GM just announced it will be laying off 800 workers as it “transitions” to “electrification” (news story here). This piles on to the almost 10,000 jobs thrown on the lithium-ion bonfire by Audi over the holidays . . .and the several thousand more added to that by Mercedes-Benz just after the holidays.
And it is just the beginning… leading to The End.
Just as electric cars represent a regression in mobility, they also represent an evisceration of the economy. Unlike the Model T and every car from then until now, electric cars are forcing people out of cars, by making cars less affordable and more impractical. Also unlike the Model T, EVs reduce productive employment for the sake of unproductive production – of overpriced, impractical vehicle for which there is little, if any, natural market.
And the majority of lemmings snuff the air, smell nothing foul – and run straight for the edge of the cliff.
Henry Ford understood that it was in his interest to make cars more affordable, so that people could afford to buy his cars. He increased the number of jobs – and the amount of money those jobs paid. Everyone benefitted. Ford became wealthy; Americans became prosperous.
And mobile.
It was all natural, too.
Electric cars are as unnatural as Bruce in a dress. They are being pushed on us, from the top down. The car companies aren’t firing workers because there’s no demand for non-electric cars but because the government demands they build electric cars, which cannot be done without money. But there’s no money in electric cars, so it is scavenged from the husk of what was a prosperous, market based industry.
It’s economic and literal suicide. Cars almost no one can afford at the cost of millions of jobs – which is where this is ultimately headed. Because it’s not just the manufacturing jobs. It’s the sales jobs. The parts counter jobs. The technician/service jobs.
All for the sake of a transition to something worse for the vast majority of people, for the benefit of a very few.
It is a testimony to the power of social conditioning; of virtue signaling . . . all the way to the funeral parlor.
Automobile sales are off because they offer crap. I sat in a new Escelade recently and there is no personal space at all. You are hemmed in on all sides like a cockroach sandwiched under the trashcan. It had gadgets galore and some fancy leather and wood but as a comfortable ride it gets an F. My F250 on the other hand has an armrest big enough to be another seat, I can put my torso and legs anywhere I want, and the front seat is so big that 2 adults can make out XXX with room to spare. (IMO that is a very important feature)
The smaller stuff is just as confining and total crap. Tin cans. Insulting size and flacid power. No wonder people aren’t buying them. Add to that the sad fact that most people go into debt to drive one of these jokes and the “Manditory Insurance” costs are sky high. You become a debt slave to a rolling joke.
I can amen all of this, Auric… new cars – and I am a car guy – have almost no appeal to me at all. There are a few rare exceptions, such as the Bullitt GT Mustang… but they are a dying tribe.
I find myself smiling when I drive my ’76 TA… or my ’02 pick-up. The rest? Blechh!
Meanwhile dealer lots are overflowing with inventory, credit requirements have reached “anyone with a pulse,” and people still aren’t buying.
It ain’t the future electric production line, it’s today’s lack of sales. GM et al are just trying to tart up the numbers.
There are several Auto-Nation and Carmax lots on my daily Houston Commute as well as the traditional “dealer row” car lots. The first two places are BRIMMING OVER with cars and are parked 4-5 deep that would require thirty minutes to get the car out you want. The traditional dealers are not much better and have stagnant inventory I see daily. The chevy dealer on my commute has had the same 19′ Silverado stuck on their rotating platform for 6 months that no one has bought. An Acura dealer across the street has a football field of unbought cars and a new Acura dealer opened last year 6 miles from it, though it is very tiny and targeted to a high end neighborhood. Cash for Clunkers 2.0 has to be coming or else there they are going to be dumping these cars in the Sea for erosion control or dyke building.
Might be a good time to buy an new one soon! Ha! A while back I saw the “local” dealer offering Silverados for the mid-thirties (about the same as average x-over SUV).
I remember 2008 when dealers couldn’t hardly give away pickups. The county got a cheap new replacement for the 94 Dodge that released its own parking brake at a fire and took off down a hill.
