CARBIZ

Sorry, dear, if you think my post was a slight on your precious Honda, but the company I worked for 10 years has 2 toyota stores, and let me tell you - their service bays are never empty. The previous generation Civic was a model of cutting corners - or do you think being able to see right to the wheels through the engine bay is a good idea in a cold weather enviroment? Nobody builds junk any more, not even the Koreans. I don't need to 'prove' anything, least of all to you. You show up a week late to the party and take exception to one, relatively benign remark that I made?

When I was a kid, growing up in the late '70s, holding hands with my BF on the streets of Toronto and someone would yell out, "FAG," (always after they passed us and about 3 paces away before they would turn, of course!), I would hurl back,"I AM MORE OF A MAN THAN YOU WILL EVER BE AND MORE OF A WOMAN THAN YOU WILL EVER GET." Served me well then and now. I think that if the 'sexual revolution' of the past 50 years (still ongoing, IMO) has taught us one thing, that is that definitions are constantly changing and even blurring. I look at the younger people of today, with their pants crotches down to their knees and their untied runners and shake my head, but I realize that they are only trying to find their way in the world. When I was in grade 13 (1980) and guys started wearing a little make-up (punk), that was a revolution in of itself, but really those guys were just saying, "F$#k you, you can't pigeon-hole me." The definitions of man and woman are in flux, which I suspect is making it more difficult to date these days. Just like buying a car when there were only 4 or 5 makes and a half dozen 'types' of vehicles was easier, everything is more complicated today. But I am glad to see an end to a lot of the hypocrisy and double standards that existed in the false world of 50 years ago.

This makes me laugh because around here all the gas stations have a cute pie chart that breaks down the costs at the pump: refinery, shipping, crude, taxes, etc. to show that the government is to blame for the high cost of gasoline at the pumps. They show, like, a 3 % retail profit. Of course, they also neglect to mention that since they (the oil companies) control the refineries, how much profit are they showing at that level?

The mid-70's Citroen SM's were gorgeous, and quite advanced for their time. A friend of mine owned one in the early '80s - very cool car. I would add the '81 Fairmont to this list of awful cars. Anything from AMC in the late '70s, except maybe the 2 door Matador.

1. Battlestar Galactica (the new one, not the early '80s crap) - made in Canada! 2. Yeah, Scrubs for sure: highly addictive 3. Chronicles - looks promising 4. Journeyman: damned writer's strike, it was just starting to get good 5. Kyle XY - okay, only because Kyle is hot. 6. Smallville (see #5 and #1) Okay, strike the last two. I only watch them when the BF isn't around. BTW: get out and see Cloverfield. Best movie I've seen in a while.

So what. It just proves that all the Honda-zombies already blew their wad on the previous, ugly generation. Here, at last, is a vehicle that makes the Pilot look interesting. I guess the declining sales only proves there is a finite supply of mindless North Americans.

Just be thankful you don't live around here and have to put up with the Toyota Star on a regular basis. A couple weeks ago we were lectured about how using phrases like 'blind as a bat' and 'falling on deaf ears' are hurtful. All this nonsense is coming from a country where fat people now have the right to force airlines to give them two seats and only charge them for one. One woman in a wheelchair mewled that she couldn't 'afford' to visit New Brunswick for a holiday because she couldn't afford to pay for her caregiver, too. Lunacy knows no bounds.

Reg, my freezer is still working, so I know it isn't the compressor. Either something inside is plugged, or perhaps there are two fans (one for each compartment) and the blower for the fridge part has quit. My point is: it is only 5 or 6 years old. I had a mid-50s era refrigerator drop 8 feet and nearly land on me (back in 1979 when we were moving it off the roof of my great aunt's place after she died), yet it still worked for 10 years after that with the corner smashed in - and it landed upside down onto asphalt. How's that for good 'ol Canadian build quality? The crap that China is pawning off on us now is tantamount to an Act of War, IMO.

