Introducing the Pelosi GTxi SS/Rt Sport Edition
Pocketa-pocketa-pocketa.
The car of your future, brought to you by Iowahawk.
Tire gauge not included.
Posted in: Enviro-nitwits, Nancy Pelosi
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Categories: Enviro-nitwits, Nancy Pelosi
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The current line-up of vehicles from these companies isn’t representative of how they’ve done business for decades, even as recent as a few years ago. The Americans simply did not invest enough in technology or new ideas relative to the European or Asian manufacturers. That’s why they’re here, but we’re not there. The only people on Earth that buy SUVs are Americans. They’ve managed to flail around a bit and get some models to market, but it’s too little too late.
I don’t know how these problems could be any more obvious, but here you are blaming unions.
Can anyone name one major problem confronting America domestically that was NOT caused by either a) lack of Congressional action (e.g. Social security, illegal immigration, etc.) or b) Congress attempting to social engineer society (e.g. CAFE Standards, subprime loan expansion, etc)?
Even if you can, list those caused by Congress and those NOT caused by Congress. Congress is the hands down most frequesnt reason things are screwed up beyond belief.
Digshot, that’s why your premise does not hold water.
how can they when have to pay the retired UAW members pensions, health care etc??
Is that what you’d consider a good reason to not raise mpg standards?
Total costs per hour for salary benefits and pension benefits for a Big Three Union auto worker is $78 per hour.
Comparble cost of a U.S. Toyota auto worker is $48 per hour.
Unless you want GM, Ford, and Chrysler to replace every other one of theirworkers with a robot, good luck competing.
Ahhh, shades of Cyclops Ecce Homo ca.1957.
And of course there’s Super Cyclops.
You can enjoy clicking around the Cyclops main page and think of what the liberal cabal has in store, such as wind up cars.
I don’t deny that Congress is incompetent and misguided. I’m talking about what Congress should have done, what it should be doing. I’m not defending the status quo, is that what you think?
If it’s ever in wreck, a little botox will straighten your fenders…
I understand that the last Yugo is rolling off the assembly line today. My how the mighty have fallen.
I think American workers deserve pensions and health care. They had enough money to keep lobbying Congress and rolling out new SUVs, didn’t they?
yeah I’m silly like that..I think people’s safety is more important than saving a few miles per gallong
There are 2 million retired UAW workers collecting 80% of there salary upon retirement. This is the same arrangement that the steel workers had and it killed that industry.
well you pay for it then. I hope you have been buying GMC Ford, etc to do your share!!
did you ever think that if they didn’t have to spend money lobbying congress, because congress interferes in every aspect of their business, they might have the money to design those cars you want???
On November 21st, 2008 at 12:26 pm,
Try following or be followed by an overloaded eighteen wheeler along the steep inclines and curvy highways of eastern KY for just a quarter of a mile, then let’s see if you can make that statement.
Hey, tell it to all those Dem voting soccer moms; they’re the ones that gave rise to the luxury SUV market.
Don’t forget the ‘Job Banks’. When the Big 3 close a factory to cut costs, they’re forced to provide a ‘job bank’ for the employees of that plant to come to everyday and work crossword puzzles, or whatever, and receive full pay.
Digshot, is that what workers deserve?
That doesn’t even make sense. A car’s fuel-efficiency can act as a singular indicator of the car’s overall safeness? Is that a law of car design? I don’t buy that.
Laws of physics. Heavy car, low mpg. Light car, higher mpg. Imagine a Range Rover hit by a dumptruck, versus a Honda Fit. Which would you rather be in?
Bush Signs Energy Bill Raising Fuel Economy Standards
“Taken together, the new regulations will mean higher costs for the industry, and perhaps consumers, and it will require automakers to begin emphasizing efficiency over power. That means it will have to build fewer SUVs and high-powered sports cars in favor of hybrids and compact cars with small engines.”
Brilliant!
Digshot
Do you know that the US government spends fifty billion dollars a year on the Department of Energy.
What one half a trillion dollars in ten years.
WHAT THE HECK HAS THAT TAX MONEY BROUGHT US?
HMMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!
What do you want me to say? I drive a small car and I know I can’t tango with a semi, either. This is a reason to not solve the problem?
Whatever?
Actually, it is. Safety features typically add weight to the car. Stiff frames, shielding, air bags with the accompanying compressed air containers, etc. The more weight the engine has to push the more fuel is consumed. It’s simple physics.
