No Excuse

I was going to write about this topic this week, anyway, but something in my Twitter feed (@RulesofLogic1) pushed me to write about this today.

In 1937 the Nazi German government gave its highest honor for foreigners to Benito Mussolini. Who received the “award” in 1938? Henry Ford!!

This CNBC article is about how the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan tried to censor an article about Henry Ford and that the attempt to censor has received some national attention. Bill McGraw, former editor of the Dearborn Historian, wrote Ford “was also a man who mass produced hate.” The Dearborn mayor ordered all the copies of the Autumn 2018 issue, Volume 55, No. 3 confiscated and, days later, fired McGraw.

Henry Ford published a “newspaper” called the Dearborn Independent that seemingly wrote about nothing except blaming all of the world’s problems on “the international Jewish conspiracy.” The “newspaper” claimed that Queen Isabella of Spain (sponsor of Christopher Columbus and his voyages to America) had been a “Jewish front for the discovery of America,” that Jewish bankers were responsible for the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and that Jews were responsible for the popularization of “Negro Jazz,” which the paper called “moron music.”

Henry Ford was a despicable, miserable excuse for a human being. People who blindly worship him or quote him as some kind of oracle are almost certainly ignorant or hateful or both. Luzzim Brenna Vee Da Keen!

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It’s difficult to calm down after writing about such a loathsome person, but I’ll try…

It is unusual to see this type of car offered for sale on Bring a Trailer:

From the listing a picture of this stunning 1932 Packard Eight Series 902 Coupe offered for sale. As I write this, the current high bid is $50,000 with two days left in the auction.

A few years ago I would have thought nothing of this car. Recently, though, I have developed an affinity for pre-war classics. I interpret “pre-war” as meaning 1930-ish to 1941; others would have a slightly different definition.

Packard built about 3,700 Series 902 cars in 1932. The Series 902 models were powered by an inline 8-cylinder engine displacing 320 cubic inches and rated at 110 HP. This engine was the smallest and least powerful of the three Packard offered in 1932. My best estimate is that Packard built fewer than 17,000 cars in model year 1932, which was the worst year of the Great Depression. Real US GDP (meaning adjusted for inflation) fell almost 13%! The unemployment rate reached 25%! By comparison, for the “Great Recession” the worst real GDP growth was -2.9% in 2009; the worst unemployment rate was 10% in October, 2009.

#somanycarsjustonelife

#disaffectedmusings

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