We're the Big Three. We Don't Need To Compete.

That ad kills me.  In some ways, it's so funny.  And in others...just terrible.

Well, so many good Americans do buy into this line of reasoning, treating as traitors anyone who buys most of the things in their house, their car, and anything else from offshore. The wording in the bottom part of this ad represents very well the thinking of a lot of Americans, and for that matter economic nationalists everywhere. Well, let us not forget that it is mostly the American consumer that has persuaded the big 3 to stay with the kind of vehicles they have produced. People going int big 3 dealers may have been persuaded to buy too much car, but in the long run they are the ones who made the purchase, the lease.

GM even kept its fleet moving toward fuel economy by marketing Corolla  rebranded as a GM product. But that is just one example. Every one of the big 3 has used imports to lower its fleet fuel consumption, and we thought that was ok as long as fleet consumption was going down.

Would we wait until domestic autos became economic, go without a car in protest until it happens? NO? Why not?

Our big 3 have never given us to believe that they felt any need to change, they were just going to go on rebranding imports.

But it is not just our big 3 that have fallen on hard times. Any manufacturer or reseller of any large ticket item is having difficulty getting financing to move product.