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发帖数: 10233 | 1 fact does not have a liberal bias, fact is the liberal bias.
The Chevrolet Volt is everything that is wrong with Washington on four
wheels, and investors (that’s you and me) should be furious.
Wrong #1: The Volt should be re-named the Vote. Who can forget that Super
Bowl ad, with the pseudo-assembly line of Volts rolling through Hamtramck,
Michigan, and the voice overlay that “this isn’t the car we wanted to
build; it’s the car America had to build…from the heart of Detroit to the
help [sic] of the country.” How true—corporate welfare on wheels, buying
votes in a state vital to the President’s re-election. There is simply no
way that GM can kill it.
Wrong #2: Paying workers for not working. Several days before Christmas,
production was phased out for the holidays, which in the case of the Volt
plant, lasted until February 6. Last Friday, GM announced another shutdown,
from March 19 through April 13, or five weeks. That’s right: the Hamtramck
plant will produce “the car America had to build” for less than seven out
of 18 weeks. When it’s open the plant only runs one ten-hour shift for four
days a week. When the plant is shuttered, the 1,300 workers still get paid.
Not counting obligations to retirement, the average hourly wage and
benefits cost to GM union employees is about $55 per hour. Shareholders
ponied up a little more than $30 million in wage costs alone for these 11
weeks of leisure. Nice job if you can get it! Of course, institutional
overhead probably tacks on another $15 million or so. All while not one car
is produced.
How many unsold Volts are out there? GM says there were 3,600 at the end of
February, and Autoweek and The Wall Street Journal say 6,300 (which would be
in the ball park of the total non-fleet sales of Volts for all of 2011).
Cars.com lists a bit over 4,300. Even using conservative figures, the
average Volt sits on the average dealer’s lot for 60 days.
Wrong #3: Subsidizing well-off taxpayers. The Administration is doing
everything it can to goose sales. The President’s new budget raises the
subsidy paid to Volt buyers another 33%, to $10,000 per car in a direct tax
credit. The median price of all the Volts on cars.com is $43,200. The
average household income of Volt purchasers is in excess of $170,000, around
the 93rd percentile. At the 28% tax bracket (married, filing jointly), this
is equivalent to $36,000 of tax-free income. The car which is traded most
for the Volt is none other than the Toyota Prius, which, according to most
analyses, will not have been owned long enough to save in gas money the
total premium paid for the car, compared to a comparable conventional
vehicle.
Wrong #4: Corporate cronyism and coercion. Last month, General Electric,
whose CEO Jeffrey Immelt chairs the President’s Council on Jobs and
Competitiveness, announced that all 2012 sedans ordered by employees for
corporate use will be Volts. That’s Competitive! Beginning next January 1,
GE will not reimburse employees for any corporate travel unless it is done
in a Volt. If GE purchases the 12,000 Volts it is committed to buying, it
will get a $120 million subsidy.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmichaels/2012/03/08/maybe-it |
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