Bailouts, my car and pandemics

I'm sitting here reading Tuesday's Wall Street Journal -- what? Revere subscribes to the WSJ? No, but for reasons known only to Darwin, every couple of days a copy is delivered to my door, each with someone else's address on it, and never the same someone else two times in a row -- so, anyway, I'm reading the WSJ about the auto industry bailout goings on, and there's an article about how auto parts suppliers are going under, many whether there's a bailout or not, apparently because demand is so soft and credit so tight and margins so small that they can't make it (I'm reading in dead tree medium and don't have a subscription; it's on page A14 of the December 9 issue). So that gets me thinking, first about my 14 year old shitbox with the broken hood hinge (my son won't ride in the car declaring it not road worthy), and then about pandemic preparedness. Pandemic preparedness and the auto industry bailout?

It's like that old joke (I'll shorten it out of mercy for you, dear reader). A soldier has to be sent out on a hazardous mission and the Army doc is asked to select one quickly. He only has time to ask a single question, so he decides to wave a hankerchief in front of their face and ask what that makes them think of. The first soldier say, "My dear old Mum waving good-bye to me at the train station," and begins to sob. Not so good, thinks the doc. The second one says, "That's the white flag of surrender!" Definitely not good, thinks the doc. The third one says, "That makes me think of screwing." "Huh?" says the good doctor. "Screwing? Why does waving a white handkerchief in front of your face make you think of screwing." Says the solder, "Because I always think of screwing."

So I'm thinking of the auto industry bailout and that makes me think of the influenza pandemic. The point is this. If there is a bankruptcy of even one of the Big Three, the current 20 foot tidal wave of parts supplier failures will turn into a tsunami. At least according to the Wall Street Journal, and who am I to argue with them. Partial or temporary shutdowns lead to canceled orders lead to parts shortages (many specialty parts for cars and trucks are single source) and then more temporary shutdowns. And car makers, like pharmacies and supermarkets and everyone else trying to shave expenses, have moved to just-in-time inventories, which means they don't have stockpiles or inventories of essential parts. And it's not just the Big Three because the "foreign" auto companies (meaning the ones with foreign names) use many of the same suppliers so they can be affected, too. So the workers are out of work and that starts to put pressure on the social safety net, including the hospitals, clinics, food banks and then all the businesses that are supported by the workers, like the corner convenience store and the drugstore and the other sources of food and drugs we depend on. So the auto industry thing and the whole steaming shitpile are like a little pandemic in terms of economic and social consequences, except people don't die right away from losing their job (it usually takes a little longer to die from that).

Now put a really bad flu season on top of that. Not necessarily a pandemic. Just a real bad flu season. Not a pretty picture. I'd rather think of screwing.

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Good post, Revere. The more discussion of inter-connectedness, and the more realisation of how we can no longer ignore the big issues such as supply chain failure, global warming impacts etc, the better. It is WAY overdue.

We were discussing the other evening that perhaps the greatest tragedy of the financial crisis is that funds that would be necessary to combat global warming impacts will just not be available, and for two reasons. One is the fact that there won't be "excess" capital available anyway, the second is that the (global) mindset will very quickly turn to short term mitigations to deal with rising unemployment, and the myriad of other effects of the Wall Street greed game.

All this is happening at exactly the wrong time. We need the focus to be on the big climate picture for our longer term well being. But I fear that we will look back on this period as the time we missed the opportunity to tackle climate change, and the tipping point will have been missed.

Bad timing...but that's life.

RobT: ...but that's life.

Not to those who see the train wreck coming.
And not to those who truly realize the oligarchy's need to be given a swift kick in the behind, and all the way to the moon.
It amazes me that, what 1%?, 2%?, of the population controls the other percentage! We are fools.

BTW revere, what in the world does Mrs. R drive? You really need to get another car before it's too late. (although, I do enjoy, in a weird type of way, the stories of your Volvo).

