Ford

During the early years of cars Henry Ford made a statement that has now become an often used quote in the marketing industry, as well as in many other applications, "you can have any color as long as it is black."

Options were not a huge part of early automobile history. In fact, it was during this time when Henry Ford utilized the assembly line in order to make cars more quickly and for less money. Assembly lines did not offer a lot of choices during those formative years. Through the years, and free enterprise, however, the public was given more and more options; individuality, if you will.

I know that you are wondering why I would bring this up. Well, Todd and I were driving the other day, looking at the cars around us and speculating at some of the proposed regulation that we have been hearing about. There has been some hype about Obama wanting to require that all car makers can only make cars that get 35 mpg or better. Currently, that would wipe out American car makers, including GM (GovernMent cars) and Ford, who wisely decided not to accept government money. In fact, this would wipe out a good many of the cars that are currently offered, American or foreign.

In order for car companies to meet this demand, they would have to force technology, build hyper light vehicles and do away with trucks and large SUV-type vehicles. Many of our choices would be stripped away. So in other words, until the technology can step it up, you have to choose between a used vehicle and your family and their safety. And anyone who knows me, knows that I can't drive anything that isn't heavy duty without risk of death. Add this to the fact that a large part of our choice and individuality would be taken away, and I know that I will be buying used.

So it seems that we have gone full circle. We are now moving back towards "hav[ing] any color as long as it is black." Our colors and the choices that we have come to depend on, our tangible manifestation of who we are as individuals, are being threatened. Proposed legislation will take that away from us.

You may be wondering why this matters. Eventually car makers will be able to bring back our choices and make better, more efficient cars, right? This may be true, however, free enterprise and demand is forcing that right now. Why does the government need to step in? It is a disturbing trend. We have already seen it with GM. The government has stepped in and taken over. Do we really want them to be able to take over our entire car industry with regulation? What else will be taken over?