S.U.V. R.I.P.

[prole]

 

Whew, glad that bullshit's over with.

 

It’s the End of the Line for S.U.V.’s

 

JANESVILLE, Wis. — Even a federal bailout could not save three of the last remaining plants in the United States still making sport utility vehicles.

 

Reeling from its financial problems and a collapsing S.U.V. market, General Motors on Tuesday closed its factories in this city and in Moraine, Ohio, marking the passing of an era when big S.U.V.’s ruled the road. The moves followed the shutdown last Friday of Chrysler’s factory in Newark, Del., which produced full-size S.U.V.’s.

 

The last Chevrolet Tahoe rolled off the line here in Janesville shortly after 7 a.m. in the 90-year-old plant, which had built more than 3.7 million big S.U.V.’s since the early 1990s.

 

Most of the plant’s 1,100 remaining workers were not scheduled to work the final day, but many showed up for an emotional closing ceremony. Dan Doubleday, who had 22 years on the job, broke down in the plant’s snowy parking lot afterward.--from NYT 12/24/08

[Bug]

Squirm in Hell.

 

We have yet to see their true legacy.

[STP]

[video:youtube]EYbUCvz1LYE

 

NEVER before have real house prices risen so fast, for so long, in so many countries. Property markets have been frothing from America, Britain and Australia to France, Spain and China. Rising property prices helped to prop up the world economy after the stockmarket bubble burst in 2000. What if the housing boom now turns to bust?

 

According to estimates by The Economist, the total value of residential property in developed economies rose by more than $30 trillion over the past five years, to over $70 trillion, an increase equivalent to 100% of those countries' combined GDPs. Not only does this dwarf any previous house-price boom, it is larger than the global stockmarket bubble in the late 1990s (an increase over five years of 80% of GDP) or America's stockmarket bubble in the late 1920s (55% of GDP). In other words, it looks like the biggest bubble in history. …

--The global housing boom-The Economist

 

"An important key to understand reality is economics.”

Paracelsus the Alchemist was travelling through medieval Germany when he was invited to the court of the Count of one of the local statelets of the Holy Roman Empire. The Count begins asking the great alchemist about the secrets of alchemy. This, of course, leads to the Count asking for the secret of transmuting base metals into gold. The alchemist tells the Count that he is merely a puffer or a quack while the Count is a true alchemist who already knows the secret of making gold out of thin air. He tells the Count to give a license to create a bank and then borrow money from the bank. Remember that the United States, United Kingdom, and Euro countries do not mint their own currency. They have a private company such as the Federal Reserve or the Bank of England do it and then borrow that money at interest. As is often the case the alchemists of the middle ages knew more than we give them credit for.

"Money is proof that magick works, it is perhaps the only proof.”

--Peter Lamborn Wilson in NYC--The Black Sun Gazette

[pc313]

[STP]

Ok, you can call me nuts or whatever and I’d be hard pressed to call it an epiphany but the other day I was watching clips from David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive and it came to me.

 

Have you ever read the Bhagavad Gita from the Mahabharata ? In the “Song of God” there is a conversation between Arjuna and Krishna. I’m not gonna argue whether you consider this to be a ‘true’ text or whatever, just that the elements are important. Basically, the message is that you are a vehicle with a driver so the question is who is the driver?

 

There’s a wealth there of more information but back to Lynch. So, I’m watching these clips. I have always been attracted to his movies due to their weirdness but never quite understood them. So, it comes to me that Lynch used cinema to personify or give substance to those forces and impetus’ that compel us to act. For instance, there’s fear (winky’s dream) and there’s attitude (the cowboy). Essentially, what is at the bottom of our actions?

 

One more story: Solomon’s Ring. Philosopher Jacob Needleman wrote a book called, Money and the Meaning of Life . (This guy knows the language of the birds.) In this book he told of King Solomon with stories that you’d probably never heard. Solomon came into the possession of a ring (btw, there’s more than one ring just like there's more than one tree in the garden) which allowed him to control Asmodeus. With the help of Asmodeus, Solomon performed great feats ( Asmodeus and the Shamir ). Finally, however, it went to his head and the king became lost. His illusory self or false self took over the rule of the kingdom while the real king wandered in exile. I won’t spoil the rest of the story. You can read about it yourself.

 

Ok, now I’ll get all religious, moral etc. The root cause of what we’re seeing today, resides in each one of us. Sure, there are laws for social order and laws of punishment but it still remains within the individual to perceive ‘things’ and to help create the ‘world’. Ok, done with my crazy rant.

 

Merry Christmas.

[Bug]

Enter Tvash to discount all that you just said as Northern California, Vedic bullshit.

 

But you have discovered the value of Mythology.

Whether you beleive in God or not, the stories you recount have something to teach us. Something that does not remain static any more than a Shakespear play was written for one king in one time.

 

And now, we hear from Tvash who will demand that we talk in his terms or be guilty of avoiding the issue.

[tvashtarkatena]

Merry Christmas Bug!

[pc313]

Ok, you can call me nuts or whatever and I’d be hard pressed to call it an epiphany but the other day I was watching clips from David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive and it came to me.

 

Ok, now I’ll get all religious, moral etc. The root cause of what we’re seeing today, resides in each one of us. Sure, there are laws for social order and laws of punishment but it still remains within the individual to perceive ‘things’ and to help create the ‘world’. Ok, done with my crazy rant.

 

Merry Christmas.

 

I havn't read those book's or seen that film,but can relate,for although we are in control of are lifes,the steering wheel is in are hands and are foots on the gas and brake,who or what we are is a crazy mix of the past and present. The old cleshay "I'LL NEVER BE LIKE MY FOLKS" is a joke and i'm shure they said the same thing when they we young.

