Best Superbowl Ad 2011

This was without a doubt the best ad.  Not a good car, but great advertising. 

Explorations of Detroit

4 videos on my hometown.  Quite interesting, and somewhat inspiring/hopeful.

http://www.palladiumboots.com/explorations

A land where schools go out of business

I grew up smack in the middle of the rust belt, the wealthy suburbs of Detroit, Michigan.  Sixteen years after "graduating" from elementary school I learn that that school, Wooddale, is closing its doors permanently.  Its strange thinking that a place where I spent countless hours as a child is going to be no more.

Apparently Farmington Public School is in some dire straits.  They are closing 4 elementary schools, which will mean that kids will have to transition from elementary school, to upper elementary school, to junior high, to high school.  So a total of 4 schools over 12 years, which I think is a bit excessive.

On a larger note, you can bet that property values will tank in these areas.  Nobody wants to live next door to an abandoned school (brings to mind Nightmare on Elm Street).  Schools are very much the foundation of a community.  Farmington Hills, Michigan.  Formerly the home of one the best school districts in the country.  Now a land where schools go out of business.

Infrastructure under stress

Last night I watched the excellent History special "The Crumbling of America". This documentary raised several areas of concern for every American. They detailed several classes of infrastructure that are degrading quickly:

Bridges

Dams - Some states, such as Alabama, do not even have a dam inspector.

Levees - Surprisingly, the state most in danger is California, particularly Sacamento.

Roads

Sewers

Water Mains - Montgomery Co. MD, a rich suburb of DC, was singled out in this segment.

For anyone who has drived around the Rust Belt (e.g. Detroit) this will not come as any surprise. As a country, we spent several decades and a lot of money building this infrastructure. But since the boom in the 50s and 60s the state and federal governments have not taken action to properly maintain these roads, generally because they were too busy spending money on other items, which they deemed more important.

At this point, it will likely cost several trillion dollars to repair our infrastructure. Some of this will be done with the recent stimulus package. While republicans may balk at this figure and claim that it is the responsibility of the states, the states simply do not have the money to undertake this project. Once the tap water shuts off for weeks due to major water main breaks, or a bridge near your house fails and you need to drive an extra 50 miles to work each day, I think this issue would hit home with any American.

This is going to cost a lot to fix. This is also not a partisan issue. Today in Detroit, the democratic city council voted against an increase in the sewer/water tax. Sure, people in Detroit may have trouble affording an increased water bill; but if the infrastructure which delivers and cleans the water fails, they will be paying a lot more.

Worst team. Ever.

The Lions have successfully completed an entire NFL season without winning 1 game.

America's Third World City In Pictures

It is truly stunning what has become of Detroit when you consider its history; although since I was young it has always looked pretty run down.

Time has a photo slideshow.

Should we let GM fail?

General Motors is now teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. It currently has about $16B in available cash but its burn rate is close to $2B per month. When you add to this the fact that the majority of Americans will not buy a car that is made by a struggling company due to potential warranty and service issues, you create a negative feedback loop that will likely bring GM down.

This is nothing new. I wrote about GM's problems over three years ago. All auto companies, including the venerable Toyota, are hurting now. But American companies are even worse off. Why? Because of the union contracts they've had for the past half century, including the socialist JOBS BANK, which pays workers to sit in a room and not work. GM complacency during boom times gave the union these types of benefits that are practically unheard of in any industry.

It is not so simple to just allow GM to fail. If GM goes under, parts suppliers will probably have to close as well, which has the potential to hurt the other automakers. Furthermore, close to 10% of US jobs are in someway connected to the auto industry, when you include dealership personnel, parts manufacturers, and the entire dealership industry.

What they want is a couple dozen billion dollars to continue operating, but I'm not sure that would do any good. I think that a bankruptcy may be their best chance at survival, as that would allow them to renegotiate a lot of their contracts, likely including their UAW contracts.

I don't have any quick term solutions to propose and neither does our current president. Our next president favors a bailout, since you don't want to start your term presiding over a meltdown just as bad as the financial crisis.

Tiger Stadium Destroyed

Another piece of my childhood has been destroyed by a thuggish mayor who would rather have text message sex than balance a budget.