The taxpayers of Italy are going to keep FiatChrysler (FCA) alive for awhile longer.
$7.1 beeeeeellllyun dollars have been earmarked for this job by the government of Italy, which will extract the funds from the taxpayers of Italy. It is nice to be king. Or at least, to have the king – and his men – on your side.
According to Bloomberg, Fiat Chrysler shares rose about 2.1 percent on the news.
The bad news – for Chrysler – is that all those beeeeeelllyuns will be used exclusively for the carmaker’s Italian activities, Fiat has said. The company will use the funds for workers’ salaries, to pay suppliers and for planned investments at domestic facilities. Italy’s automotive supply chain includes 200,000 small and medium-sized companies and the domestic industry generates more than 100 billion euros in annual revenue.
What of its American activities?
On the one hand, Chrysler – and Dodge – could probably “get away” with selling cars like the 300 and Charger and Challenger indefinitely as these cars remain popular with buyers, who still seem to like large, rear-drive American cars with big sixes and eights rather than smallish FWD cars with turbo fours. It doesn’t seem to matter that these cars are all a decade-plus old – in terms of their basic design. In fact, it seems to be plus.
With buyers.
On the other hand, Uncle is making it ever-harder to sell such such cars . . . legally sell them. It is hard to get a car designed circa 2007 to meet all of the 2020 fatwas and ukases. It will probably be impossible by 2025 and perhaps sooner depending on what happens in 2020.
If the Orange Man is replaced, the fatwas and ukases will become more severe, sooner. One of the big ones – the federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy fatwa, which is now marketed as an “emissions” fatwa – will likely be kicked up from the current 35 MPG to 50 MPG, which will make V6 and V8 powered mass-market cars like the 300/Charger/Challenger . . . unsustainable.
By making them unaffordable, via the fines imposed for “noncompliance” with the fatwas.
Hence the necessity for a reboot of these models – which could be kept fundamentally the same (rear-drive, large and possibly even with V6 and V8 engines) if they were made lighter or other stratagems were deployed. But a redesign takes money and Chrysler lacks it.
And that’s not good news for it – or us.
If FCA would only build RAM and Jeeps, it would probably make money.
Hi Rich,
It may come to that. And I think it’s anticipated. I think it explains why Ram was disconnected from Dodge and made a stand-alone brand. I could see Ram and Jeep being combined into a singular entity.
But it would be tragic to lose Chrysler and Dodge for political reasons. Because of the $%!@@ government. It amazes and appalls me that Americans, in general, are so quiescent. So submissive. So willing to just let the government – a handful of control freaks – do practically anything they like, without even a peep of protest.
Sounds like it’s more lucrative to court the government by running a crap company that manufactures garbage that no one wants to buy, instead of courting consumers by running a good company and making good products that people want to buy.
The Mafia is alive and well!
Much more. Crony capitalism is MUCH more profitable, than running an honest business. At least in terms of currency and power. But I believe the Christians have a saying, about what profit it a man to gain the world, but lose their soul? Principles matter.
Hi BJ,
I think this is one of the problems of corporations as such. There is a disconnect between the customer and the seller. The shareholder becomes the driver of corporate interests and the making of money becomes the interest. As much of it as possible as quickly as possible (quarterly profits/shareholder value).
Whereas an ordinary proprietorship connects directly with its customers. And it is the making of something or the providing a service which the customer wants that drives the business. Making money is certainly part of this but it’s not the sole object of the exercise.
Proprietorships also have a kind of built-in size limit relative to corporations, which inevitably become quasi government entities by dint of their size and reach and “pull” – as Rand used to describe it. This leads to the sort of rent-seeking we’ve been discussing.
From a Libertarian point-of-view, the whole idea of a limited liability corporation strikes me as problematic, for all the obvious reasons. Anything which limits liability ought to raise eyebrows.
I would say that corporations are spineless for accommodating the edicts of the state, if it weren’t for the fact that corporations are a CREATION of the state. In which lies their inherent flaw. Corporations are in fact a mirror of the state, being sociopathic by their very nature. The state is their God, and they kneel to it at the drop of a hat. Capitalism, to use the common inaccurate use of the word, is blamed for our misfortunes, when in fact the corporation, while being categorized as capitalistic, is anything but. It is a tool of the state and is by far the greater culprit.
