Amazon.com Widgets

As featured on p. 218 of "Bloggers on the Bus," under the name "a MyDD blogger."

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Somewhat Repsonsible

You don't see many companies impacting shareholders and executives the way GM did today. Although, it's an open question whether this dividend slash and executive pay cut is merely an olive branch to the unions in order to exact a similar giveback to the company down the road. And certainly, the investor and executive class can afford such a maneuver; the rank and file likely cannot.

What would be really responsible is getting together with engineers and designers and making cars that have higher fuel efficiency that don't break down, which people actually might want to buy. I'll be in the market for a car in June, and I'd like to be able to at least have American automakers on my list. But their disregard for anything but the SUV market and shoddy quality standards makes it pretty impossible for someone like me to buy American.

How about taking the advice of John York, GM's chief adviser, and dropping the Hummer? I saw more SUV ads in the Super Bowl than any other car class. America's addiction to oil is fed by these marketing techniques.

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