YOU WANT EGG ROLL WITH YOUR HUMMER?

You have probably read about GM divesting itself of the Hummer Division, which was sold to a Chinese private manufacturing company, Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industrial Machinery who make all kinds of road equipment ranging from bridge piers to highway construction and maintenance machinery as well as recently moving into heavy trucks, like tow trucks and oil tankers.

I find it mind-blowing that a company in a Communist state-controlled economy wants to pick up the symbol of "conspicuous consumption" (as the economist Verblen referrred to showy assets), the very metaphor for capitalist yuppiness, that gas-guzzling-but-who-gives-a-shit behemoth of the road with its 3-5 miles per gallon gas consumption. Maybe they want to create a yuppy class in Red China! They make noises about increasing the fuel efficiency. Does that mean increasing it from 3-5 to 8-10 m.p.g.?

Some wag-blogger on the internet broke me up with the comment to the effect: oh, good, now we can buy our military vehicles from the enemy! I wonder if, instead of armor-plating the underside, they'll probably use tinfoil...

They also say they will continue to make the Hummer here in the U.S.A. They have no choice for now in order to get the product on the market, but do you want to take a bet how long that will last?

Americans are so used to their big wheels that it is going to take a seismic shift in attitudes to adjust to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars. Every time gas prices jump, we say that we've got to change; then, when they drop, we go back to our old "hit the road" ways. G.M. had to get rid of the Hummer and are shopping around to sell Saab and Saturn. Pontiac is a dead issue. (I wonder whatever happened to my ragtop maroon '69 G.T.O. with 450 horsepower---what a bomb!)

I wonder if the new Hummer, in the best Chinese style, will offer options: like two from column A and one from column B.