Lea: Mrs. R. gave her 1987 Volvo 740 to daughter and son in law and got a 2004 Corolla, but hates it because visibility is bad (I agree). After a couple of months her old Volvo caught on fire and was a total loss (everyone safe). They then bought -- on Criag's list -- a used Volvo wagon to accomodate their two baby carseats and within a month both fuel pumps went and fixing it was equal to what they paid for it, which was all the money they had in the world. The whole family is after me to get another car but I'm not sure I can afford it at this time and the beast runs (although the exhaust is sounding bad and I've just replaced all four tires, two from the junkyard with rims and not in pairs, which Mrs. R. tells me is a big no-no). Lots of things don't work any more and little pieces of the inside are falling off but all I care about is getting to work and back and it has relatively low mileage (just under 96K). So you'll probably keep reading about the shitbox for a while. Unless I win the lottery. Which is unlikely for two reasons. The first is that anyone's chances of winning the lottery are pretty small. The second, I don't buy lottery tickets.

So I'm sitting here (Thursday morning) reading Revere's post about his lovely Volvo and how All things are connected; Financial crisis, bailouts, pandemics. And I was reminded of my neighbours. I met my neighbour at the store the other day. She and her husband had been robbed at gun point in their very big and Very Protected home. It was the second time. The first time they woke up and couldn't find their car keys. Then they looked out the window couldn't find the cars either! They had 2 Cayennes. The thieves had put the dogs to sleep that were guarding the house, broken into the home and stolen the keys and left. They replaced one of the Cayennes with the same and then got another car in addition. Oct. 1 they shut off the video surveillance system, unlocked their front door to let the dogs out and are met by four armed, masked men. This time they got to sit on the couch with their grandson as the men emptied the house and then took the Cayenne. When they finally could call the Gendarmes (because all of this happened in the south of France), they were told two things; One, don't talk about what happened, we are taking care of it. And two, The 'bad guys' aren't going after banks anymore. There isn't any money there. They are attacking wealthy homes and stores. 10 days ago a jewlery store in Paris was robbed. As for the 'don't talk about it' part, they did talk about it. It turns out that there were 4 armed robberies in homes in four nights in the area. So how is all of this connected? The robbers select their prey by the car they are driving. My neighbour after 3 Cayennes, and a Lexus is now driving a Nissan Micra. And nobody follows a Nissan Micra home. So Keep your shitbox Volvo Revere and stay safe.

By Christine (not verified) on 10 Dec 2008 #permalink

I've got a 1993 Toyota Tercel with 95K and it is holding up really well. Everyone is horrified that it has no power windows or locks - heaven forbid I have to reach all the way across. (Heck, some days that's the only exercise that I get!) It used to be red, but has faded to a splotchy pinkish. No parts falling off, except that the exhaust system is now in danger of dropping due to the supports rusting away (I'm in Minnesota - salt on the icy roads is a killer.) Everything is welded together so the parts all have to be removed if you take off one to add a new bracket. (Guess the newer cars have more interchangeable parts under there??) Your article makes me think I should pay the $700 for the repairs before it's impossible to get the parts.
Sure do love the gas mileage and the low insurance on this little beast. Gotta love these old cars!
[You may like my webpage - daily updates of all the natural disaster and pandemic news.]

OK folks, enough tinkering around at the margins and trying to put band-aids on a slashed carotid artery.

The central problem is that money has ceased to be simply a useful tool, and has become our master, that dictates every last detail about what is and is not done in society-at-large and in the lives of individuals.

Money works on reptile logic: eat and multiply. We have effectively abdicated our role as sentient mammals and turned over control of our society to reptiles. Envision for a moment a superstitious sect whose members keep snakes in aquariums and ask the snakes for permission for everything they do in life. That's us, and the snakes are money.

