GM is a very bizarre thinking company. They don’t make cars you want, they just shove what they want down your throat.

FWD – its better

SUV’s – bigger is better

Cash back – its the way to sell cars.

I have gone into a few dealerships, selling GTO’s and Corvettes. As I walk around the showroom staring at an Aztek, I’ll may say something like,”Do you guys have trouble selling this crapola?”

friedstein’s real problem is that he wants the same deal for the white cars he and his mommy and daddy leaseand he wants better a gas deal than everyone else is getting, now…….don’t make him run to the local news station and start whinning.

#2, what you wrote make no sense.

GM has enough problems without some self righteous journalist nagging them. Journalists love to tell people what they’re doing wrong –

who cares what this nancy east coast liberal thinks about anything? I read the WS Journal, where the news (about business) is actually relevant, not a rag full of political commentary.

#1. I totally agree with what you’re saying. I’ve been saying that for years. The people who run GM are stubborn and refuse to admit people don’t want the garbage they peddle.

Thomas Friedman is an total idiot! For one GM makes cars people want, if they didnt people wouldnt buy them at all. Another thing is that GM isnt forcing anybody to buy their full size SUVs, people want them thats why they buy them! Why dont Thomas Friedman talk about Toyota’s full size SUV which gets less mpg than GM’s! GM is doing more to reduce our dependence on oil than any other auto maker, just do some reading and research and you can find out for yourself! Another thing is that GM has more vehicles that get 30mpg or more than any other automaker!! It makes me mad when people just critize GM while their doing more than any other automaker and when people always speak so good of Toyota and Handa vehicles when GM’s vehicles are just as good and in many of the new models much better! So as an end note I think and I know many people would agree with me that Thomas Friedman is just a critizing idiot!

I agree, this is america, no one’s forcing you to buy anything you don’t want. Let the market determine what models will sell, it’s obvious there won’t be a big market for big suvs, but if you want one you should be able to buy one. We don’t need another law for this – get a life Friedman – what an ego.

Friedman is being grossly unfair by directing his ire at GM when all the big manufacturers (except Honda) rely heavily on poor milage trucks/suvs.

That said, it is true that GM has more models that get over 30 mpg, but the real question is what manufacturer SELLS THE MOST CARS THAT GET ABOVE 30 MPG? The Hummer H2 gets sh**ty gas milage, but it is a very low volumn vehicle. Somebody do some relevant research, please.

Unfortunately the large new GM SUV’s are selling like mad. People want them. What should be done is a law that says you only get what you need. You should be required to fill out a form for what you need in a vehicle. ie

2 kids, 4 suitcases, plywood, 2×4’s

Then you would be given a certificate to buy the vehicle for your needs. A person with 2 kids does not need anything more than a 4 seater compact car. Trucks should only go to those who have real businees needs for them.

While we are at it we should limit the size of home we can own. Say 500 sq ft per person. A 5 person family would be able to buy up to a 2500 sq ft home. Everyone write thier congressmen!!

The deal is journalists can dish it but they can’t take it –
Friedman’s response was obiously written because someone he criticized dared to respond – how dare them, he should be able to criticize anyone he wants without anyone questioning it, ever – says a lot about the journalistic profession – he’s about as mature as an 8 year old.

This guy is a clown.

People buy what they want, it is my hope that if peopel were not buying hummers, that GM would stop making them. I am not privy to the #’s, but you have to be a moron to keep selling a vehicle that nobody actually wants.

The problem is that for some of us no American cars appeal. It does not always mean they are crap it just means we are not someone they care to sell a car too. I can not think fo a single American vehicle that competes with Audi and BMW, these cars have the exact qualities I look for and while I wish they would build a competeing car I don’t see it happening.

I think GM has enough trouble fighting for the lower market that Toyota, Honda and countless others are dominating.

#6

Did you actually read what Friedman wrote?

- By nearly every account (and with the exception of one or two vehicles in the GM lineup like the ‘Vette and the Solstice), GM vehicles are a full generation behind what is being offered by Toyota or Honda. The reason people buy them (and fewer and fewer people are buying GM cars, look at the sales numbers) is because GM discounts them heavily; a car that is a generation behind the technology but costs $5000 less then the competition from Toyota makes for a compelling sale.

