Thursday, February 26, 2009

Did Americans invent the car?

I do not think there is much I can add to the President’s address on Tuesday night that has already been said. I liked some of his ideas; I do think we have some serious issues that need addressing. If the President can do all that he said and not raise taxes then he is a miracle worker, I just don’t believe that is possible. I feel like he is still campaigning making a lot of promises without defining how he plans on doing anything. I do not think he can spend all this money that he announced today and not raise taxes, the rich can only be taxed so much.

As a historian I wanted to make one correction of the President in his address, it is minor, but I think it represents a lot. Obama said that we were the nation that invented the car. A minor mistake yes, but still a mistake. The Germans invented the car, it was the Americans that took the car and ran with it. We have the greatest car culture in world history. Men like Ford and Alfred Sloan (Pres of GM) revolutionized the car. Ford began the assembly line that decreased the time it took the car from 12 hours to 90 minutes. This decrease in time allowed the price of the car to be lowered to where every American family can buy one. Sloan in his brilliance marketed cars differently than Ford. Where as Ford said you can buy any color Ford as long as it was black, Sloan thought he could get people to spend more money on cars if he added more bells and whistles. What Sloan did was convince people they are what they drive, something we now all take for granted. But for all that these two men did, one thing they did not do was invent the car.

Now I realize that was a small mistake, but I think it says something. This was the state of the Union, and yes it was small, but it was a mistake. For something as big as the state of the Union he should take the time to do a little bit of research or have an aid do some very simple basic research to know who did invent the car. But instead Obama acted quickly without knowing the facts and just assumed. Now again this is a small easy mistake, but it seems like maybe he is doing the same thing with everything else. In his rush to make the people happy he is just acting quickly and not taking the time to make sure he gets it right. When it is who invented the car, no big deal, but when he acts the same way towards the economy that is a very big deal. Sometimes being president means to do the right thing not the popular thing. I think he thinks throwing money at everything is the right thing, but maybe he should take a few moments to think about it. If he has a plan to pay for all this he is being tight lipped, my guess is he is just acting quickly and will figure out how to pay for it later. So Mr. President, Karl Benz of Germany invented the car, and throwing money at everything will not fix the problem

1 comment:

danandconnie@gmail.com said...

Very good, James. He is the Messiah, remember? He is going to save everything. No one wanted to know how only that he would pay for their homes and college. No one will pay for our struggling business as a matter of fact, he said hotels were a waste of money. It would be nice if he had worked for someone or even understood what makes up a payroll.