No, it is to say that there is a necessary market for large, safe autos - even Toyota now makes them - and that imposing stronger CAFE laws does nothing to help US car makers’ bottom line; renegotiating cost of labor contracts with the UAW will -
Why not just mount a 3 h.p. motor on a Radio Flyer enclosed with a rollbar? All the bases will be covered….compact,fuel efficient and safe!
Actually that one made sense since the government was mandating a change in how signals are broadcast. It’s not like getting a rebate to help upgrade all your DVD’s to bluray.
In the first case the government forced a change. In the second one market forces developed a better mousetrap.
So what are you saying? ‘People crash cars so we shouldn’t make them lighter?’ That’s an argument against saving our economy and the environment?
THIS makes me think I’m “entitled”.
its real simple…people DIE to ’save’ our economy and environemnt.
but then what are people to the abortion-loving left? admit it, you think people are just a blight on the face of Gaia
No, but nice strawman, could have used it at Halloween for a decoration.
Manufacturers trade safety features for fuel economy for performance (speed or cargo capacity).
High performance, high safety = low MPG
High MPG, high safety = Low performance
If I HAD to, I would rather slam into a telephone pole in my Dodge Dakota than my sister’s Toyota Corrolla. She gets about double the mileage I do, but how many extra trips will it take her to get 20 bags of mulch back to the old homestead?
There are high safety, high milege, low performance cars out there and people do buy them, BUT given a choice not everyone does.
The choice part is the key. Conservatives understand that, Liberals don’t.
No, I was merely pointing out that there’s a relationship between fuel economy and safety, that you seemed to be denying.
Consumers make decisions based on trade-offs all the time. A Ford Expedition is safer than a Ford Focus, which gets better gas mileage.
It all depends on your priorities. If everyone put safety as a top priority there would be no motorcycles. I don’t have a problem with consumers having a choice. I have a problem with the government limiting those choices.
As an American, I think I should be able to open a restaurant you can smoke in named “Trans-Fats R Us”. If you don’t want to eat there… don’t.
THREE H.P.?!
My God man, what would Ralph Nader say about such an overpowered vehicle?
PLEASE stop hammering Detroit about trucks and SUVs. Your heroes at Toyota just closed the San Antonio Tundra plant. Their market tanked along with GM and Ford. Along with quality problems, the Tundra is 200 lbs heavier than equivalent Silverados and F-150s and gets much worse gas mileage. I’ve idled next to Toyota, Nissan and their luxury brand derivative SUVs that dwarf my SRX crossover. The SRX AWD weighs 4,300 lbs. An Escalade AWD weighs 5,700 lbs. Both the Infiniti QX56 and the Lexi LX570 weigh 6,000 pounds and change and get the same or worse mileage than the Escalade and worse than my SRX. Cars are not a hobby for most but a little research would go a long way in improving one’s understanding of the overall story.
In the meantime, big, powerful and red, white and blue, that’s what I like and will continue to buy as long as the social engineers allow.
That’s because they figured that the average UAW assemblyline worker wasn’t bright enough to put a very advanced machine together.
The trucker says to his ride-mate after rolling over you, “Did you feel something?”
I’ll drive a 1970 426 hemi Barracuda or a Chevy Chevelle with a twin 4 barrel 454 because I CHOOSE to!!! I’ll burn high octane gasoline and smoke the tires if I WANT to and I won’t pay Al Gore money for indulgencies(carbon credits) either!That is(becoming was) the great part about being an American and besides,it pisses off the tree huggers!
A man’s gotta know his limitations!;-)
thats very intolerant of you!
What can I say right4life…I’m not bad,I was just drawn that way
Again, if you think I’m saying that I want the government to tell us what kinds of cars we’re allowed to drive, I’m not. It may be that in the conservative universe of solutions to energy problems there exists only ‘MORE OIL!,’ but try to wrap your head around something else for a change. You really think I’m sitting here arguing that the big problem is that our government lets people choose what to drive?
You guys have disconnected. Calls for even the slightest of regulations are labeled as socialist or communist. Well if not that, what are we supposed to use our government for? If it’s not the government’s job to protect the economy, national security, the land we live on, the air we breathe, and water we drink, whose job is it? The free market’s? Look around. That isn’t working. How can you guys stand amongst all this ruin and still be extolling the virtues of laissez-faire capitalism?
Oh yeah, because it’s the union’s fault.
