Saturday, February 4, 2012

Visas, Volts and Cheeky Ads

Do you remember the Google+ “hangout” discussion that Big Guy had last week with Jenifer Wedel? She’s the wife of the semiconductor engineer whose been out of work now for 3 years?  She asked BO why the government is still issuing and extending so many H-1B visas to aliens when there are tons of skilled Americans like her husband still out of work.

I don’t think Big Guy’s staffers did a very good job briefing him on this visa issue: he thought all an alien needed to get a job here was a social security number. And they’re certainly easy enough to get:

Screenshot Studio capture #385More…

Heck Big Guy himself has at least 3!

His staff swears they briefed him adequately for this carefully prescreened question butt he was apparently distracted by other presidential duties at the time.

bo rearranging furnitureA little more your way; I don’t want the sun in my eyes when I catch a little shuteye.

Anyway, Jennifer’s question  was addressing Big Guy’s comment in his SOTU speech about issuing MORE H-1B visas to keep foreign hi-tech students here in the States after graduating. He seems to think we don’t have enough qualified workers of our own. So Jennifer’s question didn’t compute in Big Guy’s big brain, and an awkward conversation followed.

Anyway, I’m not saying that Big Guy doesn’t understand the whole green card/off-shore controversy; just that maybe he could stand to brush up a bit on a few of the details. Like the ones that effect jobs. And the American economy.

I don’t know why one of his super-smart staffers can’t write one of those “classic 3 box con memos” so Big Guy can just check a box and solve this vexing issue once and for all. If they had done this, Big Guy’s $50 billion auto company might not have awarded their $3 billion advertising account to an off-shore firm. I don’t have any idea what they were thinking, because all you have to do is watch one episode of Mad Men to know that Madison Avenue practically invented advertising!

mad man barry copyAdvertising: the art of making something…from nothing.

All I can assume about GM’s move to an overseas ad agency is that they were really impressed by this vintage cheeky wide-body AMC ad that I posted the other day

AMC_Pacer_1975_French_advertisement

They’re hoping that the Aegis agency can produce something equally hot and sexy for the Volt: our car company’s sexy new plug in coal-powered car.

Here’s one of their story boards currently under consideration:

MO-AT butt butt copy“Why grip the pole when you can drive with coal?”     

H/T curmudgeonly and skeptical via Gerard

We’ve apparently already tried doing our own ads in-house:

“This isn’t just the car we wanted to build, it’s the car America had to build. SERIOUSLY!?!?!            (H/T: Chicks on the Right)

So far the ad hasn’t generated the kind of results we hoped for: not only are the Volts still not flying off the lots, now we can’t even get the dealers to stock them. Hence the last ditch off-shore effort to develop a new ad campaign.

And if that doesn’t work, we’ve still got one surefire shot left in our barrel.  We’re going to have Nancy introduce the Victory Over Legacy Transportation act (VOLT) in the House, and Harry introduce the Clean-Renewable Automobile Program (CRAP) in the Senate to address both the rising cost of cars and the problem of excess usage of gasoline. The bills will mandate that all Americans purchase a G(overn)M(ent) Volt (and a fire extinguisher) or a similar clean electric vehicle every 3 years. Failure to comply will result in the imposition of a “dirty transportation” tax of $10,000 per year. The tax will be waived when you stop defying/resisting Big Guy’s CRAP.

And don’t forget, if you buy one of Big Guy’s cars today, he and your fellow taxpayers will give you a $7500 (middle class) tax credit towards the purchase of your own $45,000 car that, according to Eric Bolling, gets about 30 mpg!

Wow! It’s great being part of Big Guy’s special team. It’s sort of like having a friend with privileges.

Linked By: sb on Weasel Zippers, and NOBO2012 on Chicks on the Right, Thanks!