Doyle For Sale!

I just came across this site. I am sure someone has already pointed it out. It looks like the last time it was updated was in late August. I am sure this is because he wants to keep his nose clean while he is campaigning. Check it out anyway.

www.doyleforsale.com

It looks like it is run by The Coalition For American Families.

HT: CL R&R Board

A Sign Of Things To Come?

Why is it lately that I wake up every day feeling as if I have already been screwed? Yeah, this is going to be one of those kinds of posts. I don’t often do these kinds of posts, but haven’t found anything else lately that I really want to talk about.

Nothing.

I really don’t feel like talking about why BagMan Jimbo is a slimeball. We all already know that and most of the people in the “Cheddarsphere” beat the crap out of him on a daily basis.

I really don’t feel like talking about election ads, election funds and or why Jim Sensenbrenner will cream the crap out of those two peons running against him.

I really don’t feel like talking about why Gwen Moore shouldn’t be reelected. She still will, and probably will until she dies.

I don’t want to talk about how ridiculously overtaxed we are in Wisconsin.

I don’t want to talk about how people are being murdered all over Milwaukee and how we don’t have a “crisis.”

I don’t want to talk about having to put my car in storage. I don’t want to talk about how it’s supposed to be a warm winter because of “La Nina.”

I don’t want to talk about how everyday I put that “Corn-a-hol” shit in my ’72 VW that I could hear that engine choking for it’s life.

I also don’t want to talk about why I feel that the only fuel alternative that makes sense is being ignored because there is no money in refining grease.

No, I don’t want to talk about any of those things.

I want to talk about our economy. Short and sweet. On Thursday, October 19, 2006 the Dow Jones Industrial reached a dizzying high closing above 12000 points. I am sure that most of you already know this and have been paying attention.

It is all a sham. Smoke and mirrors. BS.

WHY?

How has business been for you lately? Are you posting company highs and record earnings? Is your business so busy right now that you can’t keep up? No, I didn’t think so. Those of you that I know who read this blog don’t work for Archer Daniels Midland.

How has the value of your house been lately? More importantly, do you own a home, or is it mortgaged? What kind of mortgage do you have? I hope you aren’t like some of those poor souls that got suckered into an arm or a variable rate. I hope you didn’t finance 125% of that new home’s value when you bought it 3 years ago. I hope you aren’t trying to refi out of that variable rate mortgage now only to find out that you are upside down… in a house.

I hope, on the other hand, that you are one of the lucky souls in a great financial position. I hope that you have a very equitable debt to income ratio. I hope someone didn’t slam you into a bad spot.

Someone like GM, DamChry or FoMoCo.

It has finally happened. I knew it would and have been talking about it for quite some time. If you know me more intimately than the blogosphere, you would know that I have been talking about this for some time. How many times can you roll inequity before it’s one too many? How much did you finance into that new car loan for 96 months? 115%? 125%? 140%? How much depreciation can you handle in one year? 30%? 40%? Dare I say 50%? (That’s for those of you in Neons, Cavaliers and old body style Suburbans/Tahoes.)

Do you realize that the retail automobile industry is a huge indicator of our economy? Do you realize that for every car that a car salesman sells that it creates and or supports 6 jobs? Did you realize that once we see sales come to a screeching halt, you will see it too? What about service? Yeah, that’s dried up too. Besides repairing customer’s cars, they maintain cars on the lot that aren’t being moved. So no new ones come in… and work doesn’t turn over like it’s supposed to.

We were down roughly 40% last month form September, 2005. September is a huge month. This month doesn’t look too much better. This isn’t just my shop, this is everywhere.

Why the big 3? When you continue to pull future buyers out of the market, it creates a small ripple. That small ripple gets bigger and bigger. It gets big enough until that halt comes.

Hear it? I do. And it sounds more like a small recession than a screech.

Don’t believe me, wait and see. ’07 will be a trying time. And it won’t be just for me.

Advertising Wars

A Marketing Mokuso may want to pay attention to the recent ad wars between several European and one Japanese car manufacturer waged in print.

