Most Expect Trump To Be The Worst President Since Nixon

The chart above was made from information in a new Public Policy Polling survey -- done on January 23rd and 24th of a random national sample of 1,043 registered voters, with a margin of error of 3 points.

It shows that the general public has some very low expectations of the Trump presidency. In fact, they think he will be a worse president than any president between Obama and Ford. The only president they view Trump as possibly being better than is Nixon (who was impeached and had to resign).

Personally, I wouldn't give Trump that much credit. I think he will be worse than Richard Nixon.

I Agree With Bush (OMG, Did I Say That !)

The Big Three American automakers (GM, Chrysler, Ford) have made bad decisions one after another for the last few years, and now they find themselves in financial trouble. It's not as if they were doing their best and just got caught by a bad economy. While foreign carmakers looked at the future and began to alter the cars they were offering to fit that future, the American automakers cast their lot with ever bigger gas-guzzlers as though the supply of cheap oil was endless.

Now that they are in trouble, they want the American government and people to bail them out with billions of dollars. They don't deserve it because they created the mess they're now in, but sadly if we allow them to go under as they deserve, it would affect many thousands of workers and suppliers. These workers and suppliers are not responsible for the mess and shouldn't have to suffer. In addition, if the workers lose their jobs and the suppliers go out of business, our fragile economy will be seriously damaged.

Something must be done -- but what? Congressional Democrats want to create an additional $25 billion to give to the car companies, possibly out of the already approved $700 billion bailout package for saving our financial institutions. Bush is opposed to this. He points to a previously approved $25 billion to help automakers create more fuel-efficient and alternative fuel cars, and wants to loosen the rules on that money and let the car companies use it to save themselves.

Frankly, though it gags me to say it, I have to agree with Bush on this matter. Why create an additional $25 billion debt for taxpayers, when the first $25 billion is still waiting to be used. I know that money was to help them transition to autos that use less or no gasoline. But they are going to have to do that anyway if they are to survive, and if they don't survive why waste an additional $25 billion on them?

As for tapping into the $700 billion bailout, we are going to need every penny of that to try to fix the credit crises (and it might not be enough anyway). It would be a bad precedent to start handing this money out to failing companies having nothing to do with the credit crises.

It bothers me to be agreeing with The Worst President Ever, but I guess even a broken clock is right a couple of times a day.

Is The Turnaround By American Automakers Real?

Much has been made on the news the last few days about how Ford and General Motors actually turned a decent profit in the last quarter. Of course, officials at the two companies would like for us to believe they have solved their problems, and are on the road back to dominance.

But the truth is that these profits were made on the backs of the workers. The executives have not turned the companies around. They are not now making better and more dependable cars that people want more than foreign imports. They have simply fired tens of thousands of American workers, and that will not sustain their profits in the future.

The truth is that these companies are losing more market-share every day. A couple of months ago, Toyota passed GM and became the leader in car sales worldwide (and they didn't have to fire thousands of workers to do it).

Even worse, for the first time in the history of the auto industry, the market-share of U.S. automakers has fallen below 50% IN THE UNITED STATES! Foreign cars now have a larger share of the market than American cars in our own country. Instead of driving forward, U.S. automakers are still pedaling backwards.

In July, GM, Ford and Chrysler (which will soon be American-owned again) only had a 49.5% share of the U.S. market. This figure includes U.S. owned foreign brands such as Saab, Volvo, Land Rover and Jaguar. If you exclude these cars, the market-share falls to 48.1%.

Don't let them fool you. American automakers are still in a lot of trouble. They need to start producing cars that excite the public -- cars that are dependable, fuel-efficient and attractive, or they'll be driven out of the business. It may already be too late to turn things around and regain the trust of the consumer.

The next few years will tell the story. They must innovate or perish.

What Happened To General Motors ?

Last week it was revealed that General Motors is no longer the leading car producer in the world. In the first quarter of this year, Toyota sold 2.348 million cars, passing GM for the first time. During the same period, GM sold 2.26 million cars. And it doesn't look like this trend will be reversed anytime soon.

What happened? How could GM have lost the lead it had for so many years? MSN.com has a pretty good article on how this happened.

The article says that the two main reasons are "yester-think" and "bloated union contracts". I disagree about the union contracts. They have re-negotiated many of the contracts, and closed down many plants in this country to shift production to Mexico and other places. It has not helped, because that was not the problem.

But the engagement in "yester-think" was definitely one of the major reasons. GM was fat and happy and continued to build the same product, while Toyota (and other foreign companies) were constantly redeveloping and improving their product. By the time they figured this out, it was too late. Even most Americans now consider Toyota and Honda to be more advanced and more dependable than cars made by GM and Ford.

I think another reason for their downfall was the close ties between American car companies and the big oil companies. For many years, each looked out for the other. Big oil keep their prices fairly low, and the car makers refused to seriously consider building truly energy-efficient cars. When they did build a small car, it was more of an afterthought, and did not meet the quality of its foreign competition.

They were convinced that the world preferred to drive big gas-guzzlers. But then the big oil companies decided to go for enormous windfall profits, and by doing so put a knife in Detroit's back. Toyota, Honda and others never had a close relationship with big oil, and were able to build ever more efficient and dependable cars. When big oil went crazy, they were already in the market with appropriate products. GM and Ford are still trying to play catch-up.

Maybe they have finally learned, you just can't trust the big oil companies.