Thankyou , G.W.

Which means that VW knows it wants too much for that fugly P.O.S...

And our president has done it again...

Dont blame the President. Blame the 4 before him. If it wasnt for NAFTA and no set standard for our dollar's value, then the value of the dollar wouldt be an issue.

If you look to economies where the value of the currency is based on a standard like gold or other material objects then the value has stayed on par to the value of everything else.

You can't blame Bush for everything... you people are idiots. EVERYTHING isn't his fault. I think he's an idiot too, but you can't blame him for not getting a car, that's freaking ridiculous.

The dollar is declining because of the federal reserve printing money like there's no tomorrow. A couple hundred billion of that new money every year is because of the GOV, but by and large it's because they're cutting interest rates when inflation is rising. And GOV spending isn't Bush's fault anyways. CONGRESS increases spending, NOT the president. The executive branch(GW) enforces laws, the legislative branch makes them...

Greenspan set the economy up for staglation when he kept the federal funds rate at 1.5% for 18 months.

The economy boomed in the 90's thanks to NAFTA(which now people hate for some reason, IDIOTS) and a host of other wonderful things. Greenspan tried to seal a bursting bubble in 2001-2003 with that ridiculously low rate.

But please people, blame the man who is actually at fault, ALAN GREENSPAN, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve (which is actually a private banking organization, not GOV like the name would imply) If you're looking for someone else to blame, it's the REPUBLICANS, for raising spending 65% during Bush's presidency.

@ John

Hooray for the gold standard!

Wa wa wa, cry me a river.
Like we need another sub-standard german car on our shores.

Wayne,

the FED is printing money to compensate for crap W created with his administration. And Congress spent money on his pet wars so his friends get commissions etc..

It is his fault only not directly but certiny his fult. Record sufficit spent and record debt created.

The guy dug holes generations will be filling up and still could not keep the economy healthy. Thats incompetence in its purest form.

But its a good thing maybe in the sense that voters will learn to appreciate that the president needs to be competent not simply someone who babbels honor, patriotism, country, god, we are the best, they hate us for being great,...

Maybe he is the last idiot in a while to be elected. Then again, maybe not :/

yay, you're all so typical.

why hasn't anyone realized that placing blame does NOTHING to solve the problem? if you took half of your blaming energy and put it into fixing the problem we'd be so much better off.

*sigh*

looks like my generation has our work cut out for us.

Don't blame Bush, he only got a gentleman's C in economics at Yale.

Yes, let's blame the President for our economic situation, since he has so much impact on it. I'm guessing he was behind the sub-prime mortgage fiasco? I bet you think Clinton was solely responsible for the expansion in the 90's, too.

@John:

You can blame the current government for our declining dollar. With the US taking huge loans from China to pay for the Iraq war and our Neo Con Republican leaders printing more money like there's no tomorrow the dollar is set to slip even further down. It's actually something many people believe is a part of forming the NAU and switching over to the Amero once the dollar declines in value enough. It's pretty easy to see coming, basically the same thing that happened to Europe. Just google the CFR and North American Union. Hell the dollar has fallen so much that many drug smugglers quit bringing drugs in from Canada since it's not worth it with the US $ sucking so bad.

I'm sure there's a big recession on the way and the stupid stimulous plan won't do a damn thing for the long term. The US needs to kick the Neo Cons out of office, and with Bush making a mockery of his endorsement for McCain I'm pretty sure the GOP just handed the presidency to the Dems!

@Dan:

You may not believe it, but posting small tid bits of information on Blogs is actually doing something since most of our media doesn't tell us the whole story on any topic and only the story their bosses want to hear. Things like voting for Ron Paul and informing unaware people about his policies and beliefs are great places to start.

With our current choices for President we can either waste $1 Trillion in Iraq over the next 10 years (McCain) or we can waste $1 Trillion in the world poverty organization (Dems). Either way were sending money we need very much to take care of our own people out over seas. It's time for real change and not just slogans like Barak, Clinton, and McCain talk about.

@ Gary:

I'm just tired of the blame game, that's all. I'm having a hard time seeing how it's anything but constructive.

If Bush had not sent our to Iraq to stay for so long, then we would not be tking so much loans from China. Because of this, we are printing out more money to compensate for that...Or at least I think so. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I will check the blogs later tonight. Peace out!!!

@Dan:

Agreed, but in this case pointing the blame at GW is fairly deserved. He got us into Iraq without a declaration of war which he doesn't have the power to do. Without the Iraq war gas wouldn't be as expensive and the dollar would be worth more, and those are pretty hard topics to dispute.

@Gary
The weenies in congress gave away their authority to declare war, wussed out, and layed in on the president so that they wouldn't have to feel accountable. They didn't do their jobs and gave authority to the president that he should never have had. And congress approved every one of those budgets. He doesn't have the power to do it, but he is doing the bidding of the cowards in congress who don't have the backbone to take a stand. Those cowards are on both sides of the aisle.

