The Captions of Stupidity

Watching the crash of GM, Ford, and Nissan, makes me remember the ancient death throes of Nash, Rambler, Jeep, Studebaker, DeSoto, Hudson, Checker, Austin-Healy, etc., plus some great old vehicles we used to love like the Plymouth Valiant, Dodge Dart, and VW Bus.
But maybe we were all too idealistic. We all seemed to think that if the young (age 16 to 36) craved these solid easy to fix and reasonably priced vehicles that they would always be there. Why not? Weren't we the most desired demographic in America? The object of all Ad campaigns? And wouldn't it have been wise to keep us from the Japanese invasion which featured fuel efficiency and sturdy longevity...and let us trade up later as we married and raised families and EARNED MORE MONEY?! Nahhhhh...
They were right, of course; we were wrong.
But, of course, that violated the cardinal rule of business: the customer is always right.. You, the seller cannot tell them what they want; you only get to supply it. Keeping an old customer is about 1,000 times harder than finding a new one.
Nevertheless, the remains of the oligopoly, GM, Ford, and Chrysler, knew best.
Even at the cusp of evolutionary change, with gas prices informing every car-buying decision with the impending doom of Peak Oil they had one last chance to save the industry. They had the EV-1. And we loved it!
Nothing like an electric car you could plug in at home overnight and run clean! You could even devise a method of generating your own electricity for free via solar or wind and drive for FREE!
We were all licking our chops and dying to whip out our checkbooks....when they killed it.
Death to the electric car. Let's burn diesel, ethanol or gasoline forever, they told us. And let's build SUVs as big as RVs so we can carry the whole soccer team the six blocks from field to fridge and still have room for pizzas!
Let's worship the McMansion lifestyle and the two car garage @ $4 per gallon until hell freezes over...or until the Arctic melts...i mean. Until the polar bears drown in the warmed over algae bloom.
And expect this market to last forever and ever 'til death do us part.
Funny. How I feel no sympathy now. Let'm die out. Sell the factories to green companies who will then make EVs and let's try to save the planet AND make money...isn't that what the people want? Isn't that what anyone with children and/or grandchildren would want? Some way to get around that doesn't preclude fresh air for our kids? Or a future with nothing but bad weather and high water?
This is really just the end of the era of selfishness.
The beginning of the age of empathy. The new economic rules don't come from Ayn Rand or Uncle Milty anymore. They come from Mother Earth and Auntie Gaea. And if you cannot fit in with that, you lose.
Detroit. Get with it! I got no sympathy.
You bought up every choice we ever coulda had that might've saved yourself.
You are not too big to fail. You are to stupid to exist.
And I got no Sympathy.