On Removing Brake Drums

Our first car, a 1969 Plymouth Satellite, had drum brakes all around. I got to be an expert at working on drum brakes.

Our second car, a 1974 Chevy Impala station wagon, had drum brakes on the back, and I think it had disk brakes on the front. I don't remember. But because of my experience with the Satellite, the Chevy's brakes were no big deal.

A succession of minivans and small commuter cars followed, most of them with disks in front and drums in back. (Disk brakes, by the way, are a cinch.)

Today, in an effort to save money, I decided to do all four brakes on our 1990 Geo Prizm myself. Disks up front, both finished in about an hour. Drums in back, a different story. I pried one drum off with two large screwdrivers and some lucky hits from a rubber mallet. The other drum refused to give itself up. It was frozen to the axle, and it wasn't about to move.

I thought I was an expert. Phooey on my expertise.

Herewith, some advice gleaned from personal experience and from the Internet.

1. If it doesn't simply slide off, then try the following steps in the order given.

2. If it's a rear brake, then block the front tires and release the parking brake. (Duh.)

3. Check the lugs for retaining clips. Many new cars and some VWs have retaining clips on two of the lugs, used to hold the drum on during assembly. Remove the clips. Don't worry if you break them; you won't need them again. (Not on my Geo.)

4. Check the face of the drum for small bolts or a Philips head screw. Some cars use these to hold the drum on during assembly and maintenance -- sounds like a good idea. If you remove them, the drum should magically fall off. (Not on my Geo.)

5. Check the face of the drum for two threaded bolt holes. If you find them, you're in luck. Screw in a couple of bolts of the correct length, and as soon as they contact the backing plate, they will gently but firmly push the drum off the axle/hub. This is an elegant solution, as the drum becomes its own extraction tool. (Not on my Geo.)

6. If it's still not coming off, then you really do need to remove the rubber plug from the slot on the backing plate, reach in with two screwdrivers, hold the ratchet up and spin the star wheel all the way closed. (Read the manual; you'll understand.) If the drums are very old and have never been turned, then the shoes may have worn down the drum, leaving a lip on the edge, and the only way to get that lip past the shoes is to back the shoes off, all the way. You want the wheel/drum to spin freely, with absolutely no rubbing. (This applies mostly to old cars, but pretend it applies to your car, too.)

7. Still not coming off? Okay, the next step lets you take out your frustrations on the wheel. WARNING! WEAR GOGGLES OR SAFETY GLASSES WHEN YOU DO THIS! Long sleeves, long pants, closed toe shoes and work gloves might be a good idea, too. But at the very least, PROTECT YOUR EYES.

Apply PB Blaster, WD-40, or some other penetrating oil to the seam between the drum and the axle/hub, and to the lug nuts where they pass through the drum. Do this several times. Wait an hour or more -- be patient. Then, take a regular old metal hammer and give the drum an enthusiastic whack, right on the shoulder -- where the face curves around and becomes the side of the drum.

Hit it straight on, perpendicular to the face, not at an angle. The harder you hit it, the better. The drum is built to withstand stronger impacts than a human-powered hammer.

One whack should be enough to break the drum loose. If not, rotate the drum a half turn and hit it again. Do this repeatedly on different areas around the shoulder of the drum. Eventually, you will see the drum pop loose. Then you can wiggle it off. (Works every time. Almost.)

8. If that didn't work, then you can use a spreader bar, a gear puller, or some other tension tool to yank off the drum. Work slowly and carefully if you want to save the drum and reuse it. Working too fast, or using an impact tool to tighten the puller, may ruin the drum. If you don't see any action, leave the drum under tension overnight. That clanging sound you hear at 3:30 a.m. will be the drum finally giving up.

(Thanks to Nathan McCullough and Expert Village (http://www.ehow.com/video_2327529_remove-tires-brake-drum.html) for the hammer tip. That did the trick for me.)