Referring to my statement that the word capitalist is used inaccurately, all economies are capitalist. The only difference being who controls the capital, those who create it, or those who steal it. What is called “capitalism” is actually the “free market”, which no living soul has ever seen except in the black markets, which are illegal.
So true, JWK. The legal definition of a corporation is essentially an artificial “person” created by petitioning the state for the purpose of limiting the liabilities of the participants in exchange for paying some fees and taxes and giving up some of their natural and civil rights. In essence: A “legal” criminal enterprise, protected by government. So yeah, how could they oppose their protector and creator, the state?
Exactly BJ. Such is why we are in this predicament, because governments and corporations and societies are nothing more than a reflection of the character of the people who comprise them- and if the people are corrupt, everything they participate in will be a reflection of their corruption, illegitimacy and immorality.
We live in a day when those things have been normalized to the point where most people are content to spend their lives serving a corporation or government agency, as long as they get a paycheck for doing so and it is “legal”. They do not even ask how their participation contributes to evil, because as long as they are within the above protocols they are viewed as “respectable” by most around them, who share their mentality. “Morality” by numbers.
Be it someone working in a cubicle for Dish Network, or a soldier enforcing the dictates of Ferdinand Marcos…none of this would be possible without the participation and complicity of the common people.
I would argue that it has ALWAYS been this way. Human nature predisposes people to choosing the easiest possible path to attain resources. Given the chance, people will mostly always choose the political means as opposed to the economic/social means. Unfortunately for us.
Reading MSM,,, Corona is back! A second wave now that the rioting and looting of the peaceful Black Live Matter protests have calmed down prompting our elected leaders to talk lockdowns again. A second lockdown will cream whatever is left of the worlds economies. Will Americans go along with the scam again? Watching a young mother putting a mask on her toddler he obviously did not want the other day convinces me they will. Hope I am wrong.
The USSA Federal Reserve is hyper inflating its currency to infinity. One of the Feds new programs,,, the Secondary Market Corporate Credit Facility run by BlackRock is the absolute pinnacle of wall street crime. BlackRocks first order of business was to use these freshly created taxpayer dollars to buy it’s own funds. On top of that they are collecting management fees.
The racketeering and looting of America exceeds any in history and makes Italy’s 7.1 billion dollar theft look like a tax refund. Between the looting on wall street, the rioting and looting on main street, the fake virus lockdowns few businesses will ever be profitable again. Massive infusions of currency will keep them hobbling along while other agendas are played out but will decimate the buying power. As such it is highly doubtful people will be able to feed themselves much less buy new cars. But hey,,, not to worry,,, the Dow will scream past 50,000.
Here in Alaska we had a temporary spike in “cases” (low double digits per day) for a few days post-reopening, which a couple days ago dropped down to three new “cases” in one day. Also known as the “what the frick did you think was going to happen” effect. We’ve had 12 deaths so far, and the 9th, 10th, and 11th were so far from each other that the 10th, 11th, and 12th all individually made the local news.
What it seems like they want to do is drag the mask-wearing, social-distancing, home-staying panic out through the summer so no one will have antibodies or a functioning immune system when fall comes bearing lower temperatures and, with those, more viral activity. Then they can go “See, it’s a second/third/infinity wave! It’s just like the Spanish flu that came back worse the next year! We need to lock down again, more harshly, and for longer!”
Hi Shotgun,,,
This is getting silly. First they scream for more testing. Of course logic says more testing will find more cases. Then they scream 2nd wave.
Personally I don’t think this virus exists except in the minds of Fauci and Gates. It’s never been isolated. PCR tests have never been accurate. Just because it show a virus present doesn’t mean you have the disease. There are probably many viruses floating about you that your immune system is effectively preventing them from infecting you.
They have skewed and padded the deaths to a point where no one really know how many died and what they died of. Hitler stated in Mein Kampf to lie big….
A big lie is a propaganda technique. The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, about the use of a lie so “colossal” that no one would believe that someone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so ”
And that 120,000 (so far) is about as big a lie as they come.
