Dead Brands In The Dead City

While some might insist that Hartford is a dead city, we obviously disagree. One thing we do enjoy finding in the Sad City is vestiges of dead brands. We found this trailer of the short-lived Daimler Chrysler merger down on Murphy Road. Murphy Road is an interesting area as it is basically a huge industrial park. It houses the Museum of Recycling, which we covered while we were learning where out recyclables go. Other notable spots in the area include Golfers Warehouse and Brainard Airport.



Daimler Chrysler was a company that resulted in the huge merger of the two giant automakers in the go-go late 1990's. The merger was a failure almost immediately as the meshing of the high standards of the Mercedes-Benz automakers and the mass marketing of the once profitable Chrysler company proved to be incompatible. After the $36 billion merger in 1998, Daimler sold Chrysler for $7.4 billion in 2007. For those of you without an MBA, that kind of deal is what can get a CEO to walk the plank (most likely with a $20 million parachute).

The good news is that we learned from our financial excesses when the stock market bubble burst around 2000 and it took all of 6-7 years before out next round of financial irresponsibility caught up with us and sent us into the current economic downturn, which at this point is probably getting close to being labeled a depression.

Of course the current economic downturn has lead to the latest political distraction debate about government spending and the deficit. While each side argues endlessly and throws about juked statistics and broad talking points, we got to wondering what exactly the government spends on motorsports sponsorships? How about $63 million in 2011? Well at least one Congressperson thinks this is a little absurd and wants to cut that amount to "only" $20 million for 2012.

Yup, nothing like learning from ones mistakes and taking responsibility.