My car is died and Detriot is not looking too healthy either.

Since 1988 I have been driving a 1986 Mazda subcompact. It was a hatxhback, not flashy but, reliable transportation and very good on gas. One August night in 2007 I was driving it home from the Ronkonkoma train station. I turned a corner and the car died. It cranked fine but, just never started again. Since it had only 66,000 original miles on the odometer I knew it still had some life in it even if the body was starting to show it's age. I was planning on buying a new car anyway but, I thought I try and use it for one more year. I had it towed to my house thinking I would try and revive it. I never did make much progress or really spend much time on it. This week I donated it to a children's charity. It was sad to see it being towed off. I knew it still had a few miles in it. But, the reality is I did not have the time to work on it like I thought I would. I had bought a new car brand new which if my driving remains the same may last me until I die. Only a few months before I had spent $600 for a new muffler system for it to keep it going. It nows looks like that was money that was wasted. Meanwhile in Washington the Federal Government has granted billions of dollars in loans to the big three U.S. car makers to keep them going. I just hope that will not be money that was wasted too.

The end of the road...

I got off the Long Island Railroad train in Ronkonkoma the other night returning from Washington D.C. and got into my 1986 subcompact car. The car has been a reliable economical workhorse for me. I had only traveled about a mile when I made a turn and the car stalled. Thinking my luck had run out and that perhaps I had finally gone too far in not putting enough gas in the tank. Well, that was not the problem. So the car was towed. It looks like the end of the line for this vehicle reliable though it was. Parts were increasingly harder to get and as Neil Young said "rust never sleeps" So I'm off to buy a new car this morning. If it is a reliable and lasts as long as the Mazada it may be the last car I buy or own. The new car will have airbags and not just seat belts a it will be safer perhaps a little more economical. Still there is a bit of sadness in letting the car that has carried me around for over twenty years go.

From the hello sucker taxpayers files.

There was a photo op at the White house with President Bush on Monday with the heads of the U.S. auto makers and the Secretary of Transportation. This little meeting was no doubt arranged by Bush's former chief of staff Andrew Card who just happened to be a former lobbyist for the automakers.
Here is the money quote:

"One of the things that I think it's important for American taxpayers to understand is that we're using some of their dollars to promote new technologies, and we're working with these CEOs and their respective companies to advance new technologies." -President Bush

TRANSLATION: I just wanted to tell the American Taxpayers that we are giving these automakers some corporate welfare because they want the money instead of spending their own. Besides I owe them and this is how I pay them back. Thanks sucker taxpayers!

I wonder how much money the Bush administration gave Toyota to develop the revolutionary Prius car. How much did that cost U.S. taxpayers? The U.S. automakers should be ashamed to accept this corporate welfare because it really amounts to we taxpayers subsidizing their research & design efforts. That is not capitalism that is corporate welfare!