They haven’t – yet – succeeded in “controlling” guns. Taking them out of our control, that is. One reason for this is the ferocious pushback from gun owners, who are numerous and take the threat posed by even innocuous-seeming schemes such as “background checks” and bans of “high capacity” magazines (and so on) very seriously.
It’s been the same – so far – with regard to their so-far-unsuccessful efforts to outlaw old cars. Or to enact legislation that would amount to the same thing via various end-runs.
It is still “legal” to own and operate a vehicle built without a catalytic converter, a computer, air bags, ABS and traction control – notwithstanding that according to current government regulatory standards such a car is “unsafe” (and also “emits excessive pollution”). But only because – historically speaking – there has been a large and very politically active old car hobbyist cohort. There is also SEMA – the Specialty Equipment Manufacturers Association – which is the old car/aftermarket car parts equivalent of the NRA. Whenever a Diane Feinstein type has reared its leathery neck to eruct a new law threatening old cars, SEMA – and the legions of old car hobbyists – have stomped it into the mud.
But, that rough equilibrium may be shifting. Because the old car hobby is graying. Check out who’s pictured in Hemmings Motor News articles, in magazines like Hot Rod and Car Craft. It’s the easy-fit jeans crowd. The young ones are in their 40s. The majority of them are Boomers – so, guys (and it’s almost always guys) deep into their 60s. Same demographic at car shows.
Viagra should look into the advertising/marketing opportunities.
Several factors have contributed to this:
For the most part – and for the first time – the young can’t afford cars as a hobby. If they have discretionary income, it’s spent on iPhones and such like. Not headers and hi-rise intakes (gray hair showing, eh?). Many do not have discretionary income.
They are worried about the rent.
The unemployment rate among recent college grads and people in their early-mid 20s is still double digits – Obama Happy Talk notwithstanding. And speaking of Obama: The insurance mandate recently passed will mean the money my generation (Generation X) had on hand for gas and car parts and stuff like that will go to Obama’s associates in the insurance mafia instead. A typical 22-year-old needs “health care” like a fish needs a bicycle – which is why when I was 22 I elected not to buy it (the health insurance, not the bicycle). Today’s 22-year-olds won’t have that freedom – you remember, the “freedom” other 22-year-olds are allegedly fightin’ for in Afghanistan and other such dismal places . . .
A higher-than-ever percentage of 18-35s live at home with mom and dad. When you’re a part-time barrista at Starbucks and have a $40,000 student loan hanging over your head, a car is just another debt albatross. Not fun. And so, they’re not interested.
The Great Economic Squeeze has done its work. 
There is also the Great Disconnect.
Kids don’t work on cars much anymore. To a great extent, because their dads don’t. The once-common bonding ritual of a dad showing his son how to do a brake job – and the son eventually graduating from that to more complex jobs – has been set asunder. Dad works all the time – and besides, he takes his computerized, air-bag laden whirlygig to the dealer for service. Which isn’t all that often, because formerly routine maintenance (spring and fall tune-ups, for example) isn’t routine anymore. Newish cars are – largely – maintenance free. This is good, but it does have consequences. One of which is that for the first time since the dawn of the motor age, the average person no longer has much, if any, hands-on experience working on a car. Even something as mundane as changing a tire is an increasingly rare event. Cars have become appliances – and one doesn’t bond emotionally with a washer-dryer. Or its four-wheeled equivalent.
So, you’ve got – on the one hand – an aging/graying cohort of old car hobbyists. And on the other, their kids and grandkids – who either haven’t got the money or the time or the interest in cars as other than appliances.
This changing demographic dynamic will make it much easier to Diane Feinstein “unsafe” old cars. The gray hairs will be portrayed as Mad Men-era relics who smoke, don’t buckle up, probably make racist jokes and hate women – who will be deployed against them in the form of “concerned moms.” And the Millennials? They just won’t give a shit. Hard to get excited when it doesn’t affect you – which is how they’ll see it. And of course, they grew up buckled-up, doped-up and much-concerned about “global warning” (scratch that, “climate change” these days).
There are many possible veins available to lethal injection older cars.