Realistically (by which I mean, in terms of realities such as pandemics and the climate crisis: stuff that nature does regardless of what we think about it) we have got to have a substantial reconfiguration of our culture such as to put money back in its rightful place as a useful tool, and put human reason back in control of societal and individual decisions.

For the cost of bailing out a bunch of malfeasant bankers, we could have had total energy independence, on climate-clean energy sources (renewables, nuclear, conservation). We could have had full-on national health care. We could have a NASA budget that would open so many doors of fundamental science it would make our heads spin. But no. Instead we have a bunch of spoiled self-indulgent little monkeys collecting their bonus checks for having written fraudulent mortgages, and a tsunami of a bailout, and an economic depression, and missed opportunities enough to make our grandchildren want to kill us.

Enough is enough. No more excuses.

Throw the fraudsters in prison, let the toobigtofails fail, push the reboot button, and build a world that's truly fit to live in.

Revere,

I would be interested at some point, if you could comment on the recent H5N1 vaccine and anti-viral development? I get Google news alerts on H5N1 and see clinical trials and research released that looks promising. But you haven't commented for awhile. Are we any closer to having something viable?

Thanks
Patch

Patch: I'm keeping my eye on things. One problem is that the vaccine and biotech pressers wind up in the news but don't really have any scientific news in them. They are promoting their future products. I've commented a bit on it lately but there are some great sites out there (crof, afludiary, zoe, etc.) who are pretty quick on the news filter angle. But I'll think about surveying it more. I've just finished writing a grant and have had to deal with some nasty viruses in the family. I am also overwhelmed at work with faculty duties and research matters so I decided to watch and see what the shakes out. As usual.

I'm always confused by your references to your "shitbox". My 1996 Corolla with 200K is our "good car", one of the nicest cars I've ever owned, and the car I intend to drive for another few years, or until I hit a deer.

You can buy a hood hinge pretty cheaply using an online search, or at a junkyard. You shouldn't scrimp on tires, and you need to be vigilant for cracked fuel lines, but "stuff falling off on the inside" is what duct tape and thumbtacks are for. (You use thumbtacks to hold up the falling fabric of the roof; let the kids install them in a nice pattern.)

Next time you see a "nice car" on the road, go ahead and look it up online, figure what the car payments would be, and then go on one of those online insurance outfits and figure out what you'd be paying for full coverage on said car. You'll like your "shitbox" much better when you're snickering at people who plow $400 or more into their cars every month.

revere - No matter what you buy there is a sweet spot for getting the maximum performance for the least amount of money. IMHO for cars buying used, usually much cheaper if purchased from the owner instead of a dealer, is almost always more effective.

Way I figure it is that to get a new car one pretty much has to spend about $15,000 to drive it off the lot. whereas a decent used car can be had for $6000.

But, of course, buying used your buying another person's troubles. Your condemning yourself to being 'nickeled and dimed to death' as all the small things go south. Something to that but if you look at what goes wrong, assuming you avoid an absolute dog where the engine or tranny is bad, it is almost always the secondary systems that fail. It is the water pump, alternator, battery, hoses, belts, brakes, radiator, tires or starter that give up one at a time.

Now if you wait for them to fail individually your looking at a lot of inconvenience, cost and lost time. Funny thing is that if you took it to a reputable shop and had them all replaced the cost goes down. While the radiator is out it is a lot easier to get to the timing belt so the price of replacing the timing belt, and thermostat while your at it, goes down. To take the radiator out you have to remove the hoses so that job is about half price. And so it goes. Done together replacing all the items likely to fail and leave you stranded can be done for a few thousand dollars.

Now where do you get a few thousand dollars? How about the price difference between a new and good used car? In this case $9000. For perhaps $3000 of that in garage work you could have a perfectly reliable car for maybe ten years. Leaving you with $6000 to buy gas with.

Looking at the market a five year old car usually has most of the engineering and safety features as the new ones. It keeps you relatively current and makes the insurance companies happy. In this case being a step or two behind the pack pays dividends.