Hi RK,
Yup. I’ve seen this tsunami coming for several years; way out there, but getting closer to land. Anyone half-awake ought to grok that when 7-8 year car loans have become common, there is a problem. But rather than make cars more affordable… they make them more expensive.
Better buckle up.
Face it, all of American business these days is run by virtue signaling candy asses and they are all circling the drain because of it. They are pulling all of us into their vortex of insanity and evil. Or as I have often put it on the job- we’re tired of taking your finger off the trigger- go ahead and shoot yourself in the foot you idiot. There is a reason I’m self employed…
Looks like the Sociopaths In Charge are getting the desired result. The end of free travel. You will either walk, ride a bicycle, or get on the State owned public transportation. Add the population’s welcome of monitoring devices in their homes, such as ALEXA which records everything it ever heard in Amazon’s cloud, and cameras soon to come, and constant surveillance will be a piece of cake. It’s a race between total tyranny and the total collapse of the economic system which funds it. Neither will be fun.
“Neither will be fun.”
I’ll take total economic collapse if one gets a choice.
I shoot well, like but don’t NEED electricity, gravity water, wood stove.
Those around 6 weeks after the event will have a shitload of resources available too. All left behind by those, now dead or in camps, who expected the government would give a shit about them in a catastrophe.
I’ve heard that argument from hunters and preppers before. But you’ll get about one season of good hunting and fishing before all the micromanaged fish and game are gone. Have you ever been to a fish hatchery? There are millions of fish stocked all over in most states. The game population is similarly managed through hunting licenses. Given the nature of preppers there will likely be a massive hunt just after the fans are covered in shit, then venison will become a scarce food. Far more practical to raise chickens for protein if you’re worried about the apocalypse.
I’m not so sure RK, what you say is possible, but from what I’ve seen hunting is dying out- due to bureaucratic hassles and the always online younger folks. Easier to hunt the big one on your Iphone than sitting out in the cold. And any situationally aware prepper won’t need food right away (I’ll start to get bored with what’s on hand in a couple months and get hungry in 5 or 6) and will want to stick tight in the bugout for some time after any big parties starting.
Chickens, and hogs, however, are excellent ideas. Possibly also rabbits.
Hi Ernie,
Technically, I am required to get the government’s permission to hunt on my own got-damned land. Which, of course, is not my got-damned land. I’m just a squatter who pays the rent.
I haven’t hunted for a few years now, mostly because even a resident deer tag is getting expensive with all the added fees. You do all this work (or take it to a shop which costs even more) and you get maybe 25-30 pounds of boneless meat out of a doe or little buck. They raid our hay barn all winter but you still have to pay unless you have 160 acres or more, then you probably still have to buy the conservation license, etc.
Last year some @$$hole from town shot a doe in my driveway and let it run away across the crick to die somewhere, but the FWP guy wouldn’t even bother to come out. I didn’t get the plate and I should have turned around and chased them down but we had horses to feed and water. This year I put up signs at the property line on each end of the county road and didn’t see any poachers, but the weather has been bad and the CWD has a lot folks quitting hunting.
@RK
Have you ever been to the middle of BC? Just on my little acreage, I could live off the various tree and ground vermin (squirrels, marmots, etc.) populations. Little single meal critters are everywhere and from experience, you cannot exterminate the little, get into everything, chew it up and shit on it little bastards. I have tried. Nukes might work.
There are also several lakes within a couple of miles that have not managed since the 80s. Still lots of trout.
But in higher population density, heavily wildlife managed areas, I think you may have a point.
It’s been 25 years or more back I seriously thought about moving to BC. I like that you can get really lost and do pretty much what you want.
I also like having a body of water that’s huge close by and one that you can follow to the Pacific.
@eight.