 

I just watched the DOC. "SEVEN DUMPSTERS AND A CORPSE" and found my self laughing my ass off and so did they,as the two brothers cleaned their dead mothers house up and relived their family history,good times and bad times! In doing so they learn more about what made them who they are,"ITS SO TRUE"!!!

HAPPY HOLLIDAYS!!

 

 

Edited December 25, 2008 by pc313

[Bug]

Merry Christmas Bug!

 

See how he changes the subject and subjugates the thread by using the ultimate force in the universe?

 

OK fine.

 

Merry Christmas Tvash!

And to all a good night!

[Bug]

I gave in when I went into a podiatrist to see what was wrong with my feet. He smiled and said, "Let's have a look at your xrays." As I was protesting that I had not had any xrays, he walked over to his file cabinet and pulled out xrays of my father's feet.

He thought that was pretty funny.

For me it seemed like a curse.

 

But now I pay attention to my father's complaints and respond proactively. I have a 27 year jump on what ails me.

[pc313]

Ya,i sound just like my dad on the phone,so over the year's he's been told off by my ex-girlfriends or my buds would call and be like hay man i've got some "kill" lets get baked!! Even my brother's and sister's or his cant tell the difference and i'm the fourth kid!!!!

Some times it was funny shit,one GF had told him that she was going to fuck your brains out before he said i'll tell Norm you call,she was pissed at me when i got to her house WTF!!

[JayB]

Whew, glad that bullshit's over with.

 

It’s the End of the Line for S.U.V.’s

 

JANESVILLE, Wis. — Even a federal bailout could not save three of the last remaining plants in the United States still making sport utility vehicles.

 

Reeling from its financial problems and a collapsing S.U.V. market, General Motors on Tuesday closed its factories in this city and in Moraine, Ohio, marking the passing of an era when big S.U.V.’s ruled the road. The moves followed the shutdown last Friday of Chrysler’s factory in Newark, Del., which produced full-size S.U.V.’s.

 

The last Chevrolet Tahoe rolled off the line here in Janesville shortly after 7 a.m. in the 90-year-old plant, which had built more than 3.7 million big S.U.V.’s since the early 1990s.

 

Most of the plant’s 1,100 remaining workers were not scheduled to work the final day, but many showed up for an emotional closing ceremony. Dan Doubleday, who had 22 years on the job, broke down in the plant’s snowy parking lot afterward.--from NYT 12/24/08

 

The only certainty is change...

 

"Like a Rock: Hybrid Car Sales Plummet

Posted by Keith Johnson

 

Is Congres smarter than Detroit?

 

Put another way, what does it mean that sales of hybrid cars in the U.S. fell 50% in November—more than car sales fell overall in a terrible month for automakers?

Prius_art_257_20081209120527.jpg

Back to regular sticker shock (AP)

 

U.S. hybrid sales in November fell to 16,571 units, notes Green Car Congress. The slump affected everybody from Toyota and its market-leading Prius to smaller hybrid players like Ford and General Motors. That puts U.S. hybrid sales back where they were in November, 2005.

 

That also raises questions about the wisdom of Congressional insistence that Detroit retool its product line to build more hybrid and electric cars and fewer trucks and SUVs. As we noted earlier, Ford’s most resilient product in November was its F-150 pickup truck.

 

What’s behind the drop in hybrid sales? There are explanations for all tastes.

 

In a nutshell, the economic slump and credit crunch have kneecapped all car sales. Falling gasoline prices have been the coup de grace for hybrids.

 

Gasoline prices have fallen 58% since breaking $4.11 this summer; nationwide prices now average about $1.73 a gallon, the AAA says. Cheap gas makes expensive upfront investments in more fuel-efficient hybrids a difficult proposition–especially as some analysts talk of gas plunging toward $1 a gallon before long."

 

Link

 

Retooling that permits auto makers to respond as quickly and inexpensively as possible to changes in buyer preferences would be smart. Retooling that leaves them unresponsive and committed to cranking out cars that people outside of the car business think that the public should want, based on their personal value judgments and predictions about various elements of the future is dumb. Companies that can't evolve go extinct. End of story.

 

 

 

[bradleym]

Changes in the market have not changed the fact that a gallon of gasoline (weighs 8 lbs) burnt creates about 20 lbs of waste, including CO2. i don't think those issues are 'personal value judgments and predictions about various elements of the future'. Nor are they in any way addressed by the market. Congress should respond to such myopia not by dictating what kinds of cars to build, but by implementing a carbon tax (and removing some corporate welfare queens?) to prevent the price of gasoline from falling that low.

[JayB]

That would certainly be more reasonable than CAFE standards and other schemes that congress has used to drive fuel efficiency thus far, and would also account for the fact that CO2 emissions are driven by a person's total consumption, not simply what they choose to drive. The fact that owning a 4,000 square foot house with bay windows doesn't make you an eco-pariah so long as you put the recycling bin out front and have at least one Prius in the driveway has always been amusing to me.

 

A carbon tax might even be politically palatable if it was packaged so that gross personal income taxes had to be reduced by the amount collected via the carbon tax, and the tax-offset were somewhat skewed towards the lowest income taxpayers, for whom the actual burden of the tax would be highest.

 

[tvashtarkatena]

Ya,i sound just like my dad on the phone,so over the year's he's been told off by my ex-girlfriends or my buds would call and be like hay man i've got some "kill" lets get baked!! Even my brother's and sister's or his cant tell the difference and i'm the fourth kid!!!!

Some times it was funny shit,one GF had told him that she was going to fuck your brains out before he said i'll tell Norm you call,she was pissed at me when i got to her house WTF!!

 

Am I the only guy who needs a translator here?

[billcoe]

yes