Cash for Clunkers

Cash for Clunkers starts today.

Almost 16,000 U.S. auto dealers have applied to participate in the “cash-for-clunkers” vehicle trade-in program, or about 80 percent of the nation’s new- vehicle retailers, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said.

The government is trying to help jump-start slumping auto sales through the program, giving consumers new-vehicle credits of as much as $4,500 for turning in older cars.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will be administering the program. Car dealers, not consumers, will need to register for the program on www.cars.gov; the only official Federal website. If you have a car that qualifies, you can contact any local car dealer to help you with the program. Dealer registration for the CARS program started on 7/24/2009.

Cash for Clunkers Facts.

Cash for Clunkers Twitter.

Read more...

Michael Moore on the Auto Industry

I've had nothing but trouble with two American made cars in the last five years - Ford - the transmission went in the first, and the drivetrain in the second. I had extended warranties on both, neither warranty was honored. However, despite my personal feelings toward these "miserably inept crapmobile makers" as Michael Moore puts it, I feel the same way he does. Since he has much better ideas than I do (I don't have any) and since he is the master articulator...

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008
Saving the Big 3 for You and Me ...a message from Michael Moore

Friends,

I drive an American car. It's a Chrysler. That's not an endorsement. It's more like a cry for pity.
And now for a decades-old story, retold ad infinitum by tens of millions of Americans, a third of whom have had to desert their country to simply find a damn way to get to work in something that won't break down:

My Chrysler is four years old. I bought it because of its smooth and comfortable ride.

Daimler-Benz owned the company then and had the good grace to place the Chrysler chassis on a Mercedes axle and, man, was that a sweet ride!

When it would start.

More than a dozen times in these years, the car has simply died. Batteries have been replaced, but that wasn't the problem. My dad drives the same model. His car has died many times, too. Just won't start, for no reason at all.

A few weeks ago, I took my Chrysler in to the Chrysler dealer here in northern Michigan -- and the latest fixes cost me $1,400. The next day, the vehicle wouldn't start. When I got it going, the brake warning light came on. And on and on.

You might assume from this that I couldn't give a rat's ass about these miserably inept crapmobile makers down the road in Detroit city. But I do care. I care about the millions whose lives and livelihoods depend on these car companies. I care about the security and defense of this country because the world is running out of oil -- and when it runs out, the calamity and collapse that will take place will make the current recession/depression look like a Tommy Tune musical.

And I care about what happens with the Big 3 because they are more responsible than almost anyone for the destruction of our fragile atmosphere and the daily melting of our polar ice caps.

Congress must save the industrial infrastructure that these companies control and the jobs they create. And it must save the world from the internal combustion engine. This great, vast manufacturing network can redeem itself by building mass transit and electric/hybrid cars, and the kind of transportation we need for the 21st century.

And Congress must do all this by NOT giving GM, Ford and Chrysler the $34 billion they are asking for in "loans" (a few days ago they only wanted $25 billion; that's how stupid they are -- they don't even know how much they really need to make this month's payroll. If you or I tried to get a loan from the bank this way, not only would we be thrown out on our ear, the bank would place us on some sort of credit rating blacklist).

Two weeks ago, the CEOs of the Big 3 were tarred and feathered before a Congressional committee who sneered at them in a way far different than when the heads of the financial industry showed up two months earlier. At that time, the politicians tripped over each other in their swoon for Wall Street and its Ponzi schemers who had concocted Byzantine ways to bet other people's money on unregulated credit default swaps, known in the common vernacular as unicorns and fairies.

But the Detroit boys were from the Midwest, the Rust (yuk!) Belt, where they made real things that consumers needed and could touch and buy, and that continually recycled money into the economy (shocking!), produced unions that created the middle class, and fixed my teeth for free when I was ten.

For all of that, the auto heads had to sit there in November and be ridiculed about how they traveled to D.C. Yes, they flew on their corporate jets, just like the bankers and Wall Street thieves did in October. But, hey, THAT was OK! They're the Masters of the Universe! Nothing but the best chariots for Big Finance as they set about to loot our nation's treasury.

Of course, the auto magnates used be the Masters who ruled the world. They were the pulsating hub that all other industries -- steel, oil, cement contractors -- served. Fifty-five years ago, the president of GM sat on that same Capitol Hill and bluntly told Congress, what's good for General Motors is good for the country. Because, you see, in their minds, GM WAS the country.

What a long, sad fall from grace we witnessed on November 19th when the three blind mice had their knuckles slapped and then were sent back home to write an essay called, "Why You Should Give Me Billions of Dollars of Free Cash." They were also asked if they would work for a dollar a year. Take that! What a big, brave Congress they are! Requesting indentured servitude from (still) three of the most powerful men in the world. This from a spineless body that won't dare stand up to a disgraced president nor turn down a single funding request for a war that neither they nor the American public support. Amazing.

Let me just state the obvious: Every single dollar Congress gives these three companies will be flushed right down the toilet. There is nothing the management teams of the Big 3 are going to do to convince people to go out during a recession and buy their big, gas-guzzling, inferior products. Just forget it. And, as sure as I am that the Ford family-owned Detroit Lions are not going to the Super Bowl -- ever -- I can guarantee you, after they burn through this $34 billion, they'll be back for another $34 billion next summer.