(The discussion at http://forum.doityourself.com/all-trucks-campers-trailers-rvs-motor-homes/301486-brake-drum-removal.html also suggests heating the drum with a torch to break it loose from the hub. Apparently it works very well, but it's not something I'd be willing to try in an enclosed space.)

Fiction: "Transported"

I wrote this short story in 2007, when I was working at a computer company in Fort Collins. I hope you like it. If you do, vote for it at the end of the story, and forward the link to your friends.

Longs Peak is a 14,256-foot mountain, located on the eastern edge of the Front Range in Northern Colorado. It's a regional landmark, and a popular climbing destination during late summer and early fall. On busy days, the summit trail is an endless, multi-colored pilgrimage of nylon parkas and windbreakers. Now, for the story:

Jeff stood at the window and looked out of the office. This was the fun part of living in Colorado: the Rocky Mountains were always outside your window, just a few miles away. The not-fun part was that he spent 40 hours a week working in an office in the city, wasting the best daylight hours working for The Man, instead of climbing around in the mountains.

It wasn't the best day for looking at the mountains, either. Low, grey clouds hung over the city, which was unusual -- and depressing -- for a summer day. Fortunately, the clouds thinned towards the west, and he could see the summit of Longs Peak in the distance, the snow mostly melted from its flanks. It looked like a good day to be on Longs, except that he was stuck here in the office.

He sipped his coffee and tried to focus on the flanks of the mountain, where he knew the trail wound around. He said to himself, "Boy, what would it be like to be up there right now, instead of here in the office?" He took another sip of his coffee. His heart ached for a moment, longing to be on the mountaintop.

Suddenly, with the cup of coffee still to his lips, the view changed. In an instant, the window had disappeared. The office was now a six-foot granite boulder, and he was perched on top of it. He started coughing on his coffee, as the stuffy indoor air he had been breathing was instantly replaced with cold, dry, mountain air. His shoes slipped as they found purchase on the new surface under his feet, and he looked around him, first with curiosity and then with increasing unbelief and amazement.

He recognized the terrain, and the panoramic view. He was on top of the mountain! Only seconds before, he had been in the office, and somehow he had wished himself here!

He looked at the coffee cup in his hand, and then at the khaki pants and polo shirt he was wearing. He felt a moment of nausea. If this wasn't cognitive dissonance, then nothing was. He shivered as the wind brushed his bare arms and cut through his thin shirt. "Maybe I should have wished for a parka, too."

"Wait a minute, this has to be a hallucination. I'm still in the office." Reaching out with his coffee-free hand, he slowly turned in a circle and tried to feel for the office walls. As he came back around, he noticed two people puffing their way towards him. They were outfitted the way he thought he should have been for this fantasy. Both wore black nylon pants. One had a red North Face windbreaker, and the other had a yellow Columbia parka. They carried backpacks, obviously full of whatever you need to complete the pilgrimage from the parking lot to the summit.

Even behind their mirrored sunglasses, he could tell that they were as confused as he was. As they came to the boulder and dumped their packs on the ground, one of them looked at him and asked, "Dude, how do you get up there?"

"I dunno." What else could he say?

The other asked, "Where's yer coat and yer gear?"

"I don't have any."

"You mean you walked all the way up here, dressed like that, with nothin' but a cup of coffee?"

"No."

"Whaddaya mean, 'no'? Where's your stuff? Seriously, howdja get up here?"

"Honestly, I dunno. I'm an accountant at a computer company in Fort Collins. Two minutes ago I was sipping this coffee in the office and --"

He was interrupted with a wave and a dismissive "Whatever." Both the gesture and the word indicated a combination of bewilderment, disbelief and impatience. North Face and Columbia hunkered down on the lee side of a small rock wall, to get out of the wind and celebrate with Gatorade and granola bars.

