[orange4boy]

Frank,

Perhaps I'm not being clear.

I said that American consumers are influenced by misleading advertising. That GM attempts to mislead them. But some things wake them up like high gas prices or bad experiences with quality and then they question the reliability of the advertising and make different choices, like more fuel efficient cars as an example. Some are mislead, possibly most, but not all.

Bob lutz said that there was no profit in "green cars", I am refuting this by showing that in spite of all the advertising for huge cars people have historically embraced smaller, more efficient vehicles. Those cars were profitable here and in Europe and Asia.

My point is that if you align customer needs with the marketing then more people would buy according to their own interests. GM is in the business of creating gasoline consuming machines. History shows this, they have just gone bankrupt doing this. Now they are going to do it again on your coin.

The American consumer really is a gullible stupid slob isn't she?

People as a group have no foresight whatsoever.

You said it , not me. I said they were mislead. I think, given good information, people generally make good decisions. But we, in North America, have been fed so much crap for so long it's going to take a lot to wake people up to reality.

By the way, I hope more cars are made domestically. I think that's good for our economy and saves transportation energy. I also think we can make excellent vehicles here but GM has mostly not done so in recent history.

Yes, Buick is in there and so is Mercury but those are exceptions, but again, I said the big three are the pits.

American consumers have ALWAYS gravitated towards the biggest vehicles they could afford to run.

That statement flies in the face of history. It's like saying the Volkswagen beetle didn't exist, or the golf, or the 911, or the Fiero. or the Metro. Plenty of people who could afford bigger cars bought these. Some gravitated to the biggest, yes, but not all and not always.