There are a lot of auto workers in the Midwest that see the future as pretty bleak. Year after year they see the companies they work for slide closer to oblivion. There are more and more imports on the road every day. Japanese cars have won the hearts of most Americans. Now the Koreans are making strong gains on America’s roadways. In a few years the Chinese will start selling cars here. Asia looks unstoppable.

Lo, blue-collar worker, all is not lost! Yes, I tell you Asians can screw up in the auto business. Allow me to remind you of Mitsubishi. That’s right, you forgot about them didn’t you? Well so have many other Americans. That’s why they’re in so much trouble. Actually their trouble began way back in 2001. That year Mitsubishi started a program that allowed people to defer a year’s worth of car payments. It was designed to get more youth buyers to consider Mitsubishi, and I would imagine convince them to become lifetime buyers. However once a year went by, these customers had cars that were worth less than their car loan. Anyone who tried to trade their car in was screwed over, and no doubt this left many people thinking Mitsubishi had little value. Which is probably one of the reasons Mitsubishi’s sales have fallen. Let’s look at some numbers.

Mitsubishi’s Yearly Vehicle Sales
2000 – 314,417
2001 – 322,393
2002 – 345,111
2003 – 256,810
2004 – 161,609
2005 – 123,995
2006* – 92,670

2006′s figure is an extrapolation based on the first two months of this year.

It’s an awesome drop isn’t it? I wish I could get some feedback that would explain this plummet. That year of no payments plan was a bad idea, but I can’t quite believe it’s the cause of such a dramatic shift.

I’ve looked at Mitsubishi’s product line and I don’t think it’s so bad. They have one too many SUVs in their line-up but other than that, I’m not sure what other changes I would make. Maybe I would kill the Raider. Pickup trucks are a tough market for imports to crack. Mitsubishi is struggling so maybe they shouldn’t be spending money on something so competitive. I’d really need to look at the costs of Raider production to make that decision though.

Could Mitsubishi’s weakness be cured by advertising? That’s what Mitsubishi’s dealers are banking on. They want Mitsubishi to increase their advertising budget. Mitsubishi’s new ad chief, Hiroshi Harunari, refused unfortunately. He did throw the dealers a bone. This year’s $200 million will be focused primarily on TV spots, with the remainder spent on the Internet. Last year’s ad budget was divided among far more options, which many dealers felt spread their money too thin and is largely the cause of the former ad chief’s departure.

I’m not sure if TV ads will turn things around. Mitsubishi has some deeply difficult problems that have stumped me.

I swear the president of the company I work at must delight in getting me to do awkward things. In the years I’ve been here, he’s continually managed to bring out the stupid in me. Usually my stupidity manifests itself in something I say that he twists into something I totally didn’t intend. Today was something new altogether.

I went to the bathroom to take a simple piss. I stepped up to the urinal, and he must have been just a step behind me but I didn’t hear him at all. He steps up to the urinal next to mine a second later and says “Hey”. At this point I freeze. Here’s what goes through my mind.

• What?
• Who is that?
• Did he say that to me?
• Is there anyone else here?
• Is that Greg?
• Should I look over?
• Don’t look over!
• Oh no he looked at me.
• This is awkward.
• Great now I can’t piss.

That was a very uncomfortable 4 seconds. So then I glanced over nervously and broke the unbearable tension with “Oh sorry, I wasn’t sure if you were talking to me or on the phone or something“. Then we laughed it off and I breathed again. I still couldn’t piss until after he left. Crap now he thinks I’m a 26 year old with a prostate problem. From now on I’m holding it until the office empties out.

I’m starting to suspect that maps have been lying to me all this time and China is really on another planet because according to a Wall Street Journal article (which I wish I could link to, but the bastards restrict content) a Buick minivan is the hot vehicle for business executives. The WSJ asked Li Jun, a 36 year old business owner from Shanghai who said the minivan is “stylish and majestic”. Yes you did just read that.