We need a congress with a backbone rather than the weenies who shirk their responsibilities and then stand around blaming others for it. But lookie who is running for President, those weener Senators.

Let me get this straight. Volvo can bring a car that's basically the same as this - the C30 - with a 5-cylinder turbo for $23K MSRP, but VW can't do it for under $40K? And that's the fault of Bush and Congress? How about it being the fault of VW's ass-backward management?

You do realize that gold prices are more volatile than the $US is. The reason your country is going to shits is because of your gigantic debt / deficit and ridiculous spending. Blame your government, most of whom are major stockholders in the oil and defense industries, the only industries benefiting from your current policies.

Gold prices are volatile?

Provide me some source that proves your point.

Britain's national debt is far worse than that of the United States. Pretty much all countries have a huge national debt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt

Look at that before you Europeans run your mouths. All your countries are in huge debts too. It's because all democracies develop into socialist welfare states. The Australians are in better shape than the US, but it looks to me like the rest of you are hypocrites.

"Polynikes:

Yes, let's blame the President for our economic situation, since he has so much impact on it. I'm guessing he was behind the sub-prime mortgage fiasco? I bet you think Clinton was solely responsible for the expansion in the 90's, too."

Clinton had nothing to do with the 90s, no politician did that was all entrepreneurship. But Bush definitely has had a negative effect on the economy, namely the sub-prime fiasco.

Questions about ARM's were raised years before the bubble burst, but no one investigated, and its the President's job to enforce laws, including ones against misleading the public or sub-standard business practices.

Also, his deficit spending is pumping oodles of money onto the market, lowering the value of the dollar. He proposes budgets, congress approves them, and his budgets have been deficit ridden for his entire presidency.

Sorry, I thought this was an auto blog. If I hit refresh will it take me to the correct spot?

VW needs to work on improving their products rather the making excuses. Their cars start falling apart before you get them home. My 2002 VM in the first year had the following problems

1. broken passenger side window, recalled a year later for plastic clips, never got all the glass out the door.

2. coils replaced 2 twice, induced stalling, never resolved, workaround use 87 octane

3. Interior trim pealing, replaced never resolved

4. ECU failure, replaced

In the second year the coils failed yet again and invoked the lemon law and washed my hand of POS. Five of my co-worker also had frequent problems with there VW's

While I don't share Gary's extremist views he is 100% right about why the dollar is in free fall and that is Bush's fault. Congress is also shares the blame. We American people also share the blame for re-electing them. This is also why oil is sky rocketing, it's traded in US dollars. So when the dollar falls oil prices go up.

@Dan:

Accountability and blame is extremely important. You have to understand what was done wrong and there must be consequence or there is no motivation to change the behavior.

Since we are playing the blame game, I blame VW for not fixing its quality control issues. Had a transmission failure on my first AND second Passat. Test drove the damn thing on the interstate and what not.It didn't help that it was summer and the AC sucked.

@John

You know the saying... Fool me once, shame on you. Foole me twice, shame on me. I've always avoided VW like the plague. Unless I find myself needing chassis for a dune or swamp buggy that is.

I drive an Audi with quite a few miles on it and it really hasnt had any problems. Is Audi independent of VW when it comes to design or do I just happen to be lucky? I do have a leaky hose or two, but that's an easy fix.

Average yearly gold prices:

1971 40.8
1972 58.16
1973 97.32
1974 159.26
1975 161.02
1976 124.84
1977 147.71
1978 193.22
1979 306.68
1980 612.56
1981 460.03
1982 375.67
1983 424.35
1984 360.48
1985 317.26
1986 367.66
1987 446.46
1988 436.94
1989 381.44
1990 383.51
1991 362.11
1992 343.82
1993 359.77
1994 384
1995 384.17
1996 387.77
1997 331.02
1998 294.24
1999 278.98
2000 279.11
2001 271.04
2002 309.73
2003 363.38
2004 409.72
2005 444.74
2006 603.46
2007 695.39

Some years the prices are pretty stable but others the price can go up or down by huge amounts (more than 300% increase from 78-80).

As far as debt is concerned, many (if not most) other western countries are paying their's off (i.e. no deficit), the US just keeps adding to it and in record numbers.

From: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-budget5feb05,0,4188925.story

"White House budget director Jim Nussle acknowledged that the federal deficit will double from $162 billion in fiscal 2007, which ended last September, to more than $400 billion in both fiscal 2008 and 2009."

The US officially left the gold standard in 1977, that's why the price went up so much. People went out and bought up gold and silver like crazy. No one had faith in our currency anymore. It took a few years to level out again.

Right now we have an economic downturn and gold is skyrocketing because inflation is up. and any economist knows you can hedge against inflation (especially over the long term) by buying gold.

er 1971. Anyways. It took a long time to cool the ridiculous inflation that ensued.

I hope they can work something out, that car is tight...I can see myself buying one..and probably saving some money on gas too.