Last week. President Bush sacrificed his free market principles on the altar of expediency. Apparently, under “ordinary circumstances,” the Commander-in-Chief wouldn’t have expropriated $17.4b of taxpayers’ money to bailout General Motors and Chrysler. But someone somewhere screwed-up the U.S. economy; leaving him without the option that cannot be named (a.k.a. doing nothing). I guess Bush was channeling Flip Wilson: “The Devil made me do it!” Actually, that would have been a welcome excuse. The pretext Bush deployed is deeply worrying: “My economic advisors believe that bankruptcy could now lead to its disorderly collapse.” So we’re propping-up two dead dinosaurs walking because we fear “disorder?” When did the United States become Germany?
Posts By: Robert Farago
Normally, I let The Newspaper cover stories about police perfidy, especially as it relates to speeding. But I was cruising the net this evening, looking for titillation. Oh wait, that was before my wife came home. Ahem. So it seems that the UK police have found a nice little earner in their police chase videos. The News of the World reports that aliens are purchasing the tapes for Elvis’ amusement, deep within his lunar enclave. Oops! That’s the Weekly World News (e.g. “North Pole Requests Bailout”). The other News says “POLICE forces are FLOGGING off video clips of car chases and traffic emergencies to TV shows . . . raking in up to £555-A-MINUTE.” [NB: FLOGGING means selling, not whacking someone with a cat ‘o nine tails.] What’s WRONG with THAT, you ask? (Selling the videos, not whacking someone with a cat ‘o nine tails.) Sweet FA, according to the Association of Chief Police Officers. It “APPROVES of selling the footage. And it even takes a 10 per cent CUT, from Police, Camera, Action! payments for viewing the programmes to ensure they “convey a general message about road safety”. Yes, well, back in the day, this reporter documented the UK’s flawed police pursuit policy, which resulted in the needless death of dozens of innocent bystanders. Just sayin’…
President Bush’s radio address this morning: “Good morning. For years, America’s automakers have faced serious challenges — burdensome costs, a shrinking share of the market, and declining profits. In recent months, the global financial crisis has made these challenges even more severe. Now some U.S. auto executives say that their companies are nearing collapse — and that the only way they can buy time to restructure is with help from the Federal government.
Misery loves this company. When the bailout was announced, when TTAC unveiled its Ten Worst Autos for 2008, the website got a nice little lift. As is the way of things here, our traffic had plateaued for the last couple of weeks (albeit at a gratifying 32kish unique visitors per day). The two posts helped boost TTAC traffic to 940,481 uniques per month (upm). Although the holiday will take us back down a bit, it’s the first time we’ve been within spitting distance of 1m upm. At the same time, we’ve maintained our “stickiness;” the average TTAC visitor hangs around for 4:12. And while I’m trotting-out our Google Analytica, that same average visitor clicks on 3.82 pages; he/she and his/her brethren racked-up 3,595,809 pages this month. OK, that’s that. At the same time, we’ve taken on board your suggestions for improving content. We’ve stopped bashing other websites, sold our trademark “Or not” to Autoblog, eschewed T&A and shit-canned the “TTAC Called It” breast beating. We’ve added more [non-financial] automotive flava. By the new year, daily podcasts will return. To improve loading times (a source of reader irritation) and (frankly) increase our page views, we’re going to cut our home page down to ten items. Meanwhile, I’d like to thank you all– writers and readers alike– for taking TTAC from zero to 940,481 in six years. If you have any more suggestions for improvement, please leave them below. While our dedication to telling the truth about cars is non-negotiable, we’re always open to new and better ways to realize our mission.
The votes are cast. The polls are closed. And there’s no question which vehicles our Best and Brightest consider the TTAC’s Ten Worst Vehicles 2008. The good news: there are only two new “winners” this year. The bad news: there are only two new “winners” this year. In fact, eight of last year’s Ten Worst are still in production. Even more depressing: half of this year’s winners have “won” TTAC’s Ten Worst three years running. How long can these turkeys hang on? Pass the cranberry sauce and read on.
As we’ve pointed out ad infinitum, Cerberus is a deep-pocketed private equity firm with assets out the ying-yang. Why should Uncle Sam send their ailing automotive arm a $4b Christmas present? “In a statement today, Cerberus responded to that criticism,” Automotive News [sub] reports. “The company said it manages and allocates capital on behalf of its investors — including ‘retirees, teachers, municipal workers and ordinary citizens’ — and its charter limits how much it can put in any single investment. Said the statement: ‘Cerberus is not a deposit-taking institution that can act as an ATM machine for its portfolio companies.'” So now you know.
