Suppressing our economy?

[scubadude]

Just curious if anyone watched I believe it was the discovery channel the other nite they talked about a man named Pogue who built a carburetor that could attach to just about any engine and you could get 200mpg but supposedly nothing much happened after that and many attempts have apparently been made to make free energy generators supposedly with some success and I did a little research on the net and found out that one guy built one of these energy free generators out of condensors and magnets and the day after he published it he was shot dead and his lab ransacked....Sure does make you wander about our government and the big motor companies....Also one last question....do you guys think it would starve our economy if we came up with an alternative cheaper fuel than gas? I realize that w/out gas in the picture that it would put alot of ppl out but wouldnt new jobs be made if we started mass producing hydrogen fueled cars?

[Ninong]

Hydrogen powered cars are one of the Governator's favorite topics. He promised to convert one of his many gas-guzzling Hummers into hydrogen power but GM decided to build a brand new one for him instead. He had a big photo-op at LAX and drove off in it into the sunset but he didn't get very far. There are extremely few hydrogen fuel stations in California right now. I know there's one at LAX but I'm not sure how many others are in operation. Ah-nult wants to fund a chain of hydrogen stations up and down the state of California. Right now it looks like he's ahead of the curve because the automakers (those that are doing anything at all about economy) are working on gas-electric hybrids right now.

[Poseidon]

With all the Doom sayers @ GM, they better come up with something ANYTHING alternative to the line-up they have now, and it has to be better then the gas-electric golf cart type TRUCK that shuts off at stop lights and back on again when you push the gas pedal... ALA GOLF CART. $2500 extra for that option to!

To get back on topic, I have heard stories of those carbs and "energy machines", but never anything concrete from say a reputable source like say MIT! And NOT the MIchigan Institute of Technology either!

[Ninong]

One of the shady things that I know of from GM's past is that they were involved in pushing a scheme to get public transit lines (trolley cars) removed so that people would have to buy more cars. That was decades ago before people like Ralph Nader and Michael Moore got on their case. I remember back in the 1950's when Chuck Wilson famously said, "What's good for General Motors is good for the U.S.A." That was somewhere around the time Eisenhower's chief of staff, Sherman Adams, was getting himself in hot water for accepting a vicuna coat from a lobbyist. That's what passed for scandal in the good ole days.

GM, Ford and the Chrysler Division of Daimler-Chrysler are all stuck with aging plant, unfunded pension plans and union contracts that put them at a disadvantage compared to the Japanese and even the Germans. Although the Germans have even worse union contracts. The Germans and the Japanese have newer plants because we bombed them to smithereens during WWII. Well, OK, maybe we didn't actually bomb some of the German auto plants but we sure bombed the Japanese auto plants. We even dropped the A-bomb on one of them. We avoided bombing certain German plants that were partially owned by American companies. We bombed BMW's aircraft engine plant.

So the U.S. domestic auto makers are still working out of places like River Rouge while the Japanese and the Germans are working out of much newer, more modern facilities. Have you ever seen pictures of BMW's facilities in Germany and elsewhere? State of the art. BMW decided to start building cars in the U.S. because our labor is so much cheaper here compared to what it costs them in Germany. That's because of the mandatory five week vacations and couple dozen federal holidays, plus all sorts of benefits.

I don't know what's going to happen to GM and Ford. Maybe they will be taken over by a foreign auto maker like Chrysler was. GM hasn't made money on North American assembly operations in so many years that I have lost count. They have been giving rebates and subsidized financing to sell their cars and they can't get away from that. People won't buy them without the rebates and the cheapy financing. And the various divisions have to pay GMAC the cost of the financing subsidy. So GMAC shows a huge profit while the assembly operations show a loss. It's simply taking money out of your left pocket and putting it in your right pocket.

GM should take some of the $20 billion they have in cash and pick up a few juicy acquisitions to diversify into other things, sort of like GE. Their business is too cyclical and too dependent on things beyond their control. They have no plans to revitalize the company. No real plans. Their shareholders' meeting a few days ago was all smoke and mirrors. They need the equivalent of someone like Lee Iacoca to come riding in on a white horse and shake things up.

[WHOSYOURDADDY]

The carburator that you talk about was 1st invented in the late 70's. The Oil Industry then went and bought the patent rights to it and buried the technology. They don't want people to get 200 mpg its not good for business.

I don't know how many folks remember the 70's but we were in the same position then as we are today. Except back then we had fuel ratiioning. Now it politically incorrect to fuel ration. At the same time under the Carter administration Federal Mandated Fuel Caps were removed which has allowed the price of fuel to continually rise. The thought process was that competition would keep it down. The only thing that occured has been colusion buy the oil industry to drive proves up over the past 3 decades. We have enough oil supplies but our Oil Companies do not want to use them. They prefer to buy outside the country throw in the fact that no new refineries have been built over the past 30 years have all added to what we see at the pump.

[Ninong]

I remember gas rationing in the 1940's but I don't remember any "rationing" in the 1970's. The only thing we had in the '70's, thanks to the arab oil embargo, was long lines and the fact that you could only buy ten gallons of gas and only on every other day. During the war (WWII) we had ration coupons for lots of stuff and gas was just one thing that was rationed.

[WHOSYOURDADDY]

It was not quite the same as in the 40's with ration cards. In Virginia Beach VA where I lived, they rationed by license plate number odd or even depending on whether your plate ended with a odd number or even number was which days you could fill up your car.

At that time I was not old enough to drive so I would ride my bike and watch all these people lined up at the gas station waiting to get their cars fueled up. I thought then how great it was not being dependent on cars. I still think that today, only problem today I live in the country and require the use of a vechicle to get to and from work. Outside that others can have the highways. Give me a Sailboat and open water and I'm happy as a lark.

[Ninong]

In the '70's you could still get in line again later and buy another 10 gallons of gas if you wanted to but in the '40's you had coupon books with only so many gas coupons, so your ration of gas was strictly limited.

[Poseidon]

Well I agree 100% about GM, actually being inside a GM stamping plant, and seeing the crap that goes on everyday there it is a miracle ANYTHING gets produced. Here is a good example, GM just bought 2 new Progressive Presses, they take roll steel on 1 side and a finished part comes out the other. Something in the neighborhood of 40-60 PER MINUTE! WOW! The problem is the people that put it together did a poor job, the thing leaks HUNDREDS of gallons of oil a week. Now they sure are not going to take it apart to fix it, but all that oil just increased the cost of each part they produce.