Still holding onto his coffee, he scrambled down from the boulder and started walking across the summit. The summit of Longs Peak is a plateau, about the size of a football field, strewn with boulders and broken rocks. Cairns, small piles of rock built up by climbers, mark the spots where trails end at the edge of the summit plateau. He started heading south, towards the cairn that marked the incline known as the Home Stretch.

"Hey!" It was the red North Face. "Where're you goin'?"

"Down," he replied without looking back.

"Waitaminnit! You can't go down like that!"

"Why not?"

The yellow Columbia chimed in, "Yeah, why not? That's how he got up here."

"What time this morning did you start?" That was North Face again.

"I told you, five minutes ago I was in my office in Fort Collins."

North Face muttered an obscene expression of disbelief.

Jeff stopped. With his free hand, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his cellular phone. He was not surprised to find that he had good reception up here. More than once, he had reached the summit of a mountain, only to observe a fellow climber pull out a cellphone, speed-dial someone, and announce, "Hi. Hey, we made it. Yeah, I'm calling from the top." It was the 21st-century climbing ritual. Even Everest climbers did it.

Instead of calling home, he called the office. "Hey, Jackie? It's Jeff. Yeah. Do me a favor, will you? Go into the back and look in my office. See if I'm there. Yeah, I'll wait."

He stopped and looked at the two climbers. He wasn't sure whether to grin or not. Besides, it was cold and he was shivering, and the others were still catching their breath. Jackie was back on the phone.

"Yeah, I'm still here. Not in my office, huh? Hey, did you see me there this morning? That's what I thought. How long ago? Okay, good. Look, would you mind sending me an email saying that you saw me at that time? Yeah, I know it's a weird request. Humor me."

There was a pause, as Jeff's co-worker wrote a note to herself. Then she asked him the question most often asked of people on cellular phones. He chuckled nervously as he formulated his answer.

"Well, I don't know, but it looks like the summit of Longs Peak. No. I have no idea. One minute I was standing at the window, sipping my coffee, and the next thing I know, I'm on top of this mountain."

Three other hikers had climbed over the edge of the summit plateau. The one in the lead had already dumped her pack, and was gasping noisily as she rocked her body slowly back and forth, trying to get more oxygen into her lungs and thence to her muscles. She was close enough to him, and her gasping had quieted down enough, that she had heard this last exchange from Jeff.

"You don't know how you got here?" she asked him.

He held up a finger, begging her to pause while he finished the conversation. "Okay, Jackie, look. I'm gonna take a picture with this phone and send it to you, okay? I'm wearing the same clothes you saw me in this morning, and you should be able to recognize the coffee cup in my hand. I'll see you in a few hours, I guess. Bye."

He pressed the disconnect button, set the cup down, and fumbled with the phone until he got the camera going. To his latest interrogator, he said, "I think I wished myself up here, but I don't know how to wish myself back down."

She looked at the crepe-soled shoes on his feet. "It looks like you forgot your ruby slippers."

If he hadn't been feeling so confused, and she so oxygen-starved, they might have laughed at the joke. As things were, it did get a snort and a couple of smiles.

Jeff asked her and her companions, and North Face and Columbia, to pose with him at the summit boulder. Without a photograph, nobody was going to believe this story. He balanced the phone on another rock, set the self-timer and ran around to get into the picture.

It was a strange photo. It showed the summit boulder, with the USGS benchmark glinting in the morning sun. Seated in front of the rock were five climbers in cold-weather gear, with their packs at their feet. Behind them, the ridges of the Front Range stretched northward. To the northeast, peeking through holes in the low clouds, could be seen the lakes and reservoirs, and some of the streets, of the city of Fort Collins. And seated in the front of the group of climbers was a middle-aged man in tan pants and a green polo shirt, clutching an empty coffee cup, with a confused smile on his face.

Jeff crouched behind a low rock wall, and fumbled with the buttons on the phone to send the photograph to his co-worker. By now, a dozen climbers were on the summit, most of them having started around midnight. It would be another three hours before it got crowded up here, as the 3:00 a.m. pilgrims finally made their way to the top.

