gas prices, gas prices, and more gas prices.

Have you tried fitting things in a prius? Way roomier than an Acura.

The people actually running businesses from their trucks aren't the problem. If people only bought trucks they needed, there would be many fewer trucks on the road.

 

It definitely is. In the V I can throw my bike in the back and dont need a rack, or I can fit everything I need for a tailgate easily. Even with the backseats up, there is way more space in the back than I've had compared to most other cars I've driven.

 

My dad loves his for camping. He used to be a Philmont kind of camper, now he is happy to sleep in the back of the Prius and pay a little under two gallons for a night of air conditioning.

 

I tend to keep vehicles for a long time so worth it to me to buy new. My last car had 290k miles on it. I bought my RAV4 right before the pandemic. So lucked out on that front.

 

I drive a truck, 90% of the time by myself, 10% with family or pulling a boat or visiting a job site. I can't afford two cars and a prius isn't getting the boat and the gear back and forth to the ramp or the keys. I suspect a lot of other truck owners are the same way. I know a lot of others like myself.

 

Is that a phrase for "tent" camper?

 

I don’t know. This could easily be a lack of imagination on our parts as well. In 1900, ~40% of the workforce was in agriculture. Today, it’s more like 1-3%. Did we need massive government intervention for this change? Or a Scarface-esque last stand?

We can’t use a non-renewable resource indefinitely, that’s true, but after that, I think our scientific understanding of the future is much less precise.

 

We absolutely needed government interventions for industrial capitalism to take root in the manner it did, though that sort of intervention wasnt some sort of "New Deal" type program, it was more like prisons, strike breakers, corrupt arrangements with capital to curb worker power, infrastructure development favorable to capital (the railroads, highways, canals), etc.

 

Soon? Have you seen the stock market lately? My and my wife's portfolio has lost ~$50K this year.

Yes the Boomers generation have a lot to be blamed for re: issues....maybe it was because our parents (the greatest generation) spoiled us too much, and if that is the case it has been repeated more broadly with every generation since.

 

I would like to believe that is true, but suspect the reason is much more Machiavellian than that. Perhaps a useful idiot would be a more appropriate description.

 

That really isn't it. Its more like they simply had the good fortune to be born at the right time to amass pretty unprecedented material wealth, and are holding onto it for dear life, and more or less defined politics around it.

 

Agreed and were a major factor in the Stagflation that followed. My only point was only that the Executive does have the power to do something like that.

 

Probably a lot like the last time this happened in the early '70's and what they will do is panic and churn out a bunch of junk like the Pinto and the Vega, except that this time it will be electric.

 

Philmont is the BSA high adventure ranch in New Mexico. A Philmont camper is a carry everything you need over 50+ miles of hiking kind of camper.

 

You can afford a boat and time off to get to the keys, but not a second vehicle? Interesting.

 

As they say, it takes money to lose money

 

one or the other...we all make choices, or at least in a free country we are allowed to make choices. boat is paid for, has been for 15 years. I could also afford a second car if I wanted to give up travel but I get to pick where I spend my money and I prefer travel and fishing to having a second car

 

For work I drive 44 miles one way, 88 round trip with a lousy 17 MPG but sweet 4Runner 2011 (great condition). Love it for hiking on weekends too.

However at $4.49 for cheap gas I am shelling out $5,600 per year. My wife’s Lexus hybrid would cost me $3,500 in gas. $2k per year isn’t much incentive to go buy me a hybrid. A Tesla would cost me $950 in charge to drive to work saving $4,500 a year. If I kept the Tesla for 10-15 years it would pay off but I’d retire by then.

 

SUV...snicker

 

They made this country into the economic power it is. It wasn't a matter of being born a the right time...they made it the right time by their actions. The same generation that were born in Germany or Russia probably don't perceive that generation as having "good fortune."