During the men’s semifinal at the U.S. Open yesterday I saw the following GM commercial for the first time:

I have a problem with this for 2 reasons:

1. At about 25 seconds Ed Whitacre says, “So we are putting our money where our mouth is”.  No, that is my money you are putting where your mouth is.  Thanks to that tax money that has been thrown your way to keep GM afloat.  It is also my kids money since they will have to pay the debt that our government is creating in order to own and run a car company.
2. Is a 60 day money back guarantee really the best offer you could come up with?  If this is the most original thing you can think of to get your company’s sales back on track then just close your doors now.  Its not like there aren’t already thousands of other products on the market that are backed with a money back guarantee.  This is almost common practice.  Frankly, I am surprised that GM didn’t already have a money back guarantee.

Two things in the news had me doing a double-take today:

1. New vehicle emmission standards: Obama announced newer, tougher emmission standards that all U.S. car manufacturers will have to adopt by 2016.   Am I mistaken, or are these the same car manafucterers that are struggling to stay afloat that the government has already bailed out multiple times?  Seems to me that adding additional pressure is just going to make a bad situation worse.
2. Madoff’s Lawsuit: The executor for Madoff’s estate, butsiness, etc is suing one of the companies that invested in Madoff’s company claiming that they did not do enough due diligence and should of known that something was wrong.  This may be true, but since when does the person who commits the crime get to sue the victim.  This is crazy.  I hope some judge laughs this right out of court.

I just received an email response to an email I send my congressman, Phil Gingrey, in regard to the whole AIG bonus fiasco.  Here is a snippet:

The only way to prevent this misuse of taxpayer dollars from ever happening again is to take the federal government out of the business of propping up private companies - choosing which will succeed and which will fail. I have cosponsored H. Res. 199 - which calls for a moratorium on these massive, taxpayer-funded bailouts.  Real economic recovery cannot begin until we return to rewarding hard work, demanding responsibility for mistakes, and letting the free market work.  If we truly want to encourage economic growth and job creation, then we must reduce the tax burden on hardworking American families, small business owners, and retirees.

Finally, a Republican that has it straight in his head that the federal government needs to stay out of private business and has the guts to say it.

On Thursday afternoon Ron and I left work a little early and headed to a Saxby Chambliss rally.  Having never been to a political rally before I was interested in seeing what happens.  Essentially it is just a giant pep rally.  Most the people in the room were huge Saby fans, which Ron and I are not, that wanted to clap at every other word that he said.  Saxby said that he will support Obama on the things that will help Georgians and oppose him on thigs that won’t.  The things he said he will vote “NO” on are higher taxes, universal heathcare, bigger government, etc.  The real problem that I face is that I really do not have anyone to vote for in the run-off election.   I cannot vote for Martin because he is an always “yes” vote for Obama policy.  If I vote for Chambliss I have the chance that he will vote “no” when he needs to but with his “yes” vote on the $700B bailout plan I wonder if he thinks before he votes.  To make matter worse I have to vote because I do not want the democrats to get anywhere near the 60 seats they need in order to ram Obama policy through unchecked. In the end I will vote for Chambliss but it a vote under protest.  For the first time in my life I really feel like I am choosing to vote for the lesser of the two evils.

The media keeps talking about how Obama is going to inherit two wars and a global economic crisis. How true is this statement? Yes, Obama will inherit an economic crisis… at least on a national level. But is it really two wars? The war has always been called the “war on terrorism” not the “war in Iraq” and “the war in Afghanistan”. So is this two wars or one war on two fronts? Was WWII one war or multiple wars… “the war against Germany” and “the war against Japan” for example. Maybe this is just another example of media slant. What do you think?