Car Salesmen are Crooks

I am a sales guy. I have been a salesman since I was a teenager. The one category that I have never sold is Cars, and there is good reason for that. Car salesmen are scum. Now there are exceptions to every rule. I have a few friends and even a family member or two who have sold cars in the past. Used car salesmen are generally regarded as the pond scum of the sales world. But just to prove that ALL car salesmen (or companies in this case) General Motors has laid down a Duzzy. Maybe you have seen this commercial.



Now normally I would say, "paying off debt. THAT'S GREAT!!!" In fact I did think that when I heard it on a radio ad in the car. Then I read this article. Basically GM is robbing Peter to pay Paul. Paying off their Visa card with the MasterCard. What they have done is taken TARP (the bailout) monies to pay off a $6.7 Billion dollar government loan. Part of the comedy here is that the part of the commercial where they say "Paid IN FULL with INTEREST, 5 years ahead of schedule." This is sort of like me saying "I'm debt free" after paying off a $250 credit card while still carrying a student loan of $25,000. In fact it is a very similar situation as GM received a total of $52 Billion in bailout money.

Now I don't want to get into a political rant here. I just find it interesting that the government entrusted car salesmen with Billions of tax dollars (that they don't have) and expecting to EVER get it back. That's like trusting politicians with Billions of... oh, wait. Crap.

Well hopefully GM gets called on the carpet for the stunt, though with our ever so vigilant congress (this is my sarcastic voice) I doubt it.