This is bizarre.  You don't force a brand out of existence; you should "carbon tax" it - that is, make the rich idiots who are willing to pay for the car, to also for the carnage it wreaks on the environment.  And if those same rich idiots are not willing to pay for the externalities of their vehicle choice, well then, the vehicle goes out of circulation by "market forces".

This is pretty absurd. It's one thing to encourage or compell the auto industry to have a plan to increase profits and adapt to new markets before handing out loans. But, to forbid the auto companies from making a certain type of vehicle is crossing the line. Talk about totalitarianism.

SAY GOODBYE TO THE HUMMER?.... Rick Wagoner, CEO of General Motors, has a plan on how he'd proceed to help secure a government rescue plan. It includes shedding some GM brands. GM is studying eliminating brands, with Pontiac and Saab...

ick is right, if the hummer is making money, why dissolve it? If it isn't, then let market forces take care of it. Besides, what would they drive on CSI: Miami?

Well, Hummer is a poorly performing brand for GM, so this wouldn't be a matter of Congress killing the Hummer, but of GM shedding an underperforming business unit to secure a loan. Nothing wrong with that.

But I'm stunned by the photo. Unless that school bus dropped from the sky, that's just about the worst crash performance I've ever seen in a two-vehicle crash. The bus is structurally undamaged, while the Hummer's chassis is halfway vaporized. This is what I'd expect to see if a Yugo rear-ended a parked school bus at highway speed; if this really is what happens to a Hummer when it hits an object, then the brand really does need to die.

"Talk about totalitarianism."

MichLib: don't be silly.  

The Big Three are coming to the government asking that taxpayers pay for their design and management mistakes over the last thirty years.  The taxpayer has every right to demand management concessions, whether they are rebranding, refocussing research, or executive pay cuts.  This is not totalitarianism, it is sound management of public funds to achieve public policy objectives.  Alternatively, the Big Three could forbear from begging and submitting to public policy that comes with it, and could continue to produce Hummers and SUVs, until they crash and burn.  "Capitalism" and "democracy", in case I've missed something, do not mean handing over billions with no strings attached.

More important, even absent such handouts, the people, through their democratically elected representatives, have every right to demand that car owners pay for the externalities of their vehicles, and Hummers are just about the worst offenders on the roads.  It may well be that once you factor in those externalities, the Hummers will be unaffordable or uneconomical - but that would be a simple market operation and not "totalitarianism".  This is for me the preferred approach, because taxes either bring in revenue or end a harmful practice, and so are generally to be preferred to outright bans.

"Totalitarianism"?  Honestly.  

The best argument for killing the Hummer was expressed to me in a quote from a National Geographic article several years ago.  Some owner was quoted as saying that the reason she liked her Hummer was that "I know in a collision, I win."  I don't know what's worse about Hummer owners, the arrogance or the truly scary false sense of invulnerability of a driver doing 75 on ice.

And blackie - Let them drive Escalades.

Congress Kills the Hummer?

This is just like impeachment all over again!

A few years ago, I wrote a piece for my local paper, part in jest, that the Hummer was the official car of the Bush GOP. With the Bush disaster almost over, it seems appropriate that the Hummer, in body and in its wretched know nothing spirit, will be gone too.

Good riddance...

Icarus, your approach (drivers paying for their vehicles' externalities) is quite different from the government telling a company to disband a brand. I don't mind your approach. I mind the other. My point stands.

Heh, the Big 3 of TNR: icarusr, Rhubarbs and Blackton...

Gonna have to agree with the Big 3 here. I'd just like to add that I think some people need to appreciate more that Uncle Sam is finally taking ROI seriously on these bailouts, making them into investment opportunities instead of subsidies and give-aways; this is the kind of "smarter government" I had in mind.

Mich Lib, "minding" an approach and calling it "totalitarianism" are different things.  If you have ever lived in a totalitarian state - and I have - you would not define the term down so absurdly.  

Again, the issue is not that Congress would ban Hummers and exile the CEO of GM to a concentration camp outside Wasilla - that would be totalitarian.  Rather, *in return for the use of taxpayers' money*, Congress is perfectly entitled to demand corporate responsibility.  No one is forcing GM to beg Congress for money.  GM could 1) keep Hummer and refuse the cash; or 2) get the cash and sell off the Hummer division to anyone who thinks s/he make money selling the white elephant.

So I fail to see how your totalitarianism point "stands".

An EMT at an accident scene triaging into eternity one victim with a concaved skull and a femoral artery spouting like Old Faithful in order to attend to the badly bleeding but plausibly living second victim isn't killing anything. Neither is Congress.

Meanwhile, allow me to stand over Hummer's twisted writhing slab and, as it reaches out its hand to me, a desparate pleading in its eyes, look down at it, snicker, and hiss "Die, Hummer. Die."

Too bad we won't be able to watch Hummer's death on YouTube. Talk about great porn.

My sister once owned a Yugo.

I've always wanted to rescue a Yugo. They've often been abused in previous circumstances; I'd like to provide a safe place for one to live out its days, in peace.

I wouldn't want it in the house, though. When they get old they, um, forget to use the box.

Some Yugo trivia.

www.reel.com/movie.asp

The hostility toward the Hummer vehicle is kind of amusing. I mean, what's your deal? Does one pulling up next to you at a red light emasculate you in ways you can't explain but through all-out hatred of an automobile brand?