The minivan in question is called the Buick GL8. It’s designed specifically for China and is being referred to as an “executive wagon”. Although the WSJ says the GL8 is designed for China, it also says its sister vehicle is the Buick Terraza, which you can buy in the US. I’m not sure if that means there are only a few cosmetic changes between them, or they’re built on the same platform and thereafter they go their separate ways. The WSJ isn’t much of a car mag.

Anyway, GM is apparently kicking ass in China. The GL8 is the envy of Chinese businessmen, and the Chinese Buick LaCrosse is far more luxurious than its American counterpart. The Chinese engineering team rebuilt the car from the frame of the original American version. It’s said to have a more European feel. The design team splurged on the interior using far richer materials. GM is now the biggest seller of a single auto-entity in China. Although overall GM is second if you add together VW’s two joint ventures in the country. More importantly GM is profitable in China while VW is not.

So why can GM be successful in China but still be losing in the US? One major reason was mentioned by the WSJ article. In bringing vehicles to China, GM set about aggressively adapting these vehicles to local tastes. GM’s management was probably hypersensitive to the fear that they might blunder by giving the Chinese cars that were too American. If memory serves me right, GM made that mistake several years ago in Europe. GM sent Chevrolets rebadged as Opels and they didn’t sell too well.

By working extra hard to tailor the cars for China, GM did what they should be doing everywhere. They gave the consumer what they wanted. They listened to public and designed based on that. In America it seems like GM wants to tell the public what is good for them.

Another issue that is unrelated to this article, but has bothered me for some time is GM’s brand fuzziness. If you want to create loyal customers, these customers need to understand what your company is about. Your company needs an identity, but GM’s brands all blur together. If I say Chevrolet or Cadillac, does anything even come to mind?

Starting with Chevrolet, I’ll tell you what it should evoke. Chevy should be about power. It should be all the Hollywood cliches you see in movies like The Fast and The Furious. Fast cars, big engines, not so much stickers on the body because that’s more of an import thing. It’s all about speed, speed, speed. The Corvette will remain the flagship of the brand. A resurrected Camaro will be underneath that for middle income people. Underneath that there should be one or maybe two cheaper vehicles for the youth segment. These will directly compete with the Scion crowd. Every Chevy dealership should have aftermarket accessories available for sale too.

Most importantly Chevy should stop making trucks and pass that job on to GMC. I know that’s a difficult decision to make because there is a long history of Chevy trucks, but we can’t be slaves to the past. That’s the sort of thinking that continues to erode market share. GMC can take over all the pick-up trucks. I’m not so sure I would let them build any SUVs however.

Right now GM has three luxury brands – Cadillac, Buick and Saab. One must go, atleast from America. I say ditch Buick. That is the least valuable of the three here. It can live on in China because it still has a good reputation there, but it has a weak one in the US. Cadillac will serve basic luxury desires, while Saab will cater to those with a European taste.

Hummer is a very specialized market and GM already knows it. I would leave this brand alone.

This leaves Saturn and Pontiac. Do these brands have any identity at all right now? I hate Pontiac because I hate their signature grille, but they do have a lot more history than Saturn. Here we have to start from scratch. I can see moving Pontiac into a family friendly context. This is a place for moderately priced sedans and minivans that your average Joe is going to look for. Find thirty-something year old women with two kids and ask them what they like in a car. That’s what Pontiac should become.

This leaves us with Saturn. If we killed this, I don’t think too many people would notice. There is another direction we could take though. Lately there has been a trend towards low priced, low powered cars for kids. Scion is part of this. The brand new Honda Fit is another example. These are compact cars with small engines whose hook is that they’re so versatile. Admittedly my two examples have different emphases. Scion is geared more towards tuners so you’ll see more talk about adding spoilers and pinstriping and neon. The Fit is brand new but as far as I can tell, it’s geared for active people. The interior seating is totally reconfigurable so Honda is making a fuss about all that you can fit in there.