One of them is tax-by-mile, actively under consideration in several states and a very serious threat – because in order to tax by mile, a car must have a computer. Cars built before about 1982 don’t have them. Oh, certainly, one could log the mileage driven by a pre-computer car simply by perioidically checking the old-style mechanical odometer. But that won’t be allowed. Too easy to tamper with, the Diane Feinsteins will croon. Too hard to monitor in real-time (as by the insurance mafia, which is in heat to force every car owner to have his vehicle fitted with an electronic monitor that logs not only miles driven but how fast those miles are driven). 
How about – in the name of “climate change” – a carbon tax on the emissions of older cars? Or simply pass a law requiring that cars built before catalytic converters and fuel injection (and so on) meet current emissions standards. You will be allowed to keep on driving your old car . . . provided it meets new car tailpipe exhaust standards. Good luck with that.
Proposals along these lines have already been floated in California – and California is the birthplace of many beasts, who inevitably slouch eastward.
Another is the “safety” argument – the one boobus Americanus falls for as reliably as Charlie Brown trying to kick Lucy’s football. Cars without – check one – ABS, traction control, air bags are not “safe.” All it needs is one high-profile wreck of an older car without air bags or ABS or traction control to get the ball rolling. Check Top toys and Menards Ad. If it picks up momentum, it will be hard to stop. The general public has embraced the Safety Cult to such an extent that they not only tolerate but accept having their children fondled by strangers at airports. What won’t they tolerate? Besides which, the typical metrosexual suburbanite with his schwantz tucked between his legs, Buffalo Bill-style, looks extremely askance at old cars. Which are totems in his mind of redneck backwardness. 
There is also E15.
That’s 5 percent more ethanol in our “gas” – which is already E10 (10 percent ethanol, 90 percent gasoline). Cars made before the mid-’90s don’t do well drinking alcohol. It rots them from the inside out. If they succeed in mandating E15, it will be The End for old cars. At least, for the majority of them – whose owners will not be able to afford the extensive modifications necessary to keep them alive in a 15 percent alcohol world.
And for the handful that escape the noose, there are the other options already described.
By hook or by crook, they’re coming for your older car. Because they can’t control it – and thereby, you.
Throw it in the Woods?
great to see so many gear heads responding to the article! It proves the numbers are still in our favor!
Amen, Charger!
The co-opted/captive press does all it can to marginalize dissent – on this and many other issues; it tries (and often succeeds) in creating a false image of near-unanimity… in order to isolate and so demoralize the opposition.
A megapolis megabucks gratuit failed to seem to cause waste materials in addition kakfeddceeaf
Sad story from India:
End of the road for Hindustan Motors’ Ambassador:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/68f323ae-e4a8-11e3-9b2b-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=uk#axzz32uCwLlYF
At least “safety” and “environmental concerns” are not cited as reasons.
It’s easy to think like a clover, and improve society for the common good of the human herd. Listen to this plausibly great hive-minded idea.
Effective immediately: if any member of a pregnant woman’s family has ever committed any violent or unlawful act, her fetus’ thumbs must be removed before she is allowed to bring her child to term.
Harvard Medical overseas studies are still ongoing, but the reduction in violence and lawlessness has been off the charts. Murders, violence, crimes, they are all down over 90% or more. In a few populations, they have been completely eradicated!
Children born without thumbs were able to adapt, obtain gainful employment, and still retained 98% of their body’s functionality in comparison to the control groups who kept their thumbs.
The thumbless phase will only be temporary. It is anticipated, that after some number of thumbless generations, future offspring will again be allowed to keep their thumbs, because records of bad behavior would no longer exist in their family medical histories.
If all continues to go as expected, the UN and the CDC will be rolling this policy out world wide with the next two years.
@Tor – “It’s easy to think like a clover,…”
Well that is just it. Clover never “thinks” (it through), he just reacts and believes (feels) what he is told to think.
Ayn Rand described it as surrendering the mind at an early age.
Well clover, based on your response “I have two highly technical degrees” it would appear that I hit a nerve. So, since you are doing precisely what BrentP stated, “dick measuring”, why don’t you lay it out on the bar for everyone to see? Let’s get out the tape measure Mr. Buck Studly and see what you’ve got; what disciplines are your two “highly technical” degrees in?
