Squeaky Car Dealers

Although some car dealers are not complaining about the delay in getting the cash in the Cash for Clunkers ($4C) program, others are whining like little kids whose parents changed their minds about letting them stay up late. It is hard to find sympathy these pouters because the program moved hundreds of thousands of cars out of their inventory and the delay is not a big burden. Furthermore, the dealers had the choice to take the “clunkers” as trade-ins for $4,500 and resell them. In many cases, the clunkers could have been resold for that amount or more.

Close to $3 billion was pumped into the U.S. car market by $4C, facilitating the sale of between half and three quarters of a million cars. This has to be a mega-Red Bull for the retail car business. My wife and I bought a car under $4C. We went to several showrooms to look at cars and everywhere the sales agents were talking about how high the demand was. Considering that many of the most popular car models would not qualify based on the difference in gas mileage between the trade-in and the new car, there must have been many ancillary sales, in addition to $4C deals. Dealers complain about the paperwork, but there will be forms to fill out any time government money is involved.

The effective date of $4C was July 1, 2009, but many dealers did not process any $4C deals until more than three weeks later. Less than 60 days after the first deals were consummated, many dealers are complaining that they have not been paid yet. The Obama administration is promising that the payments will be made by the end of this quarter, but even if dealers have to wait until the end of the year, they have little to complain about. This is not the price of the new car they are waiting for, it is just the trade-in on some of the deals they wrote in July and August.

Car vendors generally see their money within a few days, so they are spoiled. They are not used to waiting for money. However, they have much better access to credit and much bigger cushions than many people who have to wait for government money. When I was representing assigned appellate cases and being paid by the county, I often had to wait more than a year to get paid. Furthermore, the amount private defense attorneys were paid for representing indigent defendants was, and is, pitiful. Nursing homes are required to wait for Medicaid approval for residents who are eligible for the program. In Wayne County, here in Michigan, it is common for a Medicaid application to take more than a year before the worker is satisfied and the case is opened. If car dealers see their money this year, they have no legitimate complaint.

Finally, it must be remembered that many of the clunkers traded-in were not worthless. The car buyer just decided that he or she could not get more than the program would pay or did not want the bother of selling the clunker. In order to qualify for $4C, the trade-in had to have been registered to the car buyer and insured for at least a year and it must have been driven to the dealership. I could have sold the 1999 Blazer I traded in for $3,000 to $4,000. If I could have realized that much, I am sure a dealer could have done that well or better. Therefore, the dealer had a choice: He could have taken the car as a clunker, knowing he would have to wait awhile to get $3,500 or $4,500, depending on type of car purchased, or he could have given me that much as a straight trade-in and peddled the car at the auction or put it on a used-car lot. The fact that he took my Blazer under $4C was a business decision. To whine now that he has to wait too long to get paid is immature.

Vista is Misery; Will Seven be Heaven?

An Open Letter to President Obama and Congress:

For the past year and a half I have been plagued with computer problems due to Windows XP and Vista. I couldn’t get my new Gateway running Vista to operate properly. I had the OS re-installed three times. Finally, I abandoned it and replaced it with a Lenovo with XP. When the Lenovo’s XP OS started crashing to a blue screen, I had the hard drive wiped clean and the Vista Ultimate OS that came with the machine was installed. I found out that Vista Ultimate has a very limited range of view and is not the ultimate of anything good. This operating system has more faults than California’s geology and the defects are obvious at every stage of trying to work on my computer.

First I wait for the computer to boot up. This is an inordinately long process–five minutes or more. There is no reason for the boot-up to be so slow; I limit the programs running in the background to the absolute minimum and I do not use Instant Messenger or music-sharing programs. Furthermore, this is a very new computer–especially since the OS was installed less than a month ago. Sometimes it boots and freezes.

Once this turkey is launched and lurching skyward, I wait to see if the laptop connects to my wireless router. Sometimes it does; sometimes it doesn’t. Often, I have a 10- to 20-minute process of “diagnosing” and “repairing” the wireless network connections, switching the wireless modem off and then on.

