The number one single today in 1960 was written by a one-hit wonder and sung by a different one-hit wonder:
The number 45 45 today in 1964 was this group’s first, but not last:
Today in 1974, members of Free, Mott the Hoople and King Crimson formed Bad Company:
The number one album today in 1976 was Earth Wind & Fire’s “Gratitude” …
The number one British album today in 1999 was Fatboy Slim’s “You’ve Come a Long Way Baby”:
Horsepower Kings asks:
Can you imagine a Mustang GT with no V8? Can you imagine Ford announcing a 2018 Mustang GT, ‘powered by Ecoboost V6?’ We can’t either, and frankly, it makes us sick to even think about. That is why the following information is disturbing on so many levels.
We spent the better part of the day on the ground floor at the COBO Center attending the NAIAS. We are back here at the MGM Grand in Detroit, and what we took away from today was all the buzz surrounding the freshly-debuted Ford GT and 2017 F-150 Raptor. Unsurprisingly, much of that buzz is in regards to the lack of a V8 in these two high profile Ford vehicles.
The lack of a V8 is concerning, especially when discussing such a high profile halo car as the new Ford GT. After all, the entire history of this car revolves around it’s V8 powerplant. Some would argue that it’s the heart and soul of the Ford GT/GT40 legacy, and we would agree.
Regardless, when Ford finally debuted the next-gen Ford GT, powered by a 3.5L Ecoboost V6, our hearts started palpitating. You see, it’s not just the fact that this Ford supercar is powered by a V6 – what is most alarming is that Ford is showing us a very clear picture of the future of their Performance Division. …
Troubled by these horrible thoughts, we were able to have a quick chat with one of the many Ford reps here at the show. You see, if you attend enough Auto Shows, you start to build professional and personal relationships with the same manufacturer representatives over the years. And while our source certainly isn’t the end-all of Ford’s future plans, the information he provided us apparently echoes the larger opinion and direction of the executives at Ford. Our source has also been pretty reliable over the years, specifically in regards to Mustangs. If you aren’t sitting down right now, please take a seat – this news might be hard to take:
“Ford is definitely phasing out the V8 motor altogether”, he said – word for word. “CAFE and EPA are working very hard discreetly to make sure of that. There is quite a bit going on at Ford that the public is in the dark about. The impression that I am getting is that Ford wants to continue it’s V8 program, but things have (rather recently) taken a new direction, presumably from CAFE/EPA pressure in mid to late 2013. Ford has invested quite a bit of money into the ‘Coyote’ program over the years, and even had plans of going DI (Direct Injection). The future development budget for the 5.2L FPC motor has dwindled, and there is talk that this motor may continue it’s life exclusively in the form of sanctioned racing series, not on the street. The next big thing for Ford at this point is weight savings. They are trying to lighten these Mustangs to get high performance numbers out of the EcoBoost, and whether we like it or not, that is the (near) future. It’s not Ford’s fault, and you can thank the Gov’t for this – not the consumer”.
Our source later went on to explain that “The rebranding/reshuffling of the Ford Performance Division is all a result of this added EPA pressure. Ford wasn’t going to fund a performance program unless it’s primary focus was on the smaller EcoBoost motors, so SVT and Ford Racing were dissolved into this new Performance Division. And unfortunately, it would be foolish to expect to see any new V8 cars coming out of this new Performance Division. Ford Performance is going to be cranking out some very fast cars for some time, but even if the new Shelby GT500 gets the green light, it will likely be the last gasoline V8 that Ford will ever produce.”
A performance Mustang without a V-8? Actually, I can visualize that …
… though to call the V-6-powered 1974 Mustang II Mach 1 a “performance Mustang” is a huge stretch. For that matter, the 1975 Mustang, which did get a 302 V-8, could hardly be called a “performance Mustang” either given that it was equipped only with an automatic transmission to harness its 140 horsepower (the engine had a two-barrel carburetor and single exhaust). Buyers of the same-size Chevrolet Monza had one of two V-8s depending on where they were purchased. California buyers and those in high-altitude areas (because of different emissions requirements) got a 350 V-8 with all of 125 horsepower, while those outside those areas got a 262 V-8 with all of 110 horsepower.
