The Car Czar

Sacramento had a Car Czar for a while -- a local auto shop owner who [used to] have an AM radio show on weekend mornings. I listened to it for years, gleaning bits of home maintenance tips that I've always used.

Just like mowing my own lawn, I've always done my own maintenance on my vehicles. Sometimes I think to myself, "why am I doing this?" Shouldn't I let some $8/an hour schlep do my oil changes, like all my neighbors do? If I make this supposed good wage in electrical engineering, shouldn't I relegate these menial tasks to menial people, like all my co-workers do?

I smash my own aluminum cans for recycling, mow my own lawn, rotate my own tires, build my own furniture, weatherproof my own house...these sorts of service related jobs I've always done. And I will continue to do them myself until I can't get down the stairs anymore.

This, of course, saves a bit of money, but for me it's been more about self sufficiency than anything else. These are the sorts of things that keep me occupied during nights and weekends, and I've come to enjoy them. These are the sorts of things that, during any real economic calamity, are critical for people to do for themselves. Fewer and fewer of my neighbors are even capable of pulling weeds from their lawn anymore, for it's too much bother.

Consider Geithner, our new Car Czar -- someone who most certainly hasn't changed his own oil since high school, if ever. His hands haven't touched an oil filter wrench in decades as they are more important holding Blackberries, cell phones and fountain pens. His hands are as unwilling to use tools as are ours. In my opinion, this is a core value that's being eroded away each day --the dignity of real work is diminishing.

If you're Geithner, or Obama, not dirtying your hands is called elitism. If it's you and me, it's progress. But it's the same fucking thing -- and our never ending quest for perpetual leisure has hit a brick wall.

Consider my own SMUD. If I had started work some fifteen years ago, all I had to do was work for 5 years and at retirement age, I'd receive free medical coverage for the rest of my life. This was unsustainable, so the rules were changed such that if I started work before 2007, I could work for 20 years and receive free medical coverage for the rest of my life. Still unsustainable, so then if I started work after 2007, no matter how long I worked, I'd only get 50% coverage. Looking at this trend, think what a SMUD employee will be "guaranteed" after starting in 2011 -- probably 5% at best, 0% most likely. This pattern is being repeated everywhere. It's clear to everyone that perpetual benefits aren't at all sustainable, but no! the automakers are different. Unwilling to negotiate their UAW contracts, they'd rather destroy every pensioner's guarantee than compromise to save their industry.

SMUD has somewhat faced that day of reckoning, but the domestic autos have yet to. How many new employees are going to willingly pay for all their superior's benefits that they themselves aren't going to get? How many new marginally paid UAW autoworkers are going to willingly pay for all their superior's benefits that they themselves aren't going to get?