Conservative ideologues looking to punish workers and the American middle class for auto industry failures are driven by an authoritarian worldview George Lakoff calls the strict parent model.
Senate Republicans see their opposition to the rescue of Detroit as whipping the children. They are not that different from the failed father who thinks his follies can be overcome by beating the wife and kids. Politically, they seek to avoid responsibility for the nation’s economic woes. It’s not the strict authority who’s at fault. It’s the misbehaving children. Conservatives think they must take away the keys to the car.
The strict parent worldview is not now and never has been compatible with democracy or economic egalitarianism. But it’s always been part of American culture, and most of us carry at least some residual consequence of its cognitive gene. We may be committed democrats, but we laugh along when a boss at work quips, "This is not a democracy." Or we raise our children in a traditional strict model fashion. Lakoff calls this "biconceptualism." We use the strict model in some parts of our lives, and it’s opposite, the nurturant or shared responsibility model, in others.
The authoritarian model has been culturally conserved by shrewd neo-Calvinist religious manipulators and free market extremists who recognize that wealth and power trickle up. Both models go way back. According to Hannah Arendt, Jan Patocka and other philosopher/historians, it was with the emergence of the polis from the household and the birth of Greek democracy that family organizational models were metaphorically mapped onto larger social and political groupings. (It’s also true that the influence is reciprocal, as feminist theorists correctly point out. Patriarchal social organization leads to patriarchal families, and vise versa.)
I agree with anthropologists like Christopher Boehm, who date the birth of democracy and its ethic of shared responsibility as far back as the Paleolithic, 10,000 years ago, when hunter gatherers organized together to limit abusive authority. You can read much more about this in my series, "The Promise of Popular Democracy," at OpenLeft, Part I, Part II, Part III.
As Lakoff says, these models are wired into our brains. They are not bodiless, weightless, free-floating ideas we can take or leave. John Dewey recognized them as habits of thinking. When Republicans carefully frame issues around blame, punishment and authority, their frames are understood. Even people who consider themselves liberal democrats can sometimes be persuaded with these frames, since, as I said, they are likely to use the strict model in some part of their lives.
While it is important to get the facts of the auto manufacturers’ woes right and to point out the dire consequences to millions of Americans of the failure to rescue the industry, it is not enough. People aren’t computers who reason through the facts to perfect solutions. We see things through our emotionally laden worldviews.
We have to contest the strict model metaphors and values – out loud. It’s the only way to activate the value system and worldview of shared responsibility.
The automobile industry is a shared, collective endeavor. What do we, the American family, want to make of it? We want affordable, safe, fuel-efficient, environmentally sound cars built by committed workers who are rewarded for undertaking this task on our behalf.
Framed this way, the financial rescue of Detroit can be seen as the moral endeavor of citizens taking responsibility for ourselves. Blame and punishment become less relevant. Current auto industry leadership might or might not need replacing. Certainly, punishing workers is insane. If we must lend our tax dollars to the effort, so be it. In return, the industry must agree to morally sound practices.
This is an opportunity to shape the manufacture of American automobiles. Conservative efforts to exploit the issue for political gain can be seen as irresponsible and craven.
But unless we articulate progressive values, we are at a disadvantage with conservatives who don’t hesitate to argue punishment and authority. If the strict, authoritarian worldview is activated by conservatives, and the progressive worldview of shared responsibility is not, how can we hope to prevail? We remain in the backseat of a car we don’t like, a car very likely to be driven over a cliff by a strict parent who demands the wheel while denying any responsibility for where we go.
Related posts:
- New Report: Conservative Republicans Are Delusional Paranoids
- Democrats and Republicans Targeted by Clunkers
- FDL Book Salon Welcomes David Owen, Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less are the Keys to Sustainability
- Won’t Someone Think Of The Children?
