Wilsaz wrote:
The thing thats's aggravating me is, oil prices per barrell are a hell of a lot down on last year, yet i have to pay 97.9p per litre for petrol, it seems as if it's every 2 dam weeks they put an extra penny on, it makes all the difference. Yet these oil companies are absolutely raking in the profits, as we have to buy fuel otherwise how do we get to work etc.
Chrysler & GM is dead. Opel & Vauxhall are being sold off to the Canadians.. Pontiac, Saturn & another arm of GM have went. Hummers waiting on bidders, Chryslers being mainly sold to Fiat thus will exit out of chapter 11 bankruptcy quick.
Point A: Oil. Oil is dirt cheap but refining is the current bottleneck. In addition refineries are not "green" the largely liberal government in the US has blocked many new requests for refineries and instead of allowing new building permits are imposing cap and trade which is already starting to drive prices up as the oil companies increase prices to plan for future shrinking profit margins. It would be the equivalent of the US implementing all nuclear reactors for dirt cheap power then disallowing manufacturing of light bulbs(ok a bad analogy but anywho...)
Point B: Car companies. Detroit was nose-diving a while ago as they had legacy benefits owed to retirees costing around $3000/car more than the costs of foreign competitors. I agree "greedy SUV makers", but also they've been fighting a fierce uphill battle for a long time. Don't hate on Detroit too badly, all my friends had to leave the state to stay employed and it is going through very tough times, people complain of bad economy?..... go to Michigan, they've been living with worse conditions than you for almost the last 10 years.
In addition the car industry as a whole is doing awful, even Toyota had losses with car sales around 30% of normal.
If you want to see an example of a car company look at Ford, true American company which believes in capitalism. They have refused bailouts repeatedly. A few years ago they restructured anticipating these economic conditions and to strengthen their company at expense of extensive market share. I believe it was march they almost sold more vehicles than any other company in the US.
While I'm bias having 2 Taurus's that went to 100k without a single breakdown for major repair, I think people need to realize and sympathize with the US car industry a little(Only a little!!). While it may directly employ only around 1-3 million in the US. I'd say 500k to that number of people have already been affected in MI alone if not more.
For the most part people are positive. I was back to MI/Detroit over the weekend and I must say although I met with a lot of people I knew who had recently lost their jobs they aren't nearly as negative as many people in other parts of the country which are only affected by reading headlines.
Also McCain lost for 3 reasons.
Age
Media
Palin
ok 4
Obama in candidate mode 24/7 telling you what you want to hear.