BMW opens fire...


Followed quickly by an Audi counter strike...



Subaru throws their hat in the ring...


With Bentley finishing with the trump car(d).



HA!

HT: NatroVR6 @ Venom

Salty I Bet

Have a good Friday. See you next week!

A Taste Of Things To Come

What can we expect if Kathleen Falk is elected as the Attorney General in Wisconsin? Nothing good that I can foresee, but I have been wrong before. In the past Kathleen has been known to prosecute frivolous, meaningless lawsuits that do nothing but attack big business and waste time and money, especially to big businesses who aren't necessarily in the wrong and have to pony up the dough to pay their lawyers. Is this just one thing that we can expect in the future?

Maybe Kathleen and Bill Lockyer, Attorney General of the fine state of California, are good pals. Maybe. Time will certainly tell if Kathleen gets elected. In the mean time, we can only guess.

So who is Bill? If you have been paying attention lately, you may have noticed that Bill has taken a page out of the Kathleen Falk book of tricks and filed a lawsuit against GM, Ford, Dodge, Honda, Nissan and Toyota. Yes, even the very "green" Toyota. The lawsuit alleges that these manufacturers have been building automobile for years(no shit, eh?) that burn gasoline and diesel and create harmful emissions. These emissions "add to global warming, harm people’s health, damage the welfare of the state, lessen the snowpack on California’s mountains, and pollute rivers." All of this is reason enough for Bill to seek tens of millions of dollars.

Now, as many of you may have guessed, I am not a lawyer. In fact, if you can draw a conclusion, you can look at the top of my page and read what it is that I might be. Therefore, take it from an expert. Ben Stein (anyone?) wrote an excellent article in the New York Slimes last week that sums it up pretty damn good. A couple of excerpts for you lucky readers here to follow.

-Snip-

Now, for all of you who were not law students, Mr. Lockyer’s suit is a tort suit, such as you might file if you were parked at a stoplight and a car behind you failed to stop and slammed into your car, crushing it and injuring you.

The reason it’s called a tort suit is that the French word “tort” means a wrong or a wrongdoing, and failing to stop at a stoplight is wrong. The same would apply if a restaurant negligently poisoned you or if your neighbor crashed his car into your mailbox.

The point is that a wrong has to have been done in order for there to be a lawsuit. This is the problem, or one of the problems, with the attorney general’s lawsuit. The car companies have done nothing wrong. It’s that simple. They manufacture a perfectly legal product, a car or truck. They manufacture it in accordance with strict regulations about every single aspect of its building and use.

Excited yet? It gets better...

-Snip-

So, for making a lawful product that complies with regulations and is necessary and bought by millions of Californians each year, all knowing that their cars produce emissions, G.M., Ford and the others are being sued.

Where is the wrong here? What have the car companies done that is a wrongful act, except in the imagination of an attorney general?

-Snip-

The assault on automobile companies does not allege even the slightest degree of deception as to how cars work. Everyone knows that cars and trucks burn fuel, and that this process produces emissions. How could there be deception here? More to the point, if we as a people do not know that burning gasoline and diesel fuel causes carbon dioxide emissions, we are in such a state of willful ignorance that we have, as lawyers say, “assumed the risk.”

-Snip-

But where is the causation in Mr. Lockyer’s suit? How do we know that the lung and heart damage and global warming and melting snowpack were not caused by industrial emissions or by emissions that come from China and India and drift over California? How can anyone prove that any specific damage was done by any specific set of cars and trucks or by all of them? How can anyone prove that any specific amount of global warming was caused by any car maker?

Oohhh, very good stuff. I am pretty excited. Especially knowing that this could be hitting home really, really soon. Ben Stein does an excellent job writing this article and pointing out how silly, stupid and frivolous of a sham lawsuit that it is. Makes you kinda wonder how dumb Bill Lockyer must feel after reading this article, assuming that is, that he did read it.


HT: DeLorenzo at AuotExtremist.com

PS - Thanks to those who have noticed my absence. You may stop your bitching now as I posted. You know who you are...