He borrowed a fleece vest from one well-equipped climber, and a windbreaker from another, in exchange for his business card and a promise to return the gear if they called him at work and asked for them. His shoes would have to do for footwear. He'd read of someone doing the climb in cowboy boots once. Then he walked over the edge of the summit plateau and started down the Home Stretch, still holding his coffee cup.

The other climbers, hiding from the wind and sunning themselves on the southeast side of a long granite shelf, watched him go.

North Face said, "Dude. I saw a guy playing a French horn up here once. He'd rigged straps to the case, like a backpack. His friends videoed it. I'll bet you can find it on YouTube."

A girl climber one-upped him. "I saw a string quartet up here once. Two girls in long black dresses, two guys in tuxes. One of the guys had a cello. I don't know if they climbed up here or came up on pack mules. But they had a professional video crew with them."

Columbia answered, "Yeah, but I'll bet those people weren't up here at 8:30 in the morning. This dude was by far the freakin' weirdest thing I've ever seen up here."

"Freakin' A," said North Face, as he took a long, slow pull on his Gatorade.

Copyright 2007 Ray Depew. All Rights Reserved.

Arriba, middle child

Our middle child went out into the world today to seek her fortune.

My sweet wife and I were blessed with five children.

The first, a boy, is protected by the might of the US military. In fact, he is part of the might of the US military. In school, his squadron's motto was "First takes care of its own." The US military does indeed take care of its own, and so we trust that he is both safe and successful. His future is also well in hand, whether in or out of the military.

The second, a girl, is married with two children. She has the luxury in today's world of being a stay-at-home mother. She and her husband have had an adventurous life so far, and their future is secure with a government job and all the associated benefits. They have successfully sold their first house, and will soon move to a new location.

The fourth, also a girl, is in the middle of an 18-month mission, after which she will return to her university studies. God holds her in the hollow of His hand, and angels guard her footsteps until her mission is completed.

The last, a boy, is in his final year of high school. He is on track to fulfill his lifelong ambition of becoming a doctor, an ambition that he is pursuing with the same singlemindedness that has taken his older brother to success in the military.

But the middle child -- ah. Tradition holds that the middle child is the bellwether of the family, and that the success or failure of the family can be judged by the success or failure of the middle child. Our middle child left this morning, in the pre-dawn darkness, to seek her fortune in the world.

She has been preparing for this date, consciously or unconsciously, for 25 years. Her preparations have taken her to Europe, to South America, and all over the United States, have placed her in the spotlight on countless stages, and have made her a Joan of Arc to hundreds -- no, thousands -- of eager youth and young adults. Now, as her preparations come to an end and the Rest of Her Life begins, she goes to make her mark in the world as a middle school teacher.

That doesn't sound like much. In fact, at first, it sounds rather anticlimactic. Believe me, the world won't know what hit it.

She will be taking over and reviving the vocal music and drama programs at a middle school in Colorado Springs. That wasn't her plan: her plan was to teach at a high school in Boston, Seattle, Austin, or someplace else with energy and ambitions to match her own. But, like tardy suitors, Boston, Seattle and Austin made their moves too late. She couldn't wait around for them, and she had already made a commitment to Colorado Springs before the others came calling. Perhaps in the future they will have their turn.

We acknowledge the hand of God in our middle child's life. Everything that has happened to her has happened because of Him. She followed her dreams, and she made her own choices, but the choices and the opportunities were put there by God, as were the challenges and the obstacles.

The financial problems that are afflicting the nation have reached all the way down into our family. As we struggle with our own future, we look with hope and anticipation to our middle child, as we watch her taillights disappear down the road.

And the thought that keeps passing through my mind? It isn't "As the middle child goes, so goes the family." No, it's "Watch out, world. Here she comes."

Blogging for Dollars

It's recently become common knowledge (which means that before now, it was uncommon knowledge, also known as "duh, obvious to anyone with more brains than a turnip") that an increasing number of bloggers are shills. That is, they get paid to write blog entries promoting products or services that someone else is trying to sell.