This is similar to the slow death of the manual transmission, as well as the supposed next-generation Corvette. Those of us who prefer sticks, as well as those of us who prefer V-8s to smaller engines, are derided as opposing progress. (Conservatives should favor sticks, because (1) it’s something not everyone can do and (2) they are reminiscent of William F. Buckley’s statement about National Review magazine as standing “athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.”) They fail to realize that V-8s and manuals are about the driving experience as much as performance. No engine sounds like a V-8 (except a V-twin motorcycle engine), and nothing ever will. Whether an automated manual can shift faster than a human is not the point, and except for professional racers has never been the point.
The sentiment is probably not unique to Packer fans, but Packer fans are convinced Fox announcers Joe Buck and Troy Aikman hate the Packers.
The reason probably has to do with (1) Aikman’s having been the Cowboys’ quarterback, who engineered all the Packers losses to the Cowboys in the 1990s, and (2) some people’s belief that saying anything negative about your team means they hate your team.
Buck and Aikman will be announcing Sunday’s NFC championship, as they have done all of the Packers’ playoff games since Aaron Rodgers first got the Packers into the playoffs. (Including all four 2010–11 playoff games and the final two must-win home games before those.)
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel interviewed Buck and Aikman before last weekend’s NFC playoff game:
Let’s get this on the record right up front: Joe Buck loves Green Bay.
Fox’s top play-by-play football announcer enjoys coming to Wisconsin, even when the weather is less than hospitable. He respects Packers coach Mike McCarthy. He admires quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
His father, the legendary Jack Buck, was in the broadcast booth at Lambeau Field on that wretchedly, wickedly cold day 47 years ago when the Packers beat the Dallas Cowboys in the 1967 NFL Championship Game.
“I was indoctrinated in the Ice Bowl and the Packers at a very young age,” Buck said in a telephone interview.
So why do a lot of Packers fans think he has an anti-Green Bay bias?
“It cracks me up,” Buck said. “It’s equal parts funny and frustrating. It’s just baffling to me. I’ve said that McCarthy is the coach I would start a franchise with, and (Rodgers) is the quarterback I would start a franchise with.”
Buck and his partner, analyst Troy Aikman, will call the NFC divisional game between the Packers and Cowboys at 12:05 p.m. Sunday at Lambeau Field.
Aikman, the former Cowboys quarterback, beat the Packers regularly in the 1990s and won three Super Bowls. So maybe there’s some guilt by association?
“I think that’s part of it,” Buck said. “He had success against them. But Aikman feels the same way. Troy loves Aaron.”
Aikman said he took the criticism from Packers fans in stride.
“It’s just the nature of the business,” he said. “It’s not isolated to me or Joe or one crew. There was a petition for Phil Simms not to do Denver games. It’s part of the job. Joe probably said it best: Fans say, ‘We want you to be unbiased,’ but they really don’t. They want you to be biased toward their team.”
Buck gets it, too. He understands that the venom heaped on him in social media by a segment of fans comes with the territory. There’s even a “Joe Buck Sucks” Facebook page.
He isn’t a “homer,” an announcer who is paid by the team and therefore refrains from being critical. But he can’t recall anything he’s said that would make fans think he roots against the Packers or revels in their misfortune.
“I honest to God can’t think of anything critical we ever said except for maybe (kicker) Mason Crosby when he was struggling in 2012,” Buck said. “I think we’re in a different era and some of that stuff gets fanned by social media.
“I mentioned it to McCarthy the last time we were there and he was like, ‘What?’ It is what it is and it’s nothing anybody has lost sleep over.”
Buck said that when he visits Green Bay, people he meets in hotels and restaurants are unfailingly polite.
