America has four car companies again! GM has sold the Saturn franchise to Roger Penske. I never believed it would happen. I’m glad to have the choice in the marketplace.

Technically though this is probably a temporary situation. Once Fiat buys Chrysler, will Chrysler still count as an American car company anymore? The business will take its orders from Turin even if Fiat doesn’t own a controlling percentage of Chrysler shares. Well, maybe it will still be American. Mazda is still Japanese right, even though Ford tells it what to do.

Even though Penske won’t be building cars it does leave some exciting possibilities for the future. GM will provide Saturn vehicles for the first few years, but eventually Penske will contract with other automakers and rebadge their vehicles. What could we have in store? From what I read online, most people expect rebadged Renaults. That idea surprises me because Renault and Nissan are allied, so why would Nissan allow itself to compete against its ally’s cars in the US? I expect Nissan would veto any move by Renault to sell cars to Penske. I hope so anyway. I don’t care for Renault’s lineup (based on UK models). The Laguna coupe is the only exception and I’m still not that excited about it.

I sure as hell don’t want Penske to import the New Kangoo.

I would think Citroen or Peugeot might be a possibility. They’re a large company without any ties to the US. Neither of their lineups interest me either though. Here you can see Citroen and Peugeot in the UK. My heart still skips a beat for the Citroen C5 however. If the C5 Airscape is ever made and sold as a Saturn I’ll sell my ass on the street to get one.

Certainly Fiat is out of the running since they’re taking on Chrysler. That also rules out Alfa Romeo since it’s a part of the Fiat Group. I can’t really think of any other European manufacturers that could possibly supply a US car company. No American is going to buy an AvtoVAZ.

Representing Asia… I think Proton is a strong possibility. They sell in the UK and Australia so they’re familiar with first world safety standards, and they’re a bargain leader. I could see them supplying Penske with one or two compact, fuel-efficient cars; perhaps a small SUV as well. Nothing they make excites me though.

Other than Proton, Asia doesn’t have much to offer Penske. South Korea’s two biggest native manufacturers, Hyundai and Kia, already sell in the US. That leaves SsangYong which is in bankruptcy. I doubt Penske wants to rescue a second failed automaker. Even if he did I don’t recommend he save SsangYong. They manufacture some awkward looking vehicles. Japan doesn’t have any companies that aren’t involved in the US so no sense looking there. That leaves China.

A Chinese manufacturer presents political problems in the US. Penske will have a lot of baggage to deal with in terms of quality questions, safety concerns and a freakout over the loss of US manufacturing to China. The benefit is that Penske has plenty of choice in China – Geely, Great Wall, BYD, Brilliance, Chery, and probably others I can’t think of. I’m sure they would all bend over backwards to crack into the US market. Penske would also provide them with a lot of manufacturing know-how to bring their cars up to US standards. That’s a lot of work for Penske.

Don’t think Penske is going to import cars from several different sources. That would be a collosal headache for maintainance. Dealerships would have to stock parts from so many different companies and train their mechanics on completely different systems. I actually expect Proton to win out. They’re third world cheap but already know how to operate in the first world.

Now we have unemployment the likes of which my generation has never seen. Well we could have seen it but I doubt anyone in my age group was paying attention to unemployment statistics in 1983. Unemployment hit 9.4% today; the worst it has been since August 1983. Most of the media seems to be taking the ‘What, me worry?‘ approach to reporting this fact. Just about every article starts off mentioning the unemployment rate, but then soothes your nerves by talking up the better than expected decline in job losses.

• Job losses slow dramatically says CNN
• US loses just 345,000 jobs in May, raising hopes proclaims Yahoo!
• Jobs Report Is an Upside Surprise declares BusinessWeek

Actually those headlines are pretty damn cheerful, but reality may not turn out to be so. A Barron’s columnist has taken note of some rumors surrounding these unemployment figures. The reduced job loss figure of 345,000 may be an error at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. C’est la vie! We can’t be sure of this trend until we see data for this month, which of course won’t happen until next month.

By the way, with the way a lot of news outlets are discussing that 345,000 drop in jobs you would think they’re discussing a long term, established trend. Remember though, this is actually a one data point trend, and a single data point is pretty meaningless. Repeat that to yourself the next time you see or hear a report about this fantastic new employment trend we’re in.

Aside from this irrational exuberance, I’ve noticed one question not asked; one key statistic not given today. What’s the funemployment number? I’m positive we can’t have 9.4% sad sacks moping through their days looking for work. The LA Times found some people living it up without a pesky job. Ex-Yahoo Michael Van Gorkom is hanging out at the beach with his new best friend, the margarita. Aubrey Howell’s busiest task has been visiting family since she’s joined the ranks of the funemployed.

I was (f)unemployed once. I graduated college into the Internet recession in 2001, and then moved to Silicon Valley. For seven months I puttered around the apartment I couldn’t afford to live in. In that summer I watched every single episode of the original Battlestar Galactica, and learned Galactica 1980 is unwatchable. I’d spend afternoons driving aimlessly trying to learn the roads of my new home. I look back on that with misery. I ran through my savings and ran up credit card debt trying to feed myself, pay my car loan and pay my rent. How any of these people can feel relaxed and happy when they don’t have an income is beyond my understanding.

So what’s the point of my rambling? The media is carrying water for the White House. We have a job market that is only getting worse, but who in the fourth estate is actually calling out our esteemed leader over it? These mainstream news outlets are sugarcoating today’s bad news with soft headlines. The LA Times is inventing a new term – funemployment – to persuade the millions of newly unemployed people that it’s not so bad. So what if you don’t have penny left to your name. Go hit those batting cages!

The media is a disgrace and the country is going to hell in a handbasket. Same old, same old.

UPDATE: Wow, I thought I was pushing it by saying the news media were protecting Obama from criticism by shielding negative news about unemployment. Then Newsweek’s editor, Evan Thomas, one ups everyone by going on MSNBC to say Obama is “sort of God.” It’s unbelieveable how nakedly pro-Obama these guys are.

A man placed an ad on Craigslist looking for another man to rape his wife while he watched. To be clear, his wife was not into this. This wasn’t a couple trying to spice up their relationship. Now I don’t know if he first tried to get her excited about it and she rejected this idea, or if he hatched this completely in his head.

We’re not that far off from eating babies. Seriously now, does human behavior get any more depraved than this? People have always done horrible things to each other, but what appalls me about this is this guy’s betrayal of his wife. I think it goes without saying that you don’t offer up your friends or family to be raped. I suppose you’re also not supposed to do that to complete strangers too, but if you’re sick enough to do it, you would think you would start with a stranger. Instead this guy offers up his wife, the person he is supposed to be closest to, so he could get a sexual thrill.

Really now, does it get worse than this? I could imagine someone answering back that maybe if the guy offered up his children instead of his wife, but I don’t see that as a great deal different. He would still be torturing his close family to get a cheap thrill.

I’d like someone to ask him what he thought would be the end of result of his action. Did he expect his wife to turn to him at the end and say, “Wow hun! That rape was hot! I’m going to cook you your favorite dinner,” and everything would work out for him? Did he actually think this was totally worth going to jail for?

Stick a fork in the human race. We’re done.