The barrel of oil is back down below $ 34.00 today, thanks to the lower consumption in the USA, China, India, just to mention a few. OPEC reduced the production, to increase the demand on the world market and increase the cost of oil. While Americans have substantially reduced the need of gas over the last few months, by driving much less, thinking ahead, you find a lot more cars on the freeways again these days. If we don’t only think about money and also start thinking green, we will have gas prices going up and down like the stock market. Resulting in a less stable and consistent economy worldwide. The world economy has a bad flu, it needs a lot of medication, but unless we return to a healthy lifestyle / consumption, it will not be easy to make it healthy again soon. Car manufacturers produce cars, when there is no demand for it, in many cases cars the market and the consumer do not need or want, but governments pull tax money into these companies. GM, Chrysler will get billions of Dollars again, for what? It will not change anything. It is time to cut costs like Mercedes, BMW and others do. Why manufacture cars when there is no demand for them? Increasing the stock pile of unsold cars, keep jobs, keep people busy, but increase the losses substantially. We have not reached the bottom yet, why keep producing? It just does not make any business sense at all. Some people predict that only 6 carmakers will make it in the long run. I am much more optimistic, but it does need a major change by the companies’ management to avoid that, I am sure. They got to think about tomorrow, not today. We need to design different cars, we got to change our thinking and the world economy will become more stable and people will be motivated to buy cars again in larger numbers. Why buy a car when it is not any better, more fuel efficient than your current one, at a time when you are short on cash or you are concerned about the financial future?

Author: Otto A. Hofer December 2008