The auto industry has been in downsizing mode for about 30 years now, with only brief blips of prosperity.  Almost all of the recent staff reductions have come in the form of voluntary early retirements and separations.  Although each reduction is usually billed as the last one before the big turnaround, in reality they form a steady chain of layoffs.  Now think about the eventual outcome of such a practice.  Put yourself in the place of someone facing such decision.

You have the option of giving up future salary and benefits for an immediate lump sum payout, or staying on and keeping your salary and benefits and hoping you are not laid off involuntarily.  If you ask me, it’s pretty easy to predict who will leave and who will stay: Good employees will take the money and run, to find another job.  They don’t want to risk an unplanned layoff and the prospect of interviewing amidst a mass layoff.  Bad employees will remain, collecting their paychecks, marking their time to retirement, and generally not producing anything of value.  They’re willing to take the chance of an involuntary layoff, heck odds are by the time that happens they will have collected more in salary than the buyout anyway.

There is no way that the potential cost of litigation outweighs the huge buyout packages being offered to employees.  So the buyouts which are intended to lower costs and thus lead the company back to profitability end up sabotaging any possible hope of recovery by giving the best and brightest a strong incentive to leave and saddling the company with a remaining workforce that is less productive.

The leaders of these companies are so far removed from reality and the day-to-day operations that they have no idea who the important and useful employees are.  Or maybe they are just so incapable of making the hard decisions that they would rather just take the easy way out.  I guess it seems like the nice thing to do.  Unfortunately the nice thing spells doom for the rest.

Never mind that even in its current government subsidized state, E85 is still not price competitive with regular gasoline.  I find E85 fascinating mainly because it is such a classic example of government interference gone predictably and horribly wrong.  I can’t convceive of a single objective anyone might have had for E85 which it has achieved.  Even better, the complete opposite of the stated goals has occurred in many instances.  At the very least the failures have lead to significant unintended consequences.

Several such negative consequences are outlined in this excellent but lengthy and sometimes wandering Washington Post article.

• 92% of the 112,000 government owned Flex Fuel vehicles are run exclusively on regular gas, mainly becuase there are no E85 filling stations anywhere near where they are used.
• Perverse government incentives on auto manufacturers resulted in them producing Flex Fuel capable vehicles but only amongst their most fuel inefficient V6 and V8 powered large sedans and SUVs.  Consequently:
• The Post Office’s legally mandated 37,000 delivery van fleet consumed 1.5 million gallons more gasoline than if they had simply purchased more fuel efficient non-Flex Fuel capable models.

So let’s see, 16 years and billions of taxpayer dollars later, what has Flex Fuel accomplished?  It has resulted in more, not less fossil fuel being consumed - with the related increase in greenhouse gas emissions.  By consuming massive amounts of corn for fuel instead of food, it has raised the price of all sorts of corn based foods.  And people wonder why the auto companies continued to build inefficient vehicles for so long, well look no further than the incentives pushed on them by the Fed.

The Fed falls back on its last possible spinnable benefit: that they have created an alternative, all other problems aside.  What an accomplishment!  An overpriced alternative that no one wants to use even when faced with a government mandate!  Congratulations!  And if we were in fact faced with a real disruption in the supply of oil, E85 wouldn’t make a dent in replacing that supply, not even if every last kernel of corn grown in the country were diverted to fuel.

Read the whole thing - its hilarious!  Now multiply the ill effects of this one government program thousands of times over.  This is the government people vote for, time and time again.  And the really hilarious thing is that they want even more, not less!  Thank you sir may I have another!  The government intervenes and completely screws up.  And yet people seem to think the answer is more intervention by the same idiots who screwed up in the first place.

It was a beautiful morning so I couldn’t resist going out for a short ride.  It was calm, sunny and in the low 30s.  Went 22 miles on the local roads, nothing crazy since time is short (have lots of Turkey to eat after all) and I haven’t been on the bike in a few weeks.  Well, its off to Warren - Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

“There’s the feeling that next to financial services, automotive execs are the dumbest people in the world,” said Thomas Stallkamp, a former Chrysler president

When I tell people that I race my mountain bike, they sorta know what I’m talking about.  Similarly, people know basically what road racing is - they can’t really comprehend the feats of endurance involved, but they can at least visualize what is happening.  This is not the case with the discipline known as cyclocross (CX).  I know that the first time someone tried to explain it to me, what I visulized in my head was nothing like what it ended up being.  My first thought was accurate though: this sounds insane…and it is.

After a delicious breakfast at Harvest Moon Cafe we hit the township hall to vote.  Having election day off is awesome, and with unusually nice weather it was the perfect day for a ride.  So we packed up the Jeep and headed out to the Hamburg trail.

The worlds’ finest hitch mounted bike rack:

The always dangerous shot while rolling:

Some conspiracy theorists have put forth the idea that there is no difference whatsoever between the two major political parties in this country, it goes something like this:  The continued existence of the two party system is artificial, maintained by those in power to create the illusion of choice.  This illusions quells the outbreak of open rebellion by the population in the face of an aparant dictatorship, or at least a loose oligarchy.  Academia and the media are willing participants in the deception, and consciously work to both indoctrinate the population through the education process, and maintain an ongoing sense of hysteria through media coverage of trivial differences between the two parties.

Seems vaguely familiar doesn’t it?  As if maybe someone wrote a novel along these same lines.  Oh wait, that novel you’re think of had three ruling parties, not two - that can’t be it…

Maybe it was a movie, yeah, no one reads anymore anyway!  Well except for Harry Potter books.  I’m pretty sure they never discuss economics in those, although I could have skipped that chapter…  What was I talking about, oh right, a movie.  Mabye something with Keannu Reeves?  Nah, that movie was full of killer robots - those don’t really exist! Well ok so they sorta do, but they definitely aren’t thinking for themselves…yet.

So I guess I was way off base with that whole conspiracy theory idea.  That couldn’t really happen, I mean between the two major candidates they have collectively raised over a billion dollars in order to convince people of just how different they are.  And think of all the ways they spend that money: buttons, t-shirts, hair stylists, non-stop mass media advertising.  Hmm, I sense it’s time for a new topic.

Either I forgot to record a few entries in my training log, or its been 2 weeks since my last ride!  That can’t be right…oh wait it is.  Well technically it’s the off season so it’s ok.  Did 33 miles today in some extremely windy and rainy conditions.  I finally got my derailer working right, those darn mechanics make it look so easy and quick - it takes me forever to get it where I want.  I also had to play around with the free hub, the back wheel was wobbling a bit which is never good.  I can honestly say I don’t fully understand how this partciular part is supposed to work - if you tighten it too much the wheel won’t turn at all, and if its too loose the wheel wobbles.  My repair manual isn’t much help.  It doesn’t seem like a very goog design.

Congratulations to Carrie and Nathan, proud new parents!  Caitlin was born 10/29 weighing 5lbs, 1oz and 18.5 inches in length.