Well, again, I have to intervene: the Cobalt has 72 month 0% financing (a first in the industry), which should save at least $2,500 if you don't use your own money, plus a $1,200 stackable credit and a free sunroof on the 1SB package: if you coupled all that, it will bring the 'sticker' down at least $4,500 or more (if you had to 'borrow' you cash at more than 4 or 5%.) A lease on a loaded (roof, 16" alloy wheels, etc.) is cheaper than a base LT was 2 years ago, by about $25 a month. In more than ten years, I've never seen deals like this - not even during Employee Pricing 2 years ago. GM is playing it smart here. They are trying to maintain some semblance of resale value, so they are not just going to arbitrarily drop the MSRP by a few grand, just because the Canadian dollar is having a good year. I will tell you that there are many BIG leasing companies out there about to go down because they are sitting on a lot of inventory that has come off lease (Jags, BMWs, you name it..) and they are losing TENS OF THOUSANDS of dollars off the buy backs if the leases were 'closed.' Marketing 101: do not bastardize your product. Give away popcorn, balloons, whatever it takes, but don't just shred your credibity to pieces by dropping the price. There is also one very, very big GM group of companies in dire straits just now :AH-HA_wink: : they've been put on COD, etc. This rapid rise of the Canadian dollar is giving all manufacturers, dealers and leasing companies BIG heartburn.

You have to be very careful at reading lablels. Often, they will say Such and Such Company, New York, New York, but you have to look at the Made in.. label. When I shopped for a/c units 2 years ago, I looked for 2 weeks. I thought I had found one that was made in New YOrk, but more careful inspection revealed that the item was Made in PRC. Very f$#king clever: how many dimwits are savvy enough to figure out what PRC stands for. Kudos to Miele for trying to pull that one off.

To show how you deep the level of ignorance goes, Ontario's reverered Premier, Dalton McGuinty was asked by reporters the other day what we (Ontarians) can do for the economy, since the manufacturing base is getting decimated. His response: 'buy a refrigerator.' I have to laugh at that because I have not had a refrigerator working since Wednesday, when I discovered the (less than) 5 year old Frigidaire (built by Electrolux, in - you guessed it, China) food compartment was warm. After throwing about $50 worth of food, I read McGuinty's remarks. IS HE KIDDING ME? I have a 5 year old POS refrigerator that isn't working. If I bought another one, it will ony benefit the Chinese. Is Electrolux even an North American company any more? Probably not. Just like IBM sold their manufacturing base to Lenovo, we are f$#king ourselves. If I bought a new refrigerator, perhaps the store would make $100 to circulate around the local economy (assuming they don't all drive home in their Hondas and Hyundais, that is), the shipper will make some money, but the entire fridge was made in China. If we're lucky, maybe some profit will return to Georgia (where the sticker says Electrolux is located), but I suspect they aren't American owned any more. The ugly truth is, the clear and unmistakeable CRAP coming out of China is so inferior that it is SCARY. I don't want to buy anything made in China, but I don't have a choice. As I have found time and time again recently, none of these products are built here any more. In 20 years, if China decides to invade us, it will be the first war ever fought without a shot. By that time we will all be living in log cabins (assuming we haven't sold all our lumber to China by then, that is), because none of our mechanical devices will be working and we will all be working 72 hour weeks mining and hewing to pay back the debts we owe to the Asian banks. I, for one, would pay double for a f$#King fridge, if it was built in North America.

I'm a big supporter of the Second Amendment. I truly believe every American has the right to bear any arms that were readily available in when the Constitution was ratified in 1791. Try robbing a 7-11 with a musket that takes 20 seconds to re-load and is nearly 4 feet long! Ha! I am sure that Madison and others would be absolutely horried at Uzis and pistols that are readily available today. Honestly, I will never understand some people's paranoia about having to own a gun. There simply is no rational reason for owning one in a modern society. Flame away, but owing a gun and living in a condo makes as much sense has having a hay bailer parked in the driveway.

