Actually, more like acid reflux than a flashback.
In a past life I worked in the car business, and I have just lost my last auto dealer customer. From pumping gas and doing light repairs as a teenager, to being a master tech, to managing parts and service operations, to IT and internal audit, I have seen a lot change in the auto industry in the past several decades. And yes, there are more than a few scumbags and crooks in the car biz, but there are many more good people, working long and hard to make a living.
<RANT>When the !@#$%^ morons at Chrysler and GM babble about the need to to terminate ~2,000 dealers between them to stay afloat, the imbeciles who created the problem fail to mention that those ~2,000 US dealers employ almost 200,000 people- that is more than all employees of GM and Chrysler combined. Let me repeat that, those "small" and "under-performing" dealers employ (well, they used to) more people than the manufacturers shutting them down. Screw bailing out the people who caused the problem, bail out the folks who employ people in YOUR community and pillory the heads of the manufacturers</RANT>
You can easily make some security connections here- like the obvious question about how well failing companies are taking care of personal info (example here)- but I'm really just lamenting the state of things. Good luck to my friends who are trying to stay in the business, and to those trying to transition to a new career in this economy.
Jack
