Hannity is SUCH a loser

the mindless sheep you refer toare actually you imbeciles on left who will blindly follow his eminence off the edge of the proverbial cliff. you can not seriously ask the american people to believe that a government that bankrupts EVERYTHING it touches to regulate free enterprise. free enterprise is focused on what the free market demands. if you offer a product not in demand you will go broke. it is only when the bureacrats get their hands on the pie that corruption runs rampant. the free market i.e. America DOES NOT want tiny electric tin cans to ride around in. so the government is trying its level best to force us into something we don't want. who the hell are you to tell me what to drive?

Thankyou RW. I'm glad SOMEONE out there can still think.

So you agree with Hannity's assumption that because we get better mileage we should all run scared on the assumption that car companies will stop caring about our safety? The point of this Floort is to point out to the 'sheep' that their shepherd is leading them down a path of lies.

BTW, I agree that Obama should NOT be telling car companies what to do. But that's not the point of this Floort. Just becasue Obama should not meddle in corporate America does not justify the lie Hannity is spreading. He does that to get you whipped into a lather and it works.

I don't disagree with anything you said except that last part. Please re-read the Floort. My point is that Hannity, in his usual fashion, threw in a sidebar to scare you. He could have made a very intelligent argument as to why Obama should not mess with corporations. But he didn't. He tried to get his listeners to hate Obama by telling them that he was making their cars unsafe. This is hate radio, not informative radio. It is the mantra of the right. the most important thing he can do for ratings and money is to get you to hate the other side.

A downside to capitalism is greed. Greed can be good but must be managed. Left unmanaged, we end up with dot-com busts and mortgage meltdowns. So I am not against capitalism, but when people run themselves into the ground, government feels it must step in. Why don't you 'capitalists' ever come up with a way to solve this problem? Then we 'anti-capitalists' wouldn't have to step in.


(I use those labels to make a point, not to label myself or you)

The "meltdowns" you talk about are a natural part of Capitalism. They clear the "deadwood" much like a forest fire clears the forests and allows new, stronger growth to happen. These "meltdowns" are not things to be feared. They create more opportunities and expose "bad" practices.

The severity of these "meltdowns" increases when interferance (usually in the form of government) creates artificial parameters in which the economy works. When you take failure out of the equation you create artificial growth and when the inevitable fall comes it has a much more drastic impact than it otherwise would.

Furthermore, "managing" an economy leads, inevitably, to a decrease in diversity. When all of ones eggs are in one basket and the economy takes a tumble we run the risk of losing the whole lot. The role of government in "managing" an economy should be limited to such things as legislating disclosure rules and keeping trade relations in good shape. When government starts fiddeling around with price controls and lending mandates they step from an oversight capacity into a management capacity and the system ceases to function in a natural manner.

With regard to the safety of cars...I didn't hear the Hannity show but it, like other shows, is entertainment and information. It isn't "news" and isn't intended to be. Obviously, one of the most effective ways to mave vehicles more fuel efficient is to cut down weight. The easiest way to cut weight is to cut size and from there physics take over. If you hit a 1500 pound "Smart" car with a 6000 pound "Escalade" the Escalade is going to come out better 90% of the time. That isn't to say that the Smart car isn't safe but, rather, that it is at a higher risk of serious damage in a "big v. small" accident. If 75% of the vehicles being driven are "big" then the 25% that are "small" are riskier to drive.

If everyone drove a "small" car the risk would be less but the fact of the matter is that it's going to be quite a while before "small" cars become the norm here in America and in places like the West and Midwest where significant distances have to be travelled from one town to another it will take even longer. This country isn't set up for bunches of "small" cars to be a practical transportation alternative for most people.

luther, how true. it is a shame that your informative writings fall on so many deaf ears.

Luther,

You make sense, but I believe are missing the point (at least from Obama's point of view). The only reason cars don't get better mileage is because of pressure from the oil companies so they can sell more gas. It is sad that car companies won't do it because it is right and helps America. I am a capitalist but don;t believe that everything should be sacrificed for the almighty dollar. All you have to do is look back to the 80's. Japanese cars took over and why? Because they got better mileage and they lasted longer. American companies are too concerned about today's and tomorrow's stock price.

Tigger,

You really need to look into some of the facts before you start making assertions about the oil industry and domestic car production. For instance, look at the most recent 10K for Chevron/Texaco. You'll see net income of 24 Billion dollars but only 1.4 Billion was from domestic downstream production and only a fraction of that was from production of gasoline. If you look at Exxon you'll see comprable rates.