- Love of Liberty and Health Care in America
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The real culprit is hierarchy which states your proposition another way. It’s like the commandment to honor your father and mother. OK in primitive societies, but futile in rapidly evolving technological societies where the parents’ experience obsoleses quickly. Still we seek father figures mostly-things are changing to more mother figures-we should ask ourselves, why?
ah, but Glenn — the point is not just to punish the ‘naughty Daddies” who have badly led their companies; it’s also to punish the workers who have the temerity to expect to be paid reasonably well, work in a safe environment, and actually be able to afford to life and buy what they are producing. The GOP is looking for a ‘two-fer’.
before I even read the post, LOL on the pic and caption.
Uh what happened to the strict parent when the banks needed money?
I think Bush gave the word to kill the Obama economy. Banks get a bailout then then after getting the money they stop making loans?
The execs are strict parents themselves. Can’t be their fault. Their authority is absolute. Must be the fault of others, therefore they deserve to be made whole.
“You’ve got to be cruel to be kind.”
That almost sums up the GOP except they don’t worry about the “kind” part.
Not to be a contrarian vis a vis raising the kids but allowing your kids full voting rights just to be democratic and egalitarian doesn’t work out too well.
Good example of this with Ensign just on Wolf Blitzer.
We gotta be careful with the gender roles here. The strict/authoritarian and the nurturant/responsible “parent” aren’t necessarily gendered, tough culture has assigned them gendered roles. Undoing that influence is an important step in developing new ways of thinking and living.
Risking millions of jobs car jobs, parts makers, steel makers,auto dealer jobs before Christmas shopping season will kill retail jobs.
In what world does the GOP think that playing Scrooge before Christmas will get them votes?
Just who is in charge of GOP strategy now?
Has
Jim Jonesthe GOP at last drunk his own coolaid?Ah ingroup banks are human they deserve a bailout outgroup Union car makers are not human they must be destroyed.
The problem comes from mapping family models onto the adult world. Certainly, children need to be nurtured and guided. They are not born adults. They are not born evil either, as people like James Dobson insist.
When necessary parent/child relationships are used to guide adult organization, some adult or other is infantilized.
Well, what the GOP has finally done, if anyone was in any doubt before, is that they have turned themselves into ‘the party of really mean people’. Kids, families, affordable education, vets..you name it..and now the message is: We’d rather send the country’s economy down the sewer and take the rest of the world with it rather than support workers who are represented by a union.
Glenn,
The brain is much more hard wired toward authoritarianism than you give credit. We have to fight against it to be sure, but we should know how hard the battle will be.
The best book I’ve ever read on authoritarian leaders is King of the Mountain by Arnold Ludwig
http://www.amazon.com/King-Mou…..038;sr=1-2
He actually studied all leaders of all countries in the 20th C. The short version is alpha male (look at the cover art). He subdivided the study by types of government and the alpha male tendency is least embedded, but (from memory) still characterizes the vast majority, something like 70%.
Another way to illustrate it is that of all leaders of all countries in the 20th C, only 2-3/4% were women, and of those, 1-3/4 percentage points were daughters of or wives of.
OT eCHAN did you see this?
http://seekingalpha.com/articl…..-interview
I like Stephanie Pomboy’s take on economics I thought I’d get your opinion.
The Goppers are like the bull in the china shop, they want it trashed so the Dems can’t clean it up in time for future election cycles.
I agree but this won’t win them votes. If anything it will make them less popular than they already are and I thought the GOP was pushing the low point of poll numbers before.
Just how low can they go?
Blaming the childish unions is a strategy that reassures GOP base voters that authority remains unsullied. Here’s one of the scariest parts of the model (which is over-simplified here; all human psychology shouldn’t be reduced to this, we’re more complicated, nonetheless…):
In the strict parent model, the top priority is always protecting and maintaining authority. It can’t be wrong, and it can’t lie, or, when it lies it is only to maintain its authority and that is morally justifiable in the model.
Bush/Rove used this to great effect. So what if they lied about WMDs, it was a morally justified lie because it furthered the strict parent’s authority and provided handy villains. Everyone challenging the lie could be lumped in with terrorists, sharing the goal of attacking authority.
if you get rid of the workers – who’s going to buy all those foreign cars???????????? has any of the repugs thought about any of this in their haste to union bust?? the legacy auto makers don’t deserve anything unlike the wall street crowd……
I look forward to reading the book. I am, at the moment, convinced by Christopher Boehm’s argument that first democratic impulses arose in the Paleolithic — and were moves of solidarity to protect against abusive authority. In other words, while hierarchies are certainly natural (and, in important ways, even important in cognitive organization) there is also a natural resistance movement in our hearts and minds.