(Go look it up: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/shill)

Personally, I see nothing wrong with that. However, I will never do that at Zyzmog Galactic Headquarters.

I would love to get paid to do product reviews for computer hardware and software, backpacking equipment, or books. When I get to that point, I'll set up another blog, and point to it from Zyzmog Galactic HQ, but this site will not change. I like this site just the way it is: independent, honest, unsolicited, and not for sale.

And eclectic.

I guess my readers like it, too. According to MapLoco, my readership is constantly increasing, and I have regular readers from all over the world. That's gratifying. I'm glad that you find my words worth reading. If you like what you read, please pass this site's URL on to your friends.

Okay, yes, I do have Google Adsense ads on my site. These ads are part of an experiment I'm trying. As far as I know, the ads contain nothing objectionable and are based solely on the content of my blog postings. I'm interested in seeing what they come up with. Please, feel free to click on the ads if they interest you.

Some of the matches Adsense comes up with are pretty funny. One time I posted about "clogging" and Adsense put up an ad for drain cleaner. Another time I wrote about the recent downfall of Detroit and the car companies, and how it's their own fault, and Adsense put up an ad for the Ford F-250 pickup truck.

Tesla Motors and Lightning Hybrids: Two New Car Companies Worth Keeping an Eye on

In 2006, a three-year-old startup called Tesla Motors (http://www.teslamotors.com/) introduced the world to the Tesla Roadster, an all-electric, two-seat sports car that could go 0-to-60 in under 4 seconds, had a range of 200 miles, and was powered by about a zillion lithium-ion batteries just like the ones in your digital video camera. The Tesla Roadster only costs $101,000, and they sell so fast you can't even find one on a showroom floor.

Tesla recently announced its second model, the Model S, a sedan with a 0-to-60 time of 5.9 seconds, still a breathtaking time, especially for a family car that seats 7. The Tesla Model S sells for about $50,000, half the cost of the Roadster. I wouldn't turn down either one of them.

Tesla Motors is unique in that it's not located anywhere near Detroit, St. Louis, or any of the other traditional automotive manufacturing locations in the U.S. Its headquarters is in San Carlos, California, in the northern borders of Silicon Valley. Tesla Motors is an American company, but its components come from Germany, Norway, and the UK, as well as the USA. If you see any similiarities between the Tesla Roadster and the Lotus Elise, that's intentional: Lotus won a competition to design and build the Roadster's chassis, among some other parts.

Tesla Motors has been around long enough that it has gone through its share of intrigues, shakeups, and lawsuits. The founders have been kicked out of the company and the current CEO is Elon Musk, the South African genius behind PayPal. Dealerships are popping up in big cities nationwide, in preparation for the release of the Model S.

We wish Tesla well, and we wish we owned a Tesla with its carbon fiber body, kick-a$ acceleration and all-electric drive train. Maybe one day. In the meantime, there's another new player in the game.

In January 2009, an "automotive research and manufacturing company" based in Loveland, Colorado, calling themselves Lightning Hybrids (http://lightninghybrids.com/), quietly announced that they were developing a hydraulic hybrid automobile. They showed their concept car at the Denver Auto Show in April 2009, and had their prototype driving around the streets of Loveland in June 2009.

Lightning Hybrids hosted an open house on Friday, June 26. It was an invitation-only event, but everyone was invited, and you had to RSVP in order to find out the location. Several hundred interested guests crowded into their "garage" in downtown Loveland, to get a look at the prototype and the facilities, and to listen to the founders and employees of Lightning Hybrids talk with excitement about their creation.

The prototype is a model called the LH4, the "4" meaning "four wheels." A second model, called the LH3, is already in prototyping as well. The LH3 is a unique design in that it only has one back wheel. It's a tricycle that runs backwards. (I assume that the front wheels will be for both steering and propulsion, as research at Stanford and MIT has shown that a configuration like this with rear-wheel steering is inherently unstable.) Both the LH3 and LH4 will be 4-seaters.

