Traveling Over the Turn of the New Year

Hey folks. Well here we are over three weeks into 2009---new year, new president, new hope and certainly a time of transformation in our country. (Editor's Note: I'm going to vent a little opinion here. Please bear with me.)

The way I see it we have a national gut check on our hands. The Age of Entitlement has just ended in the United States and America must re-invent herself in the growing shadow of the revved up global economy. Can we do it? I believe so, with new people at the controls on Wall Street, in Detroit, and politically, most importantly down to the local level. Our children I regard as the transformational figures here.

They must understand that electing a president is not a silver bullet to mend all that we perceive as wrong in this country. It is, given unwavering leadership, a great place to stitch an agenda fully together in the public eye and ear. However they absolutely must not take a consumer mentality to fixing things: The attitude which shouts to elected officials, "That's what we elected you for." Instead they (and all of us) must carry some of the solution's weight on their own shoulders in their own locales and launch it upstream to their representatives. It will take that much effort this time.

Elected leaders must cease talking about how great America is and realize now is the time for us all to get back to work proving it once again. Hard work, self-reliance, this time on a global scale, honest effort at improving life around us and thus our country---it worked for my parents' generation (what Tom Brokaw called "the Greatest Generation") and I believe it can work for our children's generation.

When will Detroit get it. "Robert Lutz, GM's vice chairman for global product development, said the market volatility has made product planning difficult," as reported in today's Virginian Pilot newspaper. He's basically saying that when gas prices were nearly $4 a gallon GM couldn't make enough Cobalts (their gas miser car), but now that gas prices have fallen to the $1.78 range, the Cobalts aren't selling. He goes on to say the following:

"A lot of the media and pundits are maintaining the fiction that we're in a new world and that Americans want small, fuel-efficient cars. But at a buck-fifty a gallon, they don't. I'm sorry, but they just don't."

With leadership like this(and the insipid whining quoted above), I now understand why GM is faltering in the auto market. Yes, I understand the weight imposed by the legacy benefits they must pay former employees and the union stranglehold on their ability to compete in the global and domestic markets, but this guy clearly doesn't get the big picture. Apparently Lutz and GM want to plan production based on the moment's gas prices. They want the market to lead them. They don't want to lead the market. Where does Lutz think the market will end up in the future? There seems to be a limited supply of fossil fuel to drive vehicles and heat and power homes, and thankfully, a growing understanding that we just can't keep burning these fuels without completely trashing our world. Shouldn't an industry leader have the ability to have some semblance of vision about where it's all going to end up if we keep on consuming and wasting resources at disgusting levels in this country.

Meanwhile Toyota keeps rolling out vehicles powered by transitional power plants, using cleaner fuels toward where they must be projecting the auto market will land given current fuel costs, availability, and the condition of the world ecosystem. This is exciting vision intelligent, car-buying people want to own and use.

Sorry everybody. I really need to get this stuff off my chest. I can't take the market-whore mentality anymore. I do remember that this is only a kinda lifestyle, surfing, cycling, life-on-the-Outer-Banks blog. But will the brilliant, honest, resourceful, hardworking visionaries who put American products out front please come forward again? We need you so badly. I know you're out there. Please speak.