Is this stuff really that hard? Couldn’t any high school student educated in basic economics come up with a solution to the “problem” that the major automakers are facing? Hey, we can even get more in-depth about a solution and tell the automakers to cut expenses – a novel idea! Or how about this one? The automakers should be making more products that the consumers want to buy. Eureka! We’ve figured it out!!!

Seriously, it is a disgrace that the big three automakers are facing the problems that they are today. These companies deserve what they’re getting – they didn’t produce fuel efficient cars in mass quantities when the consumers demanded them as far back as ten years ago and are currently doing nothing to sell the excess quantities of their product. There are a lot of people out there (like me) who would LOVE to buy a new car. In fact, you could say that someone like me is constantly in the market to buy a new car.

But most of the people in my situation are realists. We know that we can buy a good used car that is only one or two years old for 60% – 75% of the price of the same model if it was brand new. Why would anyone pay the premium to purchase the new car in this economy? With all of the executives driving the buses at these companies (pardon the pun) can it be that none of them realize that they need to cut prices in order to stimulate sales? I’m a big fan of Chevrolet (and I have no idea why since I’ve paid more to have my Blazer fixed than the thing could ever be worth). I’d love to buy a 2009 Chevy Impala. Yahoo! Autos suggests that the model I would like to buy starts at $28,000 and that the 5-year cost to own this car is $52,000.

Why would I ever buy that car in today’s grim economy? Is there no one at Chevrolet who is looking at this and saying, “Hmmm… We need to fix this problem.” Better yet – do the people at Chevrolet even see this as a problem? Here’s why they should.

I can go to Enterprise Rent-a-Car and get a certified pre-owned (used) 2008 Chevy Impala for $15,000. Read that again. I can get a one-year old Impala for about HALF of what a new one costs.

How can you fix the problem that today’s automakers are facing? Simple. Cut prices and move product. If this doesn’t happen, then you and I better get ready to pay a little bit more in taxes because you know another government bailout won’t be too far behind.

Are you serious?

One of the biggest problems that Americans will face in the future is that many of today’s parents are breeding their kids in an “everyone wins” type of atmosphere. From the article linked above:

“The spirit of the league was community, family, well-being, nurturing,” Peter Noble, the league’s attorney, told the Register. “It’s an extended family and it’s been disrupted.”

So this league was put together not so young athletes could compete against each other in the sport, but so everyone could participate in a feeling of well-being and nurture each other? What the hell does that even mean?!

What happened to playing in a sports league as a young kid and scratching and clawing your way to victory? If you come up against a kid like Jericho, then you know what? You lose! He’s going to beat you because he’s really good at the game. If you want to beat him then you train to become better at the game and you beat him. The parents in this league obviously see the league as a part-time babysitter for them and they are probably horrified at the thought of having to spend more time and money on the sport if their kid winds up liking the game. Imagine that – your “babysitter league” actually ignites some type of athletic passion in your kid that he or she wants to pursue…the horror!

I hate reading stories like this one. All of my best to young Jericho as he and his family struggle against a bunch of morons up in New Haven.

Monmouth University is offering a course that falls directly in line with what I do for a living (it’s about various approaches to fundraising). My company and I felt that it would be good for my “professional development” and that since it was so close to home, I should pursue the course. I agreed and this ultimately led to a huge hassle with the Monmouth University administration (who managed to not only get a $35 application fee out of me, but also to double-charge me for a parking ticket that I apparently received as an undergraduate and would have to have paid already in order to graduate). For those out there in the working world, I can sum up my experiences trying to take this course very simply – Monmouth University is not prepared or ready to offer professional development courses.

Not only was I treated like an 18 year-old kid who was just starting college, but even after establishing that I was an alumnus of the university, a part-time employee of the university, and that I had a Masters Degree and thus was not interested in applying for a Masters Degree program – the folks on the phone still couldn’t fathom what I was trying to do. What was I trying to do? Audit a course for professional development. Simple. Unfortunately, until their professional development admittance procedure is more “professional,” I will not be able to recommend to any of my professional colleagues that they attend MU to learn more about their trades.

Class started this past Monday night and I immediately remembered why I left Monmouth’s Masters Program after one semester a few years ago. The atmosphere in the classroom was uniquely Monmouth. The teacher treated the students as though they were incoming Freshmen and the requirements for the course look almost exactly like what one would expect out of a Freshman Seminar class. There are four 3-page papers, three 3-minute presentations, and a group project all due in the semester. We were lectured for about 20 minutes on the importance of not having a cell phone ring during class time. We were reprimanded in advance for missing any scheduled classes and scolded about how our final grade would be effected. I’m auditing the course, so I’m getting an “AU” as a grade no matter what I do.

But what shocked me the most on the first night was how the course description was changed before our eyes. It’s a little bit hard to explain, but the course description that sold me on the course was changed to include this course as a subsection of a larger study, which wasn’t what I was sold. The thing is, I’ve been through the Monmouth system before I and I realize there is no use in complaining because it gets no where; the system is specifically set up to be hard to navigate and tedious. This is why I loved going to Rutgers so much (in my view, Rutgers handled problems before they even popped up).

But I’m smart enough to realize that the pre-class administrative nightmare should have no bearing on my perception of the course and the first night of class should have little influence on my overall recommendation of the course itself, so I will reserve a final judgment until the course ends. I will say, however, that so far I’ve gotten exactly what I expected out of Monmouth…

Then in May 2005, they closed the pool for “renovations” that would be completed in “a few months” and definitely before Summer 2005 ended. Come June 2006 (a full year and a month later) and not only was the pool not finished, but the entire interior looked like hell because they undertook a bunch of renovations that they just couldn’t afford to complete. Oh…and they didn’t lower our membership rates due to decreased equipment available or the horrible conditions in the club.

So I left and went to Gold’s Gym. It cost more and they have no pool, but the interior is brand new and the atmosphere is great.

When this e-mail came in, I actually entertained flipping back to the old gym. This is the gym where there are a ton of weirdos and dirty, creepy old men. However, they have that pool and the pool is what really helped me shed the weight (I’ve actually stopped losing weight since the pool closed and I’ve gained a few pounds since then – just a few, though).

So I made a phone call and spoke to the folks over at the old gym and they were excited about the pool being open again. They told me about all of the great renovations that were being planned and how the gym would be a world class place when it was all done and over with and, honestly, they got me psyched to go back to them! Then I remembered…they’re not that good at completing renovations projects.

I guess that I WILL go back to the old gym in the next year or two, but I’m probably going to wait until they finish their renovations. I don’t see the point in giving them a full gym membership rate and not getting a full gym to be a member of, you know?