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- cross-posted to:
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If only we had invented and built some sort of alternative mode of collective transportation. Maybe it could be in tunnels and ride on metallic rails. It would serve many people and make periodic stops to the same locations instead of the highway clusterf- we have today. Sad that we don’t, but a man can dream though. A man can dream though. A man can dream.
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The US could import cheap quality cars from elsewhere but no. And thanks to Trump’s tariffs even locally produced cars will go up in price.
With their determination to ban cheap imported cars and make it hard to produce affordable cars locally you’d think they would plan ahead and invest in mass transit, but also no
Phil and I just had another kid, so of course we need a bigger SUV. Being a mom is hard, with soccer, football and lacrosse practice, so we bought the new Maibatsu Monstrosity. It’s so big! We lost little Joey in the back and couldn’t find him for an hour! When I’m rushing to the mall, or talking on my cell phone, I know me and my family are safe. The Maibatsu Monstrosity has 4-wheel drive, and in amphibious mode, it can cross rivers! So far I’ve only hit a few puddles, but it’s good to know it’s there. With the time I save taking shortcuts through the strip-mall parking lot I can focus on the important things, like gazing longingly at the pool boy or buying more exercise equipment off the TV. So what if it gets 3 miles to the gallon? I’m a mom, not a conservationist!
The new Maibatsu Monstrosity - mine is bigger
Before we blame Trump for everything, maybe Americans need to buy cars they can afford. An influx of cheap cars won’t fix anything when people are willing to fake it until they never make it driving expensive cars as status symbols. How many trailer parks have a Lexus parked out front?
The day I punch my own ticket is the day some tech bro makes a billion dollars selling public transportation as “service-based architecture.”
Do us a favor and at least take a billionaire with you when you go!
some sort of alternative mode of collective transportation.
OK ok but hear me out, going to sound crazy, what if we could like… put a smaller cheap mode of transportation INSIDE the bigger collective one?!
Like… I don’t know… a bike on a subway or train car?! 🤯
Non-paywalled link:
you’re doing god’s work; thank you. ;)
There are a lot of factors here, but Americans buying exclusively expensive trucks and suvs here is also part of the problem. Maybe that $75,000 truck is a bad idea on your blue collar salary Frank.
Uhh, how much do you think blue collar folk make? A lot of them could pay that off in a year if they have no other obligations, 5 year loan would be no problem. And more to the point, why does this feel like you’re denigrating blue collar work by insinuating they get paid shit?
Median blue collar salary in the US is about $35k.
But they all buy $50,000 trucks, they don’t even use them for work.
If they roll over the debt from 3 other cars, no, even well earning blue collar guys cannot affort yet another 75k truck.
Are blue collar workers well paid? Here’s some data: https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/median-household-income-by-state.
The data suggests that a $75,000 debt on top of rent or a mortgage would strap a families net earnings, but the pre-owned cost should be closer to $40,000.
In conclusion, debt sucks and over 5 years, everyone props up bankers.
People are getting subprime loans for new cars? Madness.
Yet we can’t get subprime loans for housing, groceries or starting a businesses
Thats been the norm for at least 5 years now.
And, just like with Mortgages 15ish years ago, these subprime car loans got bundled into ABS, Asset Backed Securities, and now they are blowing up, because sensible financial regulation is anathema to American capitalism.
Some is jacked…jacked to the tits…
The first sign was extending car loan lengths to maximize interest return.
Seems like a good thing, cars starting to show their “true cost”.
Now if only all the other external costs would be accounted for.
Seems like a good thing, cars starting to show their “true cost”.
it looks like they always have:
Days later, John Waldron, the president of Goldman Sachs, warned that the recent collapses might indicate consumers in the lower end of the economy are suffering, posing a further threat to US lenders.
If cars showed their true cost to society, they’d be far more expensive.
The “true” cost is and has always been the millions of lives they ended but we as a society don’t seem to give a shit.
That’s just deaths, no one even counts people maimed for life.
Let’s say, today, within these 24 hours, if more than 50% of the car engines have been started, a specific person will die for sure tomorrow. Can we prevent the person from dying if we know this beforehand? No, because there is always “I’m late for work” or “Why me? Why not him?”
One death is way too many for a civilized society.
Absolutely, hopefully these “true costs” can be accounted for, imagine for example the price of gas without government handouts, or the costs of traffic lights, street signs, and roadways.
The biggest secondary cost of cars is definitely health. Soo many deaths and healthcare costs from accidents, pollution, lack of transportation access, heatwaves, etc.
You’re telling me we built all of our cities for cars and it turns out the cars depend on human owners?? [Sarcasm] Damn, if only we’d had any idea at all we could have maybe skipped the cars and built things for humans in the first place!
[Very sarcasm] Oh well, you can’t win at all. That’s how the saying goes, right?
Wow… Hopefully this trend continues. More people on public transit or biking please, thank you.
It’s an issue in some shit hole states that are red because we don’t have the public transport infrastructure, and even if demand rose they’d still push it out. We’ve had votes on a tram and subway here and they both got put in the dirt.