Chattahbox.com reports that a professor of chemistry at Rice University has created a car slightly wider than a strand of DNA. Jame Tour’s nanovehicle is 3nm along and 2nm wide. “It rolls on buckyballs, which consist of 60 atoms pure carbon formed like a sphere, includes a chassis with an engine, a pivoting suspension.” Sweet ride! I mean, it does move, right? Absotinylutely! “By heating the surface that the cars are on, the team is able to excite the molecules in the vehicle, and they move forward in a straight line until they hit an object. [Are you in good hands?] The light motion works on the principle of photo activation.” But don’t get to thinking that this bad boy is ready for prime time. “They are manufactured in a 20-step process similar to the way many drugs are synthesized from small molecules in closed reactors. They are then suspended in toluene gas and spun cast onto the gold surface… it took Tour and his team eight years to build the car. One of the significant challenges was attaching the wheels because the buckyballs had the adverse affect of shutting down the binding property — the palladium reaction — used to form the rest of the vehicle.” Don’t you hate it when that happens?
Just-auto reports that Honda is dropping dark hints about its future as a Japanese domestic. In fact, if the island nation’s government doesn’t do some of that currency manipluation that Detroit’s been blaming for their lost U.S. market share for God knows how long, HoMoCo may up stakes and move. “Chief executive Takeo Fukui told a small group of reporters in Tokyo on Friday the strong yen could cripple Japanese industry and spur massive layoffs, and added the automaker would be forced to send more production overseas if the dollar persisted below JPY100. ‘If the government is saying, ‘We don’t care about the export industry’, then that’s fine – we’ll act accordingly… we could switch to importing more cars into Japan, bring research and development facilities overseas, and in an extreme scenario move our headquarters offshore. It would cause nothing short of a hollowing out of Japanese industry.” Whoa. So much for the suggestion that Detroit’s been hobbled by Japan’s support for its domestic automakers. Who’d a thunk it?
Nothing like last minute preparations. Just as I waited until two hours before the first major snowstorm of the year to Blizzak my minivan, President Bush waited until the eleventh hour thirty to provide life-sustaining bailout bucks to Chrysler and GM. At first glance, the deal looks like something of a giveaway: here’s a $13.4b TARP under which you can shelter. Get back to us with the real plan in 90 days. I’m outahere. At second glance, it looks like the bailout is designed to fail. Our Torygraph friends across the pond get straight to the meat of the matter. “Bush’s Detroit bailout looks like a path to bankruptcy for General Motors and Chrysler. Billed as a way to give the two automakers breathing room, the deal actually imposes tough targets that must be hit in only three months. It’s likely the companies will fall short, which would force them to file for Chapter 11 protection. But that’s not necessarily bad – so long as they use the coming months to cut the deals with workers, creditors and others that they’ll need to get out of bankruptcy fast.”
The New York Times reports that President Bush has revealed his bailout plans for GM and Chrysler. The Gray Lady says the loans “include roughly the identical requirements in that bill, which had been approved by the House.” More specifically [via Bloomberg]: “Under the terms of the plan, if the companies can’t demonstrate financial viability by March 31 the loans will be called and the money must be returned… The government’s debt would have priority over any other debts. In exchange for the money, the automakers must provide warrants for non-voting stock, accept limits on executive pay, give the government access to financial records and not issue dividends until the debt is repaid. The government will have the authority to block transactions larger than $100 million. The automakers much cut their debt by two thirds in an equity exchange, make half of the payments to a union retirement fund in equity, eliminate a program that pays union workers when they don’t have work and have union costs and rules competitive with foreign automakers by Dec. 31, 2009. The requirements could be modified by negotiations with the union and debt holders.” The bottom line…
Walking up to the Jeep dealership, I nearly bumped into the Compass, idling in the gloom. Before I could assimilate its sheetmetal’s unintentional humor, Mike emerged from the fishbowl. His leather coat and tie were almost as dour as his face. My hand disappeared in his meaty paw as he greeted me with two words: “Take it.” My arched eyebrow worked its usual magic. “No really,” Mike insisted. “It’s got half a tank of gas. Take it for a long drive.” I waited for “and never come back.” No such luck. I mean, it would be lucky wouldn’t it? A free vehicle? I’d never driven a Compass. How bad could it be?
“While in California for business last week, I took a day off and traveled out to The Salton Sea in my Dodge Caliber rental car. Salton Sea started when a flood at the turn of the century produced a substantial inland lake where there was originally barren desert. Soon agriculture thrived, then a tourism and investment boom hit to capitalize on the “desert oasis” image. Lots were being subdivided, roads and utilities were built out, and suddenly the lake tipped into dangerous salinity and pollution levels. It has no intake or outflow – salt and pollutants just concentrate over time. Just as the hotels, marinas, and communities began construction, algae blooms, massive fish kills,and related bird deaths turned the vacation paradise into a fetid, hellish nightmare. There’s no simple way to fix the health of the lake – and also no magic way to make use of the streets, utilities and plots of land already sold under the failed dream. Minor progress can be made on both fronts, but even with significant government intervention, its a rough, unattractive place to be. So here’s the Caliber in a long-abandoned parking lot of the never-built Salton City Marina, surrounded by tumbleweeds, dead palm trees, cracked concrete, and unnaturally blue water. Broken dreams and the smell of death. The Caliber looks right at home.”
Photo courtesy TTAC reader Jeff Conlin
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