Here is a starting tidbit:
In coverage of GM’s reported intention to produce a $4,000 car,
the company revealed that its near-term “goal” is to “have 75
percent of its sales” outside the United States.
Your tax dollars at work.
Now, the $4,000 car is a fine idea. It represents a return to
economic sanity. It would be simple and affordable. No six year
payment plan. No $40,000 “investment” (like the completely
insane Volt electric car) that will depreciate to less
than half original MSRP sticker price by the time it’s finally
paid off. No GPS, closed-circuit cameras, power parallel parking
systems, multiplexed seat heaters or built-in coffee pots.
Just, you know, basic transportation.
America needs this right now. Or rather, tapped out
Americans need such a thing right now. The proposed $4,000 car
costs less than the government’s loathsome “cash for clunkers”
giveaway — which forces some taxpayers to subsidize the
“purchase” (loosely used) of a new car by others. Instead of
ripping off one group of taxpayers to provide a government
giveaway to another set of taxpayers, GM’s $4,000 car would
represent honest productive effort, free exchange — goods
produced by a market that freely consents to buy them. People
would get the basic, inexpensive transportation that has largely
disappeared from the new car marketplace. GM would make money.
What a concept.
But, here’s the catch: GM won’t be able to sell the $4,000 car in
the United States. Because in the United States, new cars must be
“government approved” before they can be approved by consumers.
And to be approved by government, a new car must be fitted with a
horn o’ plenty of government-mandated safety and emissions
control equipment.
“Safety” and “low emissions” may be laudable, but they aren’t
free. The federal requirement that each new car be equipped with
multiple air bags is alone worth an estimated $1,000-$1,500 per
car — or one-third to nearly one-half the projected final cost
of the GM $4k car.
In so-called “developing countries,” there are not (yet) such
requirements (which explains why they are still developing while
we are treading water and about to go under). And it explains why
GM will be selling its $4k car in such countries rather than in
this country.
GM knows the United States is a dying market for new cars —
mainly because Americans are increasingly no longer in a position
to buy them. And they are no longer in a position to buy them
because they have become so expensive (an average mid-sized
family sedan such as the Toyota Camry or Chevy Malibu typically
sells for around $25,000). And they have become so expensive
because of the endless conveyor belt of new diktats issuing forth
from the DOT and EPA in Washington.
Until The Crash, we were able to pretend we could afford all this
via the helpful hand of easy credit and by dipping into the
bubble-financed “wealth” of artificially (and temporarily)
jacked-up real estate and 401k portfolios.
Now it’s all gone and not likely to return.
But the mandates continue to flow (most recently, the
congressional edict that all new cars average close to 40 mpg
within a few years — no matter the cost).
GM knows there’s no future in this — or here. And that
is why it is shifting its corporate gaze to greener pastures,
where it expects it will be doing 75 percent of its business
within just a few years.
You can’t really blame GM for this — as galling as it maybe to
recall that American taxpayers were forced to chuck over billions
in “bailout” loans — monies that will surely be used to finance
the move to those greener pastures, and with it, the movement of
all those manufacturing jobs to places like India and China
(where Buick is GM’s hottest selling brand and a rising star).
We Americans won’t get the $4k car.
We’ll just get the bill for it.