“When you walk around town,” he said, “people could not be nicer.”
But when he sits in the open-air broadcast booth at Lambeau, fans throw peanuts at him and Aikman and yell things that aren’t fit for print.
“What are you even listening to?” Buck said. “Did you hear my Week 17 call last year, when (Randall) Cobb caught the touchdown pass (that beat the Chicago Bears)? I almost pulled a groin on that call. That was raw emotion coming out.”
Sports Illustrated’s Richard Deitsch interviewed Aikman:
How much do you currently enjoy broadcasting?
I’ll tell you a story: We did the Giants–Patriots Super Bowl in Arizona in 2008. It was a great finish, an unbelievable game. The Patriots trying to go for the undefeated season, the Giants upsetting them. I was staying at a different hotel from the rest of the Fox people and when the game ended I went back to the hotel. I was married at the time and my wife said, “Are we going to go to the [Fox] party?” I said, “No, let’s just go downstairs and grab some dinner.”
I was a little down, to be honest, a little depressed. So we are sitting there having dinner, relaxing, and [ESPN’s] Ron Jaworski comes over. He was eating at the other side of the restaurant. So he says, “Hey, man, what a great game! How about that catch from [David] Tyree!” He’s all excited. I was like, “Yeah, it was good.” He is going on and on and then finally says, “What’s wrong?” I said, “Nothing is wrong.” He said, “Why aren’t you excited? You just called this great game.” I said, “Ron, I didn’t do anything. I’ve played in that game. I won that game. I know what that feels like. All I did was talk about it. I didn’t do anything.” And he walked away and when he did, he gave me this quizzical look. It was like, “What is wrong with this guy?”
So he walks away and I said to my wife: “You know, this may be the greatest game that I ever call. I may have just called the biggest game that I will ever have the opportunity to call in this profession and I could not be more depressed right now.” It shook me up a bit. I thought, “Man, where does the joy come from broadcasting when you have already been the one out there doing it.”
But I will tell you since that time I have not experienced that low again. We did the Super Bowl last year in New York and I could not have felt a greater accomplishment in this business. I don’t know why I am all of sudden getting real satisfaction out of this job, but I am and that has really helped me. The preparation is extensive and I put a lot of time into it, but I enjoy it. As a former player I have a real appreciation for a guy like Aaron Rodgers and how much time he puts into his craft and how good he is doing it. I enjoy the relationships I have with coaches and players. I enjoy the process of getting ready each week. I enjoy my crew. I like the weekends and being at the site of the games, and we get to do great games.
I am so fortunate to have had a career like I had playing — I lived my dream playing in the league — and now to do a job where I get to be around the sport is beyond imagination. The only negative for me is I have my girls [he has two daughters, 12 and 13] and I am gone for six months out of the year. I miss a lot of their activities. I do get to see a lot of them during the week that a lot of dads don’t get to see and then I have six months where I am always there. But being gone on the weekends and missing some important moments in their life is really the only negative.
How did this professional fog lift? And how long did it exist?
You know, I don’t really have a great answer. I never felt it again. Of course it was three years until we did our next Super Bowl, which was the game in Dallas. But I didn’t feel that way after future playoff games. I have not experienced that feeling again and I’m not sure exactly why. I don’t want to say everything was fine the next season, but when we did our next really big game, I didn’t experience it. So because of that, I really have been able to enjoy the profession.
“At the time this was happening, I’ll admit I was thinking everyone wants to take pride in what they do and feel satisfaction and I was thinking, Do I need to go into coaching or something else to experience the highs and lows of winning and losing? That for me is real. You love the winning when you were playing but you just miss having so much invested and then not knowing completely whether we got it done or did not get it done. That’s how I felt in 2008 but I have not felt that way since.
You’ve been a broadcaster since 2001. At what point does a sports broadcaster reach his or her apex and why?
