I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday, Andy; you've read about him before, just lightly mentioned in prior writings. We use to work together and will occasionally have lunch or, like yesterday, simply call and see how the other is doing-if each of us were still employed. He answered the phone at work which was the first sign that he was still drawing an income.
It caused me to think, again, about how lucky I am, as well as many of the people I know, who are still drawing checks and able to provide for our families. It's a scary time. But, for a moment, lets step out of the dark house at the end of the street and into the sunlight of fiction and something with an appropriate laugh track. If we were in charge of say, General Motors, and someone was saying to us that in less than 60 days we were going to financially die unless we reinvented ourselves, what would that reinvention look like? Hmm? If you or I were in charge, what would the largest, greatest manufacturing company look like? What would it's product look like? Of course, I have an idea or two.
First, I want a car with the longest warranty possible. I want a warranty that if anything goes wrong with this car or truck, short of me taking a sedan four-wheeling in the Painted Desert, they'll fix it--for free. The Koreans, Japanese, Taiwanese, Vietnamese, and any other 'ese' rhyming countries, whom have only discovered the wonders of toilet seats in the last decade, are making a vehicle with a warranty of a full decade-A DECADE. American cars are still with a 3 year, 36,000 mile warranty and here's the bad part, you will have to use that warranty. If you buy a new American car, chances are, you will have to use it in the first 36 months. Bad form. One way around this is send your R and D team out to a Toyota dealership and have them buy a car, a good one, one Toyota sells a lot of, and bring it back to the garage. Then copy it. I mean build it like you stole it. Test the metal, the wiring, the fine imitation leather and copy its quality. They can complain all they want but since we all stole the idea of the "car" from some French guy in the late 1800's and no one is complaining about that, I think we're good to go.
Next, we don't need all these choices. There is no reason we need fifty-five vehicles to choose from. We're like kids going into a See's Candy Store and being told "Okay, honey, you can have one piece." Come on, we can't do that. We're Americans. We want ALL of them. The fewer choices the better. We got companies like Dodge, which is the bastard child of Chrysler, who basically change the name on the car and park it in their lot. We need one car for our first car-you know-single, going to college/work/reliable/large enough to carry one suitcase and our friend Cassidy to San Diego for a weekend on the beach. Then we need a family car. Something that you can sit three adults in the back seat comfortably or one dog, one adult, and one child in a car seat right in the middle. Then you need the post-kids car time for adults. Something with some class, a real nice radio and that imitation wood crap all around it. Oh and those back up cameras; not that you would use it but they are just soooo cool. Then, lastly, we need a truck. A good, strong, American Truck. It has four doors because, well, you want to be able to carry a few thousand pounds of crap in the back and the crew to load it and unload it. There, those are all the vehicles you need. Now, where you can play is in the color. Get some colors that you would find in a pimp's driveway.
Next, all of these cars run on hydrogen-period. We pull hydrogen out of the air, pump it into the tank, run it in our standard engine with minimum changes. The exhaust-pure water. The stuff coming out of the tailpipe is guess what-good for you, which is composed of--that's right-more hydrogen. We then, with a slight grin on our faces, turn to those countries in the Middle-East and say "Wow, that was fun. It was nice knowing you but we, ah, we have to go now. Enjoy." Each of those cars runs off of a fuel that makes more of itself as you use it, using present technology. Hmm. The demand that goes along with this is each vehicle needs to get a whole bunch of mileage. If we were head of GM, we would also meet for lunch with the heads of Exxon, Mobil, et.al along with the CEO of Seven-Eleven. Some place nice, with table cloths. The deal would be we would build the car to take the fuel, they would produce the fuel for sale for, let's say, 25 cents a gallon, and Seven-Eleven would provide the outlets. It has to be simple enough to fuel that my dead grandmother could do it.
Now the cost. I will not spend $30,000 for a car. I choke at $20,000. You got labor unions, whom I am a member of, demanding that the nineteen year old kid at the Detroit plant get $21 an hour to sweep the floor. The guy dropped out of high school when he was sixteen for Chrisssake because he couldn't pass elementary math. His cousin on his momma's side, Vinny, told him that when he got out of prison for selling drugs on campus, he could come work at the plant. Come on, the guy gets minimum wage for pushing a broom-not a dime more, oh, maybe a locker. That's it. If he doesn't like it, then go back to school, and find your brain. YOU'RE PUSHING A BROOM! Remember who is buying these cars, especially the first one. Your loving child who is working hard at going to school and working part time. She/he deserves a great, dependable car for under, oh, $5,000. It ain't fancy but it will run until you they give it to their kids-250,000 miles later. I'll pay more for the nice car after kids. It'll make me feel better.
Yep, that's what it would look like. Clean, simple, the air would start to turn blue again. We'd have more money in our pockets because it costs us just cheeseburger money to fill up. And all our children would be home from the Middle-east because, well, our beaches have enough sand thank you. We don't need to export anymore and, frankly, there is nothing else you have that we really want or need. Oh, here's a Bible. Try reading this one.
Now, we just have to decide what that crap is we're going to load into the truck first. What do you think?
No comments:
Post a Comment