True. Infantilization should only be between consenting adults.
Requires too much long term thinking. So, no, they haven’t. And you’re right.
When my father was a child, there was one coat in the house, and whichever of the six kids got up first got to wear it to school.
But his mother had a new car every two years.
Brute power always justifies serving its own desires while ignoring the needs of the lower orders.
But they are doing this in a way that they will get the blame right now when Obama hopefully will be pushing for change.
The GOP is risking turning public opinion against themselves when they need it most cause they are weak to stand against Obama.
Custer Little Big Horn
Never heard of Pomboy before, but I’ll go out on a limb from the short clip you linked. She’s sounds like the stopped clock model of forecasting, i.e. it is accurate, but not very often. I say that because she forecast what would happen in 2008 in 2002. That kind of forecast is useless. She was wrong for 5 years.
I suspect she’s a chronic debt worrier. In my nearly 30 years on Wall St. I ran into such people often. Without going into details, the link between debt and the economy, and all the other factors to be considered, is complicated and the article makes her look like a one-trick pony.
She could be a great economist & forecaster whom the article makes look bad. It happens often. So I could be wrong, but all the info I have is what you linked to.
I understand the impulse I don’t see rationally how this will win votes?
Controlling your selfish impulses is the first step to getting power.
Heh. If democratic impulses first arose in the Paleolithic, we haven’t come very far in all those thousands of years. Which also tells you a lot about the task of those who work against the authoritarian model.
Maybe if some of those right wing bastards had maintained the ‘strict parent’ attitude towards their own children 40 years ago we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in today. George H.W. and Barbara vs. George W. Bush immediately come to mind…
Didn’t say it’d be easy.
I wonder ,how many readers of this post are actually driving GM ,Fords or Chryslers?
chrysler van, 1999
She is one of the first people I read who had serous doubts about the Bush economy at the time it seemed nobody on the MSM or print had doubts.
“getting” power — yes.
But we’ve become an aristocracy. Many people who are in power now never had to really “get” their power. It’s been formed, nurtured, protected, and delivered to them as they inherited it from their parents.
They have believed in their inherent superior wisdom since way before they developed any kind of wisdom at all. It’s the born on 3d base; thinks he/she hit a triple syndrome.
I think the good news for democracy is that the real suffering caused by aristocratic, trickle-down economics has spread wide enough to reach critical mass, the tipping point.
Misery isn’t the dirty little secret of a few poor slobs who had the bad luck to live in the rust belt. We’re all miserable now, and looking around for where we put our pitchforks.
Well, I do. I even bought a new/used Saturn just the other day when my old one passed the 220,000 mile mark, knowing that Saturn’s days might be numbered. But I don’t think there’s a politically correct obligation to do so. Seriously, nothing promotes change like the loss of market share. If a foreign-made car is more efficient, less expensive to operate, kinder to the environment etc., it gets ethically dicey to insist my neighbor buy GM.
nine-year-old Infiniti
I have a real question of “Equal Protection Under the Law” here. Why is AIG allowed to give
bonusesretention enhancments with tax payer monies. Has anyone looked to see how many corporate jets these wall street firms own. Why is BoA buying Chinese banks and shutting off lines of credit here. Why is Sen Arlen Spector and his wife flying on AF jet on a european vacation on taxpayers dime. WTF is wrong here.Does anyone think there’s any chance of an “Enlightenment 2.0?” Can I get me some philosophers here? Surely there’s a Republican somewhere thinking “…this is some stupid ass shit.”
http://www.amazon.com/Chalice-…..0062502891
I thought stone age society was based on women’s rule?
Ludwig it turns out is a psychiatry professor (emeritus). That hadn’t gelled before.
