When I’m note writing grand socioeconomic hypotheses, or chasing goats hither and yon, or working on construction projects around the ranch, I’ve been known to put on my hat as a general management and sales & marketing consultant; eating being a habit and all. So I think it’s significant to note two stories which help to define most clearly the conundrum facing political ‘leadership’ in America – such as it is – in what continues to be an evolving Second Depression.
The conundrum’s essence can be distilled into juxtapositions of newspaper and wire service stores. Let’s take these two: “”Sources: GM to shut most US plants for up to 9 weeks” on the one hand, while on the other “AP Poll: More Americans upbeat than not.” Here, take a good sniff of this china board marker and see if we can generalize a little something off these two. How about: American’s not willing to step up and buy cars are previous rates but their mood about the economy is improving.
Seems to me we can infer one of three possibilities from this: One being that carmakers have misread market conditions. That, unfortunately, is not a high probability since elsewhere, an AP report mentions that GM may be forced to skip a $1-billion debt payment. I have to imagine that GM’s got a pretty good methodology to tracking sales on at least a daily basis, if not hourly.
The second possibility is that the CBS/AP poll is wrong. But again, hard to imagine that they could be since both are competent news operations and some on staff for sure knows what ‘n‘ is in statistics and is expert at sample sized. With results pegged at +/- 3./1% Obama’s first 100 days are doing better than his predecessor. And now, 36% of American’s figure the country is headed in the right direction. Plus or minus error.
So confidence is coming back, but what’s selling in the auto dealerships? No much.
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The third possibility is that the country has passed some kind of intergenerational turning point (or tipping point) and that it really will dramatically redefine how economic life works going forward. It’s not just as one “GE exec says economic crisis resetting capitalism” as one headline put it, but much broader context I suspect it’s the emergence of and economic depression psychology.
While it’s not an overwhelming number, stories that compare president Obama to first-time-around New Dealer, president Franklin Roosevelt, are popping up here and there. Take for example the headline last weekend in the LA Times “Measuring Obama by FDR’s yardstick“.
Moreover, despite the occasional MSM (MainStreamMedia) slam on those of us who are thrifty and prep for a hard-to-yet-distinguish future, other stories are appearing that make us look prescient to those with an open mind. I’d point you at a college newspaper like Kent State University’s www.kentnewsnet.com and their story “Getting by During the Great Depression” when “alumna worked for 15-cents an hour” as an indication of the great socioeconomic redefinition in order.
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On my schedule today is more groundwork/research which is directed toward the idea of identifying those new trends and products (e.g. what’s gonna be sold?) in the Second Depression. Working title of this week’s Peoplenomics.com report is “What’s in play?”
Obviously, I won’t go into it in great detail here, but let me give you a broad hint: Starting thinking about companies that were founded in the period 1929-1940. Do a little research and I think you’ll be surprised.
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But back to the specifics of Detroit’s problems? What’s facing them is less a traditional sales problem, so much as ‘getting right’ of what consumers today are looking for. People really are following the “transformational” path outlined in the HPH linguistics over a year ago. It’s just what when the information is right there slapping you in the face, saying “Hey Buddy! Transformation is Going On here!”.
A fine lesson is to be learned from the MSNBC headline Tuesday: “Subaru’s going approach works in tough times.” Subtitled: “Function over form is helping the automaker actually grow sales.”
And that’s the key right now: Form over function. Sell functionality instead of style, and position on price/benefit rather than status and you get somewhere. Which is why the MSNBC piece mentions the ‘buru’s, Wranglers, and Smarts. I’d throw in Porsches, too. Because when it comes to function of sports car I have yet to drive better.
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Elaine and I keep looking at buying another car and this is precisely what we come down to: What’s our ‘function’ list. Elaine wants something a bit uncommon, yet with high safety and good mileage, low maintenance, and decent handling. My criteria are price and long term viability of the company’s American market presence; having had a Daewoo and a Fiat, it’s been like my buying the cars was the death-knell of the company’s North American sales.