Less than 5% of the primary oil producers revenues come from retail sales of gasoline and deisel. The bulk of a domestic oil producers revenues come from sales of crude to foreign sources for THEIR needs. Just look around your house or office and look at all the stuff that was made using some form or other of oil. Plastics, rubber, certain fabrics, ink, paint, thousands of chemicals, etc. use some form or derivitive of oil in their composition and the machinery that makes all those products runs off of energy produced in no small part by oil and oil products.

People focus on gasoline as the big income source for oil companies because they feel it every few days when they put gas in their car but it is such a small portion of what oil is used for and such a small part of oil revenues that even if twice as much gasoline was sold as is being sold right now it wouldn't make much difference at all in the oil producers bottom line.

Barack Obama is pushing the car issue because he knows that Americans are emotionally tied to their cars and see "oil" through the narrow lens of the fuel pump but he's going after the REALLY big bucks with his carbon cap plan. This plan will make gasoline more expensive by maybe $0.25/gal but the real hit for everyone will be in their heating bills, the cost of anything that uses plastic, anything that uses adhesives and the cost of anything that has color in it. Even bubble gum will be more expensive to produce.

Back in the 80's smaller foreign cars DID show up on US streets in abundance because there was a huge backlash when gasoline prices shot up but we didn't see foreign cars JUST because Detroit wasn't producing small cars. We saw the huge influx of foreign cars because foreign companies were already making small cars to run on their smaller, tighter roads and the US companies didn't have much of a competing product. US assembly lines needed to be retooled; designs needed to be re-engineered; parts needed to be produced, etc. before US companies could compete and then, just about the time US manufacturers COULD compete with the foreign manufacturers US incomes had risen to a point where the price of gasoline was no longer a driving force in the buying decision and buyers went right back to buying bigger cars. Remember the smiles on people's faces when the Mustang went back to a 5L?

American companies ARE worried about stock prices now and in the future because that price is indicative of the health of that company. It is determinative of whether the company is doing the things that make it attractive to investors and investors are only interested in companies that can make money at a sustainable rate. ANd, like I've been saying all along, companies can only make money at a sustainable rate as long as they have people buying their products and services.

Tigger, Americans driving habits are different than Europeans. We don't have convenient rail service between the suburbs and the cities so more Americans commute by car than their European counterparts. We also have longer distances to drive, on average, than Europeans do when it comes to vacations or, for that matter, to the grocery store or the bank. Our city plans are vastly different than the European model and that makes a huge difference in our personal transportation needs. Small cars are simply not practical for MOST American families because we are in the doggone thngs so much. Sure, it would be nice no to need the bigger vehicles but we need to change a lot of things about the way we live before we can make those smaller cars truly practical and a truly viable product for market.

Good Lord! If Detroit saw the need that people need fuel efficient cars, they'd had done so years ago! It took almost 6 years or rising oil prices, a peak of $147 per barrel of oil, and a recession to finally flipping realize that hey, maybe we should actually start making fuel efficient cars! You can find cars made in the 70's that got about 40 MILES PER GALLON! Cars nowadays can't even get to 40 mph without some type of hybrid technology to get it there.

But when it takes a combination of those three reasons listed, it made the Big Three fall to their knees, and the main cause is because they lost their lovely profits since their not so efficient cars weren't selling anymore; all their profits went to Toyota and Honda because the Japanese just seem to be much more innovative than we are, it just shows that we still have a mindset that things will even out and we can go back using all sorts of energy without a care in the world.

And as for hannity, it's an absolute SHAME, that someone would actually defend this man when what he says is absolute nonsense! Fuel efficient cars DO NOT make cars less safer.

And as for Obama enforcing mpg ratings, it's about time. Because personally, I find it ridiculous that a car made in 2008, as modern as it is, only gets 18 mpg when driven efficiently. No one wants cars like these anymore and the Obama Administration is focusing on conservation of energy, and not just making more of it just to feed our addiction.

Luther - when you say that "small cars are not practical" because we are in them too much, could you not be exaggerating? We have had small cars for years - true, we have one child versus the "average two" and it was messy to have a smaller car when she was little and had booster seats and the like. But now, even though I have a very long commute and my husband travels a lot we live perfectly well without a big SUV or the typical family van. I truly think this is a matter of habit and culture rather than necessity. Now I do agree with you that part of our problem is lack of public transportation and other conveniences - especially in the suburbs or smaller towns.

OMG... that's how we define nightmare in my dictionary.

If that event ever happens (GOD FORBID!) I swear, I'm moving out of this country because I do not want to be associated with that and know that a fear-mongering type president wouldn't be liked at all. Hell, I'll change my identity, pick up a new language and live in that country!