Comments on: BADGE ENGINEERING

By: Cal

Cal — Tue, 19 May 2009 13:18:17 +0000

How is this any different than the legions of mediocre Democrats out there? If you have any ideals whatsoever you will be destroyed by the other side so you end up with a shit salesman who puts Merril Lynch's boys in charge of a 3 trillion dollar bank give away and waffles on torture and military tribunals.

By: smike

smike — Tue, 19 May 2009 06:37:23 +0000

I very much enjoyed this piece. Thank you.

By: Ed

Ed — Tue, 19 May 2009 01:03:24 +0000

Yes, it was Smith. Prior to 1980 each division made its own engines. Even cars that shared body work were not mechanically identical. When he took over they abandoned that strategy, centralizing the production of drivetrains and then using the brands to simply wrap different packages around them.

By: Nan

Nan — Mon, 18 May 2009 22:57:17 +0000

Crap. Accidently hit submit too soon. Meant to add "and if they wanted honest politicians, no one currently holding office would be there."

By: Nan

Nan — Mon, 18 May 2009 22:55:52 +0000

Apt analogy, but your auto industry history is off. It wasn't Roger Smith. It was Charles Kettering back in the 1920s — Kettering figured out you could sell the same car at different price levels by implementing simple cosmetic changes, with Chevy at the bottom and Cadillac at the top. Kettering's also the guy who came up with planned obsolesence — the man was a marketing genius. You're giving American consumers way too much credit for having any intelligence when it comes to car shopping. They'll still go for Status first, hence the inexplicable lust some people have for the Cadillac Escalade when it's just a piece of shit Suburban with extra chrome, or when they prefer the ridiculous Lincoln Navigator over an ordinary Ford Expedition.

If people really wanted mechanical reliability and/or quality, no one would ever buy a Jaguar, especially since it evolved into a mutated Taurus.

By: Batocchio

Batocchio — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:58:36 +0000

Great analogy. The Daily Show had a good piece on this not long ago, but it's been evident for a long time, the GOP only wants to re-package, they don't want to improve anything.

By: J. Dryden

J. Dryden — Mon, 18 May 2009 16:56:22 +0000

It'll be interesting to see what happens to the GOP after the recession's ravages diminish somewhat. People don't give a rat's ass about "social values" when they're starving in the dark with no heat–they care about economic issues, which is the one area where Big Government can and does help the poor immeasurably, and where Democrats have Republicans beaten hands down. The GOP must to some extent be hurting because, in the face of this crisis, they're peddling the same song-and-dance that even the moronic's moron knows led the country into this mess–all we've heard from Reps for 30 years is that Deregulation Is Good, and now we're seeing what happens when the car hits the abutment when no one's wearing that seatbelt.

But…

When monetary matters eventually turn around, won't the bone-deep conservatism of the country eventually allow the GOP to trot out the same dog-and-pony to a crowd that cheers it as a "welcome return to traditional values"?

By: Dustin

Dustin — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:39:50 +0000

It's the same thing on the left though, no?

By: ladiesbane

ladiesbane — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:03:41 +0000

Loud cheers all the way. But from the consumer side: who does the GOP have left? Is it still counting heavily on rural America? Because their "Real Americans", while not being intelligent political consumers, originally turned away from the Democratic Party when it became overrun by non-whites and bra burners.

Will tokenism work as a rebranding strategy? Moving away from their Fat Old White Golfer mascot may hurt them with the white middle class deserters, despite Pat Buchanan's generation finally succumbing to CPD. The tent revival wing of the NASCAR crowd wouldn't vote for a non-white even if he could walk on water. So are the GOP mostly courting the Black and Hispanic votes? Will shouting loudly enough about abortion and gays woo them back? At what cost would the left wing want to keep them?

Abortion: can it be debated sanely? Who will be the next Supreme? We'll see. Likewise, if Obama sacrifices gays the way Clinton did (first as a threat, then as a bargaining chip, then as a burnt offering to conservatives) we'll see an indicator of whether we're really rebuilding America…or whether the left, assimilating so much of the right, is not listing heavily to starboard.