Free Republic

Number 1 vetting criteria Trump should use to pick a VP: “is the Deep State as afraid or more of this person as president than they are of me?” His VP pick is his life insurance policy. Too many people on this list fail and the Deep State would love to have them ascend to the Presidency if something happened to Trump.

I am not opposed hybrids, but the environmentalist lobby does not like them. They are also a lot more complicated and expensive due to the duplication of powertrain functions for the two modes of operation. I do believe that to have any possibility of making these new economy standards, automakers’ fleets will have to be all hybrids and pure electric.

Those modules are what make a lot of the 90s and newer automotive technologies possible and actually make the cars more reliable and easier to troubleshoot and maintain. If not for the CAN BUS that those modules communicate through, the huge bundles of wiring would make it difficult if not impossible to trace and troubleshoot problems, incredibly heavy and on the whole less reliable. Because of the CAN BUS you can plug a diagnostic computer in and figure out most of the problems in the system. If a failing module is taking down the whole car, a good diagnostician can quickly isolate and identify the cause.

The downside is that because those modules are so specialized, and their function is difficult and expensive to copy or duplicate they will ultimately doom the car as it gets older. After a few years the only way to get a replacement for a bad module is from the used or reconditioned parts market. As those markets dry up over the years, and especially for lower production run cars, you ultimately will not be able to keep the car going at any reasonable cost. That said, my cars range from 16 to 32 years old and I still have been able to get any module part I need.

EVs have a useful niche in the automotive market. For people with short to moderate commutes, a garage or parking place they can charge at home and another vehicle to take on long trips, an electric car is a viable option. If you have a long commute, live in a city or apartment that you can’t charge at, live in a climate with extremely cold winters or only have one vehicle the usage case is not so great. The problem is that governments are trying to shove them down our throats.

So many aspects of the market are not ready for the mass migration to electrics either. Oh well. 1970s redux.

I agree with all the objections to new cars. Too expensive and too many “improvements” that detract from the driving experience, increase costs of ownership and maintenance well beyond the value of gas saved, and reduce the useful life of the car.

The average age of my cars is 23 years. My family’s newest vehicle is an almost 16-year-old Toyota minivan. It was the last new car we bought. The next oldest vehicle is 19 years old and now my oldest, who is the same age, drives it. My own daily driver is a 2003 Lincoln Towncar with only 105k on the odometer, drives like a dream, has all the options I really want in a car and I bought it used for 90% off the original sticker. Other vehicles include a 1999 Ford truck for use as a beater/hauler, a giant 2000 Chevy Express for family trips and a 1992 Miata for fun drives on nice days. I can get into any one of them right now and have no worries taking it on a long trip but to buy all of them together today would be less than the cost of the average new car and the maintenance cost of those 6 vehicles together is easily less than half of the loan payment for the new car. Why buy new?

Given how biased this judge has been, I could almost see him giving instructions this crazy.

Traditionally a college liberal arts education was for the wealthier or most intelligent young men. These men were then expected to form the leadership and intellectual class for their generation.

For the last two generations we have told kids that college is required prep for many/most jobs. No longer is college the top crust of society, but your average kid is expected to get a college education. The need to prepare for and attend college is drilled into every kid from grade school through high school.

We only need just so many leaders and intellectuals. A lot of kids are given crap degrees they are unable to use- and that includes any degree with the word “studies” in the title. Most of these people can’t even make good use of a solid classical degree like English, or Philosophy, or Economics. They simply lack the intellectual strengths or the societal connections to really use that knowledge. Frankly, many of those mid-wits are ill-equipped for a more hardcore science class as well.

That is part of the reason that they have around a hundred days of inventory sitting on dealer lots.

Of course the elites don’t mind cheating to win. They think they are smarter and wiser than the unwashed masses allowed to vote in this country.

All part of the plan to break down society. Overwhelm the system with stupid laws that restrict people’s genuine civil rights in favor of some made up civil rights at the same time criminal violence goes rampant. End result people have no sense of security for their person’s or property. Social trust is broken, the middle class disintegrates and the people in charge can wield the power they so desperately want.

My understanding is the Federal government is jumpstarting the process with money to expedite the cleanup and the bill will ultimately be paid by the shipping insurance group.

I don’t know why everything has to turn into a conspiracy theory anymore. A cargo ship malfunctioning and hitting a bridge does not seem outside the realm of bad things that happen naturally. I don’t see the bridge as particularly significant in the grand scheme of American roadways. If a terrorist wanted to make a statement, 6 hours later would have been a much better time.

Seems obvious to me but then I don’t have a vested interest from a bunch of lobbyists paying me off. That the definition matters at all is a symptom of the effects of overly intrusive government on our society.

Yet another reason why all my cars are older. My phone maybe tracking me, but I can deal with that. I don’t want my car recording my every move, where I go and how I get there.

I also like older cars because they don’t have as many useless and frustrating gimmicks. I don’t need everything to be integrated and interactive. I don’t want my car to tell me how to drive any more than I want it to tell other people how I drive.