I read the reader reviews. There are only 5 of them, 4 give the book the highest rating, one downgrades it to 4 stars for a bogus reason: not understanding why FDR is categorized with Mao and other neer-do-wells. The category is “visionaries,” or those leaders who change the entire society during their tenure as leaders. That group has the strongest tendency toward alpha male, as you might expect. What was eye-opening to me is that most “visionaries” are evil in the sense of changing society in a bad direction. FDR is one of the few who changed it in a positive way.
I thought Graves made the case that Jesus heralded the rise of the Man god?
http://www.amazon.com/King-Jes…..0374516642
Everything.
I’ve owned about 40 different vehicles over the years ( car nut ) Hondas Toyotas Acuras Gm Ford And Chrysler
But I guess it’s a matter of what one can afford more than anything else
this is a terrific piece, thanx for writing it glen
there is is glen, this is not by accident and it is not a residual of an ideology, it is in fact the very reason the ideology exists
this “wealth” is not however “trickled” to the authoritarians it enjoys immediate redistribution of Capitol
the “wealth” or “capitol” comes in quite a few forms too, the obvious monetary gains, the obvious social gains but the real capitol being acquired here, the capitol which will gain all other forms of capitol is power
well with the job market the way it is, which one of AIG’s executives is looking to jump ship and work for a different pirate captain?
Retention bonuses my ass, more like keep-your-mouth-shut bonuses if you ask me.
there is good evidence the real life of Christ and the religion he actually preached during his life was not neither Christianity nor Judaism and that Mary Magdalen was not his decimal but his superior, hence the religions based on the Magdalena
Thanks, and, you’re right about power.
As a Phil B.A I think
But there are not many GOP philosophers and in my experience and those that are are not very good.
The continued attempt attempt to logically prove the existence of God Philosophically is just one example.
I hear the Catholic Universities though are teaching its proven though.
GOP philosophers drink the coolaid and then attempt to work backwords and make fact fit belief.
Hmmm…Madoff…
“Among those who have acknowledged potential losses so far: Former Philadelphia Eagles owner Norman Braman, New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon and J. Ezra Merkin, the chairman of GMAC Financial Services.”
Ruh, Roh…
http://www.google.com/hostedne…..gD95241J80
Ach, was brainwashed from birth to support the American carmakers, never owned a foreign named car.
I thought they got wiped out?
I wonder where the bailout-with-no-strings-attached fits into this story?
Inquiring minds want to know. Are losers being made whole at OUR expense?
To see and hear Republicans on tv argue that the solution to our fiscal crisis is that government needs to get out of the way is totally outrageous. Yet they do it still – and there it is – in all its glorious stupidity.
This, of course, is the formula that got us into this mess. Deregulation and regulations that benefit .1 percent of the public at the expense of the rest of us.
sounds like my grandfather ,he drove American Motor cars until the company was absorbed by Chrysler!!!
Great Catch GMAC is owned by Cerberus the Hedge fund that employs Dan Quayle
and owns Chrysler the head of GMAC probably gets stock tips from his bosses?
Is a Chrysler/GMAC bailout necessary because they lost money?
I’m pretty certain there are quite a few left, if you want a great read on this pick up “the templar revelation”, man that is great reading…it has mistakes but the research is excellant with some terrific propositions regarding the birth of “christianity”
It is already in receivorship as of Friday…Madoff out on $10 million bond.
The “strict parent” model is being given too much credit here.
In Lakoff’s own terms, the frame is being bought into by discussion — however conditional — of its origins and its context in comparative-anthropological terms.
It does not deserve any of this.
It is nothing more or less than an expression of sadism. As such, it is absolutely without validity: practical or moral; actual or potential.
not enough public outcry…. we only hear from apologists, MSM voices and mostly beltway voices…. imo
How did Madoff make bail? I thought he was really really bust. So how does the bail bondsman know he’s good for it?
That’s what I’m thinkin’.
Bookmarked it so I got a reminder later.
It is unbelievable.
BAGHDAD — A man threw his shoes at President George W. Bush and was dragged away by security officials during the president’s farewell trip to Iraq.