Good question. I feel that last year midseason is when the craft kind of clicked for me. I feel like I have been at my best since midseason last year. The one thing about being an athlete, say you are struggling with throwing a comeback route, well, then you go out and practice it. You throw it 100 times a day and you get better at it, and you see those improvements pretty rapidly. In this business, you don’t get the practice reps. You can’t work on it as much as you like to work on it. Your practice time is live. I find you have to do a lot of evaluating on your own. I’m asking myself, Why is this good? Why does this work? And not everyone agrees with that. We are in a business that does not give a lot of feedback and you just try to be a critic of yourself. Or you ask other people why something is good for them and try to incorporate it into what you are about but still remain authentic.
People who work in regular jobs get quarterly reviews or end of the year evaluations. How does you get your work reviewed?
Fox began a few years ago using an anonymous person to evaluate each broadcast. We also get a report each week — things they liked, things they did not like, things they felt I could have added. Or this was a great anecdote, things like that. It is helpful. But the frustrating thing for this business, and I think everyone experiences it, I use the analogy that when I played, I would be watching a Monday Night game and if Joe Montana threw three interceptions, you would say, “OK, he had a tough day but he is still a helluva quarterback.” In this business, it just seems like really more opinion than anything else. One is only as good as what people think. There is no real measuring stick as there is in athletics. That part of it is frustrating for all us who played competitively and then have gotten into television. But I receive critiques from my bosses each week and the weekly reports.
So how do you view the Dez Bryant play now that a couple of days have passed?
When it happened I did not think for a minute it was not a catch. When it happened, I’m thinking it is an unbelievable catch. Then when we went to break, [Fox rules analyst] Mike Pereira said he thought the call was going to be overruled. I said, “Really? It looks to me like if anything is changed to the call it will be ruled a touchdown.” They ruled it the way Mike saw it. I’m not going to argue with Mike. After the game you hear from all sorts of people about the call and 99 percent of my friends who texted me are just fans and most don’t know the rules. But I did hear from some coaches and that got my attention. And they felt it was a poor call.
The question becomes about the whole football act and that’s why it ultimately was not a catch. If you said Dez made a football move, then it would have been down by contact. Since it was through the process of the catch when the ball was bobbled, then it was incomplete. I trust Mike Pereira and I trust the New York office had the ability to communicate with [referee Gene] Steratore. But I think in general there are way too many discrepancies in our rule book. I have felt for years they should blow the whole thing up and start over and make it simpler. What is a football act? There are just all kind of different exceptions and not just on catches but the rules in general.
Something that’s interesting to me is that I believe Pereira frees up you and Joe not to have to get in-depth about rules decisions. I see that as a positive because broadcasters can get in trouble with rules-based stuff in any sport. But you might view it differently. Does Mike free you up, or do you still feel you have to get an evaluation in?
I don’t feel he necessarily think he frees me up. I think he is great to have and I think everyone has seen the benefit of Fox having Mike Pereira on our network because now everyone has gone with someone like that. And it makes sense. It is great for the viewer. The rulebook is extensive. The league sends a video out every week to the broadcasters on all the various plays that happened the previous week and here is why it was ruled that way. You go back and forth on why things are being called the way they are being called. Mike and I have disagreed on calls. Go back to the NFC Championship Game [Jan. 2010] between the Vikings and Saints. Mike said a hit on Brett Favre should have been roughing the quarterback. I disagreed. I think when you have a call that helps determine the outcome of a game and you are able to go to the guy who was once the head of officiating, it is a great luxury for us to have. But that does not take away from what my job is. So I don’t know that it frees me up. I just think it is a great luxury for us at Fox. …
Do negative comments ever impact your broadcast?
It doesn’t impact me. It really doesn’t. I think it is because I was a quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys for 12 years. I have been in the middle of the storm. I have thrown game-losing interceptions and had to deal with that for a week. Whatever is said, such as people saying I am hating on some team, it has no relevance to me.
