Hammer Time: Tearing Down Walls

by Steven Lang

May 16th, 2014 2:16 PM

The taxpayers will be paying for the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies. The living. The dead. The unborn. Hell, even my dog. All of us here who give our money to a Congress and President that can’t say no get the honors. Shouldn’t we get something for it? I’m not talking about a bouncy little check in the mail from Uncle Sam. We already have enough of those. How about a car? Seriously. This is a bankruptcy the public will be paying for after all. We’re going to be paying in interminable interest payments and political pontifications if nothing else. Since that’s the case, why not offer all these wonderful unloved surplus vehicles to the public?

I propose that since this is a publicly funded bankruptcy, we offer the public complete access to the auto auctions. Here are the plusses. You’ll get more of your money back in the end. You let the free market do what it does best without a barrier to entry. You get everything done as quickly as possible. There are literally dozens of auto auctions throughout the country that are designed to move thousands of cars in a single day. The selling process is amazingly simple and unlike used car sales, new cars have no discernible wear. You don’t have to worry about frame damage or the Frankenstein sold by the professional rebuilders. The minuses? Well, here it goes.

Dealer traffic would come to a trickle. Even at the ‘snobby’ brands that we all know and resent. Sure there will be those folks who insist on a well made product. But Americans buy crap. That’s why we have Wal-Mart. The only difference between the heavy spenders and the poverty stricken is that the former usually buys more of it in bigger packages. For those who like to buy crap in volume, we’ll just let them go as many times as they like to the auctions. Nothing is better than a free market where all the goods are new and all the bidding is open. What says you?

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2 of 28 comments

Dkulmacz on May 22, 2009

WalMart uses it's extreme size to steer / bully suppliers into moving production to China in order to meet the prices they demand. They're an expert at getting other businesses to lay off US workers.

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Mel23 on May 22, 2009

Crap isn't crap due to where it's sold, but rather where and how it's made. I bought some (slightly) galvanized wire fence 3-4 years ago. A lot of it is solidly red with rust now, and it'll have to be replaced in 2-3 more years. This stuff used to last 20 years or more. Made in China of course, and bought at Tractor Supply and Lowes. If I knew of another source, I'd buy it there. I think it's a result of big box retailing where store personal aren't affected by unhappy customers, and hence the customer has no meaningful choice in many cases.

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