I notice that you carefully qualify that “A degree can help you do what you want to do and often make more money doing it” but you don’t claim that’s true in your case; interesting. My former brother-in-law had a “highly technical degree” too, biology, but he couldn’t get a job (or hold one once he did). Now I on the other hand don’t have a degree, but I do have a stack of tech school, vendor school and employer training certifications that fill up a nice fat file folder and make for a very effective resume. I can practically go anywhere I want to, even at 55 years young, because there are so few I&C techs out there. I thank my uncle, is a degreed electrical engineer, for helping steer me into this profession; it has always paid very well. So you talk a lot of trash clover, but there’s a reason you won’t tell us, even in the most generic sense, what you do for a living. Ashamed, aren’t you?
And with respect to common sense clover, I have enough that I’ve managed to consistently hold a job since I was 16 years old, way back in 1976. After well over a half century here I still have a clean driving record, a clean criminal record, still have all my body parts intact and they work. Common sense is what dictates that I carefully avoid any and all unnecessary interactions with the state and its functionaries and I have for many years now. Guess what? I’m doing just fine without them. But where I am forced to deal with their antics, such as the income tax and the road in front of my house, nothing good ever comes from it.
The income tax should be self explanatory even for someone that pretends to be as obtuse as you do. But let me clarify it for you; taking a portion of the fruits of our labor amounts to involuntary servitude and that is illegal under the Constitution. It doesn’t matter what you or a group of seven black robed “Eunuchs in tunics” say; stealing is still stealing. And stealing labor from working, productive people is still involuntary servitude. You and your ilk routinely ignore the laws you don’t like, such as Amendment 13 to the U.S. Constitution concerning involuntary servitude or more specifically Amendment 5 that states private property, and there is no property more private than the fruits of one’s labor, may not be taken without just compensation. It’s plain language clover and it’s the law, so why don’t you stand up for that part of the law? Is your livelihood derived from stealing from your neighbors?
I can guarantee you that a private company would do a much better job of maintaining the roads where I live than the “county cronies” ever will. Why? Because if they didn’t we’d get together and hire someone else who would. But the “good ol’ boy” tax-feeder’s club (i.e. the county and the state) have a monopoly, so they don’t care how bad they tear up the pavement in the winter or how poorly they repair it in the spring. And for those neighbors that didn’t want to pay in? That’s easy enough; you set up a toll booth, with tire rippers. It won’t take more than one set of tires for some asshat like you to figure out to drop your quarter in the slot instead of trying to run through it. If you don’t think private roads and bridges can and do work, then you haven’t done your homework. Here’s a clue; look up the Nickel Bridge.
You probably don’t believe we’d have mail service without government intervention either. But look up the American Letter Mail Company sometime. Back in 1844 Spooner set up and ran a successful competitor to the U.S. Post Office. When competition forced the Post Office to drop their prices, rather than streamline to compete, the government stepped in and shut down Mr. Spooner’s company. Here again clover, government screwed the consumer, screwed private enterprise and look at the money losing mess the taxpayer supported USPS has become. The irony is that the Post Office and UPS now appear to be working together much to the chagrin of both the UPS Teamster drivers and the postal carriers under the UPS Mail Innovations program. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, huh?
And finally you state “without a government there will no longer be dollars. It would have to be gold or silver.” Let me remind you that Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution says Congress shall have the power “To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;”. To coin money specifically means that precious metals of known alloy are to be formed into standard denominations for use in trade; not paper. And if you read on to Section 10 you will see that “No state shall… make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts;” In other words clover, gold and silver actually are “dollars”, not printed paper.
It’s morons like you that have acquiesced to using illegal private banker’s scrip or “bills of credit” in place of specie or real gold and silver money. That’s the very reason we have inflation. Here, let me spoon feed you the truth one more time: back in 1913 if you spent $1.00 (i.e. 3/4 oz. of fine silver or roughly 1/20 oz. of fine gold) for goods and services, those same goods and services, according to the Fed banksters themselves, will now cost you $23.87 in their paper “dollars.” Don’t believe it? Well go here and prove me wrong: http://www.minneapolisfed.org/index.cfm . By their own admission the Fed has, with governmental approval, devalued the currency 95.81%. They’ve stolen real wealth from each and every one of us and your precious government has protected them all the way. Clover it should be self evident by now that government, not free enterprise, is the real problem and the only way to solve it is cut government to the bone. But then you would have to find a real job and actually work for living, wouldn’t you?
Thank you for that, Boothe… dealing with Clover’s relentless evasiveness, non-sequituring and tag team of ignorance and dishonesty makes my teeth hurt sometimes.
