Automakers must fail to survive

I know everyone has their opinion on what is to become of the automakers, and I am no exception. To be competitive, you have to provide a product that people want to buy, that people should buy. A car that is reliable, gets good gas milage, is easy to maintain, etc. That is part of the problem. There are other ways to make a car run besides gas, and it needs to be forced to happen. The way the cars run needs to change. Gas and oil will not last forever, and we need to be aware of that. Its too expensive to make a car today with the labor costs what they are. No offense to the unions, but they have to go. Isn't it better to have a job, and get some money, then none at all? That's what is going to happen soon. The automakers will eventually run out of money, and the government will stop bailing them out, and they will have to fail. The good that will come out of this is that hopefully they come back as leaner, more effeciant organizations. The days of the past are over and we need to stop rearward thinking and move forward. Salaries and benifits will be more in line with what they should be. Hopefully we will be makini cars that people will want to and can afford to buy. Fuel economy should be emphasised as well as alternative fuel options. I would love to have an electric car that got 200 miles a charge. I would settle for 100 if charging times we less then overnight. Hybrids are a good step forward. What about methane and propane fueled vehicals? Hydrogen and hydrogen fuel cells are probably the way to go. No more nasty emmisions, and if the distribution channels could be worked out, like they are for gasoline today, then the cost to fill up with hyrdogen would be better and better for the environment then gasoline. The great thing about hydrogen is that you could even make it yourself, but that is a topic for another post. If the various lobbies would just be made to understand that they are dinosaurs and have to move over for the sake of progress, and hydrogen power was made a national priortity, including building and maintaing a hydrogen distribution network, then we could lead the world in automotive fuel cell research and production, no longer have a need for oil and gas. Imagine not having a depandancy on foreign oil, let alone be able to export our production and make opec a thing of the past. Imagine.

Greed, good, capitalism, and hope.

Remember when "Greed was Good" and excess was all the rage. Some things never change, only the music and clothing does. At that time Miami Vice was all the rage, U2 was little known and quite the alternative Little band, WKRP and Happy Days were pleasant breaks, and getting money out of an ATM was the coolest thing since sliced bread. It does not matter the decade, what clothes you wear, what car you drive, or even the music you listen too, which at the time, a cassette walkman was all the rage and a portable CD player would have set you back $250.00 or so. Not heard of were mp3's or ipods, let alone apple. All they were was a novel little company selling little box computers. Oh if only we would have known then what we know now. I would have invested in that little company, maybe not spent so much money on pastel clothing, and thought about fundamental and long term practices that would get me through the bumps and grinds and market uncertainties that we all face. Apple has had its ups and downs, and has survived, and thrived, much like what is happening to the stock market today. There is a lot of uncertainty and risk out there, and some things must change so that progress can be made, but in the long run, things will work out, and we all will be better and stronger then ever. It just needs a little time, patience, and the ability to not see the right now, but what will be the right now 5 years from now. In that time, some companies need to fail, some close, others restructure, while still others will continue to grow and prosper. In the end, things Will work out, it just takes time, common sense, and a little luck.

Banking Fundamentals, Stimulus And Economics I Don't Get

I just wonder sometimes how the banks got into this mess and we seemed to have strayed from some very basic and fundamental business practices. As far as I understand it, you give a bank money, they hold onto it for you, loan some of it out, etc. Now things start to get weird, especially when you start talking about pretend money. Let’s say I gave a bank $100.00. They get to put $100.00 on their books. So far, so good. Now, they can lend out some of that money to someone else, and only keep a portion of it in their reserves. So they take my original $100.00 and loan $80.00 of it to someone else. Now this is where some of the magic begins. The bank gets to say it now has $180.00 on its books, even though it still only has my original $100.00. Now the bank can use those numbers to make more loans from money it doesn’t have. Imagine this happening over and over again. Now, this works fine, as risky as it is, if everyone pays their bills. I wonder what would happen if a lot of people were not able to pay their bills and defaulted on their loans…

So where do we go from here? Make smarter loans? Make the banks keep more money in their reserves, not having as much to “give” out? Educate people to only borrow what they can afford to pay back? Probably a little bit of everything. Economic stimulus can only do so much as long and credit and lending practices remain the same and banking fundamentals remain in lala land.