The hydraulic hybrid propulsion system is analogous to the more well-known (think "Toyota Prius") electric hybrid propulsion system, with a hydraulic motor/pump and 5000-psi reservoir taking the place of the electric motor/generator and battery bank. The hydro hybrid system is 50 percent more efficient than the Prius' electric hybrid system, and it delivers enough horsepower to give the car the same kick-a$$ acceleration as the Tesla vehicles have been posting.

The LH designers have been fanatical about keeping the gross vehicle weight below 1000 pounds -- that's right, only 1000 pounds. (Or was it 1800 pounds? Help!) Like the Teslas, the LH cars have carbon-fiber bodies. The LH designers went the extra mile (sorry) to tweak the aerodynamics of their cars. The LH4 has only three body parts: the hood, the canopy, and the pan. The carbon-fiber pan gives the car a smooth undercarriage to reduce turbulence and drag in the boundary layer between the car and the road. The hood is the entire front half of the car -- no fenders, and no seams. The clamshell canopy opens and closes on hydraulic lifts, like an aircraft canopy or some of the futuristic concept cars from Ford and GM in the 1960s, so there are no doors, doorknobs, or door seams. Digital cameras take the place of side-view mirrors, and windshield wipers and radio antenna are recessed, retractable, or molded-in.

The result is a very slippery car that gets 100 miles per gallon in both city and highway. In the city, the hydraulic motor does most of the work, with the German-made Audi biodiesel engine only turning on to assist with heavy acceleration. On the highway, the high mileage is thanks to the super-efficient Audi engine, the lightweight construction, and the low-drag design.

LH plans to keep manufacturing costs low by buying off-the-shelf parts wherever possible. In a dark corner of the garage is the shell of a Mazda Miata resting on four jack stands, looking like something that was abandoned on a New York City street and stripped by, um, entrepreneurs for anything of value. Its dashboard, airbags and climate control system are now part of the LH4, as are key components of its suspension and steering.

Every component of the hydraulic system came out of somebody's online catalog. The (bio)diesel engine, as I mentioned, is a crate engine from Audi. Other key automotive components will be stock parts, purchased from other automakers or their suppliers. The only full-custom parts may very well be the body panels, window glass, and headlamp/taillight lenses.

In 2010, LH will expand into a manufacturing facility in Loveland, Colorado, large enough to employ 300 people and turn out 10,000 vehicles in the first year.

But at $39,000 and $59,000 respectively, the LH3 and LH4 may end up being LH's loss leaders. The company may end up making their real money on a couple of other product lines. First, they will sell an LH hydraulic hybrid retrofit kit for existing fossil-fuel-only vehicles. It wasn't clear to me if they will sell directly to manufacturers or to aftermarket garages (like Shelby, for instance). Second, they have applied for a $74 million economic stimulus grant to commercialize a plug-in hybrid electric (PHEV) drivetrain developed at Colorado State University. Even though their market niche is hydro hybrids, they have the expertise to do PHEVs as well, and it's too good an opportunity -- a local university, partnering with a local company -- to pass up.

When the Big Three were the Big Three and gas was cheap, independent automakers didn't do very well. Nobody remembers the Bricklin anymore, and the DeLorean only lives on as a time machine driven by Michael J. Fox. But the world has changed. Today, the Big Three are the Struggling Two and a Half. Gasoline is no longer cheap and plentiful. Maybe the market is finally ready for something different.

Sign me up. I'll take one of each, please.

Homemade French Fries

When my kids started moving away from home, they used to call home and ask my sweet wife for certain family recipes. We loved having them call (hey, any excuse to talk with our kids!), but I thought they might want to have more reliable access to the family recipes. So I started an online recipe book. It's one of those projects that will get finished someday. You can see its current state at http://ray.datech-net.com/recipes/ .