I’m sure yours are beginning to feel loose by now, too!
Eric, I just hold my nose as I use clover’s brain manure for fertilizer. He often shoots himself in the foot with his arguments (if you can call them that) such as his allusion above to having to go back to “gold and silver” for money; yuck!. It intrigues me that someone who claims to be such a whiz-bang investor is apparently oblivious to the fact that virtually all governments across the globe amass and jealously guard their stores of the “barbarous relic.” If gold wasn’t “real” money, they’d be shoveling it into dumpsters and dumping it in land fills. I think what makes my teeth hurt the most though is knowing there is no way clover is as stooopid as he makes himself out to be. That means he’s just plain evil and therefore well suited for a government work.
My little sister has a Chemical engineering degree and a near perfect grade point average and belongs to many societies and holds lots of certificates of merit and accomplishment.
She’s in charge of a whole slew of Engineers at Chevron Phillips in Houston, but has never engineered so much as a beaker of bicarbonate of soda in the real world.
Basically, she’s a babysitter of more qualified older men without degrees and also a corporate nanny OSHA brown-noser extraordinaire, truth be told.
She once regurgitated the right answers to engineering calculus tests and other assorted meaningless trivia for University Authoritarians. She’s also a beloved minority female engineer of our brave new future to be designed by dinghy blondes and oppressed minorities who are given all the answers in advance.
She is not by any stretch of the imagination, the type of mind who originates nor works within any of these fields of knowledge that afford our standard of living listed in this excellent Fred Reed article.
Likely your sister was told that there was a “need” for “Women Engineers”, as if the distaff side has some particular talents or viewpoints that would enhance the profession. Mind you, I’m not referring to engineers that happen to be female that have distinguished careers with many significant achievements. I’m talking about pushing through young women into a field that they’re temperamentally unsuited to WORK in, as, no matter how well they perform on exams, they have zilch aptitude for problem solving and project management. There’s a huge difference between a scientist and an engineer, each having their roles, which ought not to be confused. IMO, many female engineers would have made far better mathematicians, chemists, physicists, and geologists instead.
The anti-car folks will have a BIG opening, no a huge opening, with the advent of the driverless car. Not only will classic old cars will be verboten, but just about everything on the road today. Most won’t be able to be “fitted” with driverless computers.
And you just know that they won’t want a combo of driverless and cars driven by humans. So the drivers will have to go, you know for the children……………..sigh……………..
I agree, Rich. I believe we are living on borrowed time. Perhaps ten years. Maybe as little as five. As you say, once “driverless” (that is, cars driven by a computer) are technically and economically viable, there will be calls to outlaw vehicles driven by you and me.
For “safety,” of course.
Well said Bevin, Helot, Boothe, BrentP.
In much the same way that someone putting ink on a piece of rag paper doesn’t make a federal reserve note an honest store of value.
Likewise, some crony official putting ink on a diploma doesn’t make a US university degree a true measure of scholastic distinction.
“Newer cars are not that difficult to work on. They often do not need work. You pretty much do not have to touch them for the first 150,000 miles.” – clover
And how many good, used, older cars were intentionally wrecked by the Commie-In-Chief’s Cash-For-Clunkers program. Perfectly good, functional older cars were intentionally wrecked by pouring some kind of glue or something into the engine blocks, cars kids or other people would have been happy to buy for cheaper than newer ones and “have wheels” like we did.
Yup – and not just that. The cost of the remaining older vehicles went way up as a result. I bought a used ’02 Nissan Frontier shortly before the Cash for Clunkers program; it had 59,000 miles an cost me $7,400. That same truck – today – with 90,000 miles – would probably cost me $10,000.
Okay, I understand what you’ve written, and what the Feds want to do. I agree.
But this country is broke. People are maxed out on credit. If they don’t allow old cars to stay on the highways, there are going to be a lot fewer cars, because most Americans can’t afford new cars.
I drive a 1990 Dodge, and most of the summer I ride a Vespa scooter (it’s cheap transportation). I won’t ever be able to afford a new car.
“…there are going to be a lot fewer cars, because most Americans can’t afford new cars…”
David it looks like you are clueless as to what United Nations Agenda 21 is all about..
Watch this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVn_7SN-oGo
Hi IW,
Indeed.