- At a time when this country is essentially in the middle of a war who’s central focus is oil and when global warming is now beginning to produce some significant weather events, many people are getting very sick of short sighted “It is my RIGHT to drive what I want!” arguments like yours. Your choice of vehicle is not written into the constitution and if you are too stupid to figure out that the huge number of American soccer moms driving single occupancy gas guzzlers are a major contribution to our national problems, perhaps legislation is necessary.

- Friedman pointed out that Toyota’s SUVs, in every category, are more fuel efficient then their GM counterparts according to Consumer Reports.

- Friedman also points out that GM builds E85/FlexFuel vehicles in order to boost their CAFE standard fuel economy numbers and has been doing so, without telling consumers, for years. The tired “GM builds more 30mpg vehicles then everyone else!” line used by RenCen apologists such as yourself is the result of GM cynically cheating the system by building FlexFuel vehocles. Besides, E85 is a complete farce: Number of regular gas stations in the US: 20,000. FlexFuel gas stations: 750 (source PRI’s Marketplace radio show).

- Unlike you, Friedman cited numerous third party sources and he knows how to write without putting a ! after every statement.

This conversation is moot – if a car company wants to build gas guzzlers it will eventually die due to the high oil prices. If the car company can get high mileage vehicles onto the market in this environment it will grow – what is political about that? Why do we need a law when the market is already solving the problem (short of this short term anomoly)?

For the most part, GM doesn’t build cars that people want. They build cars people settle for, usually because the discounts are too hard to resist. If people can afford not to buy GM cars, they usually don’t. GM cars are benchmarked against Asian rivals from ten years ago. They are obsolete before they are built.

The GM SUVs people want, they mostly shouldn’t. The overwhelming majority of SUV buyers do NOT need the capacity, horsepower or 4WD capability. Ask any crazy, overprivileged suburban soccer mom why she needs a Tahoe or Suburban to toddle off to Safeway. She’s not a rancher or construction professional who needs a truck. She’s a selfish little dope. She’ll blush and mumble and look at the ground and mutter something about feeling safer or liking the high vantage point. These are not good reasons.

GM is supporting this pointless, expensive, disastrous big-vehicle habit for its own selfish ends. These people think it’s still 1968. The whole last 35 years of oil trauma haven’t taught them a thing. They’re not leading the market; they’re crack dealers cleaning up in dark corners. Toyota is clearly the world’s foremost vehicle manufacturer, and GM and Ford handed them the prize.

Tom, you made a good point in your first paragraph. Your second paragraph though… you got full of yourself & you come-off as a self-rightous dude looking to save the planet.
You’re probably someone who’s against high salaries also. Why should someone make let’s say 500k a year when they could live on only 30k a year right?
Yeah…Yeah… Your intentions are good.

WORD UP!

this board is getting too LLL for me.

honestly, when I want my politics I’ll go to hotair, LGF, opinion journal, NRO, etc….

WTF DOES COMMUNISM, BLOOD FOR OIL, ‘AN INCOMPETENT ARGUMENT’, BLATANT STUPIDITY AND STEREOTYPING, SELF RIGHTEOUS AGENDA PUSHING, PLAGERISTIC BULL**** HAVE TO DO WITH A DUMBASS PRINTING ELITIST LEFT WING EAST COAST EDITORIALIST? wait, I just answered my own question.

“What should be done is a law that says you only get what you need. You should be required to fill out a form for what you need in a vehicle”

“At a time when this country is essentially in the middle of a war who’s central focus is oil ”

“global warming is now beginning to produce some significant weather events”

“Ask any crazy, overprivileged suburban soccer mom why…She’s a selfish little dope. She’ll blush and mumble and look at the ground and mutter something about feeling safer or liking the high vantage point”

“pointless, expensive, disastrous big-vehicle habit for its own selfish ends”

“They’re not leading the market; they’re crack dealers cleaning up in dark corners”

Honestly, is it possible to find a BBS somewhere that is strictly for auto enthusiasts? all these moonbats are giving me a migrain with their conspiracy theories and short sided, childish, tantrum~esque rantings about incoherent babble.

Where do I sign up? I want Friedman to begin thinking for me, 24/7.

Mike, your looking for http://www.stickmyheadinthesand.com. At http://www.stickmyheadinthesand.com nobody worries about the social issues of the automobile world.

Ahk-Med, your link doesn’t work.

Ahk-Med:
didn’t realize that a group-chant “no blood for oil” is a social issue of the automotive world.

lets all get high, get naked, and sing give peace a chance. I am sure the mullah’s and clerics wouldn’t behead the women for not being fully covered by clothing head to toe. What was that link you gave me again? Have you been to it?

