‘A Dodge dealer’s perspective’ on the government closing his business
Published: June 23, 2009
Updated: June 23, 2009
Recently, 1,889 Dodge/Chrysler and GM dealers saw their franchises simply evaporate.
Al Bilton of Bilton-Behr Chevrolet in Holly Hill, S.C., said, “I do not receive one dime from GM to keep my dealership open. I pay for every car, truck and part I order. I do not think that closing my Chevrolet dealership and putting good, hardworking people out of work relieves our national economic crisis.”
Detroit-area Dodge dealer Marvin Tamaroff wrote the following opinion piece, which is still posted on his dealership’s Web site. The dealership now sells only used and foreign cars.
To reflect current reality, the future tense he wrote it in has been changed to the past. He and the other Chrysler-product dealers lost their fight when the Supreme Court turned down their case, but his voice still deserves to be heard.
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“A Dodge Dealer’s Perspective”
By Marvin M. Tamaroff
Under President Barack Obama’s direction, Chrysler used the U.S. Bankruptcy Court to terminate 789 Dodge/Chrysler dealer franchise agreements arbitrarily, capriciously and without due process of law.
Many of the Dodge/Chrysler dealers were profitable, employed quality employees, support their communities and provide the necessary competition to ensure that customers received competitively priced vehicles. By reducing the number of dealers, you are certain to reduce competition. The undesired effect will be increased prices for cars.
Additionally, Chrysler took away my franchise without compensating me for its value. I have invested millions of dollars to acquire the Dodge franchise, the dealership facility and the real estate. Chrysler transferred my franchise and all the goodwill I created to a Chrysler competitor across the street free of charge.
This occurred despite my Tamaroff Dodge dealership continuously achieving high sales, high customer satisfaction ratings, a 5-star dealer status (Chrysler’s highest award), and over 22 years having built a loyal customer base.
It is like Crystal Night in Nazi Germany in 1938, but instead of the Nazis seizing private property without due process of law and compensation, Chrysler and President Obama are using the power of a federal bankruptcy judge to run roughshod over the rights of Dodge dealers. Chrysler and Obama are purposely avoiding all state laws and some federal laws designed to protect the dealer from the overwhelming power of the manufacturer.
Furthermore, where was the due process for an unconstitutional taking of my franchise rights without just compensation?
I am a World War II veteran and former POW who risked my life to defeat national socialism and Hitler’s tyrannical Nazi regime. Never in my 82 years (50 years as an auto dealer and mechanical engineer) would I have anticipated the president of the United States and an appointed federal bankruptcy judge seizing my property and potentially causing me to go into bankruptcy, and in the process acting as instruments of fascism.
President Obama: Is this the change you promised the American people?
To add insult to injury, Chrysler, at this date, will not buy back any of the dealers’ new car inventory — inventory they pushed on dealers in the last 90 days, threatening that if they did not purchase the cars they would be remembered come “termination day.”
The worst point about this is the painful effect of laying off our people, many of whom have been with our company since the beginning. They are like family. It is like throwing your kids out on the street, with no job, no money and no health care.
Obama is directly responsible for orchestrating this ill-conceived plan.
If the executive branch and judicial branch can successfully complete this illegal seizure of property and transfer of wealth from one dealer to another, then is any American’s private property safe from government seizure?
Sharman’s column appears each Tuesday on the editorial page.
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Reader Reactions
rjma, I’ve never been here to do other people homework for them. I googled prior to what you sent and I picked it off the first page of results. So I know you did not offer what is truly out there for an encompassing truth, nor do I have enough room here to do so for you.
You have every right to your opinion about Sharman’s article and I respect it. I would find it hard to come up with something “new” every week too. But obviously from all the reader comments here, he does enough to get us all thinking. And he has a right to a break now and then too. Most of his writings I’ve read besides this one, has totally been his own thoughts compiled with quotes or references. Much like yours.
You also obviously did not read what is considered and/or meant by “unexplored” or “recoverable” oil; otherwise you’d know that the geological studies have been done and they “know” oil is there, they just have not sunk a pipe and gotten a “proven” barrel amount.
While they’ve gotten us to argue about it for 30 years, they’ve made a ton of money and can sit back fat & happy while we all try to get through an economic crisis.
OW, never having another of your arrogant and stupid posts directed to me is a godsend. I think you will find that several more on here wish they were as lucky as me.
Sharman has done nothing but trash Obama. If that is getting us to thinking then you are even more stupid than I thought. Now for real, tell us where Sharman ACTUALLY offed a solution, and quit your lame attempts to infer he said something. He’s a hack and you’re pathetic.
