Poker Perambulation

Our elected representatives should be getting a penalty here. I haven't followed them closely but I've caught a few sound bites. Henry Waxman acting holier than thou should be a sketch on Saturday Night Live.

The indication is that this apologetic, little Japanese guy who's family was named after an automobile is actually the antichrist. Well, I remember when Toyota built funny looking car that rusted out in two year. Of course Detroit at the time was building battleships that rusted out in four years.

Over the intervening years, cars got better. Along that route there were cruise control recalls and tires shedding rubber. People died. The Feds had hearing and lambasted the evil corporations. The same ones they just bailed out.

Now, our elected representatives have another dog and pony show that will result in additional laws. This will add cost. We'll pay more for cars. The car folks will look for added efficiency. Added efficiency comes from cheapening components and eliminating jobs. That shouldn't be the goal at this or any time.

A couple of things come to mind:

• Enforce existing laws that penalized these companies in the past.
• Make the bureaucracy do their job instead of creating interpretations of law that distort the original intent. And put them in jail when they stray too far.

• Think about whether or not it will be smart to buy one of these new cars that's computer will supposedly slow you down automagically to avoid accidents and the like.

The Laws are there.  What is missing is efficient and productive government.  And, those don't make for great 6 o'clock sound bites.  Congress doesn't like being the cause of the problem and when caught always blame the other guy.  This Toyota thing would have been solved several years ago if government had done the job we overpay them to do.


Today's cars have hard drives and greater computer power than PC's from just a few years ago. We've all seen a blue screen of death. That translates worse to a car on the freeway. I'm not saying be a Luddite and go looking for a car you need to start with a hand crank. But avoid the new wiz-bang features until they install Control-Alt-Delete buttons on your steering wheel.

ADDENDUM:

Naming some folks after cars is a tradition and we shouldn't knock the poor Japs.  After all, Henry Ford did it when he named one offspring Edsel.

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