The incident occurred as Bush was appearing Sunday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Bush ducked and wasn’t hit by either shoe. Bush joked, saying that all he can report was that it was a size 10 shoe. then calmly took questions
Bwahahahahaha. Someone threw a shoe at W in Baghdad in his presser with Malaki.
What’s your beverage of choice?
I stepped up on the platform
The man gave me the news
He said, You must be joking son
Where did you get those shoes?
Where did you get those shoes?
Well, I’ve seen ‘em on the TV, the movie show
They say the times are changing but I just don’t know
These things are gone forever
Over a long time ago, oh yeah
Yeah…I was basically muttering to myself (a bad habit). I knew the answer to my question. Your reference to Catholic universities caught me…my father taught medieval philosophy at an unnamed Jesuit institution in Washington, DC for over four decades. He was an extremely devout Catholic who attended Mass daily. I’m a committed atheist. Go figure…
I hope EW follows up on this! I’m pro bailout but not for a hedgefund unless they open their books to an independent audit and prove that they REALLY are broke and need the money.
Fresca
If it was a furiner, the article would have stated that straight away. I’m thinking it was an American.
None in the house. I’ll pour you some when I get back from the store. *g*
An American I take it? Do they have video yet?
Good hypothesis. Undoubtedly it was an illegal combatant who will be dragged off into a black site & tortured until he reveals that he was part of Saddam’s alleged plot to assassinate Bush pere.
My information on that is my sister who got a social work BA at one of those schools.
Hmmmm. Powell is actually making sense for a change on CNN.
2 Ford Tauruses, 1 Ford F250, 1 Plymouth Voyager in the family…
But, we don’t buy new. Which brings to mind that the manufacturers could make a potential bundle if they used some of their engine building capacity to build and offer flex fuel, high mileage, lower pollution engines for older cars that are still on the road, at least the ones that have some form of electronic engine controls to begin with.
(Sorry, self back patting…)
Huff post has it
to wet your whistle, the author documents pretty convincingly that the “shroud of tourin” is the first known record of a “photograph”, a deliberate photograph not an accident, that is was also a hoax, perpertrated by none other then devinci himself, that it is also a “photoshop” and the head of the shroud is actually devinci, that the severed head represents john the babtist.
you’re really gonna enjoy this book
GMAC was also in the business of leasing vehicles. Leases are based on the residual value of the vehicles when the lease ends. Want to buy a used Hummer. If the big 2 1/2 go down what is the residual value going to be on any of the the big 2 1/2 vehicles.
With no spare parts thats a tough question? Do you own a machine shop?
1997 F-150 with 416,000 miles on it.
That was to billybugs @ 31
Junk yard parts! Still don’t pay much maybe Ian or eCHAN can answer this better?
powell is now on a mission to try and get his integrity back…..
He will probably be on the ba;;ot next election and be elected!
I buy used vehicles ,I have a fairly well equipped garage and can fix just about anything .
For folks that aren’t so mechanically inclined I would probably recommend a Japanese brand,they are usually less expensive to own,they don’t need to be fixed as often !
No. do you own a electronics plant?
His political values seem to be in line with mine, for starters!
Wow !!! I thought I was doing good,my Chevy truck has 292000 miles and still going strong(was used 5 years to tow my race car up to the mountains of New Hampshire to race)
I have little faith in this country’s ability to level the playing field for the average worker/human. does that make me a terrorist?
We shouldn’t be talking cars. We should be talking mass transit.
Not being Snarky but if a piston blows its either make your own or buy junk yard parts off of e bay.
Heh. Powell claims he asked W to relieve him from SoS.
Modern vehicles have an incredible amount of electronics controling everything including under the hood.
I knew I forgot to ask Ed something at the book club last night!
in repugs haste to get rid of the big 3 – did it ever occur to them that its not just the big 3 but also the suppliers?? those are usually small business people who the repugs profess to lurve……….
Glenn,
I would be OK with the “strict parent” model if Senate Republicans enforced it in an even-handed manner. They have plenty of enthusiasm for strict parentage of unionized auto workers, yet don’t exhibit the same tendences when it comes to the financial services industry or the Bush administration.