As an athlete, you were trying to reach the top of your profession both individually and with the Cowboys. How important is it for you to be considered the top NFL analyst on television?
Well, that is what you strive for, that is what I work toward. But I don’t know that you ultimately ever achieve it.
Because it’s subjective?
Right. It’s like saying who is the greatest quarterback of all time? That’s what great about sports. It is a great debate. No one has ever ultimately achieved that unanimously. So if a fair percentage of people regarded me as the best at what I do, that would be a great complement to me and that is what I strive for.
Joe Buck is a strange case. He’s not a polarizing broadcaster with his content yet he draws emotion on both sides, especially from viewers who dislike his work. People always have a definitive opinion of him and, obviously, there are some fan bases that just don’t like him. Have you ever been able to figure out why a guy who is not provocative or a shock jock draws such strong opinions about him?
Yeah, that is a very good question and I don’t know that I have a good answer for you. I have worked with Joe for 13 years and the guy is phenomenal. He is so good at what he does. He simply does not make mistakes and with all that is going on, he just handles everything so effortlessly. I think Joe’s style is that he wants to come across as very casual, but the amount of time that he puts in for preparation is off the charts. He is a play-by-play guy who is not interested in just blending in. He has opinions and he is going to give them and people are going to take notice of him during a broadcast, And that is great. Beyond that, people just like something or they do not. To me, I think it speaks to how great he is, that people immediately have a reaction to Joe Buck. But as far as people viewing him unfavorable because of something he might have said or challenging this particularly fan base, nothing could be further from the truth. He is a great guy, cordial to everyone he comes across. I don’t quite get it and I don’t know if he is impacted by any of it. But there is no one I would rather be working alongside. …
Is there one game that you consider your best sports broadcasting performance?
There is usually two or three broadcasts a year that I come out feeling really, really good about. The game was great, we were really good, it was lively, and we had great conversation. Not that everyone agrees with that [laughs] but that’s how we [Buck and Aikman] assess it or how I assess what I did. But I will say I have never come out of a broadcast and didn’t look back and think I wish I had said something a little differently or pointed something else out. And I was like that as a player. I tend to think I will never have the perfect broadcast but when I am done I do think I will look back at one or two and say this was about as good as it got for me.
Part of this probably has to do with Aikman’s getting the biggest games, as part of Fox’s number one team with Buck. (Who gets complaints as well; Buck is Fox’s number one NFL and baseball play-by-play guy.) Their CBS counterparts, Jim Nantz and Phil Simms (who get complaints of their own — Nantz for being too vanilla, Simms for saying nonsensical things), apparently are setting a sports broadcasting record by announcing their 30th game of the season, the AFC championship, on Sunday.
Whether that’s overexposure depends on whether you like the announcer. Buck is following the path (maybe not by choice) of Curt Gowdy, who was NBC’s number one announcer for football, baseball and most other sports (including the 1972 Winter Olympics) in the 1970s, and Al Michaels, who did the same for ABC in the 1980s.
It’s not easy to be the number one announcers. (Though one of the networks really should give me the opportunity …) In addition to the pervasive commentary about and criticism of the commentators, there is the fact that they have to sort of dumb down their commentary the farther in the playoffs they go, because the last two rounds of the playoffs are viewed by an increasing percentage of casual fans who may watch the playoffs and not much of the regular season. That’s probably why Paul Zimmerman of Sports Illustrated often would rank announcers lower on the network pecking order higher in his announcer ratings, because Dr. Z was a football guy and wanted to hear about such inner details as line play. There will be many viewers of Super Bowl XLIX (carried by NBC in two weeks) who could not care less about the difference between an offensive guard and an offensive tackle, or a safety (the defensive player) vs. a safety (the offense’s ending up in its own end zone.)
But: Does this sound like someone who hates the Packers?
At least Aikman is willing to change his mind if the later evidence contradicts his first opinion.