In my area – SW Virginia – they recently imposed a new tax on water runoff. It is intended to make both new construction and homeownership more expensive. To discourage both. To encourage more people to live in the Urban Hive.
Eric, do you have a link to the SW VA tax on water runoff? This may affect me, too, and this is the first I’ve hard.
As this system undergoes increasing death throes, they will stop at nothing to take from anyone who’s ever produced and tried to store value in anything, whatsoever. Starve the monkeys.
They are implementing it in Roanoke and trying to do so here in Floyd. Here’s some info:
http://www.roanoke.com/news/local/roanoke_county/article_89bd96fa-99c6-11e3-8202-0017a43b2370.html
“they will stop at nothing to take from anyone who’s ever produced and tried to store value in anything, whatsoever. ”
….Stop! I want Off this ride!
One of the things I always have liked about some of the older cars I love…. those with SU carbs are immune to all the fuel issues. ALL the bits are metal, there are no rubber bits to go to rock in the rotten fuel. Most all English cars, and VOlvos, pre-about 1972 fitted these carburetters. Three moving parts each, and they are not interconnected. My old Volvos (all pre-1972/injection) fitted with these instruments would happily cruise at 85 mph all day long and deliver 40+ mph doing it. Probably half a dozen different examples of my own, plus another dozen or so of my customers, which Id tuned for them. Never failed to get this level of performance out of them. With a quick-conversion to electronic ignition (Perlux) I’ve little doubt that would move up a notch or two.
Some of the older Mercedes with Bosch mechanical petrol injection were also immune, as it was an all metal system. Amazing performance from those machines. The later Bosch CIS, fitted to VW, VOlvo, and some Mercedes models, wasn’t too bad, but never seemed to deliver on the speed/economy graphs, certainly not like the all-mechanical Bosch piston pump, or the SU Carburetter systems.
If I could find a decent one, I’d get and build up a pre-71 Volvo 140 wagon on SU’s, manual-overdrive, and have the space, towing, reliability, economy, I’d like to find. But, those bodies are hard to find…. sort of a cult following. Once in a while one turns up as a derelict, but it most often either lacks title or lacks body integrity. Not interested in a rust bucket.
I am buying an 85 Honda Goldwing, and the price from the dealership to make it ready for E85 was $275 dollars – with no warranty on the parts.
It is still cheaper than a car payment.
@Ken- Did the dealer tell you exactly what they will do to the bike for that price?
Hi Ken,
Assume that’s to remove/rebuild the carbs, replace fuel lines and various gaskets, seal the fuel tank – and so on. If they’re doing all the aforesaid, it’s a not-unreasonable price. And you should be good to go… until they begin to force-feed us E15….
I read that the goal is to raise ethanol to more like 80%.
85 percent, actually.
E85 – just 15 percent gas. Many new vehicles are designed to use it. They are marketed as “flex fuel” capable.
Even aside from the traitorous croo…errr…I mean politicians, we’re quickly heading for a day when there will be no such thing as a used car- because these modern cars are so complex and expensive to repair, that once they are out of warranty (Whgich is usuakly before they are paid off) they are no longer viable. You hop in the car one morning, and the horn doesn’t beep or the A/C doesn’t blow through the vents…it could easily cost you $1000 just to have the minor problem fixed…if the pros can even figure it out- which often-times these days, even stealership…uh…I mean dealership mechanics can’t. I know a guuy who had a problem with his out-of-warranty Duramax; spent $3k at the stealership to fix it…and it ain’t fixed!
Add to this the fract that we are subjected to the sadistic cops, who can stop us for virtually anything- real or imagined; traffic cameras; red-light cameras; checkpoints; – it’s hard to imagine it getting any worse…but I’m sure it will- shich is why I am leaving this hell-hole of a country. There are saner places to live. The US and former commonwealth countries have all gone insane. Our people are no better than the politicians whom they elect (witness who is in the WH…). This can not be fixed. It is a cultural thing (They changed our culture and replaced it with another, through government swchools and the media). If you care….GET OUT NOW, while you still can- because just like Nazi Germany…once they close up all the loopholes…they’ll be no escape.
Hi Moleman–where you planning to go?
We’ve been looking. As Matt Drudge said…”Have an exit plan.”
