In the first two months of the year, the number of buyers considering a GM or Chrysler vehicle fell 12% and 33%, respectively, according to CNW Marketing Research, which specializes in the auto industry. At the same time, Ford saw a 12% increase in consideration.
Government intervention is a recipe for failure. Ford is doing better because there are people, like me, who will never consider GM or Chrysler again and who appreciate Ford's stance to not rely on the government. Now that Obama thinks he owns the company, GM will likely tank more.
But I don't know... there are a lot of gullible people out there who think government is cool. I hope that they don't have to learn the truth the hard way.
Tonight, between 8:30 PM and 9:30 PM, we're supposed to celebrate "Earth Hour." We're supposed to turn off all of our lights.
What an utterly ridiculous idea.
Instead, I'm with Glenn Reynolds and I will do what I usually do on Saturday nights, which is to be utterly productive. I'm working on a web site for a client. My wife lays nearby as eye candy for me on our couch, reading by lamp light. My sons are downstairs playing XBox.
Personally, I take great joy in productivity. What a silly notion to shut off my lights and do nothing for an hour. I do that when I sleep, resting from busting my tail.
Environmentalists hate people. Not me.
ETC:More proof that the apostle of all things environmental doesn't give a rip about his own cause.
The kicker, though, were the dozen or so floodlights grandly highlighting several trees and illuminating the driveway entrance of Gore's mansion.
I [kid] you not, my friends, the savior of the environment couldn't be bothered to turn off the gaudy lights that show off his goofy trees.
Hillary Clinton, our nation's Secretary of State, was on Greta last night - and begged North Korea to please oh please just talk to us.
VAN SUSTEREN: Back home, headlines now about North Korea, and so I'm going to try to pry some answers out of you on North Korea. What are we going to do about North Korea?
CLINTON: Well, you and I were just talking before the cameras started rolling because you're one of the few people I know who's actually been there and who understand that it is a -- you know, it's a different environment.
You've got to figure out how to convince them to act in what we consider to be, you know, the interests of the people of North Korea but also the interests of the rest of the world.
I have been very clear, President Obama has been very clear, we would like to get back to the kind of talks that led to the initial steps in their de-nuclearization. The six-party framework that involves all of the neighbors, each of whom have a stake in what happens in North Korea -- we have offered that. I sent word that we would like to have our special envoy for North Korean policy go to Pyongyang. They didn't want him to come.
So we're working hard. And if they're watching you, I'm sure that since you were there, you made a big impression, went to a karaoke bar in Pyongyang.
(LAUGHTER)
CLINTON: They probably still remember you. If they're watching -- if anybody from North Korea is watching this program with you, Greta...
VAN SUSTEREN: I do a mean Elvis karaoke.
CLINTON: I bet. You know, we'd love for them to begin to talk about what we can do together to fulfill the framework of the six-party talks.
Seriously? America? Begging North Korea to come talk to us on national TV?? Watch it for yourself.
I heard this on Rush today, and this is just so anemic. Is this what America's foreign policy has become?
President Barack Obama is putting former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker in charge of a tax-code review aimed at closing loopholes, streamlining the law and generating revenue, budget Director Peter Orszag said.
Just to clarify... government never "generates revenue." Government doesn't have a product or service that would attract people to purchase it freely. That's how you generate revenue - you create something that others crave so that they would part with their hard-earned money to have it.
Generating revenue? Bullshit. It's confiscation. That's why Obama is nothing more than the Thief-in-Chief. HopechangeTM!
By the way, regarding Obama's Smart Meter technology initiative...
The idea that a Smart Meter, a device that allows the consumer to more easily comprehend their peak energy usage, will invigorate the economy and job creation...
A couple of points:
Let's take a real-life example. Georgia Power is spending $254 million to replace 2.25 million business and residential meters. That's a cost of about $112 per replacement. From the article, "the meter will be able to help customers manage power consumption by telling them their usage during high-demand times of the day."
Does that save energy - by telling me that I'm using a lot of energy? Would that knowledge change my usage?
Georgia Power is installing these because it makes reading the meter easier, not because it saves a bunch of money. Well, I take that back. No more "meter man." That job disappears. Cost savings for Georgia Power there...
My energy bill for my home here is about $220 a month. I can't imagine that I'll change my lifestyle to consume less electricity for a savings of $20 or $30 a month. Why would I? It's not breaking my bank to consume as I do. In fact, it's worth it to me to consume as I do. Obviously... or I wouldn't do it.
So where are the jobs created from this? From Obama's interactive press conference:
We could set up systems so that everybody in each house have their own smart meters that will tell you when to turn off the lights, when the peak hours are, can help you sell back energy that you've generated in your home through a solar panel or through other mechanisms. All this can be done, but it also creates jobs right now. Our biggest problem, we don't have enough electricians to lay all these lines out there.
Ahem... Georgia Power has already replaced about 1 million customers' meters. They're scheduled to be done in 2011. Project managed. So evidently we have enough folks at the power companies to do this already - it's well underway.
Also, this kills jobs. The meter man is replaced. Gone.
Why does this guy get away with outright lies?
I mentioned in a previous post that what creates jobs is increased productivity and greater profitability. Is turning down electricity during peak usage going to increase productivity? The few bucks saved by the few individuals who will change their consumption because of these devices - will they run out and start companies with their savings? Oh, wait... that would require energy consumption. Kind of defeats the purpose... so probably no jobs there either. And of course, taxing the high income earners won't encourage job creation...
What a head-scratcher, these magical jobs. No doubt traded for a cow on the way to his presidency. But then cows are a source of methane and carbon dioxide, so maybe by getting rid of the cow and acquiring these magic jobs he'll find golden eggs and we'll all be rich.
My friend, Kelly, sends me the link to Peter Schiff, the economy guy who runs rings around every member of Obama's administration. He is being urged to run against that doddering old corrupt fool, Chris Dodd, for the US Senate in Connecticutt. This grassroots effort to recruit him to the cause is emblematic of what people are doing to wrest power from the ineptitude and corruption in Washington.
Five of the top twenty are conservative books, promoting freedom and the way of the origin of this country.
I got my copy of Mark Levin's Liberty and Tyranny, which as of yesterday had a printing of 512,000 - and that's just two days into its publication. I bought my four oldest children their own copy as well.
I quoted Levin's quote of Lincoln from the back of the book the other day, which is also the source of its title. Here's another quote, this time Levin himself, describing this country's founding principles:
A free people living in a civil society, working in self-interested cooperation, and a government operating within the limits of its authority promote more prosperity, opportunity, and happiness for more people than any alternative.
I love that... "self-interested cooperation." It's a terrific picture of how people can respect each other's property and work with one another, and how government, properly positioned in the background of society, can partner with the free individual to work for the individual's pursuit of happiness. Not by interference or intervention, but by wisely limiting itself to self-restrained authority.
Government doesn't have to be evil, but when it overreaches and when it encroaches on the freedom of the civil individual, then its politicians become tyrants and government is no longer a partner for prosperity, but an adversary to be fought. And that is what we have today. And that is precisely why America immerses itself in re-learning the principles of freedom and capitalist productivity. It is that roused self-interest that gives me hope - not the false hope of a managed society centered on the leadership of one man. Such false hopes are childish, naive, and - for the power they bestow upon such leadership - dangerous.
