A lot of it. The whole reason the McDonald brothers resisted mass franchising outside of southern California and Arizona was that they wanted to keep the chain to a number that they could manage and regularly check on themselves.

They don’t even taste like apple, I never understood why kids liked them. 

OK, that was hilarious. 

I think the car he was pointing to was a Hyundai Sonata, which Lutz claimed had the best paint quality and panel gaps in the industry at the time, even better than Toyota.

Well, GM seemed to spend the entire period from ca. 1971 to ca. 2009 actively trying to put themselves out of business, avoiding bankruptcy through a combination of inertia and good luck, so that’s not really surprising.

Because they’re the same as any other brand-loyal customers. If they’re going to buy a GM product and only a GM product and not cross-shop anything else, let alone an import brand from a non-union factory, they don’t know what they don’t have. 

Yes, they’ve definitely had long periods of “good” quality. “Excellent”, on the other hand, has been more elusive. 

In the absence of information, the media and conspiracy theorists will speculate to fill in the gap, and that is almost always worse than the real thing. Of course, coming out with the truth after years of deflection doesn't look good either.

Nope, it was right when they were just starting to get concerned about their auto industry getting overcrowded, and started their policy of encouraging consolidation among existing automakers and rejecting applications for new ones. They put the brakes on new foreign joint ventures too, except for ones involving…

We might hear about Prius owners ICEing new HUMMERs.

Well, GM did find a buyer for HUMMER - Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery Company was all set to do a deal, but the Chinese government refused permission to allow them to expand into the passenger vehicle market, so it fell apart. GM didn't try to find anyone else, because they felt it was too late to start…

That actually sounds like kind of a vague denial to me. Like, if he was being totally honest he would have been more like “of course not, that’s a ridiculous question” instead of a sort of “probably not, I don’t know, maybe, we’ll see” answer that he gave. 

It isn’t terribly diverse, is it? 50% of the items are from English-speaking countries (even though only 4.9% of the world is), 50% are from Europe (which is only 11% of the world’s population), 100% from majority white countries (only 11.5% of the world), 100% from countries that are constitutional monarchies (only…

The new Quarter Pounder patties are a dramatic improvement. Credit where credit is due, McDonalds recognized they had a big problem and they did a good job fixing it. I mean, no one’s going there expecting gourmet food, its a red and yellow restaurant with a drive through window and a kids play structure in front,…

Certainly not. Far too low to the ground, one door too few, and it doesn’t look like a bar of soap was put in a microwave. 

I’m assuming they will mainly be distributed among Nascar management, and maybe a few will be sold to executives from sponsors who want something themed to wear to Nascar-related events. 

Here’s the deal. You like NASCAR, but you’re not the type to unbutton (unhook? untie? you don’t know, that’s not your thing) your overalls to show a big “3” for Dale shaved into your chest hair or sunburned onto your skin.

Other than the palm trees and freeways, its like a trip back to childhood. Riding with my dad over to Grossman’s to pick up some nails and plywood, talking him into stopping at Roy Rogers on the way back home. 

Mainly that, but there is such a thing as too far on the other way, too. I would say doing 55 on a 25 residential street would be excessive. Also, you should know where your local police speed traps are and adjust accordingly when you go through them.

Well, that doesn’t sound like a German-managed plant at all.