Hey, it’s okay to make SUV’s and trucks, just don’t let that be all you make. It makes sense for Toyota to make SUVs, they’ve got their other bases covered, and it behooves them to compete with their competitors on a model-to-model basis. On the other hand, The Big Three put all their eggs in the SUV basket, and now they’re paying the price. At no point did they ever sell enough cars or export enough internationally to sensibly justify making so many SUVs for so long, especially against the backdrop of what was happening geo-politically. I could have run all three of these companies by myself and they would be in better shape.
The dump truck?
Actually, if it’s all about safety they better keep making them bigger, even an Escalade is no match for an 80,000 lb.
semi.
I don’t think it’s as much a safety issue as it is people just like SUVs, and when they started to get heat for it, they pulled out the safety issue.
Our elected leaders are bound and determined to scam us into socialism and make us dependent on them.
The Green Sickness must be fought against with everything we have!
after decades of government regulation of every area of our lives, and you ADMIT it isn’t working?? isn’t this like blaming capitalism for pollution in the soviet union?
yeah the government sure did a good job protecting us on 9/11…
thats just a lie. they make cars, they’re just too expensive, and not well made.
but sure is more of a match than an escort
so the liberals who care about us all, don’t mind seeing more of us die to save their beloved gaia
That’s exactly right, and the ‘My safety! My safety!’ screams are insincere. If you live your life thinking that the reason you’re still breathing is because you drive around in an SUV, you’re crazy. SUVs also create a whole slew of road safety issues that have killed thousands of people themselves.
post your proof.
so your logic is we should get rid of SUVs because they are unsafe…but we should also get rid of heavy cars because they are….uh ok.
Nobody with any sort of credibility could possibly make a coherent argument that we’ve been trending towards more regulation over the past few decades. Especially Bush, he’s taken us from a state of general prosperity to the brink, primarily by ruining our government.
And no, our government didn’t do a good job protecting us from 9-11. And who was in charge on that day? Where do you think Bush learned how to make such massive mistakes?
Digshot Said:
Have the big three made mistakes design mistakes….yes. But so have Nissan, Toyota…etc.
What I can’t believe is that you refuse to assign the Unions any culpability whatsoever.
GM’s biggest cost is labor/benefits. They and the other US manufacturers have been strapped over a barrel and screwed by the UAW.
You can flail around and close your eyes to the cold, hard facts Digshot…but it makes you look like an idiot.
And by the way…Toyota, Nissan etc. were all making comparably sized SUVs as the Big 3 and selling them just as fast as the US manufacturers. They were just making a profit because of lower overhead. The Big 3 weren’t because of the huge costs associated with their UAW labor contracts.
While the environmental component of the energy problem is very important to me, I can argue without it, too. The economic case is strong enough on its own. A petroleum based economy is a relic, ancient by the standards of modern convenience, and it will soon go the way of betamax. I’d like the United States to be responsible for leading humanity away from oil and reaping the rewards, and you seem to think that oil might be some magically un-ending miracle resource that we should double-down on.
We don’t have to talk about the environment, I’m comfortable on economic turf.
I bought a Ford Focus in Febraury for one reason….35mpg.
I looked at larger cars and trucks, but driving 106 miles per day, I had to go with fuel economy.
Is is safer? I don’t know. All I know is that it got me through the summer gas prices pretty easily.
what country have you been living in?? can you possible give me one example of less government regulation?
what?? bush is a big gov socialist. remember that big drug entitlement? this bailout??? please.
you are in serious denial.
link
again I’ve heard this drivel for 30 years…what is going to replace oil??
can you tell me?? ethanol doesn’t give nearly the bang per buck, and more people starve. tell me what replaces oil????
we have more oil reserves than saudi arabia..
link
let me highlight that last sentence..
Present U.S. demand for petroleum products is about 20 million barrels per day. If oil shale could be used to meet a quarter of that demand, the estimated 800 billion barrels of recoverable oil from the Green River Formation would last for more than 400 years1.
Hi, America is not Japan. Their businesses have a different strategy to sell cars in America than ours do. You think the problem with American car companies has been the profit margin on SUVs? That’s ridiculous. The companies launched line after line of SUV, and that’s the union’s fault?
Again, there’s nothing wrong with making SUVs, or any product that a niche customer base might want to buy. But our competitors are competing internationally where we are not. Our niche products don’t sell globally. Our auto industry was made rigid, and it’s not the fault of unions. If you’ve got enough money to commission a fourth and fifth line of SUV, you’ve got enough money to compete against the Civic.
You need to do some research.