So what to do? Members of Congress, here's what I propose:

1. Transporting Americans is and should be one of the most important functions our government must address. And because we are facing a massive economic, energy and environmental crisis, the new president and Congress must do what Franklin Roosevelt did when he was faced with a crisis (and ordered the auto industry to stop building cars and instead build tanks and planes): The Big 3 are, from this point forward, to build only cars that are not primarily dependent on oil and, more importantly to build trains, buses, subways and light rail (a corresponding public works project across the country will build the rail lines and tracks). This will not only save jobs, but create millions of new ones.

2. You could buy ALL the common shares of stock in General Motors for less than $3 billion. Why should we give GM $18 billion or $25 billion or anything? Take the money and buy the company! (You're going to demand collateral anyway if you give them the "loan," and because we know they will default on that loan, you're going to own the company in the end as it is. So why wait? Just buy them out now.

3. None of us want government officials running a car company, but there are some very smart transportation geniuses who could be hired to do this. We need a Marshall Plan to switch us off oil-dependent vehicles and get us into the 21st century.

This proposal is not radical or rocket science. It just takes one of the smartest people ever to run for the presidency to pull it off. What I'm proposing has worked before. The national rail system was in shambles in the '70s. The government took it over. A decade later it was turning a profit, so the government returned it to private/public hands, and got a couple billion dollars put back in the treasury.

This proposal will save our industrial infrastructure -- and millions of jobs. More importantly, it will create millions more. It literally could pull us out of this recession.

In contrast, yesterday General Motors presented its restructuring proposal to Congress. They promised, if Congress gave them $18 billion now, they would, in turn, eliminate around 20,000 jobs. You read that right. We give them billions so they can throw more Americans out of work. That's been their Big Idea for the last 30 years -- layoff thousands in order to protect profits.
But no one ever stopped to ask this question: If you throw everyone out of work, who's going to have the money to go out and buy a car?

These idiots don't deserve a dime. Fire all of them, and take over the industry for the good of the workers, the country and the planet.

What's good for General Motors IS good for the country. Once the country is calling the shots.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore. com

P.S. I will be on Keith Olbermann tonight (8pm/10pm/midnight ET) to discuss this further on MSNBC.

Read more...

Patriotic Bumper Stickers on Hummers Are For Wimps.

Instead, put your money where your mouth is and buy a patriotic car!

"Who Killed the Electric Car" is a powerful documentary on the birth of the electric car or Battery Electric Vehicles (BEVs) - vehicles that use rechargeable battery packs, electric motors and motor controllers instead of internal combustion engines (ICEs) - and how the combined effort of big oil, the Bush Administration and the California Air Resources Board cave-in to the auto industry killed these cars in 2003.

Fast forward to 2008 and the subject of electric cars (BEV/PHEV) - cars that require no gas and could run for 100 miles on one charge - surface once again.

Anyway, in the meantime, you don't have to wait to get rid of your gas-guzzling, globe heating, Osama Bin Laden enabling terror mobile to sport one of these electric beauties as they are available right now.

Not only will these gems save you money in gas, save planet earth, and stop terrorists right in their tracks, they will cut out any need you may have for anti-depressants.

How can you possibly feel depressed driving around in your own bright, cheery bubble-gum colored bumper car as you relive those wonderful amusement park days.

Electric cars run off a battery and that's it...just quickly recharge and you're good to go. Best of all, these little bubble gum balls on wheels can travel up to 75 mph!


No, I am not advertising these vehicles as I know next to nothing about them...only that they remind me of bubble gum, bumper cars and fun times.

Read more...

Rhetoric

As the LA Times points out there have been more than 245,000 deaths due to traffic accidents in the United States alone since 9/11, yet there are no alarms, no wars...no response of any kind.

"A few days ago, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced that 42,642 Americans died in traffic in 2006. Did you hear this reported anywhere?"

"Road Kill" is a not just problem we face in this country but a global one as well. This is the first time in history that statistics show death by traffic accident surpasses death by mortal combat. It's nice to know that our world is becoming more "civilized" but the opposite appears to be true because of the attention the media gives "mortal combat" and the "rhetoric" our politicians continue to use such as "war on terror".

Three simple words, "war on terror" have caused more terror, globally, than they have prevented since 9/11. People focus in on these simple words because it feels much better to combat a force that we feel we are not responsible than rhetoric that may be less black and white, more complex; words that focuses our attention on ourselves; words that force us to take some responsibility for the problem at hand such as the way we choose to transport ourselves.

Politicians carefully choose their words making sure they divert our attention away from issues such as the automobile industry's relationship with their advertisers which may, in turn, cause the media to avoid reporting on how lethal our highways have become and toward focusing on an issue that may or may not exist, but does not have the impact of the one they're directing our attention away.

"This political language has created a frame that is not accurate and that Bush and his gang have used to justify anything they want to do," Edwards said in a phone interview from Everett, Wash. "It's been used to justify a whole series of things that are not justifiable, ranging from the war in Iraq, to torture, to violation of the civil liberties of Americans, to illegal spying on Americans. Anyone who speaks out against these things is treated as unpatriotic. I also think it suggests that there's a fixed enemy that we can defeat with just a military campaign. I just don't think that's true."-- John Edwards

Read more...

Donating Cars to Charity

If you are donating an old car to charity make sure you donate it to a charity that, in turn donates it to someone else in need. Under new IRS rules, in an organization auctions off a used vehicle, the former owner can only claim the amount the group gets for the sale, which could be well below market value.

BUT donations to charities that supply cars to needy people can be taken at full value.
Check out 1-800-CHARITY CARS, the first and only national charity of its kind that
provides donated vehicles free of charge to struggling families willing to work and become self-sufficient, tax-paying members of the community.

Read more...