Please Make Howie Go Away!!!

Apologies for not having written in awhile. I've been watching a lot of sports of late, March Madness, late NBA and NHL playoff pushes, MLB, etc. I do have my priorities. Anyhow, as I've been watching TV, upon the 477th time Howie Long came on the screen to talk about Chevy and how it compares to Honda, a funny thing struck me.

GM is using MY MONEY to advertise TO ME to buy a car I WAS NEVER INTERESTED IN. I know this is probably obvious, but I need to dissect it further. People we elected voted to take our money and invest in a car company we weren't investing in and whose cars we weren't buying. Apparently, our elected officials know better than we do about how we should spend our money. Anyhow, they took our money, invested in GM, and what does GM do? Advertise to us that we should buy their car. I know this expression got a lot of use and misuse during the last election. But talk about lipstick on a pig.

I would have loved to have been in the executive conference room when the leaders at GM were deciding what to do with the bailout money. "Hey guys, nobody is buying our cars. Our cars are getting out-done by our foreign competitors. Nobody is investing in our stock. What should we do?"

And the solution? Hire Howie Long to tape dozens of commercials in an attempt to convince me that the cars are actually good. Don't change the labor practices that cause your prices to be too high. Don't change the product choices that make your products impractical for the everyday consumer. Instead, let's advertise our way out of this mess. Let's take the bailout dollars we received FROM YOU and advertise TO YOU that you should have been giving us your money all along through purchasing our cars. They didn't get our money the old-fashioned way, i.e. by earning it. They got it the same way any other panhandler gets money for their fix, by sticking their hand out and begging for it. And to say that I'm surprised that they are misusing my money would be like saying I'm surprised that the crackhead who got a dollar from me used it towards his next purchase of smack.

Past performance is the best indicator of future performance. It applies to dating, working and yes, spending. But apparently, our government seems to think that past performance is NOT a good predictor of future performance. Thank goodness they stepped in and took my money and did the right thing with it. And to think I would have invested in companies that have proven successful track records. How very foolish of me. Thank goodness we elected people who know better.