Don’t know your situation but if you are from the gulf area, BC may not be for you. -40 in the middle bits is not uncommon. The developed temperate zones (lower island, lower mainland) are basically hipster/VS/SJW Potemkins beside shooting(up) galleries and $500k might get a not too bad townhouse…..
There is a thousand miles of undeveloped coast for the adventurous willing to go off grid. Temperate and the seafood is only slightly radioactive. Inland gets COLD. OK if that does not bother you, like me.
Anon, I checked it out and the western part of BC not far from the coast isn’t all that cold. I had no idea of living anywhere near “civilization”.
I don’t really live close to what most call “civilization” now. I wanted to get further off the beaten path.
I didn’t mind the cold when I was younger. We used to live in CO where it got -40 and -50 (F!) all the time in the winter. When it’s 14 in MT then it’s -10 in Canada LOL
I have the book “Hand Logger” and at one point I was wanting to buy a boat and just live off the land and sea, but my wife didn’t want to do that. I’m also familiar with Allen Farrell and his junk sailboat
aa, yes, that’s what I wanted to do. Of course the b&c couldn’t stand the thought…..for some reason. I had a good boat and lots of guns, a reloader, all sorts of fishing equipment and lots of tools including a Stihl chainsaw. I lost a great deal of my cold weather ability when I got my hands and face frostbit.
I recently got acquainted with “chilblains” – hurts like hell, like having most of your hands burned. 🙁
I actually checked into moving to central BC back in 1979 on my way back from Alaska. They were advertising for loggers on the radio, but since there was high unemployment in Toronto, the official policy was to not let anyone in from the USA unless you were a doctor or retired or something. The fellow at the govt. office in Prince George was really nice and apologetic and he thought it was wrong because none of those people from Toronto would ever move up to BC to work in the timber, but rules was rules.
That country west of PG is gorgeous: Burns Lake, Houston, Smithers, etc 🙂 I met a lot of nice folks and gave rides to hitchhikers. I’m still in contact with one of the backpackers that I met in Kootenay NP.
I suppose it all worked for the best as these days I could never abide Canadian gun laws. I just wish I had stopped in MT on the way back stayed here then, instead of waiting 18 years to move back north.
“I could never abide Canadian gun laws”
Why?
They are not perfect but short of full auto ( 🙂 🙂 🙂 ), I have all the guns I want or need. That is not to say my wants should be the standard. My needs, well, that is what they are.
Once the Canucklehead government grants you a piece of paper (groan) saying you took a basic and barely restrictive course anyone who should not even be allowed near a gun could pass, a Canadian can walk into a store and buy a handgun or rifle and walk out with it. Simple one time paperwork to be able to transport a handgun, locked and in locked case mind you, in your vehicle, ‘on my way to the range/gunsmith’ officer.
Hey, they let someone like me have handguns and high power, big bore rifles…… ’nuff said. 🙂
That said, their has been some stupidity around a couple of scary black guns here, but on the whole, not overly restricted….yet. We will see what Trudy does in the next few years.
I can carry open/concealed outside of town and in a vehicle in MT. I can also buy/own/carry a handgun with a barrel < 4" and we have specific laws to protect against prosecution in the event of self defense.
My understanding is that you can only carry a handgun on your own property up there ???
We had some neighbors for a while from up around Prince Rupert and they had to leave a bunch of guns behind because they had never complied with the registration thing and therefore couldn't import to USA.
“carry a handgun on your own property”
Sort of. Like any legalese language, want to (have your lawyer) argue seventy five differing interpretations, on your dime, for the next five or so years?
If you area a prospector.
If you area a guide in certain areas.
If you have a security licence.
And so on.
Sure, you can. But even if the man is wrong and caged your ass, it will be on your dime, even if all charges dropped. The best legal system you can afford to defend yourself from. Like all of them.
If no one sees you do it….
ahrg. Obviously ‘area’=’are’.