MichLib: it is a truth universally acknowledged that the tonnage of a recreational vehicle rises in inverse proportion to the square of the owner's confidence in the size of his penis.  

I have no hostility towards the Hummer - it is, I assume, a fine vehicle as a troop transport, or on the Veldt.  Nor do I find anything wrong with large trucks: my contractor has one and I am mighty glad, 'cause he goes off and picks up the tub and the cabinets and the tiles and whatnot - and I don't.  I do find it amusing, through, that city-dwellers who could not find a country road if it led to their asses drive these monster vehicles, causing pollution and blocking my view of the road, not to mention certain death in an accident, and thereby increase the West's dependence on foreign oil.  

It is, frankly, not patriotic to buy and use cars that result in several hundreds of billions of dollars of wealth transfers to dictatorships that hate our guts, or alternatively, that result in the decimation of America's natural wonders.  Tell me, if you like Hummers and Rams and so on, why do you hate America so?

Icarus -

I was making that comment in general, not necessarily directed toward you. But I'm personally indifferent to Hummers or other big vehicles. My father drives a 1995 Chevy 3500. I drive a Buick LeSabre. He lives in the country and does construction. I live in the city and work in an office. I can hardly be categorized as unpatriotic in my car choices.

But then again, I can't honestly tell you that if I could afford to purchase and drive a Hummer that I wouldn't do so. I'd probably pick a Caddy Escalade first, though. But I think that's where we agree - make the owners of big, polluting vehicles pay for their 'footprint.' I wouldn't have a problem with that.

"taken over by Fiat" - lol.

Of course, williamyard's tattoo is actually German for "The Hummer, The."

And let me defend myself from MichLib's assertion that I have any "hostility" toward the Hummer. I don't. I really don't. In fact, in an odd way I admire the Hummer. The original Hummer is a fantastic vehicle. Now, anyone who would use a first-generation Hummer to drive mainly on city streets and highways, rather than in various unpaved environments, is a self-indulgent a-hole of the first magnitude, but that's not the vehicle's fault. It was, and remains, a marvelous truck for its intended driving conditions. And both the H2 and H3 are absolutely brilliant examples of postmodern American marketing savvy. You get a mediocre stock GM SUV, but with an uglier exterior and a little chrome letter H on the back, and GM charges you an extra $15,000 for the privilege. Again, only a great idiot would let himself be parted with that money, but that's not the vehicle's fault.

But the Hummer line today is an underperforming business unit of a failing company, and even without congressional involvement, the Hummer line would be headed for sale or closure. Which is to say, closure, since there's really no plausible buyer out there. What's more, GM is working very hard to reposition its brand identity as the company of the tomorrow's drive trains, and having Hummer in its portfolio makes that a much harder sell. So even if GM were not in the midst of a corporate death spiral, it would likely be looking to disgorge itself of the Hummer line.

(On the other hand, why not throw a hydrogen fuel cell and an electric motor in a Hummer? The main barriers to the hydrogen power train are the size and cost of the components, and Hummer buyers already demonstrate an affirmative desire to maximize the size and expense of their trucks. It's the perfect match between existing spare chassis capability and consumer desire. Hell, even the obvious name -- Hummer Electric, or HE -- satisfies the Hummer buyer's psychological needs. And by transforming the Hummer into a zero-gas vehicle, you'd even give Hummer owners a new outlet for their self-righteousness, since now they'd be the ones driving hyperefficient vehicles that never have to stop for gas who could go off-road in a war zone if they ever had to and by the way your Prius still makes you look like a girl.)

"Of course, williamyard's tattoo is actually German for 'The Hummer, The."'

Isnt' "Hummer" the German word for lobster?  Schwarzenegger would know that, of course, but he obviously still has fun tooling around his hybrid H.  Maybe it's an Austrian joke.

Would you drive a lobster?  Even to save GM?

Doesn't the military buy Hummers?  I can't see them shutting down production completely if the army needs them.  I won't miss them on the road, but they are better than jeeps for the field.

irony asks, "Isnt' 'Hummer' the German word for lobster?"

Ooo, do Hummers make a little high-pitched squealing sound ("Eeeeeeee!") when you drop them into boiling water?

I'll YouTube it and report back...

cal, the domestic commercial Hummer is not the same thing as the military Humvee. The Humvee is made by AM General. The first generation of civilian Hummers were about as close to a Humvee as an early Jeep Wrangler was to a military Jeep. But the more recent H2 and H3 Hummer models have had no fundamental relationship to the military Humvee other than some external styling. Recent Hummers have essentially been standard GM SUVs with really expensive trim options. (On the other hand, I think that AM General might still operate the production plants on which civilian Hummers are made.)

The point is that AM General will continue to manufacture military Humvees as long as the military pays to buy Humvees. Shutting down production of the essentially unrelated civilian Hummers should not adversely affect military procurement of Humvees.

For Congress to force GM to stop making Hummers is about as awful as prohibiting Smith and Wesson from manufacturing rocket-propelled grenade kits for the consumer.

C'mon, our laws prohibit the manufacture and sale of all sorts of things.  Or, should we, in the spirit of libertarianism run amok, bring back DDT?

Yeah, I can understand that a carbon tax is wiser than having the government pick specific brands for destruction. We don't want the government micromanaging companies. But the Hummer is an issue of its own. Roads and parking spaces are of a certain size, and the Hummer is too big for them. People should not be allowed to drive them, the same way they are not allowed to drive vehicles with Ben Hur style spikes on the wheels.