RJMA, you are exactly right. Sharman does not offer his own thoughts and OW cannot or will not actually provide these facts she claims are evident.
ow- You make a statement that we have more oil than the Arabs, but then you are unable to back up what you say. I would be thrilled if we actually had more than they do. But I’ve seen no credible evidence. Unexplored is not credible.
I’d also like to add that I would rather Mr. Sharman not simply cut and paste someone else’s writing. I could do that too but I think a column should be one’s one work so I only do evry other week..
Caveman, I don’t like the multiple ways people are taxed now. I know they just “fee” us every which way they can think of, and put extra taxes on anything they can, cause they can’t collect enough with all the loop-holes they created.
But right now, for the crisis at hand, another little tax is not my concern. And when the Democrats exhaust themselves with ways to find money, maybe they’ll get their heads out of the sand, and look at the big picture, and get to business on real solutions. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t see more then a handful of Republicans I’d re-elect either for their non-feasible, unrealistic solutions either. People just need to wake up and realize that it’s time to elect a bunch of Independents and get some hard work done.
rjma, I know everybody wants to work with the industries own stats on “proven” reserves. But that is not all the oil there is. There is “recoverable” and “unexplored” oil too. One of the reasons they do the stats on themselves and report them to the DOE is to manipulate the market. And it’s worked for way too many years now.
This is easily researched, but will take more time then just selecting what comes up on the first page of a “google” search.
The stats I’m talking about are from the USGS.
It’s not that I think oil is the end all-to energy problems and the environment. I’ve stated that it is a good bridge to cleaner and more efficient fuels, but because we have not had the right people in office for 30 years, (and I’m not just talking about a President, I’m talking about our Senate and Congressional leaders as well), we may have waited too long to implement a solution to avert a severe crisis.
EL: I’m done with responding to you for good. Talking to someone who purposefully wants to be obstinate, and therefore stupid, is a waste. You know dagg’on well that Sharman has tried to get us to think about the people we elect. He didn’t steer us to a particular candidate, but I think all know that McCain was for far more oil independence and exploration measures here in the U.S. than Obama was. Surely you didn’t need Sharman to tell you that right? And since it is obvious that you are the only one who wants to ride your wagon of total disagreement with Sharman, no matter what he says, you go ahead. Unless you actually bring up a material fact for an article at hand that is wrong, I have nothing else to say to you. Enjoy your little red wagon.
OrdinaryWoman, drill or don’t drill, it doesn’t matter. Obama’s Cap and Trade tax on energy is going to make fuel more expensive, no matter how much we have.
OW writes: “We have more oil than the Arabs”.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0872964.html
It indicates that the Arabs (didn’t include Persian Iran) have about 30X as much oil reserves as the US.
You still want to go with “We have more”? If so, perhaps you could back that up.
Sharman is a partisan hack and a divider and as usual did not offer a solution. OW claims his drivel is offering a solution, yet she still doesn’t really tell us what these solutions are. It should be easy to give us bullets.
OW, you’re own writing proves you to be egotistical. You think you “educate” people. Lady please! It’s only educational if they know that you don’t really know what you are babbling about.
You have a serious issue in that you perceive negativity of any sort directed at Sharman as hate. Do you want to deny doing so? You’ve gone so far as to claim we all may be the same person.
Do you realize your oil solutions are so poorly thought out that they are laughable? Unless of course you are talking about nationalizing oil companies, otherwise your socialist idea puts the money inthe Fed’s pocket. Is that one of Sharman’s solutions?
rjma, what I think you are overlooking is what competition does to the price on the world market, and the fact that the Big oil companies won’t own it, WE WILL if it is done right.
Subcontracts out to the oil companies to get the work done, will also make for more competition and speedier accomplishments, without the million dollar bonuses having to go out.
Even if it’s done in order to bridge us over to other cleaner fuels, it’s better then what we are going through now.
The supply is there. We have more oil than the Arabs have.
Do some more “digging”. I’ve done enough reports by industry analyst to know that what you believe is simply not true. I’d love to point you to them, but I cannot here; so take my hint and do some follow-up research for yourself.
OW- What I think you are overlooking is that no matter how much oil is out there it will be priced at the world market rate and it is simply not enough supply to bring the price down much if any.
But more importantly many believe as you seem to, that domestic oil will be priced differently than oil from foreign sources. That is simply not going to happen no matter how much they find. Do you really think that Exxon is going to sell to the US for $10/bbl when the world price is $70?
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