The American Spectator

THE D-WORD
Re: George Neumayr’s May the Schwarzenegger Not Be With You:

I agree with some of George Neumayr’s points — but there is another thing I have to add: one reason why the left mops the floor with us.

I have just been over at the O.C. Register’s website. It is a fairly conservative newspaper with a bunch of editorials expressing the anger behind the rejection of the recent tax-hike initiatives. Without exception, the anger was directed at “Sacramento,” “the political class,” “politicians,” etc.

What word was not said? DEMOCRAT.

It is to the point where my intelligent, conservative mother, being told that I was sick of the disaster that was California, said “Well that’s a Republican governor, isn’t it?” This in a state where Democrats have thoroughly dominated the legislature for decades and wiped the floor with Arnold the one time he stood up to them; he learned his lesson and never did it again. With a Republican legislature, he would be annoying but there is no way a government of all Arnolds would have created anything like this situation.

Articles like Mr. Neumayr’s feed this type of thing. Yes, “moderate” Republicans are annoying, but if when there is a crisis conservative Republicans’ first instinct is to turn around and rip into “moderate” Republicans, when do we hit Democrats? Like this:

Democrats belonging to the Democrat party through the Democrat enactment of Democrat laws at the behest of Democrat unions passed the Democrat budgets filled with bloated Democrat programs that saddled Democrat-dominated California with a Democrat deficit that these Democrats (who belong to the Democrat party) are responding to in the Democrat way by Democratically raising Democrat taxes.

“The political class” isn’t on the ballot; Democrats are. When voters go to the polls, if they want this nonsense to end they should vote against Democrats, and if this fact is not conveyed at a time like this when will it be conveyed? Granted the California electorate, it may not help, but it should at least be tried.
— Roy Koczela

IT’S THE FUEL ECONOMY, STUPID
Re: Eric Peters’s Obama Nails the Coffin Shut:

The car industry is hardly the last to flee oversees in search of affordable labor cost. A sizable portion of GM, Ford and Chrysler are already “imports” back into this country. I think I have as good an idea of what is wrong with Detroit designs as any one, and it isn’t CAFÉ standards by any means.

Detroit can’t design and sell any kind of domestically produced passenger car for $20,000 or less that the bulk of Americans want. Detroit designs go to the shop a lot more often than Japanese designs. Even under warranty this still costs money and aggravation that most people will avoid if possible. Honda has never tried to gin up sales with longer warranties as Detroit does. They don’t need to. A bad reputation is a terrible thing to overcome when you are dealing with major purchases like vehicles.  

Third, no company can make enough profit on vehicles in the $20,000 range with the wage and benefit cost of Detroit UAW labor to stay in business. You simply can’t be competitive paying high school graduates $30.00 an hour average, carrying three pensioners for every worker and giving away health care insurance valued over $1000.00 a month per employee.

Fourth, all three Detroit based companies have been losing billions for years and this started with the increase in fuel prices. That connection can not be discounted Ford was supposed to return to profitability in 2008…and they’ve borrowed tens of billions to stay afloat. They weren’t going to make a profit in 2008 even without the financial meltdown.  

What Eric doesn’t seem to grasp is that the average American with the average wage in this country looks upon the math regarding the purchase of a vehicle and its operating cost a whole lot differently than Detroit does. It isn’t just the CEOs making 20 million plus that don’t get it. I still remember the days of 5 year loans and American design owners ending up owing more at three years into the loan than the vehicle was worth.

At the end of the day, both a rancher in East Texas and I have the same core problem here while having vastly different needs. Cost of ownership. Few people can afford $4-5.00 a gallon for gas and drive the national average with anything that barely gets up to 20 mpg with a tail wind going down hill. That’s the bulk of the Detroit pickups and SUVs. The difference between what I paid 3-4 years ago for gas and when it hits $4-5.00 a gallon is a couple extra percent in my 401K. Guess which one is more important in the scheme of things? The higher cost of vehicles combined with uncertain fuel cost is going to create a death spiral for the auto industry in general.