I like Buck and Aikman (in the former case probably because we’re contemporaries age-wise), but regardless of your opinion, if you are from the ’80s or ’90s you should find this funny:
The number one single today in 1956:
The number one single in Great Britain …
… and in the U.S. today in 1964:
If you want to see how I spent part of my Friday morning instead of what I was supposed to be doing, read here.
My Facebook Friends have already seen the visuals, but if you haven’t, click here if you dare.
The YG Network reported one week ago:
President Obama [Thursday] kicks off a three-day campaign-style tour, during which he’s expected to claim victory on the central issue of his presidency: the economy. If this type of fly-about sounds familiar, that’s because, as the Associated Press notes, it “has long been the Obama White House’s go-to strategy” during “tough stretches of his presidency.”
But if you think it’s just conservatives who are taking note of the president’s unearned “victory lap,” think again. As Karen Tumulty reports today in the Washington Post, “[a]t a moment when President Obama is seeking to convince Americans that the economy is finally back on track,” even some of his most liberal supporters — in this case left-wing Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — are undermining his claims, publicly acknowledging that middle-class families are getting a raw deal.
As Warren put it today, “America’s middle class is in deep trouble,” a statement “the timing (of which) turned out to be awkward,” Tumulty writes, given President Obama’s high-profile attempts this week to convince Americans otherwise.
But while Warren and other Washington liberals stubbornly want to double down on the same big-government ideology that has failed working families under Obama, conservative reformers are offering a new way forward — one that addresses head-on the urgent challenges of stagnant earnings and skyrocketing price tags for top household priorities like healthcare and higher education.
Rather than trying desperately to convince working Americans that the economy is “back on track,” President Obama and his liberal allies should come to the table and work with the new, conservative-led Congress to implement this forward-looking vision for a thriving middle class.
The only thing that is better for the middle class right now is gas prices, the low level of which Obama hates and has done nothing to make happen. Obama and his environmentalist toadies favor high energy prices (remember “Electricity prices will necessarily skyrocket”?) in order to force us plebeians into his approved lifestyle choices.
So it takes some nerve for the Democratic National Committee to compile this list of Republican statements about the Government Motors bailout …
Rand Paul said he thought the country would “absolutely” be better off if car companies had been allowed to fail.
Marco Rubio stated “the jobs will be gone and we’ll still owe the money. Washington should just get out of the way,” while Ted Cruz attacked the rescue package.
Scott Walker said “we wasted a lot of money” on rescuing the auto industry and Mike Pence suggested “we’ve got to put the interest of taxpayers first and automotive workers second”.
Rick Perry not only criticized Republicans for voting in favor of the auto rescue, but he also suggested that it was a step “…in a very dangerous direction.”
Jeb Bush opposed the auto rescue and sided with Mitt Romney saying we should have let General Motors go bankrupt.
… because these are all correct statements. Carol Roth explains why:
Those that try to tout the bailouts’ success usually begin with a declaration along the lines of “If the government didn’t step in … then GM and Chrysler would have ‘gone bankrupt.’”
First, going into bankruptcy does not equate to going out of business. American Airlines went into bankruptcy and still kept planes flying in the sky, emerging Monday with even former shareholders getting some shares in the post-bankruptcy entity. So, going through a bankruptcy process would not mean that GM or Chrysler would have had to cease operations.
Second, a common refrain is that there were no private-equity or other firms that expressed interest in taking a stake in either company before the government had to step in. Well, that’s because the bankruptcy process wasn’t allowed to play out. The auto companies had out-of-whack balance sheets that included unreasonable liabilities, including union liabilities. No private-equity firm was going to let the UAW have any type of preferred status (although the government ultimately did, see below). However, by not going directly into a bankruptcy proceeding where these liabilities could be renegotiated, there was never a true process to solicit and evaluate interest from financial or strategic partners. That’s what the bankruptcy process was designed to do, but it never had the chance.
