could be used as the first installment for the $50 billion loan or bailout or whatever you want to call it.

Somebody drives this to work and back every day, to the grocery store, to the mall. Do we need this much testosterone?

MAYBE??!!!

Someone brought up earlier in the discussion that the American consumer is not entirely to blame for the choices Big Auto has made in marketing their products - whom they have tried to appeal to, and how they make those appeals. Advertising is designed to penetrate people at their most vulnerable. Big Auto concentrates on selling big autos because that's where they believe their profit margin is.

As for testosterone, guys . . . Guys. We have football, we have wrestling, we have boxing to the extreme and ultimate. We have James Bond, we have cops, we have gladiators, we have wars and we have jungles and we have the matrix. When is enough enough?

Steve: I intentionally said nothing about gender. Nothing at all.

Ken, actually, yes, I did link my comment about the American love affair with cars to the auto bailout.

Smoking declined in part because the tobacco industry was forced to link reality to its advertising. In the US this took the form of small-print warnings; in Canada it was more like cigarette packages wrapped in "DEATH! DEATH! DEATH!"-stamped paper. It took other efforts as well but eventually smoking went from James Dean cool to basically unwelcome behavior.

Maybe the bailout could require advertising changes. Perhaps advertising for vehicles that don't meet mileage standards should have to note that, visibly, in every advertisement. Perhaps vehicles advertise for "only $nnn a month" should have to follow that statement with "for five years for a total of $nn,nnn."

Cars which are considered insurance risks because they're overpowered should have to make that clear in their advertising.

Since accelerating from 0-60 in 30 seconds is useful in very rare occasions, perhaps those claims could be removed from advertising.

Gosh, since the LDS is into advertising these days, maybe they could run one of their "life choices" ads that says "if your three children actually loved each other, you wouldn't need an 8-seat vehicle, would you?"

Ads showing large vehicles driving straight up mountains or otherwise off-road, but which are sold predominantly for street use -- should, instead, be shown maneuvering through city streets and parking lots.

Want to sell pickup trucks? Advertise them carrying loads, as pickups are intended to do, and advertise their gas mileage when loaded.

Show cars and trucks as the tools they are -- rather than making all of us tools of the car makers and advertisers.

Over compensation, Gregor - trust me...

When it comes to testosterone filled men - too much is not enough. Some of us have an affinity for the "big 'n dumb" testosterone-filled cavemen types. Nothing "hotter" in this big world of ours than a big, dumb, masculine, testosterone-filled guy.

---Simply put, it's a motorhead rite of passage.
If you think your hot rod is fast, tape a hundred dollar bill
to the dashboard, mark off a section of road (drag strip)
and invite your passenger to try and get the hundred dollar bill while you go through the gears at full throttle.
If they can get the bill off the dashboard before you hit the finish line, it's theirs.


--Consider yourself behooved. The passion for speed and power in vehicles doesn't have to change, the choice of fuel does.

If a vehicle owner can derive significant power from a fuel choice that doesn't negatively impact our dependence on foreign oil then no harm and no foul, except to the vehicle owner's pocketbook, of course.
Our problem is that we've become too dependent on petroleum. Suffice it to say that if we really DO find a way out of the petroleum monopoly and wind up with electric cars, and possibly the solar panels to charge them with, you WILL see
enthusiasts slapping extra capacitors on their battery packs and swapping out stock electric motors for larger ones, and you will see electric drag racing, hopefully on the drag strip and not on the street.


---There's no way human nature can be altered to fit inside a
non-sportive frame of mind. Mankind is hard wired with the desire to push the envelope. It's the kind of thing that inspired test pilots to conquer space as astronauts and that's what drove us to the moon, which resulted in the technology we use today. The part of the attribute that isn't positive is the stubborn refusal to push the envelope in terms of power sources.
We heard as small children about the fact that the sun showers the earth with millions of times more energy in an hour than the entire planet uses in a year.
So why are we mortgaging the buried sunshine of 65 million years ago instead of tapping the source directly?
The answer back when we were kids was that we didn't have the knowhow. We have most of the knowhow now, and it is incumbent upon us to take the challenge and rise to it.
Civilization won't survive without gobs of energy.
If certain folks dislike civilization they're certainly welcome to leave it but I suspect that most people will want to strive to figure out a way to keep most of it by finding new ways to provide the power that it needs.


---Again, you're denying the hardwired tendency of the peacock to display his feathers, and the tendency of a Columbus to embark on a journey to the edge of what was thought to be a flat planet. The American cinema didn't create wanderlust, it celebrated it. What we need to do is find a way to wander without being destructive in the process.
If mankind can figure out a way to power his civilization and it's attendant luxuries in an efficient manner, the rewards of civilization will continue to be enjoyed.
If not, we can expect to see a New Dark Ages commence.
That wouldn't be good.


---A gasoline guzzling SUV without a doubt.
But what if that SUV was diesel electric and got 45 miles per gallon?
What if that SUV was low to the ground for everyday transportion and got even more than 45 miles to the gallon in daily driver mode, thanks to streamlined aerodynamics and an advanced alternative energy powertrain?

My entire point is that mankind is an adventurous species, and like all other animals mankind also preens and displays in order to make themselves seem more attractive to the opposite sex.
Mankind seeks adventure in many fulfilling ways but there will always be that part of the species that is compelled to wander and explore. The value which we impart from that is subject to
debate of course but then again in any species there is normally a little thing called natural selection which political correctness attempts to disengage from the process.

The result is several hundred million people who think that they all deserve to be winners, winners who take no risk and suffer no pain from mistakes lest their fragile egos or even more fragile bodies suffer harm.

In classical mythology Icarus tried to fly to the sun on waxy wings. He paid a price for his ignorance. Today, Icarus be damned...let's make the world safe for everybody no matter their ignorance, wastefulness or wantonness.
But in the old days it was the adventurer who discovered gold, who learned to harness energy to power a new society, who learned to break the bonds that held us close to the plow and the broken backs and mangled hands of dirt labor subsistence.
We again face a new barrier, a new frontier in which we must cast off our conventional wisdom about mankind's relationship to energy.

It's been suggested that society challenge itself and take the first step into the void and shine a light on the possibility of decentralized creation of personal energy sources instead of depending on large monolithic corporations who dribble expensive finite resources into our outstretched cups.

I say we accept.