Man, I don’t care how ugly it is. . .if it got 268mpg, I’d be hard-pressed not to buy one
still waiting to hear what will replace oil….gee what a surprise
Petroleum is gonna be here for a while kiddo…probably at least 100-150 more years or so.Oil for lubing the machinery will be here as long as there will be machinery.But I guess when we become an idealist utopian society,we can replace oil with fairy dust and light our way with rainbows.
lol…the crux of the debate hasn’t been addressed for some time….
basically?…..can the collectivist government mandate what we drive?….the answer is yes….
is the big 3 culpable?….yes..due to lobbying efforts in the last 40 years they have essentially killed any outside the box thinking….
is the UAW culpable?…yes…to a limited degree…
bottom line?
I have an econobox..40mpg..
I have a pickup….20mpg
I have a motorcycle…50mpg
the econobox gets the most use…
simple eoconomics…..
I won’t submit to the gov. telling me what I can drive….nor will I submit to PC control of my life….
and btw Ironman…bet my Harley will smoke your rides in an eighth….either of them..
- IndependentTom
Damn straight. Except my motorcycle gets the most use.
And even in a race, it’d probably still get 35-40mpg.
My cars get good gas mileage…10-12MPG is nothing to sneeze at!
OT:
I’m not Ironman but Tom and Yashmak I would stomp a mud hole in your butt and walk it dry in ANY race with my FJR.
Fast and Harley are two words that should NEVER be used with each other in the same sentence.
Primitive noisy junk maybe, but not fast, yep I despise them….
Even if that estimate is accurate, why is that an excuse to blow through the remainder of the supply? How can you fail to see the advantages of pulling back on the throttle a little bit? The suggestion that we should drill our way out of this is based on faulty, drug-addict logic. If we know we’re running out of something that might be hard to replace, we should try to slow consumption of whatever that may be. Doesn’t that make sense?
Digshot said: (#138)
The last time I looked at our constitution, the basic purposes of the federal government were to conduct foreign policy, defend our country, coin money, ensure interstate commerce was fairly conducted, referee between/among the states, and arrange a legal system that was in conformity with the principles of the Constitution.
SOME regulation is necessary, and will make up for the deficiencies of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”. However, not to the extent that the federal government has its hands in everything, as it seems to either have now or is about to.
And on cars, I drive something fairly economical gas-wise, but if I had a reason to have to actually carry things around, I’d get something larger with worse mileage. But it should be MY choice of what the market has available, not the government’s set of options from which I gratefully select like a serf.
Come now, CalCityConservative, not all Harley’s are noisy…..
The beauty of a big block engine is that it can be built with enough HP to push a car faster than a bike.Check out this 68 Dodge outrunning a crotchrocket!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD4izK-sjS4
There may be a limited supply of oil in the world,but what is best for this country now and for the near future(10-20 years) would be to drill.Not as an addiction,but for survival of this country.We can’t keep sending nearly a trillion bucks a year to the Middle East for the duration it will take to develop an alternate fuel scource and get it fully implemented.Converting 18 wheeler transports to natural gas requires drilling if we were to go to Boone Pickens plan.Either way,we have to drill..it’s suicide not to.
If every American wanted 3 Hummers in their driveway who’s to say they’re wrong. The arguement against SUV’s is ridiculous. We shouldn’t have to drive the same small cars Europe does due to their $10 a gallon fuel. We should be drilling here for all of our own oil and have $1 a gallon gas.
If we had’ve done that in the first place and not let people who couldn’t afford a house get one we wouldn’t be in this economic mess.
The worst pick yet from the next Socialist Congress is the replacing of Congressman John Dingell of Michigan for Henry Waxman of California for Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. A pro-auto industry congressman replaced by a radical environmentalist favored by Pelosi…..just great!!!
I bet they will call it the… peoples car….or citizens wagon…or something catchy …something to let us little people know how much the GREAT ONES really care about us. And we will all understand why they need the big cars for themselves….in order to better take care of us they have to suffer in luxury, if only to remind we little ones….how GREAT they are.
Sorry to be late on this, just woke up… Better get used to the new REGIME… After the AUTO BAIL-OUT, the government will dictate the kind of vehicle they will be ALLOWED to build… With gas below 2 bucks, watch for taxes to go up, raising the price to say $3.50, you are used to paying over 4 bucks anyway… When it goes back up, and it will, TOOOO BAAAAD!!! Looks like I bought my last AMERICAN CAR this year… Remember, ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES!!!