The great economic experiment of the Fifties, which the U.S. (and most of the West) bought into under the Marshal Plan was a great theory for those times: allow small, weak countries unlimited access to the American market, their economies will flourish, their middle class will multiply and, presto, instant future market for American goods. Ah, except those goods are no longer manufactured in America! Still, the economic advisors tell us that China wouldn't DARE tank our economy because they need us. So, GM and others jump on the bandwagon, spend U.S. dollars to invest and build in China (when they needed our money), teach them how to build and innovate, but who is to say that they won't just turn around (as Japan did) and use our own technology against us? China is a totalitarian society. Japan may be a democracy in theory, but in practice they are not fractured with the internal infighting that plagues most Western democracies: the Japanese rarely eat their own. I sincerely hope my prognosis is wrong; that we can all just learn to get along. What freaks me out the most is the out of control birth rate in Asia. In a future competition over world resources, who would you bet on? China or the U.S.? Another wildcard here is that Russia is one crackpot away from imploding. With their declining birthrate and emigrating population, they won't be able to defend their borders against the resource-hungry Chinese in another 15-20 years. What future global scenario involves the U.S. as the center? Why wouldn't a Sino-Russian alliance to control things make more sense? Russia is the largest country in the world, rich with resources, needs an infusion of cash and technology, both of which we are handing to the Chinese on a silver platter. The Chinese are running out of both room and resources. So, are we exporting our industrial base, our money and our technology for short term greed, or are we still naive enough to think that we can civilize the Mongol hordes? (Sarcasm intended.) There is a new world order coming and I just don't think we are ready for the coming storm.

So our manufacturing base moves to China because we 'demand' cheaper goods, the dollar continues to slide because of the demand for imported goods, the only way Americans can pay for those goods is buy BORROWING MONEY from Chinese and Middle Eastern banks....hmm, what happens when the American dollar isn't worth the paper it is printed on...how will the U.S.economy repay that debt? OH, THAT'S RIGHT: the Chinese and Middle Eastern banks will just call the loans. Then what is left of America would literally be OWNED by foreign nationals. You think the Chinese businessmen are concerned about that? They don't have a choice, because even if they are honorable, they have no vote in their own country. There are already plans afoot in many countries to move off the U.S. dollar as the standard baseline currency. And just what can be done about it when you don't even have the manufacturing base to equip the military to fend off creditors coming to foreclose? Of course this is a nightmare scenario, but I just cannot believe how many people in Washington (and Ottawa, for that matter) are spending like the money grows on trees. The point is, the next ten years are going to be critical. What we do TODAY is going to influence the next 100 years. There is no denying that the 20th century belonged to America. Who will the 21st century belong to? THAT IS THE QUESTION. I am 46. I will be DEAD before most of this pans out. Others, (like BV) are going to be the ones paying for this mess.

One could extrapolate further that Toyota dominates in North America in another few years, and we return to the malaise of the early '80s where GM owned the market and Chrysler/Ford picked up the crumbs..... The most interesting times in the auto industry occured in the '50s when Ford and GM were at each other's throats and Chrysler pulled a few aces out of its sleeves, too. By the late '60s, it was all over. Much of Toyota's meteoric rise in North America has been because of the complicity with the media. The media is very fickle. If Toyota becomes #1, they will turn on Toyota like a pack of jackals. I don't think any of this is inevitable. The Japanese are not terribly creative. Most of their recent success has been because they have found collaborators in North America to do their thinking for them. (Or are we forgetting that a lot of Toyota's success on these shores is because successful GM and Ford dealers put them there for free?) GM still has a few twitches left in the corpse. Japan is both literally and figuratively an island. England was the dominant power for centuries because she was an island, too. It's easy to conquer the world when your own borders are secure. As long as MITI calls the shots, the Japanese public acquiesces to the sacrifices they are expected to make for the greater good, and we in the West fester in our own greed, Toyota will continue to prosper in North America, but not elsewhere - interestingly. (Oh, and the really good part is that you guys are paying to protect Japan's borders while its companies kick our asses! That's delicious.)