Having survived the ordeal of booting up and logging in, my computer works pretty well, although one program or another will suddenly stop working properly or crash. This happens with Microsoft programs–Outlook, Internet Explorer, Excel–as well as non-Microsoft applications. Sometimes it seems as if I have been transported back in time to the days of Windows 3.1. I switched from Mozilla Thunderbird and Firefox, which I really like, to Outlook and Internet Explorer because it was suggested that Microsoft programs should work better with the Windows OS. I have not found that to be the case.

Fortunately, Windows Seven is just around the corner. As soon as that becomes available, I can upgrade and my problems will be over, I am told. Yeah. Sure. We are talking about the company that inflicted Windows ME, XP and Vista on us. We are also taking about the company that transformed its office suite from a set of straightforward menu-driven programs to ones with weird “ribbons” that are not even consistent within the suite. I have no confidence that Microsoft is getting it right this time.

I am not a Luddite. I love new technology that works and I know when something works. Windows 2000 Professional was a jewel of an operating system and a huge relief from Windows 3.x. However, I am really getting tired of Microsoft’s screwed-up operating systems and wonky program upgrades; especially since the company forces computer users to purchase the new versions through its PC monopoly.

I will soon have to abandon Windows 2000 Professional on my desktop and workstations because so many programs have been engineered not to run under it. For example, I had to purchase an XP machine in order to use Microsoft Money to do my banking. Microsoft cut off internet accessibility for Money 2006 and later versions require XP or Vista. This is oppressive and monopolistic market manipulation.

If Microsoft’s OS and programs worked properly, the situation would be tolerable, but they don’t. Over the last year and a half, it has been necessary to wipe my computer and re-install the OS and applications five times! This is not due to viruses; just crappy Microsoft XP and Vista. Each reinstall cost me a week of productivity. Conservatively speaking these OS problems cost me at least $5,000. Multiply that by the hundreds of thousands of Microsoft customers who have been suffering through similar problems and you get a figure that approaches the cost of the toxic assets crisis or the real estate mortgage bailouts.

Microsoft XP and Vista are causing severe economic losses and it is extremely unlikely that the introduction of Windows 7 will solve anything. This country cannot afford another screwed-up version of Windows.

I call on you, President Obama, and Congress to hold hearings and consider legislation to curb Microsoft’s abuses. The government cannot enforce a requirement that Microsoft create a reasonably trouble-free OS, but it can require Microsoft and other software producers to build in backward compatibility and to continue to support programs that work. I am a small business person and the cost burden of software upgrades and OS re-installs is crushing me. Microsoft won’t care a fig about its customer’s problems until Steve Ballmer, the CEO, sits in a caucus room and is asked by members of Congress why his products are costing America’s small business operators billions in lost productivity.

Federal Dollars Should Benefit Citizens, Not Shareholders

According to January 18, 2009 New York Times, bankers see the federal TARP bailout money as a handout for the banks’ benefit. Just listen to John C. Hope III, the chairman of Whitney National Bank in New Orleans at the following URL:

http://tinyurl.com/8zvcfk

He sees the $300 million in government money his bank received as an insurance policy for the bank, not as an incentive to help citizens in trouble. “Make more loans?” Mr. Hope said. “We’re not going to change our business model or our credit policies to accommodate the needs of the public sector as they see it to have us make more loans.”

For Mr. Hope, the Whitney National Bank chairman, “the main motivation for TARP” was to safeguard his bank against the “possibility things couldget a lot worse,” not for any public purpose. The Whitney, he says, would continue making loans “that we would have made with or without TARP.”

“We see TARP as an insurance policy,” he said. “That when all this stuff is finally over, no matter how bad it gets, we’re going to be one of the remaining banks.”

Feathering the nests of wealthy bankers was not Congress’s goal in shelling out the first $350 billion of our tax dollars. It was to encourage the banks to help citizens stay in their homes and keep their jobs.