Although cruising eBay’s Fiat ads today I noticed there aren’t any Fiat Strada’s (the American badged version of the Fiat Ritmo, which I bought during the five minutes the cars were sold in North America) for sale. I found it a great combination of good handling, four-door practicality, the Golf/Rabbit kind of form factor and really cheap. It served me well. 31 MPG and we’re talking 1980′s.
So, one of these days, Elaine and I will actually go up to Tyler and she’ll drive the new Kia Soul, which seems like a decent enough car. I sure hope, if I buy one, that it won’t spell Big Trouble for Kia, as my Strada/Ritmo purchase in about ’85 did for Fiat’s N.A. group. or my 2001 purchase of the Daewoo did for that company.
Even inclined as I am to consider the slightly larger Pontiac small SUV my neighbor across the road picked up, I’m worried that if I bought one of those, that the Pontiac brand might disappear or “go fiat/Daewoo” on me; the headlines are already out “Future uncertain for Pontiac, GM brands.“
Which brings up the third key marketing point after form and function.
Future of the company. That’s because a lot of folks are in the same boat as us: Sure we could buy a car today…might even do so if there was the right form and function at a decent price. But now there’s this cloudy future of the underlying company to crank into the equation.
The report that “Fiat CEO may break pledge as Chrysler deadline looms” comes as no surprise to me. I’ve already seen Fiat high-tail it out of the North American market once and I personally got stuck ‘holding the bag’ with my green Strada.
What’s this? George carrying a grudge? Me? Over something that happened 23 years, 5 months, 17 days, 7 hours, 28 minutes and 14 seconds ago? Surely you jest!
Fiat’s losing half a billion (in US dollars) as reported this morning ain’t exactly a surprise.
Tax the Rich? Still Waiting Department
I see where the UK government is upping the top-end income tax rate to 50%. But here’s the key thing: As long as selected (read: really really rich) Brits can shovel things into Swiss accounts, then their effective tax rates will still be below the working class.
Does that suck? Gee, yah think?
“Golly, George, a little bitter this morning are we?” Pardon me, but No shit Sherlock. When I sharpen my pitchfork here at the ranch, banksters, fraudsters, and greedsters piling up dough outside of America when I’m paying a five-figure tax bill just irks the hell out of me. And government’s response is a sham because they leave the loopholes open for the folks that make the big campaign contributions.
In legalese it’s called “structuring”.
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Not that it’s a US/UK problem of course. It’s endemic to being rich. In India, for example, a headline yesterday was about how “Pranab denies UPA going slow on unearthing Swiss bank accounts.“
So it goes with being rich. Notice how the reports that the US government was starting to look at 100 Americans for hiding money from taxes in Switzerland’s UBS (out of what seem to recall are 50,000+ American accounts) have just sort od drifted away for now? Wonder where the wires will go next…got any friends in Grand Turk?
And so the game goes. Oh sure, the US Public Interest Research group said in a report last week that it’s costing us little guys $100-billion a year that we have to make up since the rich get to skate. Hand me my pitchfork file would yah? Yeah, that’s it - the fat bastard file.
How do you spell “Never Happen”?
This oughta be fun: president Obama is planning to meet with credit card executives and press them for reform. But come on now, what is the industry gonna say? “Gee, we’re sorry we’re charging 33% usury…and we’ll knock it down to something that floats a max of 10-points over CPI”? ROFL. never frigging happen, LOL. Showmanship’s good, though. More bread and circuses over here, if you please!
Space Goat Farts Department
Linguistically, the SGF component of the web bot project is a sort of dumping ground for all oddities noticed while ‘looking up.’ This morning’s SGF newbie is the report of a “Giant mystery block found near dawn of time.”
Price is Right Department
Our cartoon from Rebecca Price this week says it all about Texas’ “independent minded” governor:
Be sure and enter Rebecca’s cartoon captioning contest over at www.toon-republic.com …
Markets
The Dow still seems to be headed for a bounce after dropping 82 on Wednesday. UPS earnings came in lower than expected today. You mean like people slowing down buying things even online) might have an impact? ‘Magine that?