We'll never know: the series is cancelled.

About 13 years ago I moved into my first really, really nice house. I spent a fortune on the grounds, fencing, etc. My (now Ex) partner and I were looking forward to having our first Christmas together in a house that we had picked out, decorated and really liked. The previous house I still owned with my sister, that had been on the market for over a year, suddenly sold about a week after she moved into it because she could not afford to carry two places. Her new house was not ready yet, so my partner and I inherited her and her husband, plus cat and dog, for 4 months, which included the Xmas holidays. They pretty much kept to the lower level of our house, but we had zero privacy and the basement wasn't finished yet, so we had to share one bathroom. Plus, we had the privilege of getting to move her THREE times: first into the house that we owned together, then into storage, and then to her newly finished house.

Like the Borg say, "You will Adapt." My first car was a '67 Polara. I loved the size. I hated paying .35 a litre (ah! those were the days - 1979). I went from that to a '82 Dodge Rampage, stick, 2.2 4 banger. Great on gas, kinda fun, I could put 4 or 5 friends in the back with the cap on. From there to a '87 Shadow ES (also brand new) with the turbo. A blast to drive, horrible suspension, decent gas mileage. Then onto my '91 Caprice wagon (new.) I wasn't paying the gas, my company was. I used it to tow my 20' boat to Florida once and up and down Georgian Bay a hundred times. Gas was still under .65 a litre (about $2.50 a U.S. gallon to you folks) when I had the Caprice. Now, gasoline is $1 a litre ($4) and going to go a lot higher. I barely drive 600 miles a month any more, so gas doesn't affect me that much, but I see no point to driving to work every day in a 4,500 lb pig. Did I mention we export gas to you? Saskatchewan supplies the U.S. with more oil than Kuwait: saw that one today in the National Post. We are all going to adapt, or die - literally. Lutz probably more than anyone on this board misses the Battlebeasts of yore, but those cars are never coming back. As to V-8 pickups and SUVs, they will become shadows of their current selves. Contractors in the Rest of the World get along just fine with mid-sized and compact pickups. OR DO YOU THINK THEY LIVE IN GRASS HUTS IN GERMANY AND BRAZIL?

Although it does warm my heart, all this recent negative press for Toyota, I can't help but think that so much of it is just our media's intense hatred for the #1 anything. They've hated GM for decades because they were the BIGGEST CORPORATION ON EARTH, they've hated the oil companies more recently for the same reason. Now, like a pack of jackals, they can turn on Toyota for it's successes. The Western media are a bunch of vultures. 80% of what we read is crap. The other 20% is propoganda. Don't believe me? Grab 3 competing newspapers from the same city and follow the same stories, whether politcs, business or even the lifestyle section and you would swear you were reading fiction. More people need to get beyond the funnies or their horroscope and READ the news.

You assume we have freedom. We are being told by Wallstreet what is good for us. While Wallstreet is busy making paper, Asia is using that paper against us. In the headlines up here this week is the fact that BCE (formerly Bell Canada), which was 'sold' in a leveraged by-out by the teacher's union up here, may not be such a good deal for the union after all. The delicious irony is that all the analysts, lawyers and advisors on this 'buyout' have made their money. The stock has dropped, Citigroup (which has real problems of its own now) is backing out. But what would the point of the buy out have been? Who would have benefited? Would consumers get cheaper phone rates? Would more telephones be produced in North America? No. A bunch of fat-cats duking it out on the boardroom floor. Your sad analogy about Hitler right back at you. The one thing about democracy that sucks is that while our politicians (like Chamerlain in 1938) are wringing their hands or arguing about what to order for dinner, other nations move in unison. Or are you forgetting that China is not a free country? Or are you assuming that the real power in Japan is with the fractured Parliamentary process and not with the Civil Service, in the form of MITI, that directs all foreign investments and business? Yes, our politicians are the main reason to blame, but also the insidious rot and greed that has seeped into our corporations over the past couple decades. ULTIMATELY, WE ARE THE ONES RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR GOVERNMENT'S ACTIONS. EITHER WE DO NOTHING OR SHOOT OUR MOUTHES OFF WITH HALF-BAKED IDEAS BECAUSE WE ONCE PICKED UP A COPY OF USA TODAY.