Yes it appears they do not want mass (herd) immunity. To prevent a 2nd wave would be to allow as many to get the disease as possible which obviously they do not want. But! They have all bases covered. They are talking up a mutated virus now. This is really better for them as they can lock down every year forward simply by saying the virus has mutated and you need an updated vaccine.
Doesn’t matter if the virus is real or not. The public is buying everything they’re selling.
The real thing to look at for now is the total deaths. By going back a few years you can compare. This year 2020 is averaging about the same as the last few years. But I see them padding this figure in the future as well. They lie about EVERYTHING.
In short it’s going to be very difficult to contest them as many Americans have little to no cognitive ability to reason things out.
Hi Ken,
I feel as though I am the only writer parsing this “cases” crap. Even on Lew’s site, no one challenges the “cases” narrative – as such. As in, who cares about how many “case” there are – of anything? I had a “case” of the shits the other day. So? Unless the shits ends up killing me then it’s just a bout of . . . the shits. Drive on. There are millions of “cases” of all kinds of things. Unless these “cases” pose a mortal threat to a significant number of people who experience a “case” then it’s no cause for hysterics.
But if you divorce the one from the other – and impute “cases” as such with certain death – then you can terrorize the population. It infuriates me that almost no one else is pointing this out.
I point it out in every comment section, on every article I find that proclaims the rise in “cases” is the end of the species. To the point it has become a tedious exercise, but one I will not give up. Our tyrants proclaim themselves to be adherents of “science”, when in fact what they promote is more akin to superstition. “Science” has become a political tool, and so has become as mutable as any other political tool. Truth can bear any examination, argument, or criticism. It neither needs nor requires censorship to protect it. Lies do.
Hey Eric,
More people need to stress this point, it’s great that you are. David Stockman is doing so as well.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/06/david-stockman/covid-hysteria-and-the-groomers-of-the-virus-patrol/
Here are a few passages.
“Call these people the “groomers” of Big Pharma, and their job is to keep public fears on the boil so that the demand for high-priced treatments, cures and preventative vaccines becomes overwhelming. And given that the Covid is now rapidly succumbing to the exhaustion of its infection cycle and the summertime sun, their exact current mission is one of bridging the gap.
That is, finding and publicizing local outbreaks and “hot spots” during the months just ahead so that the Virus Patrol will remain in full control of policy and the narrative until the Covid makes its forecasted second wave rebound during next fall’s flu season.
Unreported Truths abou… Berenson, Alex Buy New $5.99 (as of 03:17 EDT – Details)
After all, they desperately need these hot spots to keep the aggregate narrative alive because it is visibly collapsing by the day.”
“Arizona’s mortality rate is less than half of the US average and only 11% of that for New York. So why is it a worrisome “hot spot” by the lights of Virus Patrol shills like Gottlieb?”
“But when context doesn’t matter, of course, any pimple can be depicted as a large boulder. Thus, the number of new cases in Arizona is allegedly soaring, suggesting that the state has jumped the gun letting its citizens out of house arrest too soon.
In fact, during the first 8 days of June, Arizona reported 7,742 new cases – a figure which is sharply higher than the 2,189 new cases reported for the last eight days of April, for example.
But that gain is entirely a function of the testing rate and then some. Thus, during the June 1 to June 8 span, the state reported 62,825 new tests, implying an infection rate of 12.3%.
By contrast, during April 22 to April 30 the state reported only 15,185 new tests (one-fourth of the June figure), implying an infection rate of 14.4%.
So the state is testing a lot more, as it has been instructed to do by Washington, and such accelerated testing is generating a falling infection rate!”
Cheers,
Jeremy
Sadly, Eric, Lew’s site seems to be turning into WorldNetDaily….. I see more merely conservative articles [as opposed to Libertarian] lately, but not a lot of real Libertarian content.
I mean, Paul Craig Roberts and The American Thinker are somewhat O-K sometimes- better than the liberal MSM- but definitely not Libertarian. And then there’s stuff that is just pure entertainment, like that Taki guy….. but WTH?