The reality is that GM and Chrysler had significantly valuable brands and other intellectual property, manufacturing equipment, a loyal customer base, a skilled workforce and more. There was substantial demand for their products. These were financial mismanagement bankruptcies stemming from noncompetitive labor costs and liabilities, not ones brought on by a lack of interest in the core businesses. To think that no financial or strategic buyer would ultimately have had an interest in these acquiring the assets of these companies is preposterous. Even if you could make that unreasonable and highly unlikely argument, consumer demand for automobiles would still be in place, which means that other manufacturers, like Ford, would have benefited and grown to absorb that demand, and of course a good portion of the related workforce and ecosystem.
To say that the government was the only white knight here ignores basic market principles. Does anyone really believe that the entire auto industry would have gone away or have any precedent for that happening?
Additionally, both GM and Chrysler did go bankrupt. Yes, the government took both companies through the process, using taxpayer money to sustain the companies while they moved the interests of the major union above that of the other creditors (including those that manage the retirement plans of many Americans) and only once this chicanery had been completed then went through the same process that the companies should have been in to begin with.
However, the outcome was pricey in multiple ways, even beyond the creditors losing preference to the UAW and its various interests.
On Chrysler, the taxpayers lost more than $1 billion and the company ended up in majority control of a non-US company (Fiat, an Italian company) and minority controlled by a trust for the benefit of retired auto workers. An IPO for Chrysler is planned for 2014, but the taxpayers still will record a loss and America also records the loss of ownership of an iconic brand.
On GM, the taxpayers lost more than $10 billion and now have no participation in future upside of that company.
Ultimately, we spent more than six figures per job to “save” them from a mythical end and end up with billions won’t be recouped.
What about the small businesses? Many argue that the bailout was about saving the small suppliers. But if this was about helping small business, there are many ways that they could have been helped directly. Perhaps the banks that were also bailed out by taxpayers could have been asked to extend credit to the small suppliers in the automotive ecosystem.
I have had enough with the bailouts. Our government shouldn’t be picking winners and losers and deciding what companies should receive taxpayer assistance and which shouldn’t. Moreover, they shouldn’t be prioritizing certain groups’ interests over others and shouldn’t be touting successes that aren’t real.
Let’s not pretend that this bailout is more than what it was: A mere wealth transfer that helped the unions at the expense of all taxpayers. When that type of cronyism happens, America loses.
That doesn’t include Yossi Gestetner‘s measures:
- GM sold fewer vehicles in the U.S. in 2014 than in 2008.
- GM had about 17.6% of the U.S. market in 2014, down from about 21.9% in 2008.
- GM bailout had a net loss of $10.4 billion (bank bailouts a net gain of $24.3 billion).
- GM’s 2013 profit was $3.8 billion; Ford, without a bailout, $7.2 billion.
The economy is now 8% larger than late 2007, right before the recession started, but total U.S. auto sales in 2014 were only 1.5% higher than 2007.
The only thing needed to be “saved” in late 2008 was GM (and Chrysler), whose finances had been run into the ground due to union contracts, not the weak economy. The auto industry at large had a rough ride just like everyone else, but the industry came out from the crisis depths without being bailed out. But auto sales growth is still lagging the rest of the economy, and GM is actually a drag on those numbers. Basically, the part of the industry that Obama did not “save” is actually doing better than the part he “saved.”
As for Chrysler … it was sold to an Italian company by the same president who complained in 2012 that Romney’s Bain is betting against America.
Gestetner’s numbers are low. This country lost at least $11.2 billion from the GM bailout. And for what? Thanks to our still crappy economy, millions of Americans will never be able to buy a new car. Ever.
Today in 1967 was not a good day for fans of artistic freedom or the First Amendment. Before their appearance on CBS-TV’s Ed Sullivan Shew, the Rolling Stones were compelled to change “Let’s Spend the Night Together …”
… to “Let’s Spend Some Time Together”:
The number one British album today in 1977 was ABBA’s “Arrival” …
We know, because they often say so, that those who think catastrophic global warming is probable and perhaps imminent are exemplary empiricists. They say those who disagree with them are “climate change deniers” disrespectful of science.