I open carry all around our rural neighborhood all the time. Many of my neighbors do also. I’ve had friendly chats with sheriff deputies while open carrying. I’ve already saved my life once with a handgun – possibly more as contrary to popular opinion it tends to ward off trouble. So, no – I can’t/won’t abide Canadian gun laws. I sure did enjoy my time passing through back 40 years ago however.
“I can carry open/concealed outside of town and in a vehicle in MT.”
Yeah. Canadians outside Calgary and Edmonton just ain’t ready for that.
“Electric cars are as unnatural as Bruce in a dress.”
There is nothing natural about wearing clothing.
Clothes are merely a cultural norm. Berber tribesmen wear jellaba’s which are formless dresses.
Asian tribesmen would wear a kaftan, which you could describe as a dress.
Henry the 8th was pictured in a knee length tunic and white stockings.
Scots highlanders will wear a kilt.
You may want to rethink your argument or at least get used to being punched
out by some red bearded glaswegian after you call his kilt a dress.
Pat,
I’m assuming you just missed the point . . . again.
A Scot wearing a kilt is one thing. Bruce – who hallucinates that he is Caitlyn – in a low-cut evening gown another.
Eric
You are welcome to tell Caitlyn Jenner to her face that she is unnatural.
I would enjoy watching her make you apologize.
I’ll buy a ticket to that one.
“You are welcome to tell Caitlyn Jenner to her face that she is unnatural.
I would enjoy watching her make you apologize.”
So you are saying Caitlyn Jenner is natural? All of it, er, ‘her’?
Do you know the definition of natural?
You are welcome to tell Caitlyn Jenner is unnatural.
I would love to watch her make you apologize.
Clover,
Do you also believe 2+2=5 if you believe it makes 5?
Bruce is not “her” or “she.” No matter what he chooses to call himself. Biology isn’t fungible. Chromosomes aren’t a matter of opinion. Bruce is a tranny. A man who pretends he is a woman and may even believe he is one.
But that doesn’t make him one any more than my insisting I am Marshall Ney of the Grande Armee because I believe I am means I am Marshall Ney… even if I am wearing a Napoleonic Marshall’s costume.
“Biology isn’t fungible. Chromosomes aren’t a matter of opinion. Bruce is a tranny. A man who pretends he is a woman and may even believe he is one.”
Why does a “Libertarian” care what someone else is doing? If you say this is a matter of personal choice and conduct why are you judging it? Does Caitlyn Jenner use Tax Dollars for a sex change?
Clover,
I don’t care whether Bruce or any biological man wants to wear and dress and pretend he is a woman. But I do object to being told I must pretend he is one.
“You are welcome to tell Caitlyn Jenner to her face that she is unnatural.”
Clover,
Caitlyn isn’t a “her.” It’s a he – Bruce – who call himself Caitlyn. And while I have no desire to hurt his feelings, I will not play along with his assertion that wearing a dress and scissoring off his male apparatus makes him a female.
You are welcome to believe that biology – that reality – is fungible. But if you really believe it, then you are clinically unwell.
Clover,
If I tell you I am a lobster, are you obliged to pretend I am a lobster? Do you think you should be shamed – punished – if you refuse to acknowledge my lobsterness, admire my “claws”? Your use of the pronoun she to describe the biologically male Bruce Jenner – no matter what he calls himself – is just as loopy.
Saying something is so does not make it so – if the facts are contrary to the assertion.
Bruce is a man in a dress. That’s all. He is welcome to wear a dress – and mutilate himself; it is, after all, his body and his life. But it’s not my obligation to participate in his delusion – much less legitimize it by pretending a man who calls himself “she” is a she.
But, wait. Maybe you’re right! If Bruce is “she” because “she” says so, then my ’76 Trans-Am is “clean” because I say so. In fact, all internal combustion powered cars are “clean” – even if they have carburetors and no catalytic converters – because I say they are!
Of course, I expect your cognitively impaired mind will not grok the logic.
Why would anyone….other than yourself, tell anyone else anything that’s self-evident?