I still check the site for stuff from Walter Williams and Laurence Vance and such…and thankfully, he still carries your articles…but darn- there’s so much real Libertarian content that he could be publicizing instead of so much of the crap that is often on there these days.
Hey Nunz,
LRC has always featured many non-libertarian writers, I don’t see a change here. Personally, I like the diversity of stuff on the site. I don’t read all of it, and certainly don’t agree with all of it. But, so what? I like Paul Craig Roberts, but he’s not even remotely a libertarian. Same with Caitlin Johnstone, Pat Buchanan, Glenn Greenwald, Jeremy Scahill, Matt Taibbi, Brendan O’Neill, etc… None of these guys are libertarians, so what? All of them have interesting things to say. LRC has always provided a platform to such people and that has never meant that they endorse all of their views. LRC hasn’t changed.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Hey Jer.
Oh, I agree! I rather like PCR and others, myself. I guess maybe I get frustrated though, because I go to LRC expecting to get more hard-core Libertarianism, since that does seem to be what Lew is about. And maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that I remember the site having a lot more Libertarian content years ago. I mean, I remember when you couldn’t go a day without seeing at least something about or quoting Rothbard or Von Mises, etc.
It was like: The site used to be a primer for Libertarian thought; like Lew was helping to build the ranks of a Libertarian “army”. Now, it seems more like it’s been toned down to a more “mass appeal” that most old-school conservatives would be comfortable reading; and with a lot more entertainment filler.
I still check it daily (But gone are the days where I’d want to read more of the articles than I had time to in the morning), and am thankful that there’s someone out there like Lew who provides such a site…..so I can’t complain…but it’s just my honest opinion that the site isn’t what it once was.
I remember sending a PCR article to my brother-in-law a while back….it was a nice piece about what life in America used to be like- very enjoyable to read….but it sure wasn’t going to help expose my BIL to Libertarian thought.
What would a soft moderate like you know about hard-core anything, Nunz?
Aww, Brandon, I’m hardcore! Well…dunno if I could prove that about my core, but I’m definitely hardshell…’cause I’ve bashed myself in the head on three separate occasions with the heavy steel fence post driver, and felt no ill effects! (Well, one time I did sit down for about 10 minutes afterwards)
I’m so hardcore, that look, it ain’t even Sunday or Wednesday, and yet I’m having spaghetti for dinner tonight! How’s THAT for hardcore? Nyah!
In regards to your actual point Nunz, libertarian-ism attracts many types of people. Some are crazy whack-jobs like you. Some are sensible people, like me, who merely want some common sense fiscal policy. Others are leftist communists intending to subvert and destroy the movement and the west, like the ones running the LP twitter account (and the majority of the party).
But I was very happy to hear of someone in my personal life, a conservative, discover Lew Rockwell. This person isn’t ready for the hardcore stuff, but I know that exposure to Lew Rockwell is going to lead them in a better direction. Perhaps you’re reaching the problem where you got all the basics down a long time ago, and now nothing stimulates you anymore, because there comes a point where you can’t go much deeper.
I enjoy the intellectual exercise of libertarianism, the correct brand of libertarianism, that is. That is to say, the brand I learned here. But at this point it’s all just that, an intellectual exercise. A mental pleasure. Recreation.
I look around at this world and, half of these people would live-steam my execution for a facebook like. Probably less than that. Just because. Half these people don’t seem to have souls. They’re blank hard drives that take input, and then execute their programming. You talk to one, you’ve talked to them all. You can look at them and know basically all their beliefs by one external clue. Some people don’t care about right and wrong. Some of these people need government, because the only thing they understand is violence.
I know I sound like one of the bad guys in Atlas shrugged. I don’t know her that well but Rand probably assumed the entire human race was capable, with enough reason, of learning morality/voluntarism, even if the idea was sold through selfishness.
Would she think that if she were alive today? We’re not dealing with reason, we’re dealing with religion. I cannot even qualify how to differentiate these people verses us anymore. It’s not just where they get their news, or who they vote for. It’s something else. Something ethereal/spiritual.
Brandon, my friend, YOU sir have GOT it!
What you say is the reality of what we observe in the world.
I love it that we can both look and see the very same things!
