But the message is the same.
In papers today comes the latest Charles Krauthammer column, which will surely inspire numerous nationwide “letters to the Editor” to papers brave enough to carry the guy.
Last week I posted on how the newest government mandated fuel efficiency requirements will start up another round of dead Americans due to cutbacks in automobile safety when automakers try and meet these requirements, as happened in every example from every automaker since the first round of CAFE standards back in the 1970’s. Today is Krauthammer’s day:
The senator was vexed. The U.S. auto companies were resisting attempts by her and other Senate well-meaners to impose a radical rise in fuel efficiency by 2017. Why can’t they be more like the Chinese, she complained. Or to quote Sen. Dianne Feinstein precisely: “What the China situation, or the other countries’ situation, shows is that these automakers, in all of these countries, build the automobile that the requirements for mileage state. And they don’t fight it, they just do it.”
Yes. That is how things work in Communist Party dictatorships. It is odd to hold up China as a model of corporate-government relations. It is also poor salesmanship. Just a week after Feinstein made that statement, the Brilliance BS6 sedan — “a car with which (China) wanted to conquer Europe’s automobile market” — failed a German crash test so miserably that it might be banned from Europe, reported the European news agency AFX News. “It was the second time in less than two years that a Chinese-made car has failed the test, following the spectacular failure of the Landwind sport-utility vehicle made by Jiangling Motors 18 months ago.”
You get what you pay for. When you build lighter cars with more fuel efficiency, you know that ultimately — even with the best (let alone Chinese) technology — safety is compromised. That happened three decades ago when U.S. mileage efficiency rose dramatically in response to the oil shocks of the ’70s. It will likely happen again.
In my post I referenced what the federal government has done to the machines we all use to wash our clothes and then later in the week I posted on what the Clinton/Gore team did to your toilets back in the 1990’s.
While Krauthammer says that rate of deaths cause by automobile collisions will “likely” rise, I can guarantee you that it will. And if those that look up to Communist Dictatorships aren’t voted out of office on general principle or removed from office for endangering Americans, then it will happed again and again and again. Last week’s bill is proof positive that those elected officials care more about Mother Gaia than to you or I.
All those composite materials and plastics that they use to make cars lighter have their genesis in: petroleum.