Here’s an example:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuC_4mGTs98
“I don’t care whether Bruce or any biological man wants to wear and dress and pretend he is a woman. But I do object to being told I must pretend he is one.”
Who is going down to southern virginia to tell you anything about Caitlyn Jenner? Is someone from the Thought Police knocking on your door to tell you the official status of Caitlyn Jenner?
Clover,
You know – I hope – that “misgendering” is already an actionable offense in several countries and that there is a push to impose the same here. There is already enormous social pressure – applied to kids, especially – to deny reality and pretend that he is a “she.”
But the interesting thing here is how you shift the debate – or try to.
The debate, Clover, is about reality inversion. People who are biologically male who insist they are female because they believe they are female – as opposed to dressing up like a female – are psychologically unwell. They are entitled, I suppose, to their delusion. But they are not entitled to impose their delusions on others. It’s totalitarian, it’s sick – and it’s dangerous.
“I would enjoy watching her make you apologize.”
You’re truly a freak.
Hi S&M,
Pat is a Clover. Which means he (she?) is an authoritarian control freak; a person who cannot stand free people freely deciding for themselves how to live their lives. He/she is a pathological person who is fundamentally not much different from a stick-up man in an alley or a mafia enforcer… just lacking the self-awareness and honesty of those characters.
eric, I recall when Clover would get off her meds and become a world class skier but then be fearful of driving her car and “hate” those who drove “too fast” for her “feelings”. Clover was the only world class skier I ever heard say driving a car responsibly was “too fast”. She must have gone through a case of tampons every month.
Hi Eight!
I remember that, too… ah, the good ol’ days eh?
eric, they make these days look(feel)like a walk in the park.
Did William Wallace cut off his penis?
Hi Brazos,
Of course, even if Sir William did cut it off, he’d still be a biological male – the point that Clover (pat) non sequiturs. It’s extremely interesting to me, the way Clovers always avoid addressing the point raised by raising some irrelevant point.
The English cut it off just before they disemboweled him.
Clover,
You – like all Clovers – debate what isn’t argued. I never said Bruce/Caitlyn is unnatural. I said he is a man in a dress. And not a woman because he says so.
These are facts. And if Bruce/Caitlyn wishes to respond with violence, I will respond accordingly.
Same goes for you, by the way. You might find the experience educational.
I would suggest that there is no debate, you’re just being trolled…
>> Electric cars are as unnatural as Bruce in a dress.
> I never said Bruce/Caitlyn is unnatural. I said he is a man in a dress. And not a woman because he says so.
No, eric, you said “Electric cars are as unnatural as Bruce in a dress. ”
That’s what you said.
If you meant to say something different, then you should correct your statement.
You wanted to make a cultural judgement, which is an opinion and well within your right to have opinion, but you wanted to claim it was nature. Neither clothing nor cars are natural, they are products of human society, opinion, culture and technology.
Perhaps you should try restating your hatred for electrics in terms of
recharge time or the disturbing silence or the fact upper income people are buying them
Oy vey, Clover!
How many times, o Lord, must I say it? I don’t hate electric cars. I hate virtue-signaling coercive utopians who impose mandates and steal people’s money to subsidize their EVs.
In re the rest: My point – which you’re trying (and failing) to sidetrack is that EVs are not a market-driven product; hence unnatural. They are being forced onto the market by regulations, mandates and subsidies.
IC cars arose naturally; they prospered in response to market signals – to people’s free decisions to spend their money (not other people’s) on them.
You can’t be this dense. Therefore, I must assume you’re simply pathologically dishonest.
“You can’t be this dense.”
I’ll argue that. I know at least two people who would make Pat seem like an intellectual giant. Both are not smart enough to be dishonest because they have no idea what ‘honest’ is. Mouth moves, words come out but you can tell that the speaker is unaware of their meaning for the most part. Basically parrots, with just enough analytical faculties to misconstrue everything they hear and try to rote recite.
