A Modest Automotive Proposal (pt 1)
It is a melancholy object to those who drive through this great nation, when they see the towns, the roads, and even congressional hearings, crowded with beggars of the manufacturer persuasion, followed by three, four, or six suppliers, all in rags and importuning every taxpayer for an alms. These companies, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in jetting to beg sustenance for their helpless products: who as they grow obsolescent either turn beater, or leave their dear native country to fight in the Chinese Scrap Yard Wars.
I think it is agreed by all parties that this prodigious number of suppliers/products/brands/dealers in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their Unions, and frequently of their Boards, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom a very great additional grievance; and, therefore, whoever could find out a fair, cheap, and easy method of making these children sound, useful members of the commonwealth, would deserve so well of the public as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation.
But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the children of professed beggars; it is of a much greater extent, and shall take in the whole number of manufacturers at a certain domesticity who are born of parents in effect as to divert pension obligations and then demand our charity in the streets.
As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of other projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in the computation. It is true, a company just glommed to the government teat may be supported by her milk for a solar year, with little other nourishment; at most not above the value of 9B., which the Government may certainly get, or the value in scraps, by her lawful occupation of taxation; and it is exactly at one hundred years old that I propose to provide for them in such a manner as instead of being a charge upon their parents or the parish, or wanting bailouts and raiment for the rest of their lives, they shall on the contrary contribute to the feeding, and partly to the clothing, of many hundreds of thousands.
There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those badge engineered Crossovers, and that horrid practice of owners murdering their bastard SUVs for the Insurance payouts, alas! too frequent among us! sacrificing the poor innocent babes I doubt more to avoid the expense than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast.
The number of dollars in this first bailout being usually reckoned twenty-five billion, of these I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand executive jobs that may be saved; from which number I subtract thirty thousand who are classified to be mainly redundant, although I apprehend there cannot be so many, under the present distresses of the kingdom; but this being granted, there will remain an hundred and seventy thousand executives. I again subtract fifty thousand for those enterprises who miscarry, or whose stocks die by accident or disease within the year. There only remains one hundred and twenty thousand executives of poor management annually supported. The question therefore is, how this number shall be reared and provided for, which, as I have already said, under the present situation of affairs, is utterly impossible by all the methods hitherto proposed. For we can neither employ them in handicraft or agriculture; we neither build houses (I mean anymore in this country) nor cultivate land: they can very seldom pick up a livelihood by stealing, till they arrive at a position in an energy corporation or Investement Banking firm, except where they are of towardly parts, although I confess they learn the rudiments much earlier, during which time, they can however be properly looked upon only as probationers, as I have been informed by a principal gentleman in the county of Oakland, who protested to me that they never knew above one or two instances under the age of one hundred, even in a part of the kingdom so renowned for the quickest proficiency in that art.
I am assured by our merchants, that a car or a SUV before one years old is no salable commodity until incentives are added; and even when they come to this age they will not yield under a two thousand dollar loss, or more; which cannot turn to account either to the company or kingdom, the charge of wages and health insurances having been at least that much of a detraction of value.
I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.
I have been assured by a very knowing former Englander of my acquaintance in Rhode Island, that a young healthy automaker well nursed is at a hundred years old a most delicious, tantalizing, and saleable commodity, whether stewed, roasted, bankrupted, or bailed; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in attracting Chinese investment dollars.
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