It is easy to understand why Mr. Hope lacks empathy for ordinary citizens. His annual compensation is over $2.3 million. As CEO of a large financial institution, his first obligation is to ensure its health. However, he takes on civic responsibilities when his bank accepts a huge grant of federal funds. He is obligated to use those funds for the public good. Drop Mr. Hope a line and tell him you hope he sees the light. His office address is:

Whitney National Bank
228 St. Charles Avenue
New Orleans, Louisiana 70130
(504) 586-7272

He is also listed at:

1832 Palmer Ave
New Orleans, Louisiana 70118
(504) 862-5772

After you drop the misnamed Mr. Hope a line, contact your Congressional delegation and the President. Let them know that you want federal funds to be used to help people in trouble, not to insure institutions that are doing well already.

MLK’s Dream

The 2008 general election forged new ground in U.S. politics.  However, it did not fulfill Rev. Martin Luther King’s dream that his children would “one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”  Although the election of Barack Obama showed that at least in come cases we have moved beyond judging a person by his or her skin color, we have not arrived at the point at which we judge political candidates by the content of their character.

The scurrilous hatchet job based on religion Libby Dole, the incumbent U.S. Senator from North Carolina, attempted on Kay Hagan, her challenger, and the rumor-mongering about Obama’s connection to Islam are evidence of a concerted effort by the Christian Right and Center to impose a religious barrier against non-Christians being elected to public office.

Dole attacked Hagan as an atheist because she attended a fund-raiser sponsored by well-known liberals at the home of activists who advocate the separation of church and state.  Dole’s televison ad featured the image of Hagan and the voice of a woman — not her — saying “there is no God.”

“Elizabeth Dole is attacking my strong Christian faith,” Hagan said in a conference call with reporters.  She responded with her own ad portraying herself as a strong Christian who teaches Sunday School.

As appalling as Dole’s attack was, it is equally appalling that Hagan defended herself by clinging to the Cross, not by asserting that the qualifications for public office do not include belonging to the right religion, or any religion.  Hagan’s defense is as threatening to the separation of church and state as Dole’s original attack.  However necessary Hagan’s response may have been, based on the Bible-Belt mentality of her constituency, it is disappointing that she made no attempt to inform them that establishing a Christian theocracy is no more healthy or desirable than establishing an Islamic or Hindu theocracy, or adopting a governmental hostility to religion.

The Dole-Hagan affair was not the only disturbing development in the 2008 election cycle.  The so-called Saddleback Forum, really a religious vetting session inserted into the presidential campaign, made it apparent that both McCain and Obama were laying their religious convictions out for the electorate.  In this, they continued a trend set by the current President.
President Kennedy promised that his official actions would be based on his secular convictions, not his religious beliefs.  George W. Bush, however, solicited votes from the Christian right based on his claim to be Born-Again.  He made an implied commitment to run the country according to his interpretation of the Bible, rather than the U.S. Constitution.  That he was hugely successful in pulling votes by virtue of his “values,” despite the anti-family and belligerent biases of his policies, raises the question of whether government in the United States may one day be dominated by clerics, as in Iran.
The Saddleback Forum, in which the “presumptive candidates” for the two major parties presented themselves for examination by an Evangelist, is a terrifying turn away from secular government.  It is an acknowledgment by the candidates that the country is not merely Christian, but Evangelical.
Religious diversity has been one of this country’s strengths.  What happens to diversity when only Evangelicals can run for office with any likelihood of success?  It is not beyond the realm of possibility that qualification for public office may depend on approval by a Council of Clerics, as in Iran.  Approval by the religious establishment will never be an official qualification to run for office, but there may come a time when no candidate can mount a viable campaign without demonstrating his religious bona fides and the only way to do that is examination by religious authorities.
Thus, we have moved away from judging candidates by the color of their skin, but we have started judging them by the flavor and the fervor of their faith.  That falls far short of judging them by the content of their character.

John Payne, Attorney
Garrison LawHouse, PC
1800 Grindley Park Street, Suite 6
Dearborn, Michigan 48124
Come visit me at: http://www.law-business.com
313.563.4900/fax 313.562.3340

Pennsylvania Office:
9853 Old Perry Highway.
Wexford, PA 15090-9312
800.220.7200/fax 412.548.0022

© John B. Payne, 2008