The latest addition is a recipe for homemade French fries.

When my older kids were little, we used to enjoy homemade, deep-fried French fries. That's because we had my Grandma French's awesome-possum Sunbeam deep fryer. After we finally wore out that deep fryer, we tried in vain to find another one that was as sturdy and robust as that Sunbeam. They really, truly don't make 'em like that anymore.

One day in June 2009, Mom and Chris and I wanted French fries for dinner. We didn't have the frozen kind in the freezer, but we did have a whole bag of real Idaho spuds. We didn't have enough oil for the deep fryer, but we did have a small bottle of oil. So I created what we thought was going to be a poor substitute for the real thing. They turned out to be just as good (and just as greasy!) as the real thing.

Here it is, adapted and edited for Zyzmog Galactic Headquarters.

Ingredients

1 large potato per person
1/4 C. vegetable oil (for up to 6 potatos)
salt or other seasonings

Preparation Instructions

Preheat the oven to 450° F. Put a metal baking sheet on the counter somewhere. You will need one baking sheet for every 3 to 4 potatoes.

Peel and wash the potatoes (or just wash them, if you prefer). Half-fill a large mixing bowl with cold water. Cut the potatoes into French-fry shapes. As you finish cutting each potato, put the raw fries in the bowl of water. Add extra water as needed, to keep the fries covered. After all the potatoes have been cut, pour off all the water. The water must be completely drained, but the fries must be wet still.

This next part is gooey! Pour the oil over the drained fries. Reach into the bowl with both hands, and tumble the fries in the oil until every square inch of every fry is slimy and disgusting. Your hands will also be slimy and disgusting. Rub those slimy, disgusting hands all over the surface of the metal baking sheet to coat it with oil. Now, wash your hands.

Pour the fries onto the baking sheet in a single layer. Don't let them overlap. Bake the fries at 450° F for approximately 40 minutes. Every 10 minutes, turn the fries over with a spatula, and if you're cooking more than one sheet of fries, swap the baking sheets on the oven racks.

When the fries have less than 10 minutes to go, sprinkle them with salt or the seasoning of your choice. Best served still sizzling from the oven, so the first one burns your tongue.

Notes

Yes, they do take a long time to cook. That's the only drawback.

Another automotive company bailout

They thought they could slide this one past us!

WASHINGTON (AP) - The House on Tuesday approved a "cash for clunkers" bill that aims to boost new auto sales by allowing consumers to turn in their gas-guzzling cars and trucks for vouchers worth up to $4,500 toward more fuel-efficient vehicles. ... Since the yearlong vehicle program is expected to cost $4 billion, lawmakers would attempt to find the additional money later this year.

This is a just plain bad idea. But the House of Representatives bought it, 298-119, and it will probably sail unopposed through the Senate as well.

Exactly what are Congress and the automakers trying to accomplish here? Reduce CO2 emissions? Stimulate auto sales (as they say)? Or give General Motors, Ford and Chrysler another handout?

Um, maybe buy votes in Michigan, Kentucky, New Jersey and every other state that stands to lose automobile-related jobs?

I don't know exactly what they're trying to do, but it's very clear what they're doing.

They're subsidizing people's poor decisions again.

They're rewarding past bad behavior and reinforcing current bad behavior.

And it's another bailout. A $4 billion bailout.

The Big Three pushed their gas-guzzling vehicles in past years. In fact, all three of them showed commercials touting their gas-guzzling pickup trucks last summer during the $4 per gallon gasoline mini-crisis, and in the fall and winter during the onset of the current financial crisis, and they're still doing it. American automakers have never been serious about selling more fuel-economical vehicles, and their advertising campaigns prove it.

So do their showrooms. Drive past any Chevrolet, Ford or Chrysler/Dodge dealer and compare the number of trucks, SUVs, and big cars with the number of small cars, hybrids and economy vehicles. That's right. They're pushing the big machines. It's as if nothing has changed in the last 12 months, as far as the Big Three automakers are concerned.

