The House Wins, Toyota Edition

The left likes to say "follow the money" ... which they often do relative to the RIGHT side of the street.

I prefer "The House Wins" ... as in Vegas, and now government sponsored lotteries. Back when I was a kid, Sargent Joe Friday and Bill Gannon regularly hunted down mob connected guys "running the numbers". It is a decent measure of advancing corruption that today "the numbers" (lotto) are run by the state.

Gambling may be "vice", but at least you choose if you want to be fleeced. Not so with the US legal / government system where "the house" is a combination of lawyers and government -- which is actually the same thing. 43% of our congress lists their OCCUPATION as "lawyer" we don't need to think very long to know that the number that have law degrees or have practiced law in the past would raise it higher ... and guess what? The entire SCOTUS of the US are lawyers! (news at 11)  BO is a lawyer as is his wife, and so were Billy and Hilly.  (BTW, the NEXT profession listed, with 100 is .... Teacher! No wonder our kids self esteem is so high and their scores are so low!)

While Packers and Vikings fans may find reasons to be at each others throats, the PLAYERS have a LOT more in common with each other than they do with either "their" or the "oppositions" fans. Football is game and the NFL is a business and the fans are the customers -- BUT, the NFL doesn't get to pass laws requiring you to pay money into the business or players salaries.

Same with Republicans and Democrats in the US government and lawyers. You may THINK that "your group", "your lawsuit", 'your justice", "your fairness", etc are going to get the upper hand, but rest assured "the house" ALWAYS comes out on top! Oh sure, they have a lot of good fights and froths, but they all know where their bread is buttered. Many of them go in nearly penniless, make a mere $150K a year, and come out either as or soon to be multi-millionaires. It is money that someone COULD easily follow if they wanted -- but the MSM, conservative media, or certainly not EITHER political party or lobbying groups. It is all one big happy game on the inside -- ALL those people are to some degree or another part of "the house". The lawyers are the "owners and superstar players" ... and we go down from there. (in more ways than one)

So we have the vaunted $1.2 billion "settlement". Who pays for this? Consumers of course, just like "corporate taxes". This is a cost of doing business and that is passed on to consumers. If they don't buy the higher priced cars, eventually the company goes out of business. Who gets the money? Lawyers.

I would guess that very few (if any?) of us actually believe that "the car started accelerating, the brakes didn't work, and there was nothing I could do to stop it! The ignition freeze? Gear shift locked in D?? put it in N and try to blow the engine for goodness sake, who cares!  (it is rev limited now anyway ... it will just be noisy) How bad are your brakes? If you REALLY believe that this can happen, go out in your drive, firmly press the brake as hard as you can with the car in gear, then floor the accelerator and see what happens. Or if you want don't want to do that, read this.

Of for a lot better fun, and to find the REAL problem -- not SO much that the government agencies are fools, but that the people that put them in power (ultimately US) are fools ... so what do we expect? READ THIS! Like everything else from PJ, it is both wise and funny, which I truly love.

So, the cause of "Sudden Acceleration" is panic, hitting the wrong or both pedals. Panic is caused by being human -- as is electing all foxes (lawyers) to guard the hen house (us).

For those of us that like to watch the spectacle of corruption and incompetence in our current national dance of death. (hey, may as well enjoy it, what else is there to do?) We are going to have a great contrast point coming up.

GM has known about an ACTUAL engineering problem for A DECADE ... during which time they were bailed out by our illustrious foxes. Naturally, this has gotten FAR less interest even though it is responsible for MORE accidents and deaths.

If you are driving down the road, calmly minding your own business and suddenly your steering wheel is LOCKED in whatever position it is in and your engine goes off, you may be surprised! Yes, you still have brakes ... but not power assisted, and you MIGHT have the presence of mind to try to tun the key back on, which hopefully will give you non-power steering in what is now likely to be an emergency situation --- remember, this is perfectly capable of happening at 60 or 70 in the middle of a curve, passing, etc. Oh, and your nice air bags? They are OFF!

Now it looks like Toyota tried to play their situation "old school" ... using engineering data, government studies, common sense, all that old crap ... and while they did avoid having anyone go to the pokey,  it was expensive.

THIS TIME, GM (Government Motors) has a different approach. They named Mary Barra CEO. BO invited her to the SOTU, and she has been a regular contributor to his Lowness! Well, piss down my back and tell me it's rainin!

 I'm betting that things to A LOT better for GM than they did for Toyota. What do you think?