They aren’t strict parents in any sense of the word– they are whores for a partisan agenda.
That was after he got relieved on
Actually I’m a supporter of mass transit too!!
Why drive your Escalade that gets 8 miles per gallon when you could take a train bus trolley ?
It does seem foolish !!
LOL.
I know my Ford eEcort had an electrical fire while I was driving. After I had just spent $6,7? hundred dollars to get it running again.
After losing in small claims court I told the dealer and the mechanic who were at court you guys are the reason people buy Japanese Cars!
Financial industry is the parent in that relationship
Todays vehicles are all fuel injected and will not run without a computer, period!
Powell is such an ass licker. He waits until it’s way to late to do anything to speak out, and then does so in such couched terms that he will never offend even the worst of the worst. Useless.
brown shoes don’t make it
Was it Tenet ?
It’s not a matter of describing their essential character. It’s a matter of describing the worldview they tend to live with — and, in line with your thoughts, exploit.
I doubt an American –
Isn’t throwing shoes at someone an extreme insult in Iraq?
He got bought a while back … can’t say too much with that evidence hanging over his head.
not so much as get his speaking fees back up
It is in most Asian cultures … touching someone with your feet or shoes is a major insult.
All Arab cultures I think.
yes, that factoid was knocking around in my brain somewhere. thanks.
Yes, I know. But it is so obvious in real time. You’d think he’d figure out a way of hiding it better.
BT is upstairs, folks.
Suspect arson in Palin’s home town church.
He’s trying to look like a hero to Repubs … drawing their party back to relevance … what a yutz !
Could be a pack of Wolves taking revenge …
And the there are the French, fight with their feet and f*ck with their faces!
the real hero for the republican party will be that “real” republican who reclaims the party, throws out the noe-cons and demonizes those neo-cons who brought the party to ruin
he will say bush is not a republican, is a criminal and needs to be prosectuted
that will rebuild the party
easy ecahn….. lmao!!!!
I do however live in my own private fantasy
These guys will prosecute their mothers if it will get them elected
its being done as we speak…………….
”Retention bonuses my ass, more like keep-your-mouth-shut bonuses if you ask me.”
Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding, Ding!!!!!!!!!!!!
oops: that was Elliot @ 45!
ThingsComeUndone @ 48:
There is a Jesuit Canadian philosopher (Lonergan) who wrote a huge book about human experience which arced to the endpoint that there must be a God. It ends up being radically ”democratic” stuff: rather than the main message being God is all, the individuality of human experience shines through. But you don’t hear about him do you?
The modern GOP and evangelical movements are just antithetical to any true philosophical enquiry for all the reasons Glenn outlines; they are fundamentally authoritarian endeavours!
I wonder why the US Industry has never considered a small attractive looking microcompact that’s energy efficient but doesn’t necessarily have the size or power of a sports car. We forget that Americans had a love affair with the VW beetle. It was perfect for single youth, or couples on a budget. It had cachet, was “hip” (even surfers somehow used it), was energy efficient at a time when gasoline was cheap (and still, contrary to expectations, sold millions). I’ve always been perplexed over this obsession to build bigger and bigger vehicles that consume lots of gas…ignoring that there is a huge demographic out there that needs a vehicle for city usage, short stops, and for small families or couples. That’s cheap, easy to repair. No wonder people go to foreign makes…but even these have gotten bigger and bigger (mainly because Detroit was less efficient at making these bigger models and they ceded the compact ground to Japan and Korea instead of dealing with their inefficiencies).
Heck! I’d buy a Tata!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7181432.stm
quit school
why take it
censored? unreal
What to the french do with their feet and their faces that is the opposite of what we would normally think? (hint, it’s a joke luring mod)
One more point…I would bet that Detroit workers could manufacture four Tatas (or their equivalent) in the time it takes to manufacture one SUV. That these could be safer by using composites, that they could be made to be hybrids or use electrical starters and flywheels. By carrying less tonnage they’d be vastly more energy-efficient. We might have to open up some roadways or lanes for vehicles that can only go 55 mph full-open, but maybe America would slow down. And with smaller vehicles it would mean fewer sq. meters/vehicle on the traffic jammed commutes. It might actually improve transportation efficiency.