That's because that's where the big margins, and hence the big profits, can be found. It's all about money. For Detroit, it has always been all about money.

We must lay some blame on the consumers who bought these vehicles. They're the ones who had to suffer through the gasoline price crisis last summer, remember? I say, let 'em suffer. They chose to buy those big machines, now let them live with their choice.

But now the government wants to ease these buyers' remorse by subsidizing their purchase of more economical vehicles. These consumers are getting a government-subsidized $4500 discount, in addition to the trade-in value on their old cars, to buy new cars. (Okay, in some cases it's only $1500, but the article says "up to $4500," and that number shows up several times in the details. Live with it.)

Problem 1: Not everybody's gonna buy American.
Problem 2: Sellers are greedy.
Problem 3: Hey! What about the rest of us?!

Allow me to elaborate.

Problem 1: I predict that many people will dump their big American cars to buy smaller, lighter cars from Asia or Europe. I didn't read anything in the article that said the $4500 goes towards the purchase of an American car. So this won't help GM, Ford or Chrysler nearly as much as people think it will.

Problem 2: Car dealers won't be able to resist the temptation to jack up the price of the vehicles they're selling, to get their own piece of that $4500 pie. They won't be satisfied with just moving more vehicles through their lot. Don't be surprised to hear about salesmen negotiating with the buyer to "split the difference," so the buyer ends up paying $2,250 more than he should for a new car.

Problem 3: Once again, the good people of the United States are getting screwed. Let me explain that one in more detail.

First, it was home prices: those of us who bought houses within our means, who went responsibly through the traditional loan approval process, have seen our home values plummet because of the irresponsible actions of the borrowers, lenders, and investment entities who are really at fault for the current financial crisis.

Then, it was jobs: as the economy tanked and corporate profits fell, over 13 million hard-working Americans lost their jobs, while the executives who were truly responsible for the losses in corporate profits held onto their jobs, fired those 13 million, collected undeserved bonuses for their actions, and did absolutely nothing to relieve the suffering of their former employees. Do you know how many production workers you can keep employed if you replace an overpaid CEO with one who's willing to take a smaller bonus?

Then, it was tax dollars: while no politician has yet had the audacity to raise taxes on us, the politicians have been happily writing checks against our (future) taxes to pay for so-called "bailouts" for private industry: first the banks, and then the automakers.

(You may or may not remember, but when Congress said "no" to the Big Three the first time, General Motors tried to disguise itself as a bank (GMAC, its financing arm) and sneak in the side door, to get a piece of the bank "bailout" funds. Congress finally gave GM and Chrysler some money, but not as much as they wanted.)

Now, it's tax dollars again: this latest move by Congress is another attempt by somebody to give Detroit the rest of the money they wanted. If this plan works the way it's written, then every person who buys a new car under this plan will be shoveling more government money, $1500 to $4500 at a time, to the carmakers.

Hey! That's my money! Don't you go giving it to that Hummer driver! He's got more than enough money to replace that Hummer -- if he really wants to replace it.

Not only that, but: Hey! When are you going to reimburse me for my purchases? While so many other people have been buying trucks, SUVs, Caddys, Lincolns, and muscle cars, I've been driving economy vehicles since 1984! No government entity has ever given me a nickel for my good citizenship. Just like with the mortgages and everything else, the government is punishing good behavior and rewarding bad behavior.

GM is no longer "too big to fail." And Fiat almost gave up on their Chrysler acquisition because of meddling by the feds. I say, let 'em fail. Let the market sort it out. Enough with the government "intervention," already. You're making things worse, not better.

If you are as outraged as I am, please send this article's URL to your friends. Then print this article (yes, on paper) using Internet Explorer, and snail-mail a copy of it to your Senator, Representative and President. Make sure to include a cover letter expressing your outrage, and including your name and address so they know you're serious.