by Tran, Harry ~ November 21st, 2008
Today I am writing this with much anger as to the fact that The Big Three auto companies, Ford, GM, and Chrysler may actually get a bailout loan of $25 Billion dollars when Congress resumes their hearings on this situation in December.
If these guys do get a bailout based on a proposed plan that they have, I don’t want them to have a plan which states how they’ll make billions again selling large SUV and Pick Up trucks. I want to hear about a forward looking plan, one that isn’t so myopic. I want to hear about how they’ll be able to produce a car that can adequately compete with the Prius to win the hearts and minds of the fuel efficient market. This is no longer the niche market, and yet The Big Three are still far behind in competing with Toyota and Honda in cranking out cars that get better gas mileage.
I don’t want anyone to lose their jobs, but for anyone to keep their jobs they must adapt to the change in times. We the general public are not going to let them fool us over and over again. As we saw gas prices creeping dangerously into the $3.00 zone the days of purchasing SUVs that get 16MPG were over for many of us. Not to mention that at a time when many people are losing their homes we are no longer looking towards making lavish car purchases.
How The Big Three looks to the future is definitely something that I would be interested in reading about. Will their plan be just a load of white washing in order to get the loan or will it hold through to their plans? Are they still playing us for fools, if you read what I wrote about the CEOs taking private jets to Washington than you better believe that I still hold them as evil sinister beings trying to trick our Congress into giving them free lunches. It is up to them to prove otherwise and not any other way will there be to change my perception of them until than.
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by Tran, Harry ~ November 21st, 2008
With bailout being the word of the week it doesn’t surprise me that the auto industry, which has suffered greatly at the hands of the foreign competition, wants to apply for a piece of the $700 billion dollar pie.
But the real question or concern to me is if they deserve a bailout at all?
These companies run around with their heads in the sky each and every time, they think they’re too big to fail because of the national impact therefore they operate the Big Three as if it were one great big monopoly. I’m not all too happy for people to lose their jobs, especially as bills are starting to go up in price, but as a whole these companies really need to get their things together. I mean look at the recent article on CNN where the three CEOs of Ford, GM, and Chrysler flew in private jets worth $20,000 each to Washington to beg for some of the bailout.
Now why would any company showing signs of distress want to fly on company chartered aircraft to ask for money. Imagine the homeowner who is losing their homes, you would really think that person was financially strapped if they went to get help wearing Versace and Snake skin shoes, right?
And on another note is it fair that Chrysler gets a bailout when they’re a part of a private equity fund? I mean this company was bought out with the sole intention that it would be managed and turned around to be sold for profit. Now that that won’t be happening should they really be able to cover their tracks and get free money to save their behinds and let’s say the unlikely occurs where after being rescued Chrysler becomes profitable is it fair that another company wasn’t able to buy out Chrysler for pennies on the dollar to take a risk for a higher return? We can’t hand pick which companies are risk free investments without leaving the rest of the companies out of this same benefit.
Well my concern may be that the trump card that the Big Three will allow it to get its bailout, who doesn’t shed a tear for lost jobs? But if they do get this bailout I believe they need to get their act together, and not only do they have to repay the loan but on top of that obligation they owe America change, change in better cars, more fuel efficiency, more hybrid technology, more future looking improvements, what we don’t need are more pick up trucks and SUVs which were their money makers until they milked those to the grave.
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by Tran, Harry ~ November 19th, 2008
Housing News
Sex, Lies, and Subprime Mortgages
The former middle class
30 reasons why the Great Depression 2 is upon us
Who really owns that loan
Lincoln, Aegon May Buy S&Ls With `Unsafe’ Practices
Washington debates bailout
Gasoline News
So today I filled up my car with a special Safeway gasoline discount, it is a program that they have where for every $100 you spend on groceries, they’ll knock off $0.10 a gallon from your gas fill up when you use their gas station. So today I filled up my tank at $1.71 per gallon for regular gasoline. While the price of gas is heading down down and down, I am wondering if my habits will last. I know what will happen if I use more gasoline than if everyone decides to do the same thing, the price of gasoline will rise. But at the same time if I don’t use more gasoline, OPEC wants to regulate the supply of gasoline and artificially raise the price of gas too.
My question to OPEC is do they want to really do this to the consumer? In an age where we will hopefully change our source of energy away from oil, they are not building loyalty towards their product at all. After all I am a marketing major, and believe in maintaining customer loyalty by keeping your product fair and valuable.
This is absurd if I am paying $25 to go 350 miles, and by me deciding to be thrifty on my traveling, they’ll try and get me to pay $30 through supply regulations to go that same 350 miles, this will cause people to just demand more gasoline to keep prices stable.
What do you think? Have you kicked your driving habits due to the $4.00+ gasoline Summer?
Filed under: Housing Crunch, Oil Watch | No Comments »
by Tran, Harry ~ November 16th, 2008
Abc News found retailers selling aged tires as brand new
There is a misinformation in the tire industry that as long as the tire has never been on a car that tire is considered brand new and safe. But ABC News did a coverage where they went undercover and followed the tire industries guidelines and discovered that many tires being sold to the consumers are actually aged tires.
While an aged tire has never been driven on and has perfectly new threading on the tire, it is considered aged because of the date that this tire was manufactured and left sitting on the shelves waiting to be sold. The industry experts say that tire blow out is a big contributor to car related accidents and death. They also mention that in other countries such as Britain, there are warnings given to the public not to purchase and use tires that are 6 years of age or older.
Why isn’t the United States consumer aware of these potential dangers related to aged tires? When we purchase tires we are told that those tires are brand new tires and that they are considered safe as long as the threading is greater than 1/16″ remaining. But according to the video they say that a tire which is too old for the road may actually lose its entire threading and suffer a blow out leaving the driver completely without control of their vehicle.
To figure out how old your tires are you can check the date they were created.
There is a DOT code found on most tires that are written in a obscured fashion such as 414 or 3102.
The way that this code is read is that this tire for the first set of codes was manufactured on the 41st week of 1994, the second set of numbers state that this tire was manufactured on the 31st week of 2002.
This is a picture taken from my tire that was purchased at a Costco, in South San Francisco, CA in June of 2007.
Per the instructions of the video, and as a safety check that takes only a few seconds, this tire is marked as 1307. This would mean that it was manufactured in 2007 and since it is 2008 right now I am not too concerned of when the 13th week of 2007 was.
I would like to emphasize that tire safety is of the utmost importance in maintaining a safe integrity while on the road, for a vehicle moving at 65 mph the tires are the only contact point for the car and the ground.
For more information follow the link to the video.
Filed under: Car Care | 3 Comments »
