Originally posted by: LsDPulsar
Agreed - very much should be in off-topic.
Or, lastly, we could talk about this sad little pissant who posted the original post who has absolutely no idea what is going to happen to the US economy when the US manufacturing companies like Ford and GM finally close shop. He probably thinks he's in a field that won't see any effect - blind idiots are like that sometimes. He probably doesn't understand that losing millions and millions of high paying jobs is going to destroy the economy here. Or he doesn't care. He doesn't understand that the Automotive industry is THE driving force behind most of the WORLDS economy - that other countries protect their automotive companies with a ferocity not to be believed. He probably doesn't understand that the Japanese and Chinese have laws preventing foreign firms from owning their companies, and while that continues our companies are being snatched up by government financed firms out of China and Japan.
I live in Wisconsin.
I've seen how people who work for GM live. The factories are in some ways laughably old-fashioned - a lot of work is done by hand. If you've taken a tour, you'll notice that a lot of the final assembly is done by people with wrenches, most of which drive second-hand cars a fraction as expensive as what they're assembling.
I've been seeing them lose their jobs, too - it's sad. Honda and Toyota have not been closing any factories in the US as far as I know, while GM is outsourcing more and more to China.
Sure, occasionally Toyota and Honda do a snarky thing - I've seen more crashed Ford Explorers than any other car. I don't give a dang wether it's an american company - Ford and GM manufacture automobiles have poorer fuel economy than Japanese cars, with inferior reliability.
I've seen how Pfizer bribes doctors (bribes is an accurate term - $60-a-plate dinners and $600 "buisness trips" don't really constitute a "necessary expense") and pushes medications to those who do not need them via endless, expensive advertising.
And Microsoft? I'm now a Linux user - I'm learning the command line. They're the worst of the lot - I've paid multiple times for the same thing, and as far as I'm concerned, they're never getting another penny of my money.
Originally posted by: Aluvus
Quite frankly, the US automakers thoroughly deserve the beating they are currently taking. I sincerely hope it is the kick in the pants they need to finally become really competitive again.
That's what I want to hear. I've seen how GM has killed pension plans, and how people - these auto workers LsDpulsar wants to protect so much - have suffered.
There are some very good American-made cars on the market - examples being the Ford Focus and its derivative, the Mazda3. (Ford owns Mazda, you know.) GM's Cobalt line is supposed to be decent, and my auto-wizard buddy can work wonders with old GM engines - I think he once managed to get 60mpg on an old big-block, though I really have no idea what he's talking about.
And now, back to the original topic...
I'm hoping to see much smaller, lighter cars - the Honda CRX, if you're not driving on the same road as a bunch of huge SUVs, is a fine car that's also reasonably safe. Re-built with a hybrid engine, the result would be a fast, sporty car that would be both reasonable in cost and very fuel efficient.
Thoughts?