The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 3 of 12)

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It is too bad, and certainly sad, that Ben Stein is still apparently embarrassed by his success, if not his riches. Even though he is not as regular on TAS anymore I no longer look forward to reading him. Perhaps it is just me but that is the way it is.

p>William Tucker, THANK YOU. br> -- Roger Ross br> Tomahawk, Wisconsin /p> p> MATCH MADE IN DETROIT br> Re: Eric Peters's A Big Divorce -- and a Splashy Wedding? : /p>

I have always appreciated the humor the writers bring along with their ideas on the Spectator pages. But Eric Peters's proposal of a GM and Chrysler merger is probably one of the biggest pants-wetters of all time. I especially laughed at Chrysler bringing economies of scale. Yeah, let's loose money on more cars! The Borg wouldn't assimilate any American car company. Eat it and spit it out perhaps, but not assimilate. Cadillac is hip? Again? It was never hip (except for the gangsta rappers who drive the Escalade). A catchy Led Zeppelin song clip in their commercials does not make for hip. Cadillac is only popular with the repair mechanics for which it provides jobs.

Eric's "simple logic" is undone by his own words. Why would GM, struggling to ramp down its American production capacity and dealerships, want to take on more liabilities and capacity except to spend more money bribing people into retirement? Why would a company want another carcass when it's looking pretty gaunt itself? American auto manufacturers are in a death spiral because their management is ossified. Yeah, let's bring in Ford too! We can design a new catch phrase for the new car company: Generally Made for Repairs Daily. We can bring in generations of the same people who screw up car designs but in a totally different way! American car quality is better than in the past but has not kept up. Take any American car that competes with the Accord or Camry and you find it doesn't. They still have recalls for components that have long ago been design matured. You have generations upon generations of the same people making the same decisions. Eric somehow thinks it matters that the existence of an American automaker makes a difference. It doesn't. Corporations move capital around the world without regard to where it happens to park its corporate seat.

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