Red Ink/Black Ink

Last week, General Motors announced second-quarter losses of $15.5 billion. For the same period, Exxon Mobil reported the best quarterly profit EVER for a corporation: $11.68 billion.

Since it's clear that the real money is in oil rather than automobiles, isn't the obvious solution for General Motors to merge with Exxon Mobil and for this new entity -- let's call them GenExx MoMo -- to give away cars for free?

All the free-car recipient would have to do is sign a contract that they will buy gas ONLY from GenExx MoMo stations, at obscenely inflated prices, for the life of the car.

Crazy talk, you say? They'd only be following the model of the cellphone industry. Heck, those nice folks hand out phones like they're Halloween candy!*

* (Just as long as you commit to paying more every month for a boatload of services and features than you would have had to pay for that piece-of-crap little giveaway phone in the first place.)

Then there's my personal favorite, the Inkjet printer business.

Prices for printers themselves have declined greatly over the years, but we're are all still forced to rush to the Office Depot teat every time our thimbleful of ink runs out.

I recently calculated that the amount I pay for the 10ml black-ink cartridge for my printer works out to a whopping $6,804 a gallon.

What the hell is this stuff made of? It's just ink! Ingredients: water and black.

We don't have to extract it from rare seal embryos or drill for it in endangered wild spaces or buy it from countries who loathe us but happen to be sitting atop the world's largest underground ink reserves.

Were overpriced ink cartridges just one of those stupid extravagances we Americans blithely thought we could afford back when the world seemed happy and affluent? You know, like Hummers and Starbucks and George W. Bush.

My only fear is that GenExx MoMo will figure out how to build a car that runs on printer ink. You'll be pining for the days when you were only paying five bucks a gallon.

And you'll know someone is really rich if you see them filling their tank with "Color".

Comments

[SisterAnn]

It occurred to me that maybe the car companies own the oil companies or are partners.

They seemed determined not to give us fuel efficiency and the CEOs get paid big bucks for their ignorance.

A Prius can get 65 on the open road and 45 on regular driving. The next Prius is going to have solar heat and air. That is so impressive. A little tiny solar heat and air.

What are our car companies doing? What are they thinking?

[joebaggadonuts]

Interesting to shift this paradigm from the printer/ink shaver/blade model to the car/oil model. Bravo.

As you realize, XOM will see no upside in it for them, unless new car companies start producing electrics/hybrids cars that don't use (much) oil as their main product. It's surprising that XOM and BP and the rest of them got away with letting someone produce and charge for cars for so long. You may be right and that they need to control the car companies to prevent them from switching to producing non-oil using transportation machines... or maybe they do already.

[rebelrona]

sad but true --- wonder what it would cost to fill my tank with ink ? It might make me appreciate the $4.59 a gallon of gas!

[Sciguy]

Printer companies call themselves "supply-based industries." They'll just about GIVE you the printers, because they don't need to make much money on them as long as you have to buy their ink in their cartridges for their printers. They aren't the only ones to pull that kind of stunt - I can "rent" a propane cylinder for next to nothing, but the refills are what hurt the wallet.

As an aside: Perhaps printer ink is so ridiculously expensive because it's extracted from wealthy CEOs. And if "rich" is filling up with Color, what about the ultra-wealthy, who'll be filling up with laser toner?

[LeftRight]

Thanks for the laugh Eric!!

[SisterAnn]

They can make generic printer cartridges now, but not many have been made into generics.

I found a printer that has generic cartridges for $2 and color for $3. The printer screeches and is obnoxious, but I don't hear that noise, I hear the cash register ringing up savings:-)

Check ebay for printer cartridges for your model.