Here’s the latest reader question, along with my reply!
Graham writes: I think the clock is ticking for GM. The Hummer is a Hail Mary pass, hoping there are enough mentally retarded people to at least buy enough of them for GM to borrow more money. GM sunk its load by moving to China. China needs another car manufacturer like a hole in the head, but I am sure they welcomed them with open arms. GM can’t take it back again and China gets it for cents on the dollar. Opinion: – The US Car industry has gone insane. Moving any of them (Tesla?) to China is not what it would have been 20 years ago. I think China is just biding its time until they all go bankrupt. The Hummer (electric or otherwise) is the manifestation of a sick society. In the 1950s I had a Morris 8, my father had the little Renault (750cc?) For work he had the original VW beetle with absolutely no trimmings. If these Green Morons touting CO2 had any imagined morality, one would think they could see the joke.
My reply: I agree. The car industry – not just GM – can be viewed as a Jenga tower on the verge of collapse. It has transitioned from even feigning interest in building sensible, affordable cars – and instead focuses on designing cars mandated by the government and approved by the doyens of social virtue, which now includes outrageously wasteful electric cars. 
None of this makes any sense precisely because – as you say – it is the manifestation of sickness. The Hummer and vehicles like it are like fuuuuuuuhhhhhhttttball worship and tattoos. They are a way for emasculated/powerless people – men, mostly – to strut around and not feel emasculated and powerless.
The electric Hummer is more of the same, with virtue-signaling added to the mix.
It makes my teeth ache…
. . .
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I wouldn’t say it’s men that do this to an exclusive extent. I have come across many young women with really shitty jobs and kids(not necessarily shitty) and are single that have these big, jacked up pickups and will tell you “Oh, I love my pickup”. Good luck with that. It’s hard enough with a lifted pickup to keep it shiny side up with a lot of skill. Unfortunately, I don’t know any women that qualify and few men.
They have no compunction carrying their children around on those rigs. And it wasn’t always that way.
Back in the early 80’s I was looking for a new “used” pickup. Right on the lot there was a black Bronco with enough chrome to start a shop. It had less than 300 miles on the odometer. I had no use for it and wasn’t looking at it but the salesman had to show it to me. This was around the first of the year. He said a guy bought it, gave it to his wife for Christmas and that’s how far she drove it before balking and demanding a Toronado. (she’d have been better off with the Bronco).
These days women wouldn’t look twice at a new luxury car. They want something, and I’ve heard many say this”Tall, so I can see over everything else”. I hate to tell them but his is Texas and every seventh pickup made is sold in Texas. You can see over “some” cars but you can’t see over those jacked up pickups. My neighbor has a lifted from the factory, Ford 250 diesel crewcab. I rode in it once. I didn’t feel safe in it. It’s not a good feeling to me viewing the world like you were in a Peterbilt but stuck up on 4 tires. Not my thing for sure.
On one hand, let them fail…… It’s become clear most of the current companies are unlikely to be reformed anymore. They seem too far gone. Ending them cleans all these people the industry shouldn’t have had in the first place. We need the car guys back in the car business, badly……..
However, even in it’s already shrunken state, they still employ millions (directly and indirectly) so the upheaval would be terrible. So it’s used as an excuse for bailing them out again. And again and again……
Of course had they allowed GM to go bankrupt during the last recession, we would be a decade into whatever would have emerged from the wreckage. We would likely have half a dozen healthy new companies made out of the pieces of the old GM. Likely more of the historic names would have survived under new owners at minimum.
That most certainly would be better than the “new” GM that we are stuck with, that we will have to bail out yet again. We need a business climate that would put people like Mary Barra on the street with nothing after failing so badly. How they hell does a person get millions for destroying a company like that?