I’ll give the win to you brother! My point is that here in America we should be able to drive anything we want….any size car,truck,motorcycle,or suv with as big a motor as you want.I’m with RUSH73,we shouldn’t have to be forced into little European or Jap sub-compacts because the enviroidiots in Washington(read:Socialist union hacks) have crippled this country by banning drilling.But it looks like the newly elected Politburo will see to it that we’ll be puttering about in a Pelosi GTxi SS/RT type piece of $h*t.
Gotta go with ironman here as well…
all respect to the ZX-14….I once had one of the two-stroke Kawasaki triples clean my clock…lol
And used to own a little Honda 500 Interceptor that would absolutely dance up the canyons in Arizona..
But right now?…I like my Harley…and no one should tell me I can’t have it….not government…not community…
That’s what this thread is about…individual choice without coercion…
from anyone…
oh..and btw digshot….
your last post about burning through resources?…I’m not sure if the rhetoric has any relation to the true state of affairs….this isn’t a slam at you…..just a remark that it’s hard to choose who to believe…..
I’m not above building a smoking golf cart….or converting to biofuels…
but having government insinuate itself into my life more than they already are?
doesn’t work for me….
you apparently don’t believe in market forces…
that’s your right….
but don’t pretend to think that you know what’s best for society as a whole..
you don’t….
They tump over easily, they block the view of people in smaller vehicles, causing accidents. They squash people in smaller vehicles. They make parking more difficult. They promote road rage, especially when occupied by one person, usually female, talking on her cell phone. The “styling” is pretty much non-existent IMO. They are so behemoth they make people who don’t even like them buy one as a defense against the sheer size of the bizzillions of them on the road. Statistically, they turn left in front of motorcycles more often.
But, they will keep selling unless the price of gas goes way up and stays there.
ok, they do turn over a little more easily than a car…as far as blocking the view…so do 18 wheelers….so????
squashing people??
yeah like 18 wheelers don’t please….
make parking more difficult??? huh???
uh…..you have issues with this I see…
well maybe they off a few more hell’s angels or mongols…see they’re doing us a favor!!
OK, so I wasn’t totally serious, don’t know how to do smileys here.
Personally though, I never have liked SUVs, still don’t.
When I perfect my Eludium Q34 Hydramatic-Triplephased-Antimatter- Multidimensional Mini Thermonuclear Reactor(with port and starboard Swiss Army oar attachments)©,I’ll drop it in the ‘ol Dodge…..no bike on Earth will stand a chance!
or you can get one of these today….one seaters but they’ll do 75 on the highway…
http://www.myersmotors.com/
I’m glad there are people like digshot around to confirm my stereotype of liberals as people with no sense of humor whatsoever.
(Feigned laughter and golf claps when Jon Stewart rattles off “Bush is an idiot” variant 4,789,113 does not count.)
I drive a leased 2008 Jeep Liberty. MPG is around 16 city, 23 highway. Not great, but not horrible either. Here’s the kicker; I didn’t want to buy the Gasoline Liberty. I wanted the diesel.
The problem? GOVERNMENT rules prevented Jeep from selling the immensely popular and fast-selling Diesel Liberty (2003 - 2007 model years) in many states, including mine. Thus, Jeep dropped the diesel engine from the lineup.
Why would the government prevent a fast-selling super-efficient vehicle from being sold? Old, outdated environmental laws that were aimed at 1970’s era diesels and old, high-sulfur diesel fuel that hasn’t been made or sold in almost a decade.
So, I can’t buy a Diesel Jeep Liberty. I don’t get to make my own bio-diesel in my backyard shed and save serious money while helping the environment by burning low-carbon emission fuel I make from waste oil. I HAVE TO burn gasoline because here in Buffalo NY it snows large amounts and at least ONE 4×4 or AWD per family is required by the weather. My wife drives a Hyundai Elantra, I drive a Jeep.
This is the problem Digshot. The government isn’t nimble enough to respond to changing conditions like the market can. And it’s NOT a matter of just “electing the right people”. Government BY IT’S NATURE is NOT NIMBLE and CAN NEVER BE. it doesn’t matter who is running the government, it will always SUCK. And with the corruption in our government, it’s guaranteed to never be successful.
This is why government regulation is bad. Because the market conditions change on a daily basis, but regulations change once every decade, government regulations intended to assist the market or protect consumers end up hurting everybody but the government bureaucrats paid to administer the regulatory system.