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Congress Kills The Hummer?


Maybe! To win a bailout from Congress, General Motors may agree to sacrifice the Hummer brand.

I have to say, I'd get a certain pleasure out of knowing that the same financial tide brought down both the Hummer, the symbol of American nouveau-riche decadence, and the Yugo, the thrifty compact car developed in communist Yugoslavia that Consumer Reports described as "barely qualifying as a car" and "an assembled bag of nuts and bolts." (Why does a Yugo have a rear window defroster? To keep your hands warm while you push it!) This month, the Times wrote, the Yugo became "the first automaker to fall in the face of the global financial crisis" when its factory was taken over by Fiat. An ebbing tide sinks all boats.

--Eve Fairbanks