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Thursday, November 20th, 2008
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10:30p - Protectionism vs. Globalization
This time the rental company gave us Pontiac Grand Prix. We spent an entire week driving it and never stopped wondering, “How – but seriously, how – could a capitalist, free-market country produce this atrocity?” My husband put it simply: “A firm that made this should go out of business.” Everything was wrong with our rental car. In fact, I am hard-pressed to name anything that was right about it. The doors didn’t close well; the design was awkward; the motor had all the energy of an octogenarian, and the trunk curved under, which made it a magnet for the mud flying from under the wheels yet rendered it inaccessible to the cleaning powers of rain. Every time I tried to take a bag out of the trunk I ended up covered in dirt because the son-of-a-bitch didn’t open easily either. And this is by far not the complete list of our car’s “benefits”.
We spent the previous vacation at the wheels of a Buick — with similar results. Recently my Toyota needed some body work and the insurance company provided another rental car—a Ford. It was brand-spanking-new and not too bad. In fact, compared to all the Buicks and Pontiacs I had the displeasure to drive over the years, it could pass for a Mercedes. Still, it couldn’t even be compared to a Toyota, a Honda, or even a Mazda.
The analysts name the gas prices and the credit crunch as the main problems of the American automakers. On one hand it’s true. GM, Chrysler, and Ford all bet on gas-guzzling monsters, the mechanical equivalents of our gluttonous, obese population. Now all of a sudden nobody wants to buy these “cuties.” Also, the credit branches of these companies that loaned money to the potential buyers and made profits even during the tough times are now suffering from the banking crisis. Yet I would argue that these are not the main problems of our car manufacturers. Let’s face it: American cars, as a rule, are “uncool.” They are popular in those areas of the country that voted for John McCain — home to a significant minority of the American population, and a much poorer minority at that.
Take, for example, a Cadillac. ( Read more... )
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