Even with that different emphasis Saturn can still grab hold of this youth segment. Look at the Fit and the Scion xA. They look nearly the same. It’s not that difficult to design a car that kids can customize or satisfy their wanderlust with. That is just a possibility for the Saturn nameplate. This could still be done if GM killed Saturn and created a new name from scratch. That might even be a better idea. I did consider if this would step on the toes of my revamped Chevrolet, but I think there is room enough. Really my worry is that by building a Chevy with a weak engine, it would cheapen the brand.

I’ve known for awhile about Europe’s falling birthrate, but I was struck by some new data I read today. Well, I don’t know if the data is new, but it’s new to me. I had no idea that Greece has Europe’s lowest birthrate at 1.29. That’s followed by Spain at 1.32 and Italy at 1.33. I always thought southern Europeans had a reputation for being so sexual, so I expected they would be churning the most kids out. Yet their stern northern cousins are having more kids. Is birth control really, really popular down south?

As you can imagine a falling birthrate is death for the European social security system. Without more younger workers to produce more taxes, governments can’t afford the social safety net. God forbid they allow in immigrants. Actually I can understand the trouble Europe would have in taking in immigrants. It’s easy to say the EU should let more people in, but I don’t think those societies can handle it. You can see why from how the US handles immigrants. A few weeks ago I was watching some local news and they were covering a story about a protest in LA. There was a latino woman, probably Mexican since it’s LA, on camera. She said to the reporter, “I am proud to be an American here. I love this country.” She was in her 40s and had a thick accent. English was certainly a second language. Yet she considered herself an American.

Does that ever happen in a European country? If I moved to France would I ever become French? No, it wouldn’t matter how long I lived there. I would never become French. I would always be an American living in France. European countries don’t assimilate people because their identities are bound up in history. To truly be French you have to have French ancestry. Becoming an American is a different matter. This country was founded on an ideology, not an ancient tribe settling down on a patch of land. So people can become American by adopting those beliefs that are American.

If the Europeans just let more immigrants in, I’m not sure what would happen. I hate to agree with those pandering politicians who say European society would overwhelmed by immigrant culture, but they might be right. So to prop up their financial system, the EU needs more kids. Funny enough European women might want to have even less. A recent survey of German women showed they wanted less kids and Germany has the fourth lowest birthrate. I wonder why Germany is outside of the norm. It’s a northern European country but it’s low birthrate is more inline with the southern countries.

Europe isn’t the only place with worrying demographics. China is heading for a similar crunch because of its earlier one-child policy. The ratio of youth to elderly will shrink causing financial problems for the Chinese pension system.

“Goldman Sachs, an investment bank, reckons that China’s “demographic bonus” of a large working-age population with a small number of dependants (helped by the one-child-per-couple policy introduced in the late 1970s) will shortly run out as the number of young workers starts declining (see chart). The country’s dependency ratio will begin to rise by 2010, whereas India, on current trends, will not reach that point until 2040.” [The Economist, "Keep Growing"; March 23, 2006]

British scientists have debunked one of those new diseases that complainers get. Sick Building Syndrome is no more! In case you’ve never heard of it, SBS is similar to having a perpetual cold. It was thought to be caused by “bad air” in modern offices. Bad air was never really defined. Possible causes that were often suspected wereÂ� mold growing in ventilation systems, dust build up, air too humid, air too dry, lighting intensity, even airborne chemicals from office equipment. Everyone just nodded along because I think most people were happy to blame something on their offices, even though it didn’t make sense that it would affect so few.

Well as it turns out SBS is actually plain, ordinary stress. The people in this study experiencing 5 or more of SBS symptoms were also the ones to complain about job stress and lack of workplace support. Meanwhile the people working alongside them who didn’t have a problem with the job, didn’t have SBS.

I find that conclusion very satisfying. I always hated the idea behind Sick Building Syndrome. I thought it was ridiculous that a human body needed some undefinable quality to air that only nature could provide. We might as well go back to believing in miasmas and quintessence. So this Monday I want you to go to work and breathe in deep that recycled air because it is perfectly fine.