Well, your government had better hurry up before someone buys up the White House. How do you think the U.S. will have any leverage in, say, another 5 - 10 years? The Iraq war debt is piling up. Your assets are cheaper to buy up by foreign powers and the U.S. economy is on track to not even be #1 in another decade or so. It is the twin-pronged assault of our industrial base being shipped (literaly) overseas while American consumers are paradoxically financing their foreign purchases with foreign money. Anybody wonder why worldwide shipping emissions were exempted from the Kyoto Accord? I wonder who pushed for that?

..... or not!

I love the intelligent remarks posted below! McGuinty has no jurisdiction over blocking imports. That is Ottawa's jurisdiciton, not Queen's Park's. I know some Hyundai products are built in the U.S., but none of it is built here. And this is coming from a Premier who can't even keep his own 'citizens' in line. Read abou the 'first Nation's occupation in Caledonia for the past 18 months or so, and how the rest of the merry band of 'natives' are extorting moneys from developers and businesses all through central southern Ontario. The Liberals are all about posturing and doing nothing.

Ah, yes, there rears the ugly head of the argument of Freedom. Freedom of Choice. It's like a rallying cry, isn't it? Where is my freedom, then? My POS made in China blender (less than 3 years old) broke and I searched for 2 f$#king months to find one NOT made in China. THEY DON'T EXIST. What about my rights NOT to buy something made in China or Japan? AT WHAT POINT WILL WE WAKE UP AND REALIZE IT IS TOO LATE? The U.S. dollar is crashing, because foreign companies are buying up YOUR assets. Some members on here gloat that GM's stock is worthless, that it's market valuation is less than what Toyota's profits were last year. Well, guess what? What are America's assets worth these days? Who is currently bailing out Citigroup? Oh, that's right: China and Dubai. Who currently holds a trillion dollars worth of U.S. treasury bills? The knee slapping, tear inducing truth is that as the U.S. dollar crashes, your assets get cheaper and cheaper to buy. Yet you guys want to drive around in SUVs, fueled by oil imported from these same countries that are f$#king you behind your back and your unassailable rights to blame Detroit for everything and drive a damned BMW in stop and go traffic on the freeway, because after all, it is imported and better than a CTS. Oh, the pundits will whine: didn't we hear this all before (in the late '70s when Arabs were buying up assets?) Yes, it has been heard before, but at least there were American (and Canadian jobs back then. I have been bitching about this for years. All we produce these days are paper assets. Well, f$#k Wallstreet and Baystreet - YOU CAN'T EAT PAPER. So, a few fat-cats on Wallstreet make six figures, buy imported wine and BMWs, and convince us that it's all wonderful. Doesn't anyone see a tiny bit of conflict of interest here? Our generation wants 12% return on investments so we can buy a retirement home in Aspen, while Japanese consumers get NOTHING in their savings accounts so Sony and Toyota can buy up the world. Chinese workers work for $1 an hour so we can save $5 on Tupperware. We in the West are getting everything we deserve, because we are too fat, too lazy and too selfish to help each other. We would rather man the hatches and f$#k our neighbors jobs because of Freedom of Choice. Have a nice day!

:rotflmao: Maybe he liked the 'love scenes' more than he wanted to admit?