OK, we’re ready to start implementing our plan B for TTAC’s survival. I’ll be touching base with our Best and Brightest in the next couple of days to discuss a meta plan to generate income—for the site AND its writers—without walling off content. Meanwhile, here’s our first bit of real (i.e., non-CAFE Press) swag: a framed GM certificate. At $149.99 ($25 kickback for us), it’s not cheap. But I want to position TTAC swag at the top end of the market: quality, price no object. Our agreement with the certificate provider includes one line of text at the bottom (“cut-out in bottom mat, size 3/4″ × 5″ to 7″ for lettering insert”). So what message should we include? We could go Latin: veritas vos liberabit (the truth will set you free), veritatem dies aperit (time discloses the truth), vincit omnia veritas (the truth conquers all). Or perhaps an appropriate quote: “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it” (George Santayana); “History shows you don’t know what the future brings” (GM CEO Rick Wagoner); “Generally, cars were not built to sit on dealer lots. It encourages the wrong kind of behavior in the whole system” (also Wagoner). Ideas?
requiescat in pace
How about you hang it in the loo and add “In case of emergency, break glass” to the front.
PS “I Came I saw I broke it” translates as “EGO venit EGO saw EGO infractus is”
(According to one of those online translator things)
What about “You can’t build a reputation on what you’re going to do” (Henry Ford)
An ode to Spinal Tap…
“Here lies General Motors… and why not?”
“…. But the Volt goes up to eleven”
America and Freedom go hand-in-hand: The Freedom to succeed and the Freedom to fail (miserably).
Another Henry Ford quote:
“Profit is the inevitable conclusion of work well done.”
I like the latin approach…
How about
1) Alea iacta est (The die has been cast)
2) Emitte lucem et veritatem (Send out light and truth)
3) Hoc tempore obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit (In these days friends are won through flattery, the truth gives birth to hate)
4) Veritas Lux Mea (The truth is my light)
Here, I like this one…as everyone on this website knows what the problem is ..and has been for 30-something years:
“The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see.”
-Ayn Rand
“It isn’t that we are such lousy car builders, but that they are such lousy car customers”…C.P.(Boss)Kettering
“…for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors, and vice versa.”
– Charles Erwin Wilson, 1953
That thing is begging for a quote from Bob Lutz. Which one is almost irrelevant, it just needs to be from Maximum Bob himself!
Oh, Sajeev…you’re right. There’s a mother lode of quotes from that particular source. Some of my favorites:
“This business is finally all about making money. And buying market share with incentives to get an unsustainable share is just not a good strategy.”
“What obviously surprised us is gasoline rising from $1.50 to $3 a gallon.”
The counterpart to the quote I posted earlier: “What’s good for GM could become good for China.”
And my all-time favorite:
“Bankruptcy is totally out of the question. We have never contemplated it.”
The audacity of hope.
You guys should open a used car dealership to provide the income for the site. :D
” I am no longer attracted to heavy women”
“General Motors shares? It’s a crock of sh*t!”
Or, more seriously, quite simply “Genchi Genbutsu”.
The Japanese speaking B&B will know this means “Go and see for yourself the problem”. Something which GM management should have done (and never did) encapsulated in GM’s competitor’s philosophy.
Geez, just cut to the chase Robert. Put it out there. I’ll gladly pay 8 or 10 bucks a year for access to this website. Just fix it so’s I can set my own password instead of those cryptogams you guys send via email!
What does the certificate actually say on it? After all, GM stock is a hair more than three bucks, and the paperwork for that can be framed…
BuzzDog : “Bankruptcy is totally out of the question. We have never contemplated it.”
Wow. I actually found a few quote sites with Bob’s brilliance on the interweb, this one is really working for me.
“The problem was right there before us all along. It was so easy to see, once we decided to look. It’s not rocket science.” – Robert Lutz
You could put in on the ground outside your front door and write ‘I am a taxpayer’ on it.
WRT to generating revenue…what statistics are you able to get wrt the demographics of your readers?
“Effort equals results”- Roger Penske
I’ve heard RiR say this a few times during many of his wordy, inept responses:
“We’re well positioned and confident…”
Sounds like an appropriate caption for their worthless certificates.
When is a Bailout for General Motors good for America?
“There’s a taxpayer born every minute”
don’t forget that other famous Wagonerism
“play ball with me and I’ll stick the bat in your ass”.
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
THIS CERTIFICATE ENTITLES
BEARER TO ONE (1) HAPPY MEAL.
OFFER EXPIRES MARCH 31ST
From the Shuffle Demon’s song:
“I reached into my pocket to grab me a few coin,
but I found my pocket empty
and all I grabbed was groin…”
TaxedAndConfused:
PS “I Came I saw I broke it” translates as “EGO venit EGO saw EGO infractus is”
(According to one of those online translator things)
And that is so horribly wrong it makes me cry.
I’m not too good with Latin semantics, but frangere should work. It means “to break” or “shatter”.
Thus:
Veni, vidi, eum fregi. “I came, I saw, I broke it.”
Or: VENIVIDIEVMFREGI, in proper Roman style.
Couldn’t you raise more money if you bought options against the common stock?
Oh well, how about:
“Dearest Friend, thought you might want this certificate to place next to your Enron memento.”
“Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.” —Elbert Hubbard
“Porta Vacat Culpa” – literally, The blame is empty at the gate.
My school was started in 1557 and this is it’s motto…..Basically it means Repton School is not responsible for what passes out through the School Arch and into the world….
….somewhat like what comes out of the GM gates!!!
“We Don’t Need no Stinking Badges“
Like my first boss told me:
“Some people get 40 years’ experience, and some people experience their first year 40 times.”
Rastus +1
cnyguy +1
America and Freedom go hand-in-hand: The Freedom to succeed and the Freedom to fail (miserably). Effort equals results.
Lord Chesterton said it all:
The problem is not that they don’ see the solution – it is that they don’t see the problem.