Son of... STUCK IN STUPID

Or, Beneath the Valley of Stuck In Stupid, or Stuck In Stupid Eats Detroit....

Call this post what you want, I'm writing because of something Tu Uyen Tran had on his "City Beat" blog:

"Eliot said utilities are already regulated so that's not much of an argument. He suggested that sometimes businesses are so stupid they need the government to tell them what to do, the example being the management teams at Ford and GM who wouldn't be in the mess they're in now if they'd been forced to make more efficient automobiles."

When recounting councilman Eliot Glassheim's comments Monday night on the 20/20 initiative, he related this illustration, albeit not verbatim, of the councilman's philosophy of what government is good for. Or at, I guess. Mr Glassheim seems to be in favor of the initiative to mandate "renewable energy", and believes that same guiding principle would be applicable elsewhere in the business world. I'm not going to touch renewable energy here, however. My heartburn today is caused by his view of what ails the American auto industry. He believes that had the government intervened however many years ago, and FORCED the American automakers to build tiny fuel efficient cars, they would not find themselves in the dire straits they are in now.
I laugh.
In making so preposterous a proclamation, Mr. Glassheim is in effect saying we consumers who chose to buy and drive large SUVs and pick-ups are wrong to want or need more interior room, more safety, more visibility, more traction, more MORE. Or... maybe we're....stupid.
In Eliot's world, merely forcing the automakers to build cars no one at that time cared to buy would have saved them from- what? The crushing costs of unionized labor's wage and pension demands? Sky-high health care costs? Mandated employer contributions (taxes) ? Short-sighted policies that emphasize shareholder returns vs. long-term growth? What?
We can argue all day (and sometimes I do) about what is killing GM or Ford. But what surely DIDN'T was building what Americans wanted to buy. What good are a thousand acres of Chevy Cavaliers or Ford Aspires sitting unsold? Even when a smaller vehicle is sold, profit per unit is lower because of certain fixed costs per unit. A larger, more expensive vehicle is going to naturally have more profit per unit both in absolute terms and in percentages.
When I read of things like this being said, I cannot help but think that this betrays a certain...arrogance on the part of those who would dictate to others what vehicles we should choose. That this is the way a businessman/ councilman thinks is disturbing indeed.

By the way, I AM glad you're getting better, Eliot. We would miss you if you were gone, and we will always need a few liberals to kick around.......