National Security (Like Life) is a Highway . . .

Our congressional leaders want to ride it all night long. That didn't make sense, but I just got around to watching the episode of The Office in which that song was played at least 4-5 times and it's now stuck in my head.

Anywhoo . . . regarding the national security issue, I think the #1 most direct reason why having domestic car making capacity is such an issue is because, thinking back to WWII, it was the domestic car makers that turned their efforts quickly from producing cars to producing military vehicles like jeeps, tanks and bombers. If we lose that heavy industrial capacity, in a time of national crisis in which we suddenly needed to have thousands of more tanks and airplanes, we'd have to waste a lot more time building the factories to make them rather than just retrofitting the ones we currently have. Admittedly, this is a longshot national security issue as, in the age we're in, it doesn't seem too likely we'd get bogged down in a huge landwar, but then again, prior to our invasion of Iraq and after what we did in Bosnia, I didn't think we'd see the U.S. actually occupying another nation in our lifetimes. I suppose there are more indirect national security concerns like the economy in general, but I think that the one I mentioned is probably the most important one.

Regarding the commercials, I've often wondered how cost effective car commercials for established brands like the Big 3 are. Obviously, they are effective in some degree because I think a big reason why huge cars took off as a phenomenon is because of the slick advertising campaigns the car manufacturers used to make people want cars like that. I just wonder, more importantly, whether the car manufacturers have any idea how effective their commercials are (i.e. whether they are getting their money's worth). Based on their behavior, it wouldn't surprise me to learn that they just put these commercials out there with no accountability.

I love, by the way, this fact that when the heads of the Big 3 were called to Congress for the purpose of begging for a bailout, they came in 3 seperate private jets. It's the perfect example of how completely tone deaf these people are to the mood of the country. Of course, substantively, they then got there and pretty much said "give us money pretty please" with no plan for how it was going to be used. Smart. These guys are like the underwear gnomes in that episode of South Park. Step 1, steal underwear, Step 3, profit, Step 2, ????.

I've heard rumblings that Obama sees this need for a Big 3 bailout as a chance to use the Big 3 towards the bigger goals of weaning us off foreign oil/helping the environment by conditioning any funds on a radical overhaul of the way the car companies make cars. Establishing high fuel efficiency minimums, etc. It's a well known fact at this point that the Chinese lettering for "Crisis" also means "Opportunity." This would seem to perfectly embody that concept.