After once again doing quite a lot of thinking about it, I've come to the conclusion that, if you are into cars, you should be in favor of expanding local & organic farming and other local "production-level" jobs while breaking up the abstract bignesses that currently control our lives... unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I'm too fricking tired right now to coherently explain why but for now, I'll just say I strongly suspect that if it were not for this mad, greedy desire to make an offramp nation of ourselves and an offramp world of everyone else, the car hobby would be a lot easier to enjoy.
Especially that non-corporate entities couldn't in any way fund the development of a car anywhere near the current standards, nor build the part networks. And looking at "offramp nations" like Ireland or Luxembourg, I'd gladly live in one.
I used to drive one, it isn't very reliable and almost impossible to work on. After they go over 150,000 miles everything seems to fall apart. Plus in my area, parts for imports are more expensive than American cars.
The McLaren Senna's design is starting to grow on me, though McLaren said that the car wasn't meant to be pretty from the ground up. By the way, a Senna targa doesn't sound too bad of a idea to me (just saying it out of the blue).
It's not the car companies I'm talking about; they have to be a certain size for a reason. I'm speaking more about the consolidation in other industries which has had the effect of clustering huge masses of people into cities. See, at one point during the early-to-middle part of the previous century, there was a big push on to consolidate farming into the hands of a few giants, which meant buying or running small farmers off their land and clustering them into metropolitan areas. "Big Ag", the real estate industry, and proponents of centralized factory-style schooling all win, but everyone else loses. The cities become big, ugly, congested, crime-riddled smog accumulators (well, more than they already would have been), suburbs eat all the best roads, we all end up eating lowest-common-denominator trash full of carcinogens (RoundUp, in the parts-per-trillion range) for reasons of either cost or convenience, and the economy fills up with non-producing administrative and bottom-feeding service sector jobs (or jobs like mine that manage to combine both of those things without ever giving me enough hours to live on). New York City, in 1990, apparently had more administrators than all the nations of Europe combined. As raunchy a book as "The Dilbert Principle" was, it did make a very good point about what kinds of jobs and activities were "one level removed" from productivity and thus added little or no value to a company's products. Since I highly recommend not reading that book, I'll quote the examples for you: Government expansion and industrial consolidation inevitably cause these "one level removed" activities to multiply like tribbles whether they are necessary or not, tying up huge sums of talent and capital to no one's particular benefit. And yes, even car companies can suffer from too many of these non-value-added jobs and activities. Bob Lutz, when he returned to GM in the early 2000s, had to slash and burn his way through plenty of them, and it still wasn't enough to save the company in the end. So yes, some organizations, such as car manufacturers, do need to have a certain level of reach, but even they could probably stand to run leaner in a lot of cases. Or another book by a cartoonist, this one a sort of "universal retail employee handbook" from someone who has suffered firsthand in big corporate retail: I wish I could recommend the book in its entirety as it's such an excellent look at why the abstract bignesses need to die where possible, but I don't want to be responsible if someone buys it and gets a faceful of swearing and innuendo. In the end, though, that's the kind of thing I'm getting at. Urban densification and suburban sprawl, along with all the problems they bring, got a big boost from industrial consolidation. The only way out, that I can see, is to keep the mega-corporations in their place by putting the focus on local producers wherever practical. Giant industrial farms and food producers that ship their pesticide/herbicide/GMO/preservative-laden poison all over the country, restaurants and coffee shops that fly their banner from sea to shining sea while serving slapped-together trash that barely qualifies as edible*, soda manufacturers who seem intent on selling their sugar water in every country in the world (and in the process preempting the formation of any local soda companies), Potemkin distilleries that buy whiskey from MGP of Indiana, maybe add a couple things, re-label it, and try to sell it as "craft whiskey"... all need to go. *Starbucks' franchise spamming borders on obscene, and has earned them a lot of hate from people who are tired of seeing their local coffee shops get crushed out of business. In my own hometown of Wasilla, population... I haven't seen the most recent figures but I doubt it's much more than 10,000 if that, there are four Starbuckses, three in grocery stores and one freestanding in the parking lot of one of those same stores. On top of which, I haven't heard many good things about their coffee.
Screw being civil I guess. As evidenced below, some people are clearly more interested in creating drama where there was none. So I guess I am gonna retroactively peace out of this discussion topic before people turn it ugly. Spoiler: Old Redacted Post Since this is redacted, I won't be responding to any responses, and I would probably advise against responding to it for the above reasons. Just so you know, 1 part per trillion, is a lot less than 1 part per million. 1 part per hundred = there will be 1 apple in every box of 100 banana's 1 part per million = there will be 1 apple in every box of 1,000,000 banana's etc... 1 part per trillion is pretty sparse The recent Roundup case against Monsanto was based on pretty shaky grounds afaik, since it was decided by a jury, rather than experts in that field of science. Its easy to see why the jury voted against Monsanto, because it was a pretty heartbreaking case involving a school grounds keeper who was dying because of his cancer. But in this case, there really wasn't any compelling evidence that Roundup was the cause, and his lawyers had framed the case specifically in a way that was designed to take advantage of the evidence available. I don't like Monsanto, but imo they got totally screwed over, which as crappy as a company may be, isn't justice. As for the whole "support local business" side of what you said. I 99.9% agree*. (and this does tie into cars later for those keeping track ) However, I would note that local businesses are very feasible in cities, trendy even. Sadly these areas typically become the "nice" areas, as such the prices are driven up, big companies see money to be made and move in, trying to surface level emulate what people liked, driving out what originally made the area nice. But this is equally true of rural areas also. I'm not against big businesses, but I am very much against the advantages they are unfairly given. But as you mentioned, the car industry needs scale to produce affordable cars for the masses. So clearly there is a requirement for big industry to exist in order to sustain modern lifestyles (unless you are Amish etc), how to regulate in order to achieve the best outcomes... that is the million dollar question I guess? But not one for this forum thread. *Since I won't support local businesses out of pure charity, if a garage gives me crappy service, I won't keep coming back if there is a national chain next door that provides good service.
Thanks God the society doesn't have to pay as much in support of unprofitable farming structures. Don't live in a city then. You did not pay for the road what they paid for their house. Before going "BIG NUMBERS", check out what they mean. If somebody is willing to make a job, it's likely making them money . That's the problem of your job. My BS meter is irritated. Why does it matter? In a for-profit business, if you get paid, it likely means you put something in the company coffers. That's the problem of GM, not all big business. Or check on things more often. True, assuming: 1. People somehow can't wash food, 2. Small farmers can't use pesticides, 3. Stuff that is put on food is not placed in high scrutiny, all untrue. A manufacturer is nothing without buyers. Have you ever lived outside the US? I do, and I can easily call bullshit on that. They don't buy it. Their customers do.
If you want to see a car being flipped in slow motion, with a thermal camera, today is your day. Goto: 5:30
The U.S. government shouldn't have bailed GM out, and instead allowed it to die the slow, painful death it deserves.
You do realize that 100s of thousands of people would have been out of a job if they weren't bailed out. The American economy relies on huge companies like GM to survive, so I am glad they were saved.
