I'll never forget the day in 1955 when I, being four years old, leaped into the driver's seat of my dad's brand new Chevrolet station wagon. I was pretending to drive the gleaming whizbang motorcoach as it sat motionless in our GI-bill financed tract-home driveway. The car was a shiny beige color, with a brown top and chrome trim. What a dream, to one day grow up and drive such a machine!
This was in America in 1955. . . America, home of the yanks who had helped our Allies to drive the Nazis back into their German holes, and the Japs back onto their little setting-sun island. America, home of Dwight D. Eisenhower, John Wayne, Doris Day, Elvis, Mickey Mouse, Lassie, Howdy Doody, and Chuck Berry. America. . . home of Coca-Cola, Bell Telephone, Lucille Ball, Jackie Robinson, Nat King Cole, Mahalia Jackson. America. . .home of General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, cowboy movies, American Bandstand, Hollywood and freeways. America. . . home of the Corvette, the Mustang, the Rambler. America, home of Motown, Smoky Robinson, Berry Gordy, The Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, Aretha, the Four Tops, and Sam Cooke.
America . . . home of the original Motor City of this world, Detroit!
America . . . home of Detroit, now deep in bankruptcy blues?
Aw, g'on! Who'd of thought? Say it ain't so, Joe! Who knew?
This couldn't be the same Detroit I remember, couldn't be the home the Detroit Tigers, Ty Cobb, Al Kaline? Couldn't be the great world-class City that sent that gleaming, du0-toned Chevy machine in 1955 to grace our driveway? The same Detroit that put space-age fins on the 1959 Cadillac? The same Detroit that drove our Chevy on the levee? The same Detroit that built my first car, the hand-me-down from my parents Chevy II wagon, the one that had gear linkage that used to get stuck in second gear so that I had to jump out at the traffic light, open the hood and jerk the gears back into operation before climbing back into the driver seat while motorists behind me had impatient looks on their faces?
Detroit, in bandruptcy? Detroit. . . the high-energy happ'nin City that pumped up our automotive dreams for the better part of a century? That Detroit?. . . that fueled up our mojo since we wuz kneehigh to a Coupe de Ville bumper? Detroit?. . .that epicenter of Motivational gas-powered Motion that enabled our cruisin' to the bebop drive-in for burgers n' shakes on Friday night?
That Detroit? The great Motown that, decade after decade, was kept hummin' by thousands, yeah I say unto thee probably millions, of line workers who were tightening bolts, turning screws, clamping body parts, body-slammin world-record productivity with infinitely sustainable prodigious wonders of automotive virtuosity?
That Detroit? Those workers? Those pensioners who are now left behind wondering What the hell?
That Detroit? now to be rescued from pension failure by Judge Rosemarie Aquilina?
Good luck with that, as we say in Ameica. See ya!
Glass Chimera
Showing posts with label Chevy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chevy. Show all posts
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Profits in China
People in the USA are disoriented about profitability now.
We're having an identity crisis, and in our post-'08-meltdown, we, the great initiators of 20th-century enterprise, are wandering around the world trying to figure out how to make some money.
Tony Sagami's advice is to invest in American companies doing large business with China. He's recommending General Motors.
http://www.gm.com/
Tony is also directing his investors to Yum! Brands, which owns KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Long John Silver's. Tony says Yum! has 3500 stores in China now, and that Yum! is making that nation a central part of their future growth strategy.
Do we in America, who have a fast-food option on every sprawling block, want to now make ourselves fat'n'happier by sending convenience food franchises to the burgeoning new markets of the world? --even as we complain about obesity and our frantic pace of life?
I don't see that we have much choice, if we're going to make $.
And as for our resident USgovernment-owned car-mega-maker, I'm wondering--for how many decades now have we said that what is good GM is good for America? Do we now say that what's good for GM is good for the world, and for our portfolios?
I mean, my wife and I switched to Toyota and Subaru thirty years ago because of those companies' reputations for economy, efficiency and reliability.
But we were amazed, last summer, to see so many Buicks in Shanghai. Would we want to support American cars overseas when a doggone cutting-edge Volt costs 40 grand here at home?
And this whole WalMart/Chinese connection has got so many Americans up in arms these days, even as we shop there in droves.
What's a consumer to do if s/he's going to save money?
And what's a yankee investor to do?
I don't see that we have much choice, if we're going to make $.
No way around it, in a globalizing world, and yep, I'll take Taco Bell over McDonald's any day. Not only that, but my ole Chevy would leave your Ford in the dust any day of the year, and its looking like it will do it next year and the year after that, even after a frickin guv'ment bailout.
Sorry, Henry', read 'em and weep. Much as I hate to say it, that's what a guv'ment bailout will get you--a leg up in the rest of the world. I guess we're playing by the same rules now those other countries were all along?
We're having an identity crisis, and in our post-'08-meltdown, we, the great initiators of 20th-century enterprise, are wandering around the world trying to figure out how to make some money.
Tony Sagami's advice is to invest in American companies doing large business with China. He's recommending General Motors.
http://www.gm.com/
Tony is also directing his investors to Yum! Brands, which owns KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and Long John Silver's. Tony says Yum! has 3500 stores in China now, and that Yum! is making that nation a central part of their future growth strategy.
Do we in America, who have a fast-food option on every sprawling block, want to now make ourselves fat'n'happier by sending convenience food franchises to the burgeoning new markets of the world? --even as we complain about obesity and our frantic pace of life?
I don't see that we have much choice, if we're going to make $.
And as for our resident USgovernment-owned car-mega-maker, I'm wondering--for how many decades now have we said that what is good GM is good for America? Do we now say that what's good for GM is good for the world, and for our portfolios?
I mean, my wife and I switched to Toyota and Subaru thirty years ago because of those companies' reputations for economy, efficiency and reliability.
But we were amazed, last summer, to see so many Buicks in Shanghai. Would we want to support American cars overseas when a doggone cutting-edge Volt costs 40 grand here at home?
And this whole WalMart/Chinese connection has got so many Americans up in arms these days, even as we shop there in droves.
What's a consumer to do if s/he's going to save money?
And what's a yankee investor to do?
I don't see that we have much choice, if we're going to make $.
No way around it, in a globalizing world, and yep, I'll take Taco Bell over McDonald's any day. Not only that, but my ole Chevy would leave your Ford in the dust any day of the year, and its looking like it will do it next year and the year after that, even after a frickin guv'ment bailout.
Sorry, Henry', read 'em and weep. Much as I hate to say it, that's what a guv'ment bailout will get you--a leg up in the rest of the world. I guess we're playing by the same rules now those other countries were all along?
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