When I buy a vehicle I expect I’ll own it for 5-10 years so I buy a vehicle I’ll try to be happy with for 5-10 years. I also try to buy one I can afford to fuel for the next decade as well. I expect in a decade we’ll be paying alot more than $4 per gallon.

Call me crazy but gas prices are low because the oil industry is trying to lure their addicts (us) back to the pumps more often. Once we’re back with our 18 mpg family hauler prices will resume their climb.

CAFE will accomplish what economics will do naturally later – push people into more frugal vehicles. Except Detroit’s business model doesn’t allow a profit on small cars b/c of too much overhead. Oh shit – now what? Lobby for lower CAFE requirements. Just overlook the rising Chinese and Indian lifestyles. Just overlook the fact that despite Al Gore’s poor leadership IMHO we may have a pollution problem in the near future. Forget the we are consuming the earth’s resources faster every year. Forget that the modern American (and other first world countries) suburban lifestyle is likely unsustainable without using up our resources and damaging our environment.

If the car makers can’t cope then they are much less imaginative than I thought possible. This is the part of the history books where the American influence begins to shrink. This is the part where we have to acknowledge the ride was fun but it is about over now and it’s time to get back to work. This is part where the large vehicle good-ole-boy American my parts are bigger than yours as you can see by the size of my truck and the bull testicles hanging under my rear bumper is over and we have to learn to be clever and imaginative all over again. How do we live in our cities, farm thousands of acres, haul freight, and keep the lights on without consuming thousands of gasolines of oil every minute?

We don’t have to go back to the 19th century or anything but we have to acknowledge that the easy living can’t go on forever. If we don’t we’ll wake up one morning in the 19th century.

Long live Detroit if they can bear to survive.

Pelosi’s website. Don’t have the link handy. Madness. Must dash.

RF
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