I am Joe

I am everyman.

I wonder what the future will hold.

I wonder if I'll be penalized for being successful.

I wonder if I should start that business that employs 10 - 100 people.

I wonder if an Obama administration will cause me to lose my profitablity.

I wonder if I will have to pay by taxes to provide for those who choose to not work.

I wonder if our great nation is going to turn Socialist.

I wonder if Obama will compromise our national defense.

I wonder about a Democratic supermajority including a Congress that has the lowest national approval rating in history.

I am Joe.

Advice for American Automakers

Here's what you can do to correct your problems:

Take emergency action to save your jobs and your companies now.

1. Cut your prices to competitive levels. That means Toyota pricing *gasp* or something even better - beat their prices.

2. Roll a Camry into your design engineer's workshop and tell them simply this "If you don't beat this design in one year you are fired"

3. Reduce the size of your vehicles. Make them lighter. Make them easier to handle. We don't want the Tank.

4. Consider hybrid technology as a stopgap solution and work toward the completion of plug in electric technology. Then quickly accelerate to plug in technology. Do not put your hybrid technology in heavy SUVs and Trucks. It's counterproductive unless you intend to make this technology as an option fleet-wide.

5. Consider a little humility in your customer sales department. Perhaps publicly admitting that you have made design mistakes in the past. Do take polls. Stop listening to your own propaganda. Build cars that people need. People need fuel efficient, highly reliable, maintenance free vehicles. They would also like them to be safe and they would like them to be comfortable and fun to drive.

6. Please, Please, PLEASE stop building ugly cars!!!! The crossover phenomenon has created a bastardization between a truck and a car, and it is hideous.

7. Please stop trying to make retro cars that look like a '67 Volvo. They look stupid.

8. Work with labor in good faith to empower the worker. Perhaps stock sharing, or a company worker/ownership plan so that the worker feels an investment in the company. If you do these things that the Japanese have already been doing, you just might survive.

9. Consider firing anybody that says "We just can't do it". You don't have the time or money to tolerate naysayers at any level of management, and your jobs and the integrity of the American Auto industry is on the line.

10. In your dealerships, make sure that you really serve your customers, and that you meet or exceed their expectations. Eventually Customer loyalty will return.

11. Drop the pandering to the special interest groups. You are an American companies, not political action committees.

This Scam Was Forseen

As the wealthy and various companies seek to buy their way to carbon neutrality, thus proving their concern for the welfare of the planet and improving their status among the worshipers of the Goracle, the Financial Times has conducted an investigation of organizations that peddle 'ecological indulgences," as Charles Krauthammer calls them. These organizations have been found wanting, succeeding only in cashing in on the consciences of the rich in a lucrative green "gold mine." This whole scam was forseen by Krauthammer, who described some of the practices of carbon offsetting companies.

Here are some of the Financial Times findings:

■ Widespread instances of people and organisations buying worthless credits that do not yield any reductions in carbon emissions.

■ Industrial companies profiting from doing very little – or from gaining carbon credits on the basis of efficiency gains from which they have already benefited substantially.

■ Brokers providing services of questionable or no value.

■ A shortage of verification, making it difficult for buyers to assess the true value of carbon credits.

■ Companies and individuals being charged over the odds for the private purchase of European Union carbon permits that have plummeted in value because they do not result in emissions cuts.

The FT article mentions how some companies are working on their own in-house carbon offsetting, rather than trusting a separate entity to wash away their globally wasteful and polluting sins. This would make more sense, as concern for the environment should be personal and not shoved off to some profiteering third party.