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Originally Posted by john70t
GM moved its plants to Mexico, killed the EV1 with a vengance, turned Saturn into Mccrap, installed spy devices(Onstar) in all it cars, and did itself in.
I'll bring some kindling and marshmellows.
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I agree. They also sold themselves out to unions, made promises they could never afford to keep in the form of pension obligations and were strategically about as stupid as a company could be by throwing all their eggs into the (unsustainable) truck and SUV market basket.
Basically GM has been a company without long-term vision for a long time. They have not been a trend-setter at all, they've watched where the winds were blowing at Toyota and then made panicked rushes to try and match them, throwing insane amounts of resources at problems. They have a few (very few) good ideas and innovative approaches, but largely it's just been "more of the same", only with an "American" name badge on it, hoping that will be enough to make next quarter's numbers by appealing to the few remaining brand loyalists around.
They've let the unions utterly paralyze them and they've borrowed an approach right out of the U.S. Government playbook - do whatever you have to do to survive today, regardless of what kinds of promises you need to make or what kinds of obligations you need to commit to in the future - pass the problem on to the future leaders. Their problem. They'll deal with it. Well, the Day of Reckoning is here, either that or it's soon to be here. This has ominous implications for our government (both State of CA and federal).
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Originally Posted by joeaska
What the F is happening here is that the terrorists are bankrupting us. By causing unrest around the world, especially in the oil producting areas, they are squeezing the noose tighter and tighter day by day. The cost to do anything that requires oil, especially driving, is killing our economy and way of life, and that of other countries around the world.
Notice that none of the oil producing countries (almost all muslim save Venesula, the UK and USA, who is not producing to make the ******* tree huggers happy) are having any problems at all as they are not paying $150 a barrell for oil? This is not an accident folks!
Eventually we will realize this and take action. I hope... unless Obama is in office and then we will beg them to let us live and become paupers paying homage to Mecca.
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I agree to you to a point, but the part you're missing (a very important part) is this once again comes down to a LACK OF VISION. This time on the part of our government leadership and ourselves as decision-makers and ultimately as deciding our own destinies back in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s - right through to today. We saw this coming. We went through an oil crunch in the 1970s and were shocked to see how completely dependent we'd become on foreign oil. Yet we did nothing. Carter's suggestions of exploring alternatives and curtailing demand were laughed at and pooh-poohed by rednecks and schit-kickers who found it more "visionary" to pound their chests and act tough about how "we're the USA and we'll do whatever we want". The tough-guy faux-bravado blamed many of these problems (which we collectively ALL created through our choices) on liberals and environmentalists, rather than being constructive and actually doing something to solve the problem. When Reagan got in office in 1980, he epitomized their bravado and tore the solar panels off the white house, giving the schit-kickers a "feel good" to beat their chests about once more, while in reality doing little other than handing OPEC even more control of the U.S.'s destiny. . .
It is worth pointing out that GEORGE BUSH SENIOR was the one who originally signed the Executive Order (repealed yesterday by GWB) banning offshore drilling. My point is that partisan, party-loyalist bickering is doing NOTHING to accomplish anything insofar as solving the problem. Being a mean-spirited d1ckhead is of little value here. We ALL created this problem. Yes, the liberals hurt us by tying our hands, but the so-called conservatives hurt us by being traditionally wasteful, ignorant and short-sighted. We ALL have egg on our faces and if we're going to solve this one, we need to ALL collectively work side-by-side, not attempt to use the issue for political gain.
This is (as you correctly say) an issue of America versus the Muslim world. This is not an issue of political philosophy (liberal versus conservative). If we sit around and attack each other and point fingers, it accomplishes NOTHING and all it does is perpetuate the status quo, which OPEC is making billions a day off of. If you want to support terrorism and foreign oil dependence, go right on doing nothing other than blaming all our problems on the "tree huggers" the "environmentalists" and the "liberals". Such attitude is of little value here and accomplishes very little.
Here's a more pointed question - what have you DONE (other than complain about how much liberals suck) to reduce our dependence? Have you lobbied Congressional representatives to reinstate offshore drilling? To increase flow through through the Alaska pipeline? Have you spoken to any U.S. automakers and gotten on the record as demanding alternative fuel vehicles? Reduced your own demand by driving less or going to a smaller vehicle?
These are things that are ultimately more useful than sitting around taking cheap shots at our own countrymen. We're being dismantled from the inside-out by the Arabs, who are using Sun Tsu's own tactics against us, letting us corrode from the inside out and making us easier to defeat. Very simple - "a house divided against itself cannot stand". . . All one accomplishes by pointing fingers here is hand a win to the terrorists. We need to fix this problem by (1) moving to a 100% sustainable/domestic powered infrastructure and (2) reducing demand. After that, we can worry about assigning blame.