Off to Washington

It appears the place to be these days is Washington.

No, not because of the election, but because of the foolish, financial fiasco businesses in America have fostered on themselves and are attempting to push off on the American people.

I find myself wondering if it would be worth taking off from my job and jetting to Washington on a bankrupt airline. All for the opportunity to look for the window where one shows up with his hand out and gets buckets of tax dollars because, well, because business is greedy and Congress is stupid.

Sub prime mortgages have sank millions of families and hundreds of banks. I must confess I am not crying for the banks. To me banks are the boils on the buttocks of society. They have lobbied Congress to get extortion interest rates and fees to bleed the billfolds of the middle class.

Now their bottom line is hemorrhaging and I like that. When I canceled my Citi card last year, I told them I wanted to do my part to sink their ship since they had worked so hard to sink mine. I enjoy seeing Citi flounder, and no, I don't feel sorry for those overpaid glass hearted gluttons. I relish every billion dollars they write off.

And now, Congress has done such a good job of bailing out the banks that Detroit is driving to the capital to get their fair share. If they drive their own creations, they better take lots of gas and a spare car in the truck. Which is why they are in the spot they are in.

I have never owned a non American plated car and I have owned 12 autos during my adult life. I have owned GM, Chrysler, and Ford--mostly Fords. I own two Fords now. The most miles I have been able to churn out of an American plated auto is 185,000. The rest were best left along side the road before they reached 100,000 miles.

See, I think the Big 3 are where they are because for the last 50 years at least their products have been poorly made, poorly designed, and poorly maintained through dealers who were largely driven by greed not service. So, they are tottering on the brink of bankruptcy. I would feel more sorry for them if I knew they had not left millions of owners in broken down pieces of junk while they turned a deaf ear to their customers' appeals for help. I am not sure there is enough bytes of cyberspace to contain all the horror stories of American automobile owners stiffed by dealers, ignored by Big 3 "Customer Disservice," and slippery warranties worth about as much as the paper on which they were written. Very few motorists today who have bought a new or used automobile have not had one or more cars that should have never been built or kept. Out of the 12 I have owned, at least 6--50% were junk, good old fashioned, every day, ordinary, run of the mill junk. And now these Detroit underachievers, pockets padded with the hard earned money of hard working Americans want us to bail them out because they can't build a car Americans want to drive.

And Congress, more afraid of losing lobby money than losing voter support will buckle under the pressure and find some lame reason to give away billions more tax dollars. And for what? To keep underachieving Big 3 autos clogging the highways of the world.

It may be that American automobile owners may be so disgusted over this most recent stunt of the Detroit 3, they will rebel and flock to real cars made by real automobile makers who know how to make a four wheel transportation device that doesn't drain one's bank account, pollute the world, and fall apart about 1 year before it is paid for.

Let's not be afraid to envision a nation where greed and mediocrity in finance, in airline travel, in automobile manufacturing are finally laid to rest all together in a swampy marsh. I would suggest that all those unsold cars would make good personal burial devices. For once, they wouldn't pollute, and for once it wouldn't matter if the wheels fell off.

The occupants weren't going anywhere anyway!