More snow. Feh. The sun god Tonatiuh is angry. Let us feed him the hearts of American auto industry executives and beg his forgiveness in order that spring may return.
I’m not quite certain what to think about the feds getting all medieval on Detroit. I don’t have any sympathy for The Big 3’s management — my second and last American auto was a 1996 Ford F-150 that was possessed by evil spirits, and it’s been nothing but Subarus and Toyotas around here since — but you have to feel for the grunts who actually made things over the years instead of shuffling worthless pieces of paper around. As usual, the shit will roll downhill, and the working stiffs will be inhabiting a dank and smelly valley.
Over at The Washington Monthly, Paul Glastris sees some useful lessons from previous federal interventions in the railroad industry, a tale told by Phillip Longman of the New America Foundation. Meanwhile, dday and Josh Marshall wonder why it’s all hugs and kisses for bank execs but cold shoulder for the auto bosses.
Myself, I’d like to know when the crucial cycling-humor industry will be getting its fingers off the keyboard and into Uncle Sam’s bottomless pockets. I need a new snow shovel, and I’ll be happy to surrender my private jet if that’s what it takes.
Late update: Also at Washington Monthly, Hilzoy opines on “cramdowns,” or allowing bankruptcy judges to reduce homeowners’ mortgage principle, noting that “it’s no good trying, for instance, to save GM if we don’t have customers who are able and willing to buy cars. As any number of commenters have said, we need to shore up the not just businesses’ balance sheets, but consumers’, since if they are not able and willing to spend, then even the best-run businesses will fail.” Well said.
Mad Blog Media 
We still build bicycles in the U.S. Some good ones, too. Home built bicycles, as long as they are not on roof racks, help balance the national debt, since we can fuel them on Midwestern grain rather than Saudi Oil and their riders are saving on health costs by not riding a couch. Should dump some stimulus funds into the cycling industry and its fellow travelers in the bike publications industry. Patrick, for example, needs to buy a new computer, as we all know.
By the way, Albuquerque just got a bunch of those Chinese-loaned stimulus bucks to build a long-overdue bike bridge across the Rio Grande near the Big I.
Yeah, its going to be a long, dark evening into night for the Big Three’s working stiffs. As we continue to slowly slide into another Great Depression, they will have lots of company–the rest of us.
Yes, indeedy. My stable is nearly all U.S.-made — two DBR ti’ bikes (one road, one MTB, both actually built by Sandvik in Washington state); three Steelmans (two cyclo-cross, one time trial) from Redwood City, California; and one Nobilette cyclo-cross, from Longmont, Colorado.
There are some Yankee components scattered around the lineup, too — cantilever brakes from Paul’s Components, seat posts from Thomson and headsets from Chris King. Now if we could just crank up a gen-u-wine made-in-the-USA drivetrain, we’d be rockin’ the red, white and blue for reals. I bet some laid-off machinists could make the transition from four wheels to two without batting an eyelash.
What about your fellow VN guy Zinn. Isn’t he makin’ cranks now-a-days?
One needs to have a mass market approach to make the costs reasonable. Although having said that, the last time I looked at any of the Big Three’s leading gruppos, they all were priced to make one’s head spin. Perhaps that’s because the dollar is increasingly worthless, but someone needs to make components for the masses if cycling is to be anything other than a fringe activity.
Yep, nothing like that nearly mint condition Paul derailleur set going for $200+…and how much did they set you back in 1996? About 2 Frankilns apiece. Deflation my @$$!
Khal, you are most certainly correct! I read a review of the new Dura-Ace gruppo last week. The reviewer was pleased. I was interested…until they dropped the $450 chainring on the story!! That must be one nice ring for that sort of dough. What does it do? Pedal by itself?
Maybe those wannabe messengers who are sprouting like bad ‘shrooms will throw down for that, but sure as h-e-double hockey sticks I won’t be. Thanks Shi-man-OH, but no thanks.
Oh well, at least it’s fun to drool on the counter every once in awhile.
I’m quite pleased that Detroit won’t be getting any more cash, at least if the hardball game plays out to the end. They didn’t deserve it in the first place. Sure, people will be out of work, but let’s not waste time, money, and other resources propping up bad businesses as stopgap measures, refusing to face reality until it walks up behind us, spins us roughly around, and decks us with one powerful punch to the jaw.
Why’d the bankers get off easy? I think it’s as simple as their place in line, at least to some degree. As time goes by and bailout options become less and less popular, Obama and other politicians are going to become quite a bit more stingy with those foreign-borrowed or freshly-printed bucks.
On another note, no self-respecting messenger wannabe is going to be interested in current-year DA. Too roadie, too race-y. Not fixie-cool. However, your average Lance-loving racer dude with a white collar job will certainly throw down for the new DA. If he still has a job, that is.
I’d certainly like to know how many “white collar” dudes are slapping down four and a half dead Franklins for a chainring (that doesn’t pedal itself) or several Grover Clevelands on a gruppo when a lot of them are trading a white shirt for a pink slip. My guess is the high end bike shop stuff is not moving too well.
Is anyone else suspicious that a lot of the “who cares?” prices on this ultra-tech stuff have been driven by the “what, me worry” financial attitudes of the last decade? No expense was too frivolous to take out a second mortgage. Kinda reminds me of a reincarnation of the pet rock craze, only with real debts piling up.
I hear China is buying Delphi. Pretty much we will soon be an agrarian economy depending on the Chinese for anything mechanical. Kinda done a full circle to 1776, when we rebelled against the Brits practice of forcing us to buy everything from them. Too bad we sold out our national birthright for granite countertops and Ipods.
Meena was making whipping cream the other day for a carrot cake. She was complaining that the GE mixer was mightly old. Sure was–looked like something out of the sixties or seventies, complete with avocado color. But it is still going strong, and Made in USA. Try to find a home-built mixer nowdays. Gonna keep that thing till it dies and then try to repair it.
Anyone who thinks bike bling is selling well should take a look at Jon Neugent’s price cuts on wheels.
http://www.neuvationcycling.com/wheels.html
Oh, I agree with you, Khal. I wasn’t saying the cost was justified, or that Shimano will break any sales records. I was just saying that there will definitely be some contingent out there that will buy DA regardless of cost, just because it’s what their doped-up roadie racer heroes are riding. Me? I’ll stick with the simple, functional, or free parts to keep my bike alive.
As far as kitchen mixers go… well, a wooden spoon is handy, storage-friendly, durable, and should it ever break, you can whittle a new one.
I bet the wooden spoon has a pretty low CO2 signature, too.
Joey, can’t say I disagree with you there on the bike parts. However, I do remember from my bike industry employed days a wannabe messenger coming in with his fixie sporting a brand spanking new FSA carbon crankset. Apparently, since he was a ‘wannabe’ messenger (i.e. homeless, dumpster diving, non-showering, etc.), his mom threw down the bones for Christmas. Nice!
Makes me remember the phrase from an earlier post (that seems to fit well here too as it also applies to the white collars as well): more money than brains.
A beauty here from The Atlantic. Muchas Gracias to my Uncle Ted for this one.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice
“The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time.”
by Simon Johnson