If they are having quality problems, I would hope Ford would hold back and fix them before sending them off with customers. I have a F250 and a Lincoln that are pretty good, but those were well exercised and profitable V8/RWD platforms. However, my Mom has a Focus with a transmission that Ford engineers knew was junk before they released the car into production and they kept producing it for years, defects and all.

I am a little bit inclined to agree because as a GenX kid I remember that before they called us “GenX” they called us the “Slackers”.

On the other hand, there is something very wrong with the kids. In broad strokes, they are fat, unhealthy, entitled, easily offended, obsessed with computers, and possessed by radical ideas about climate change, leftist economics, etc. I say broad strokes because there are good kids that will do us all proud. I like to think my own, which all fall in the Gen Z range will be among those.

Fifty years of following the food pyramid have been disastrous for health on all generations. This generation AND their parents grew up on it so potential for epigenetic effects. I large proportion of these kids would have been the “fat kid” when I was in school. Obesity and chronic infalmation do a bad number on physical and mental health.

Computers take up an inordinate amount of their attention. I fight this with my own kids wanting to play computer games all the time. My kids are not allowed free access, but most kids have Tictok, Google and Instagram/Facebook constantly feeding dopamine as well through smartphones and every other device. This creates a constant state of distraction that is not conducive to getting work done.

Then there is the ideology rampant in the social media and schools/colleges. Liberals had de facto control of these things when I was young, but they tended to be more restrained and at least pretend to present both sides. Now academia and media are hard left controlled and not only have no pretenses about being unbiased. Schools at all levels are actively biased against anything that doesn’t fit leftist orthodoxy.

The three things that have grown in cost the most as a factor of the economy are college, health care and government. Kids are raised to believe they cannot succeed without college, and they cannot get through that without absorbing and spouting leftism. Health care is so expensive that people keep jobs they are unhappy with so that one trip to the emergency room won’t take away all their savings ad bankrupt them and the only remotely affordable way to get coverage is through employers.

And the government is spending their futures. 7% of GDP is government debt spending. Government employees are like the mandarins of imperial China believing that have the right to rule and that they don’t need to answer to the elected leadership. Ind the leftists have convinced the kids that the incredible and growing burden of regulation is neeeded.

I hope Don Jr gets his way with the type of VP his father nominates. If nothing else, he needs someone who the establishment fears as much as they do Trump for life insurance. Nominate someone at all moderate or slightly establishment sympathetic and I expect the Deep State to assassinate him.

I like and appreciate my old vehicles. They are reliable and I have most of the tools I need to work on them myself. They aren’t filled with the over complicated gimmicks that make cars so much more difficult and expensive to maintain with, in my opinion, a net negative to the driving experience.

As far as I am concerned, we are in an automotive low point similar to the 70s and 80s, and again the cause is government interference with the market.my newest vehicle was bought new almost 16 years ago and was near the peak of modern vehicles before the crash in 2008/2009. The things they do to shave a fraction of an MPG are not worth the cost and trouble they cause to the durability of the vehicle- stop-start, cylinder deactivation, high strung turbos all make for premature and expensive repairs. The so-called features like adaptive cruise control, lane assist, infotainment systems, etc annoy me far more than enhance the experience. When forced to drive newer cars I quickly figure out how to deactivate the nannies so they don’t drive me nuts. There is no way I want to pay for that crap in a new car.

Electric cars are fine for a limited set of use cases but are far from ideal for everyone. If you have a garage you can keep a charger, a short commute and another ICE powered vehicle for longer trips then they are great. If you live in an apartment or urban area where you cannot charge overnight or out in the country with a long commute then they aren’t so great.

As a rental I don’t want to spend hours sitting around waiting for the stupid thing to charge and I have yet to see a hotel with charging options. I am either traveling for business and have a tight schedule or for pleasure and don’t want to waste my vacation time at a charging station.

Real estate agents are a racket. They make a LOT of money for the minimal work they do. The 6% commission is especially been egregious in a market where high 6 and 7 figure houses were selling in a matter of days.

In a time when buyers can quickly search all the local listings and request appointments to see a home online, agents are obsolete. A whole new system of online listings, buyer qualifications and view schedules can be created to facilitate home sales at a small fraction of what realtors make now.

“The average American 65 years of age and up earns an annual pre-tax income of $55,335”

The average American above 65 isn’t “earning” anything. They are living off of savings, investments, and social security. Retirement means you have stopped working and are living off of what you earned through your working years.

The lack of additional earning is why it is a very bad idea to be using debt in retirement. Debt should only be used as a means of getting future returns, not supplementing current expenses.

It sounds like you are suggesting that Row Vs Wade was a good thing. If so I would ask you to consider that the lack of respect for life in the current generation comes from the lack of respect for life shown to them in the deaths of those many tens of millions. Human life is fundamentally valuable or it is not. We cannot arbitrarily say it is good in this case but not in that case or there will be terrible consequences.