A young French student left this comment on yesterday's post:Hello !It's amazing how one comment inspires me not to change what I'm doing. It is what I do when it comes to blogging.
I'm french, I'm 17 years old, and I study English at school. And in my English book, we speak about you and your blog. I think that's very original to whrite all your thoughs in a blog, and I think you've got a quality writing. You have to go on !
I dedicate today's post to my young reader.
What vehicle first comes to mind when you think of humongous gas guzzlers the administration wants to get off our roads? The Hummer, right? They'd like to annihilate it, right?
Imagine my surprise when I saw this headline in this morning's Wall Street Journal - Hummer Plans Headquarters In Michigan! It made me realize someone out there thinks there is going to be a market for them. Not GM. It's one of the brands they chose to get rid of.
How about the Chinese? They're the ones buying the brand! They'll no doubt sell a lot of them in China. Probably enough to wipe out and carbon emissions savings that would have occurred here had the brand disappeared.
The game plan, however, is not to contain it in China. The plans for the U.S. include the creation of 300 jobs with people working on design, marketing, engineering and distribution. To keep it in Michigan, the state has committed $20.6 over the next ten years! Wow!
You've gotta love it! GM sells the gas guzzler to China who in turn will devote millions in research, development and distribution tactics in the U.S.. Michigan in particular because they need the jobs, want to keep the reputation of being the automotive capital of the world and offered the greatest incentives.
Now that the cash for clunkers deal has ended, the used car business is in shambles and showrooms of car dealers sit silent, the foundation for an uprising has been laid! Hummer will live to see another day! America loves it's gas guzzlers. America needs it's gas guzzlers, especially during the winter months, just to get around. Especially here in the West! Try driving a smart car over some of our back country roads. Try going anywhere in a car that needs a charge every eight hours and it takes nearly as many hours to complete. Try paying the surcharge on your electric bill for the extra electricity that will have to be generated!
In time, be assured, when all this hype has once more settled down, Hummers will peek out of garages along with honkin' big pickups, SUVs of all types bearing familiar brands. The difference will be the ownership will be foreign and the profits will go off shore.
Our emissions may go down for a time but foreign emissions will increase to offset them. Then ours will creep back up.
These attempts at sweeping change seem to have a few flaws. Are we just a little at odds with ourselves?
4 comments:
try sitting in a small box for 8 hours, with only bathroom and gas breaks... sure doesn't compare to the moveabilty of a hummer or any decent size gas guzzer.
Maybe you could use a different Bacchus picture each week? Who says you have to run the same picture all the time? He must have been a really great dog...and I'm glad you remember him in your blog. Blogging as therapy; how about that...
That's weird...just yesterday at work, I watched a guy drive an H2 Hummer into the office parking lot to take care of some business at our office. We have him on our database and he wanted to check if his info was correct. So, I was shocked to see that he's a year older than me. I can't even afford a car and I wonder how this guy got a job that paid well enough to afford such a monstrosity of a vehicle, as well as what it says about him that he drives one.
The joke is that men who drive Hummers are "overcompensating" for something, in order to feel "more manly." I have no idea if this is true, though...because I have no desire to ever own a Hummer or even drive one or sit in one.
I had hoped all the world's problems would have been solved by the end of my life but we haven't even solved the one about which you're writing! Depressing!
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