Liberty is simple; basic. One doesn’t have to be a genius to want to live their own life as they choose to, without having to bow to a gang of strangers who claim to have the right to dictate your actions (and increasingly, even your thoughts!).
At best, all it requires is a little deprogramming, since we’ve all been programmed to accept and even desire tyranny- and that deprogramming can take the form of ingesting ideas from others which we may not have considered before, or of just figuring out things ourselves- or a combination of both (Which is the probably the case with most of us).
But once we are deprogrammed and have a handle on how and why our liberty is usurped and destroyed, I guess all that is really left is to live it.
And I think it more profitable to share ideas here, and to hear of others experiences and ideas, than to read a bunch of masturbatory intellectual gobbledygook, anyway.
And if I need a little more, there’s always Larken Rose!
Thinking back on my life, I had the basics figured out when I was just a kid. It started with compulsory schooling, which I remember objecting to when I was six! The adult’s answers to my objections didn’t work. Soon after, I considered the Draft, and taxes, etc. Shoot, I was a Libertarian before I was 10 and before I had ever heard of Libertarianism!
It took a little longer to figure out why things are like they are, and how the world works, and why so few people value liberty, etc (despite all of the lip-service!)
But I have a pretty good handle on it by now…and it sure sounds like you do too.
Really, our time is better spent just living the principles we believe in, and doing what we can to keep ourselves free, rather than endlessly listening to more preaching to the choir, eh?
Hey, it does cheer my heart to see that you possess such a keen understanding at your age, even though you’re hipster doofus and all!
WE are in a minority to begin with, but you probably even more so, as your generation has been programmed to levels never before imagined, and it’s not like you were even around back when things were much more sane and free, to have experienced it and thus know how desirable it is!
Hey, didja ever get a KJV?
Hi Nunz,
Reading is – as the saying used to go – fundamental. Ideas are everything, for good and bad. I was lucky in that I discovered Leonard Read and Mencken and Nock at an early age. That was the match which lit the powder for me. The rest was direct observation and contact with the absurdities – the evils – of authoritarian collectivism (this is my preferred term for all the “isms” because it subsumes them all under one roof, where they belong, as they are all fundamentally the same thing).
At any rate, what we do here amounts to the same. We are not just preaching to the choir. Somewhere, like an iceberg out in the vastness of the ocean, the ideas float around and eventually, the penetrate the mind of a receptive person – and sink the premises and preconceptions of authoritarian collectivism.
It’s why I make a pot of coffee first thing and sit where I am sitting at this very moment!
Mornin’ Eric!
I’m with ya on ALL of that!
Have to get my Libertarian “fix” every mornin’, or I can’t do anything. (Before the interwebz, people used to read “the paper”; I was never into that though, as I never liked the opinions and selective junk that papers peddled)
I’ve adopted your “authoritarian-collectivism”, as you’ve probably noticed. It’s perfect! THAT is a perfect example of “preaching to the choir” (I don’t usually mean it in the negative sense- I mean it more in the vein of bolstering and reinforcing what we may already know- but sometimes, putting it into words which we may never have done, or hearing someone else’s perspective/additional thoughts on what we already may know, adds even more reinforcement and perspective).
So, this is the site I HAVE to come to every morning. LRC was the site before I knew of you (And a big thanks to Lew for carrying your articles, or I likely would have never found you!).
YOU do it right- Your Libertarianism shines through in just about everything you write…and the great people that you attract, whom we get to interact with here, are invaluable.
THIS is the way to do it! This is our little virtual Galt’s Gulch, eh?
I am truly grateful for what you have built and provide here!
PS.
“Reading is fundamental”
AHhhhh! Haven’t heard that or even thought of it in YEARS! Memories of the 70’s!!!!
“Only YOU can prevent forest fires”! Nyah!
Nunz, yes, check your email.
Brandon,
Just checked….no email…not even in “spam”.
Hi Nunz, sent you two from two different emails since your comment. I tested these emails between each other and they’re both sending and receiving. If you’re not getting them, and they’re not in spam, something is going on. Send me an email from another domain or one of those disposable emails. Maybe we’ll be able to find the problem.
