GM management wanted the closures, not the government because their business DID NOT SUPPORT all of the extra dealers. GM's sales were down to almost half of what they were and they still had almost all of the dealers. They definitely needed to downsize the network.

Basically you made the whole political angle up to serve your petty DEM vs REP crap.

The margins are huge. Part of the thing dealers love is preying on people who just don't know about buying a car. Either a full sticker priced sale, or dealer add ons that are insane such as $2000 running boards are a great way to make money off a sucker. Just one item like that can be much more then the normal profit made on a car.

It took me a week to buy my last vehicle. I felt dirty and angry after several of my purchase attempts because I was quite clear on the phone before visiting what I wanted and did not want to waste time going to a dealer who was not willing to do it. I wanted to pay invoice and get fair market value for my old vehicle. Some of the dealers tried to cheat (keeping rebates), others did a good deal but then offered be well below market for my old vehicle. It was a very frustrating process. In the end after failures at 4 dealers I found one that was at least honest. They still made dealer 'holdback' plus other incentives which is enough profit.

http://www.howtobuyamerican.co...

Shows my truck Ram 1500 with the same US Engine, US body, US transmission that I have.
The 2500's and up are made at that plant in Mexico. And the 1500 is most of the sales not the larger ones.

Yes. Actually it is and actually carries a 100% content label even though we know the sub components are not 100%. So I am not deluded at all but apparently my truck is not the normal for Dodge Ram. Many of the USA sold 1500's are made here at this plant:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W...
but apparently the 2500's and up are made in Mexico. My engine is made here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...
but apparently some of the engines are not. Finally the tranny is made in the USA as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...

to sum it up go below and see Dodge Ram 1500, backs it up:
http://www.howtobuyamerican.co...

And yet my Dodge Ram is US body, US engine, US transmission, US tires and made within the last three years.

Agreed about the expensive part. Not really gutless though, they have good low end torque and do give very good MPG for non-lead footed drivers.

I have looked at several hybrids and they are $10,000 more then the gassers such as the highlander. I am not paying that much for the hybrid option.

And if the government got over it's SpaceX fear, it could launch many of them on the Falcon 9 for much less money.

Except the Atlas, Falcon, Anartes all having good reliable launches.

Just to underscore how unreliable the Proton is you are referring to not even the latest failure, that was the 2013 failure. Just last month ANOTHER failed. Russian rockets are not super reliable.

Care to back that up with anything? The last engine test that blew up was a Russian one for a Antares rocket. The last rocket to fail with payload was a Russian proton.

Soyuz and space shuttle are almost identical for loss of crew rates. Russian rockets are not more reliable.

Why is there a requirement to turn them over in a single day? When the US offloaded GM shares it did it at a slower pace. In this case the government could offload them over two weeks and maximize return.

If it did as opposed to going to a standard exchange this would make sense. If it would normally just change them for Dollars at a bank at a KNOWN RATE then this Bitcoin auction makes no sense. The government may get only 50% of the value or less of these Bitcoins by doing it this way when a known US company such as Bitpay or Coinbase could do it for them at a pre-arranged rate.

I said 'may be'. I do not know. I am not an expert on laws in the UK.

A scam would be someone who takes money for a cab ride but does not deliver it, or someone maybe who charges an undisclosed fee to unlock the doors at the destination. Uber is not a scam. The user is not being defrauded, nor is the provider.

Confidence trick
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Con man" and "Scam" redirect here. For other uses, see see Con Man, Confidence man, and Scam (disambiguation).

A confidence trick (synonyms include confidence scheme and scam) is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their confidence, in the classical sense of trust. A confidence artist (or con artist) is an individual, operating alone or in concert with others, who exploits characteristics of the human psyche such as dishonesty, honesty, vanity, compassion, credulity, irresponsibility, naïveté, or greed.

You need to learn what the word scam means. Uber may be breaking laws or violating rules, but so long as they reliably and fairly do what they advertise, it is not a scam.

I took a taxi in London in 2005, it cost me $80 for a 15 minute trip. Yes, the exchange rate was bad, but I am sure that it is similar in price today. Yes, I took the underground there but it had closed for my return. Uber would bring competition and potentially lower prices.

In related news, hundreds of thousands of Londoners just found out about Uber.