What’s with the nagging? How did we get from gas guzzlers to nagging? the US reputation abroad is already about as bad as it can be, but what do you do (I’d be more concerned about foreign economic policies and currency valuations), the air is not great but we’ll be moving to ethanol or hybrids or whatever at these gas prices very soon, which will make a big difference – things aren’t as horrible as you’d think reading these posts. If you still want to pass laws then write your senator, this is an automotive site.

I find it interesting that this guy hates GM for building gas guzzlers when Toyota is trying to takeover the truck market by making gas guzzlers themselves. American or not, people keep buying SUV’s because they want them and many of the car companies want a slice of that pie.

#21: ROFL!!! Ahaha…dude, you 0wned him with that reply!

Right on the money Mr Friedman. Amen to that!

and what is in the works? a new sequoia based on the new, larger than life, tundra! knuckhead.

ps…. hey John Kerry:

Kerry*, meanwhile, declared, “We cannot have it both ways in the war in Iraq.” Here is a partial list of the positions Kerry has taken on the war in Iraq:

* “The threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but as I said, it is not new. It has been with us since the end of that war, and particularly in the last four years we know after Operation Desert Fox failed to force him to reaccept them, that he has continued to build those weapons. He has had a free hand for four years to reconstitute these weapons, allowing the world, during the interval, to lose the focus we had on weapons of mass destruction and the issue of proliferation.”–Oct. 9, 2002

* “Yea.”–vote on authorizing military force to liberate Iraq, Oct. 12, 2002

* “Even having botched the diplomacy, it is the duty of any president, in the final analysis, to defend this nation and dispel the security threat. . . . Saddam Hussein has brought military action upon himself by refusing for 12 years to comply with the mandates of the United Nations.”–March 18, 2003

* “The vote is the vote. I voted to authorize. It was the right vote, and the reason I mentioned the threat is that we gave the–we had to give life to the threat. If there wasn’t a legitimate threat, Saddam Hussein was not going to allow inspectors in. Now, let me make two points if I may. Ed [Gordon] questioned my answer. The reason I can’t tell you to a certainty whether the president misled us is because I don’t have any clue what he really knew about it, or whether he was just reading what was put in front of him. And I have no knowledge whether or not this president was in depth–I just don’t know that. And that’s an honest answer, and there are serious suspicions about the level to which this president really was involved in asking the questions that he should’ve. With respect to the question of, you know, the vote–let’s remember where we were. If there hadn’t been a vote, we would never have had inspectors. And if we hadn’t voted the way we voted, we would not have been able to have a chance of going to the United Nations and stopping the president, in effect, who already had the votes, and who was obviously asking serious questions about whether or not the Congress was going to be there to enforce the effort to create a threat. So I think we did the right thing. I’m convinced we did.”–Sept. 9, 2003

* “Nay.”–vote on $87 billion to fund operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, Oct. 17, 2003

* “I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it.”–March 16, 2004

* “The president made a mistake in invading Iraq.”–Sept. 30, 2004

* “No.”–answer to Jim Lehrer’s question “Are Americans now dying in Iraq for a mistake?,” Sept. 30, 2004

* ” I was wrong to vote for that Iraqi resolution.”–June 13, 2006

No wonder Kerry says you can’t have it both ways–as nuanced as he is, he’s had it at least half a dozen ways!

And coming soon, a new Sierra and Silverado. Lest we forget the H2 with a whopping 12mpg on a good day. Yeah GM is a saint compared to Toyota…

The rest of the world, is the rest of the world. We live in the United States. We have luxuries other countries don’t have. We do not need to be a martyr for the cause because others have it hard. The reason this country has luxuries others do not, is because WE WORK OUR ASSES OFF! And I for one, will not apologize for the proverbial silver spoon in my mouth, because I worked for it, and I paid taxes on it.

If you don’t like seeing people drive Hummers around here, go somewhere else where they do not have the luxury of doing so. I have gotten real tired of all the guilt ridden apologists in this country.

#35: So you think other people around the world don’t work their asses off?
Dude, get a clue. You’re pathetic, crying about these mean old nasty people making you think about somebody besides yourself. What a pathetic excuse for what a Real American Man should be.

And if you don’t like the guilt you’ve earned by driving your Hummer–or wanting to–then dude, you’re the one who needs to move. Speaking up is American. Telling someone else to pipe down because they hurt your feelings is the sign of a true weakling.