Actually, however, something about which everyone can agree is that of course the climate is changing — it always is. And if climate Cassandras are as conscientious as they claim to be about weighing evidence, how do they accommodate historical evidence of enormously consequential episodes of climate change not produced by human activity? Before wagering vast wealth and curtailments of liberty on correcting the climate, two recent books should be considered.
In The Third Horseman: Climate Change and the Great Famine of the 14th Century, William Rosen explains how Europe’s “most widespread and destructive famine” was the result of “an almost incomprehensibly complicated mixture of climate, commerce, and conflict, four centuries in gestation.” Early in that century, 10 percent of the population from the Atlantic to the Urals died, partly because of the effect of climate change on “the incredible amalgam of molecules that comprises a few inches of soil that produces the world’s food.”
In the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), from the end of the ninth century to the beginning of the 14th, the Northern Hemisphere was warmer than at any time in the past 8,000 years — for reasons concerning which there is no consensus. Warming increased the amount of arable land — there were vineyards in northern England — leading, Rosen says, to Europe’s “first sustained population increase since the fall of the Roman Empire.” The need for land on which to grow cereals drove deforestation. The MWP population explosion gave rise to towns, textile manufacturing and new wealthy classes.
Then, near the end of the MWP, came the severe winters of 1309-1312, when polar bears could walk from Greenland to Iceland on pack ice. In 1315 there was rain for perhaps 155 consecutive days, washing away topsoil. Upwards of half the arable land in much of Europe was gone; cannibalism arrived as parents ate children. Corpses hanging from gallows were devoured.
Human behavior did not cause this climate change. Instead, climate warming caused behavioral change (10 million mouths to feed became 30 million). Then climate cooling caused social changes (rebelliousness and bellicosity) that amplified the consequences of climate, a pattern repeated four centuries later.
In Global Crisis: War, Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century, Geoffrey Parker, a history professor at Ohio State University, explains how a “fatal synergy” between climatological and political factors produced turmoil from Europe to China. What he calls “the placenta of the crisis” of that century included the Little Ice Age (LIA), between the 1640s and the 1690s. Unusual weather, protracted enough to qualify as a change in climate, correlated so strongly with political upheavals as to constitute causation.
Whatever caused the LIA — decreased sunspot activity and increased seismic activity were important factors — it caused, among other horrific things, “stunting” that, Parker says, “reduced the average height of those born in 1675, the ‘year without a summer,’ or during the years of cold and famine in the early 1690s, to only 63 inches: the lowest ever recorded.”
In northerly latitudes, Parker says, each decline of 0.5 degrees Celsius in the mean summer temperature “decreases the number of days on which crops ripen by 10 percent, doubles the risk of a single harvest failure, and increases the risk of a double failure sixfold,” For those farming at least 1,000 feet above sea level, this temperature decline “increases the chance of two consecutive failures a hundredfold.”
The flight from abandoned farms to cities produced the “urban graveyard effect,” crises of disease, nutrition, water, sanitation, housing, fire, crime, abortion, infanticide, marriages forgone and suicide. Given the ubiquity of desperation, it is not surprising that more wars took place during the 17th-century crisis “than in any other era before the Second World War.”
By documenting the appalling consequences of two climate changes, Rosen and Parker validate wariness about behaviors that might cause changes. The last 12 of Parker’s 712 pages of text deliver a scalding exhortation to be alarmed about what he considers preventable global warming. Neither book, however, supports those who believe human behavior is the sovereign or even primary disrupter of climate normality, whatever that might be. With the hands that today’s climate Cassandras are not using to pat themselves on the back for their virtuous empiricism, they should pick up such books.
The number one British single today in 1960:
The number one single today in 1978:
The number one British single today in 1995 came from a Swedish group that did a wacky country-ish song:
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 