These vitamins have completely pissed me off. I lost my ability to swallow them. It’s amazing what unintended consequencies a simple thought can have. I was swallowing these pills fine the first two days. Then on day three I had a short, simple thought flash through my mind when I was about to swallow my multivitamin pill. I thought to myself, “Ya know, these are pretty big pills.” Right then and there my trouble started.

That dayÂ� my throat closed up andÂ� the pillÂ� wouldn’t go down. I drank cup after cup of water with no effect. The next day I figured out I could split the pills in half and swallow them separately. That helped for the next two days, but it didn’t last. Somehow each separate halfÂ� started to feelÂ� as difficult to swallow as the whole. Now I’m left again drinking cup after cup of water, trying to take my vitamin halves with no luck.

Funny thing is the fish oil pills are just as large, maybe slightly bigger, yet I can still swallow those. I think the problem must be the texture of these pills. The fish oil is a capsule so it can slip down easier. The multivitamin is so grainy. It’s like trying to swallow a little stone. And don’t come back and tell me just don’t think about it. Please, when has that advice ever worked with anything? The more you try not to think, the more you end up thinking.

I’m about ready to give up and switch to Flintstone chewables. They seem to have enough of the basic vitamins, but they lack all the funky herbs this brand has. If I miss out on my dose of kelp powder or boron, is it still worth bothering with vitamins, or are these weird extras just more nutritional fads? This industry is brimmingÂ� with hucksterism. I still haven’t eaten dinner yet. I’m going to try crushing one pill and mixing it with my food. If it’s nasty, or crushing makes too big a mess, screw these pills. It’s on to the Flintstones!

As it turns out Belorusian officials did not leave those protesters alone. Yesterday police finally rounded them up and shipped them off to a prison. Around 500 people were taken including the former Polish ambassador to Belarus, Mariusz Maszkiewicz. Some of the new prisoners were able to send text messages while detained. According to these messages they were made to stand out in the prison courtyard in freezing weather. Maszkiewicz claimed the police beat him and others severely. The last text sent said guards had started to collect cell phones.

In response the US and EU agreed to slap new sanctions on Belarus. The sanctions are expected to be travel restrictions on government officials and some financial penalties, but I have no details on that.

Belarus’s opposition claims they will still hold a rally this Saturday. We’ll see how that turns out for them. I’m not actually expecting much trouble. Lukashenko will let the rally happen and after a day or so when the less committed protesters go home, he’ll send in police to break up the few left over diehards. Russian president Putin has done a good job of restraining Lukashenko in the past. Belarus is beholden to Russia’s cheap natural gas, and Russia doesn’t want Belarus embarrassing them with a brutal crackdown.

Earlier this week GM and the UAW announced they agreed on an early retirement deal. I found the press details totally confusing, but this piece of satire explains it really well.

Jalopnik’s Choose Your Own Adventure: GM Edition

The comments about the deal are comedy gold. Here’s a genius one:

Posted: Thu. 03/23/06 01:21 PM
From: Strip Club Owner
City: Detroit, MI USA
Subject: GM_Delphi_Buyouts
Comments: This is great news for me and my dancers. The UAW dopes that take the package can come in and spend all day taking care of Destiny and Jasmine. Everyone here knows that this buyout package will be a finacial boost to jet ski dealerships, bars, and Las Vegas. Handing the uneducated UAW worker this much money is almost cruel in a way. You know what happens to a fool and his money. One year from now, I expect to see stories in the papers about the GM workers whose life completely fell apart because of this lump sum.

Make sure you read the Detroit News comments. It’s like panning for gold in a river. There’s mostly a mix of “union forever” and “unions suck” opinions that go back and forth but some of them are priceless. I fondly remember the guy who assumes everyone who works in an office has a boss that sleeps with their wife. Then there was the son of a UAW member who’s father was forced into retirement as punishment for being caught drinking on the job seven times.

Speaking seriously though, this buy-out is so confusing. I’ve tried to read the explanations in both Crain’s Automotive and the Wall Street Journal and I’m still sketchy on it. Here’s how I think it works:

• If you have 30+ years of experience, you can accept $35,000 now and full pension ($3000/month & health benefits).