Maybe it’s time to create a new MODEL in Detroit. I suspect there hasn’t been a single designer actually drawing up plans for a sub-compact or micro-compact in generations. These could be built to be aerodynamic, sporty, with lots of safety features, and with a limited number of frills that are relevant to the regional distinctions in the US (heaters in the North, efficient AC in the South).
there is mechanical fuel injection and most fuel injected cars can be converted to carberation
the real problem would be variable valve timing but not too many cars have that technology
most engines today could be converted to strict nmechanical operation
that might be true and this is why I make the case whenever possible, if they realize the wisdom of what I am saying they not only have chance of saving their seat in power, they can save their party and their country all in the same breath
The NYT magazine is devoted to “Ideas” and this one dude is working on an engine with many fewer parts that would seem to be much more efficient.
the wankel engine seems it would be more efficient, it seems much more instinctive ande much less elaborate
yet it is far less efficient the conventional engines/
most elaboration designs address issues, if they are counter productive they are usually tossed
an example is variable valve timing, this really increases fuel/power efficiency but it really increases elaboration
you seem to think that Detroit has no clue about efficiency and aerodynamics and many other factors. They are supremely aware of all that but they only make what will make them money. Or what they are ordered to make, i.e. what they must make in order to make other things that make them money. This category of mandatory making includes crash-proof vehicles and CAFE standards. As a consumer I am happy enough to get a machine that has good crashproofing and decent MPG. But as a student of basic economics I know that nothing is free. In a perfect world I would bargain with the designer/maker of the vehicle on all attributes from size, power, agility, safety, economy, longevity, creature comfort through price, warranty, etc. But life is short and there are huge informational assymetries. So we largely get what we get. And when the gummint says things have to survive a certain kind of crash test, guess what, they will, but they will weigh a ton more. And the funny thing about that extra ton, you drag it around 24/7 even though you might be using it to avoid one fatal crash every 500K miles (if you are a careful driver, maybe every 1 million miles?). And you therefore pay the insurance premium on that safety policy every time you go to the pump. But wait! CAFE mandates that you have to make cars that average at least X mpg. How can we have all these Abrams tanks of safety on the road, and still get the CAFE constraints met? Something has to give.
Couple all that with union deals in which management acquiesces to make its bonus number this year (let the next guy worry about the failing profit model). And with the demographics of huge retiree population expecting the country-club lifestyle from an ever-smaller workforce. It just doesn’t work any more.
Study thermodynamics and especially the chapter about free lunch.
Sorry, I’m late to the topic, but I’ve just gotta say: the author sure is right that this is in our DNA; the necessity to protect the man from recrimination is so deep, he couldn’t even put a pic of a father beating the child; it HAD to be a woman. Weirds me OUT.
I’ll posit now that misogyny is so deep that IT is in our DNA too.
I guess that’s why we had to have consciousness raising groups in the 70’s. Women don’t even see it
All I know is that they were probably the guys only pair. I bet shoes don’t come easy in Iraq these days.
” Senate Republicans see their opposition to the rescue of Detroit as whipping the children. They are not that different from the failed father who thinks his follies can be overcome by beating the wife and kids. Politically, they seek to avoid responsibility for the nation’s economic woes. It’s not the strict authority who’s at fault. It’s the misbehaving children. Conservatives think they must take away the keys to the car. “
Most of this article fits the character. Yet there are exceptional quirks to consider.
For one, ” Taking the car keys “.
Lets say the ” car ” represents a ” gun “. Republicans are and have been completely willing to overlook harm irresponsible gun ownership and use grieves this country. Republicans want to have more cars out there and less control on those cars.
Its a concept of having bad drivers in cars. So if we put more drivers on the road with cars, it will get rid of the bad drivers in cars, only. Not caring how many bad drivers are getting cars that they want on the road.
So how does one fit this conservative parental disconnect in this well put together “on the couch” with this conservative parent mind set over gun control? Not baning guns just responsible control.?