Hi Nunz,
I’m grateful for any site with an audience willing to publish even mildly Libertarian articles. I see no conflict between always defending one’s principles but also availing oneself of practical help when it can be done without compromising one’s principles. Think of it as Lenin with a conscience!
Aww, no Eric…no Lenin. But given the audience, and the abundance of good Libertarian stuff available, I just don’t get why Lew would waste such an opportunity. I mean, he’s got the forum; he’s got thye mindset; why not use it to full advantage?
I hate to sound like I’m complaining, but I guess I’ve just come to expect more from Lew- and I say that as a compliment.
Hey Nunz,
The hardcore libertarian stuff is at mises.org. LRC has always featured writers with different outlooks that Lew finds interesting. He’s trying to get non-libertarians to see that the caricature of libertarianism is nonsense. Again, if you want the pure libertarian stuff, go to mises. I really value that LRC features stuff that’s not always about libertarianism. I discovered keto/LCHF through LRC, which has been a life changer for me. Sure, there are some libertarian issues embedded into diet (because of GovCo intervention), but it’s valuable by itself. I discovered EP autos through LRC.
LRC doesn’t promote anti libertarian stuff, it just includes a lot of non-libertarian thinkers who have interesting things to say about stuff libertarians care about. For instance, I discovered Kirkpatrick Sale, a self described leftist, and one of the most interesting minds exploring decentralization, secession and the importance of scale. In my opinion, the greatest defect of the minarchists/constitutionalists/Randians, etc… is that they insist that, if the institutional structure is correct, scale doesn’t really matter; they’re wrong.
In any case, I’ve always appreciated that LRC is not exclusively libertarian, I hope it stays that way.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Hi Jer.,
Ah, yes…thanks for reminding me about Mises.org….been meaning to check it out for years…ditto AnarchoChristian.com- but alas….who has the time?!
Thank goodness for Eric’s site here. I content myself to get my titillation here these days. Since there are a bunch of good Libertarians here, I’d rather just discuss things with you guys and hear your opinions and ideas, which are often just as good if not better than any bloggers or authors.
Nunz, I think Lew Rockwell passed away recently…
Hi Mark,
Lew is not dead; I was in touch with him just yesterday…
Okay, I stand corrected. That said, when I saw him last year at the Ron Paul conference, he didn’t look that good.
Sheesh, MM, don’t scare me!
“If the Orange Man is replaced, the fatwas and ukases will become more severe, sooner.”
No doubt. After completing Job #1 (seizing “dangerous looking” weapons, taxing ammo, etc), the woke warriors will turn their attention to “green transport,” with a view toward phasing out fossil fuels and IC engines.
Of course, the Repukelican party has its own downsides, such as its abject, flop-down-and-spread-’em sellout of US interests to Israel under the Orange Man and his zionist son-in-law.
Freedom from fatwas lies in delegitimizing the bloated usurper regime in Washington DC. Where are the CAFE standards to put Big Gov on a starvation diet?
“Of course, the Repukelican party has its own downsides, such as its abject, flop-down-and-spread-’em sellout of US interests to Israel under the Orange Man and his zionist son-in-law.”
Don’t forget China. And their worship of the Free Trade god.
Where in the world have you seen anything remotely resembling Free Trade? In my 66 years, the only place I have seen it is in illegal markets. And even those are in fact created by the state, which is why they are so lucrative.
as soon as we learn the Charger/300 V8 is going away, I’m gonna buy two and mothball one, haha……
I don’t see it happening though. These cars were pronounced dead many times already, and they’re still here. I think it has a lot to do with the Union contract up at the Brampton, ON plant on what happens or not.
Probably more due to selling in decent numbers. Also fleet sales are good too. Not having to spend a lot on updates helps too. May go on for a few more years if the orange one is reelected, but probably not enough for a new generation. If he isn’t its probably a goner sooner.
Hi Rich,
I know a guy inside the company and am trying to get some straight dope about the ability of the current 300/Charger/Challenger platform to comply with anticipated “safety” mandates; the drivetrains present “emissions” problems, too. Especially if CAFE jumps to 50 MPG, as Barry had intended.
Saving these cars is worth supporting the Orange Man, I think.