The Auto Industry Culture
GM is getting rid of some workers because of the economy and more so the lack of demand for large American trucks and Sport utility vehicles. This is not surprising. Fuel is too expensive, and will remain so.
Why didn’t these people see this coming? It is not as if this hasn’t happened before. The industry execs will say they were producing what the public wanted, bigger vehicles with more power. It is my point here to refute this argument of theirs.
The demand for these large vehicles was created by the large auto industries. They were not filling demand of customers but creating it with advertising so that it could be filled. There is a difference. They were of course doing this because there is a greater profit margin in larger behemoths than in economy cars, though I don’t think this has to be so. The auto execs dug this hole themselves out of greed, and now they are going to loose a bunch of money. If we bail tem out, they won’t learn.
I also believe it has to do with the personality type of people that choose to go into the auto industry and design cars. I think this group of people, more so that the general population, are filled with people of the bigger, better, faster mindset. These are people that grew up watching sport racing, tractor pulls and working on their classic cars and trucks at home. I am not saying there is anything wrong with that, I am just saying that there are more types of these people choose to study engineering in college and then go design cars for a living. I also think if you take a group of these people and tell them to design a car; they are much more likely to think that most people, like them want a big powerful truck or car. These people see cars as more than just a tool to go from point a to point b.
Disclaimer
I don’t write this because of complaints for the price of fuel as I don’t drive a car.
2 Comments:
IRT the Slashdot banana link:
It's high time the banana rode off into the sunset. When you think about it the banana epitomizes all that is wrong with a globalized food system. They're grown thousands of miles away, by colluding multinational corporations, shipped in cooled containers, spoil in about a dozen days, and yet they're probably the cheapest fruit in the grocery.
Pity for those locals who depend upon them.
As for GM, looks like they never should have ditched the EVone. I'm hoping for an American boom in light rail. Although that's about as likely as free blowjobs for the state of Utah.
I agree seth, Though I only purchase max havalaar bananas as they are advertised as the sociall acceptable alternative to chiqita, but that link was supposed to link to a story about GM closing a bunxh of auto plants. Though I should state that the fair trade designation only means that the producers get a bigger share of the money for the bananas and the bananas I buy travel a couple thousand kilometers than those in Indiana.
Considering how seldom I post I should really re-read my posts after I publish them.
http://www.maxhavelaar.ch/en/maxhavelaar/
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