There is a sharp line, one side has those who understand specific words have specific meanings, and the other ones who don’t and so substitute simple words they think they understand for the actual words they don’t actually comprehend. It is why ‘educating’ them is hopeless. Their brains are the embodiment of the telephone game.
Hi Anon,
Yup; I suspect you’re right about that. Orwell wrote elegantly about this in 1984; his word (in Newspeak) was . . . duckspeak, by which was meant the unconscious noise-making of an animal. And it was meant – in the context of the novel – as a term of approbation (for Party Members).
” My point – which you’re trying (and failing) to sidetrack is that EVs are not a market-driven product; hence unnatural. They are being forced onto the market by regulations, mandates and subsidies.”
Markets are not natural, they are merely a set of agreed rules on value transactions.
Clover,
You write that markets are “merely a set of agreed rules on value and transactions.” Yes, exactly. Not forced rules on value and transaction.
You’re a coercive authoritarian. At least admit it. Own it.
and I remember when states had Blue Laws, which regulated alcohol sales, sunday sales and pornography sales.
Clover,
Yes – and I remember them as well. What has that to do with whether such laws interfering with voluntary business interactions are moral? What right do you or I or any other person have to tell another they may not buy or sell on Sunday or any other day?
Do you believe you own other people?
Your memory must not be very good. States still have those laws. The reason they do is because like you, politicians think they know better than the free market.
Pat,
“Markets are not natural…”
What do you mean by natural? Markets have spontaneously arisen in every human civilization that has advanced beyond the hunter gatherer. Markets develop among children, without adult supervision, after Halloween, to trade candy. Markets arise in prisons. Markets develop without a central authority decreeing the rules of exchange; they arise spontaneously, without external force or design. In this sense, markets are natural to human society.
It is true that governments co opt markets and impose rules, but this is irrelevant to whether markets are “natural”. Also, because government does interfere in markets to favor their preferred outcomes does not mean that the interference is good or just. Citing a past interference (that we libertarians oppose) to justify a current interference is not an argument.
Jeremy
“There is nothing natural about wearing clothing.” I beg do differ. It’s quite natural for any animal to seek shelter. Clothing is portable shelter. What form that shelter takes is a combination of effectiveness, and expression. Bruce in a dress is an accurate argument given the expression aspect.
Try running around naked on a 70º day with cloud cover. You’ll die from hyperthermia.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5605164/
“The Dutchman Wim Hof is famous for being able to withstand extreme cold. As a young man he already felt attracted to the cold, until he could not resist it anymore and took a winter dive in the pond of the Vondelpark in Amsterdam. From then onward he got addicted. Cold is his warm friend. He holds several world records for staying in a tub filled with ice cubes up to his neck for almost 2 h. Moreover, he ran a half marathon barefoot in the snow and swam under the polar ice from ice hole to ice hole.”
wim hof seems to do okay.
Incredible insanity! Incredibly stupid. With all the production shutting down who will make the tanks, trucks and other vehicles for the military. I’ll bet they don’t buy into the EV BS. The military is already having to source products overseas including from Russia and China. With all the job losses less tax base higher deficits. I pray to God I will not have to experience this stupidity.
The auto industry is hurting, so this might also be a PR friendly way to downsize without admitting the sheeple are tapped out and not indebting themselves at the same rate lately.
Carnac, that would be the most logical conclusion. I just wonder how they’ll shrink SW states.
Surely, when Patterson drilling calls up and says they have both shakers broken on a rig and they’re shut down without circulation. They say, “We have a couple more shakers in Mentone. We need you to pick them up and get them to Big Lake ASAP”. Then you say, Sure thing but I have a couple hours I need to top off my batteries. Click. Hello? Hello?
It just won’t work in many states for countless people.
They are preparing for another 2008 on one hand, on the other they are dropping models and pursuing EV’s. I feel for those employees, good thing the news say we have a booming economy and record low unemployment. Hope they land on their feet.