Though I couldn’t give two shits about a car dealership closing in Sioux Falls (in case you have not noticed they are like pimples on a teenager’s ass in SF) the affect the major closings across the country will have on our economy and job market in the this country will be staggering. So why haven’t we heard one single freaking word from the politicians in Washington? Because we know who they protect, the execs at big banks not Joe the worker. I have felt that it would have been wiseer to bailout the car companies instead of the banks. The banks don’t employee nearly as many people, and the smaller banks who are not struggling would have divided them up and in essence eliminated the monopolies. It would have been good for everyone involved. Unfortunately for the auto industry, when they fail they have a huge ripple effect. This is just an example of ONE dealership owner;

The Edge of Love video


(CBS) Tammy Darvish owns 18 car dealerships, most of them in Maryland. Two were dropped Thursday and she’s waiting for word on a third. Three hundred people stand to lose their jobs, and 233 local vendors stand to lose business, reports CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes.

“It could be a cleaning company, it could be towing companies, companies that we buy our tires from,” Darvish said.

So I ask again? Where is Washington on this crisis? Ironically asleep at the wheel.

7 Thoughts on “Politicians (mysteriously?) quiet about the dealership closings

  1. Randall on May 17, 2009 at 7:49 am said:

    I’m watching “This Week” on ABC…

    anyone else notice how much Carville is starting to look more and more like the Crypt Keeper? Especially when he laughs…

  2. l3wis on May 17, 2009 at 8:42 am said:

    Funny. I have thought that for awhile. I just got done seeing him on John King’s show ‘State of the Stupid’ Where Bill Bennet was opposite of Crypt Keeper, defending his fat ass BFF and anal sex partner(?) Rush. Republicans wonder why no one likes them, Bill Bennet pointed it out this morning.

    As for Garageville, he is ugly, but I have a (female) friend who thinks he is hot. I even asked her if she was joking, and she said NO. As for his wife, I rarely use the word, but she is a C***! Her, Dole and Peggy Noonan. Everytime they come on TV I wanna puke, then go eat a microwavable C-store burger, burrito, and Jalopeno chips, and puke again. Especially Peggy, she is smart, but she is such a f’ing neo-con Hole that she just makes me sick.

    As for Smarmville’s book about 40 years of Democratic rule. LMAO. Yes, the Republicans are broke, but they will come out of it, as long as they throw the Bill Bennet’s and Rush’s under the bus and let people like Meghan McCain rebuild the party behind the scene. When I hear Dumbville wrote that book I went and took a number two, drank a PBR silo and took a nap. In other words, no one cares.

  3. Costner on May 17, 2009 at 7:51 pm said:

    Crisis? You call the closing of a few car dealerships a fucking crisis?

    Where were you when linens-n-things closed or starbucks announced the closure of hundreds of locations impacting thousands of employees? Where were you when circuit city threw in the towel or Citibank laid off thousands?

    Christ – is there a single issue where you can’t find some whiney liberal way to turn this into a big business vs. poor little employee debate? What is your answer – keep dealships open that only sell a few dozen cars each year? How exactly does that help Chrysler or GM streamline their processes?

    The fat is the only thing being trimmed. If a dealership is successful you can bet your ass they are still going to be open for business. If, on the other hand, they only sell a few vehicles per month and they are within a few miles of another Chrysler dealer…it only makes sense they are the first to get the axe.

  4. l3wis on May 18, 2009 at 6:39 am said:

    This just isn’t about a few dealerships closing. Did you follow the link? It’s about saving jobs, millions of them, that are impacted by the auto industry, and believe it or not, most of them are non-union. I don’t think we should bailout the auto industry, I think that they should have been able to get an open ended loan though. I think we should have let the big banks fail so the smaller successful banks could have bought them and eliminated monopolies in this country.

    You’ll see the crippling affect this has on unemployment in this country, and a few months down the road everybody will be saying, “Gee whiz, why didn’t help out the US Auto industry?”

  5. Costner on May 18, 2009 at 9:24 am said:

    How much money should we give them? I won’t disagree they should have let a few banks fail, but I’m not about to believe that monopoly BS. There are dozens and dozens of banks to choose from right here in Sioux Falls including several small town banks and credit unions, so no such monopoly exists.

    As far as saving those jobs in the auto industry, that is exactly what they are trying to do by closing some dealerships. Either they streamline and eliminate some of the redundancy, or they keep their existing business model as they are wiped off the face of the Earth.

    Look at the facts:

    Each GM store averaged 444 new-auto sales, while Chrysler had 405, according to consulting firm Grant Thornton. Ford Motor Co. was similar, at 483. Japan’s three biggest automakers dwarfed those totals, with 1,200 for Toyota, 1,150 for Honda and 764 for Nissan Motor Co., Grant Thornton found.

    Think about that for a second – 405 vehicles sold per year at the average Chysler dealership. That means if Billion sells 2000 a year, four other dealerships sell a grand total of 25 cars a year….COMBINED. It just doesn’t make sense to support a dealer network where you have individual dealerships selling a few dozen cars a year, especially when they are within 15 miles of a more successful dealership.

    The numbers show the Japanese dealers selling two to three times more vehicles per dealership which means less duplication of effort, more stability, and lower costs for the automakers… and we wonder why the Japanese auto companies are doing so much better than the “big three”?

    We just have to admit the US automakers are bloated in more ways than one, and until they make changes they will never be profitable. Closing a few dealerships is a step in the right direction. Our government can only do so much, but if the companies with to return to the black they need to make some tough decisions.

  6. l3wis on May 18, 2009 at 11:15 am said:

    I’m not saying they shouldn’t close dealerships, heck I think they should close all of them in SF! I just think that if a dealership is successful and making money (for thereself and the automaker) then why close them? You can’t tell me there is no money in owning a car dealership?

  7. Costner on May 18, 2009 at 1:08 pm said:

    They don’t care if they are successful – they care about minimizing their costs. Having to deal with another dealership and handle logistics to support that vast number of duplicated “customers” I’m sure is expensive.

    However there is another reason they need to cut dealerships. Chrysler admitted the increased competition between dealerships results in lower prices and thus Chrysler is losing out on revenue due to the fact they are competing with themselves. Whether that is true or not is anyone’s guess, but they claim it is a fact.

    In any case sometimes less is more, and I’m sure actual sales of their vehicles won’t change all that much… it is just a matter of who gets to make those sales. In many cases the dealerships closing are in the same town as another Chysler dealership. Take Mitchell for instance – they have the Iverson Chrysler center which sells Dodge and Chrysler I believe and then they have Palace Motors who owns GM, Ford, and also sells Jeeps.

    So Chrysler comes in and says they are yanking the Jeep label from Palace Motors, but I’d bed if there is demand they would allow Iverson to grab it. If that happens they just have one less dealership to work with meaning it streamlines their process.

    It might suck for the dealership losing a line of vehicles, but I can understand it makes sense overall and it is a necessary step.

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