But of course the American public is fickle and freaked out about gas, and so the SUVs and light trucks that used to account for 60% of GM’s sales in the USA aren’t selling like they used to. As a consequence, GM just posted its 3rd biggest quarterly loss in its history. The leasing of SUVs has taken the biggest hit, because nobody wants to buy the used SUVs anymore–they’re now selling at a quarter of their original value. It is tempting to resort to karma talk here.

Call me a socialist, but wouldn’t it be better for everyone if making catastrophically large ski-transport vehicles was against the rules, so everybody would just stick to the fuel-efficient cars they want whenever there’s an oil crisis?  This is a pretty clear example of the free market not behaving like the benevolent god libertarians want it to be. More like a spoiled mercurial toddler or a crackhead.

Image: flickr/Rick Harris

People wrote in with insults, bad suggestions (fill it with concrete, throw it in the ocean and maybe it will become a reef), and some less insane ones (find a way to donate it to people in a poor remote village somewhere who will use it efficiently, as a transport vehicle). Even if you hate PR stunts, this one poses a legit question: what are we going to do with our many, various, increasingly hated, polluting machines, given that throwing them away or burning them is so counterproductive?My suggestion (probably already voiced by somebody): take off the wheels, gut them, and turn them into stationary dwellings for homeless people, in sprawling cities where there is space for fields of dead SUVs. Which would admittedly create conglomerations resembling vast, drugs-afflicted trailer parks without toilets, yes. Let’s see you do better. Image: flickr/Kevin Saff