Uruguay. Cheap to live; no chemtrails; Still a decent civilized society of 75% European descent. I’ve been looking for ages- everywhere from Tonga to Chile… But just about anywhere is better than the US these days- even Russia. So don’t wait…go where you’re able; when you can. I’ve known people who have moved to Panama; Honduras and Chile- those wouldn’t be my choices…but the people I know are quite happy there. They’re all astounded at how free they feel, being out of the biggest police-state, and not having to live with gov’t interference in every aspect of daily lie. And even in places that you wouldn’t consider ideal, generally, once you get away from the big cities, it’s life like it used to be; like we used to know.
Dear Moleman,
Some people over at The Dollar Vigilante were saying good things about Uruguay.
They’re all astounded at how free they feel, being out of the biggest police-state, and not having to live with gov’t interference in every aspect of daily lie.
I’m literally salivating. It’s embarrassing.
The big question I have is–how to make a living down there?
And, how are their gun laws–both in fact, and in practice? In Mexico they’re officially totally repressive re; guns. But in fact, many people are armed on the sly.
My fantasy is to stop paying taxes, take the proceeds in gold, pack the kids with the guns/gold/grub in a sail boat and take off.
Beware. They elected a Marxist leftist former gurerrilla warrior as their president who thinks living the in-the-dirt lifestyle like it is 1800 in a box is a great idea.
Google: May 15, 2014
10 Reasons to Love Uruguay’s President José Mujica
by MEDEA BENJAMIN
He’s an environmentalist trying to limit needless consumption. At the Rio+20 Summit in 2012, he criticized the model of development pushed by affluent societies. “We can almost recycle everything now. If we lived within our means – by being prudent – the 7 billion people in the world could have everything they needed. Global politics should be moving in that direction,” he said. He also recently rejected a joint energy project with Brazil that would have provided his country with cheap coal energy because of his concern for the environment.
He has focusing on redistributing his nation’s wealth, claiming that his administration has reduced poverty from 37% to 11%. “Businesses just want to increase their profits; it’s up to the government to make sure they distribute enough of those profits so workers have the money to buy the goods they produce,” he told businessmen at the US Chamber of Commerce. “It’s no mystery–the less poverty, the more commerce. The most important investment we can make is in human resources.” His government’s redistributive policies include setting prices for essential commodities such as milk and providing free computers and education for every child.
Mujica’s influence goes far beyond that of the leader of a tiny country of only 3 million people. In a world hungry for alternatives, the innovations that he and his colleagues are championing have put Uruguay on the map as one of the world’s most exciting experiments in creative, progressive governance.
Yeah – that sweats me.
Being a non-citizen “gringo” in a foreign country probably puts one to the head of the proverbial line for wealth confiscation. There are only two options that I can see:
One, divest oneself of most physical assets and accept a downsized life. What you don’t have, they can’t take. The upside is it’s not necessary to move. One can do this right here – right now. Buy/build a small house – a trailer, ideally. Buy it outright. Live in as inexpensive an area as you realistically can. Keep only old, low-value vehicles. Earn just enough income to keep you from being subject to most federal/state taxes. Provided they don’t outright confiscate the wealth you’ve already accumulated, you could live in reasonable comfort without “contributing” much to their system for probably the remainder of your days.
Two, hope there is a genius out there who figures out FTL travel. Hitch a ride to Galt’s Gulch on the second planet circling a red dwarf sun in the constellation Orion….
@Eric – It is tempting to get out in front of the Cloward & Piven train wreck for the working class and get “poor” on paper. If you do the 535 elected royals in D.C. will pay for your health insurance, give you food and help with the rent. Not to mention a free cell phone.
eric…as mole said, very large european ancestry in “unexpected”places. when you go, you see people you preconceivedly associate with certain places – & then you see people who look nothing like the “plaception”: blue-eyed blondes, who were born there (& have been, for generations), speaking like brown-eyed latins. etc. argentina has 150,000 swiss. etc.
xenophobia. its possible. but that possibility contrasted with the probability of what will occur in the fatherland nets out to what? we know mises, etc, because he was among the lucky relative few who was able to get while getting was possible.
as for confiscation, diversification is the strategy. you domicile in one place, your $ domiciles in another, your business domiciles in a third. add backup layers as wont, preference & ability require.
bond. james bond. etymology: supplanter, holder of the heel – or, physician, supplant thyself to more fertile dirt patches, cuz the devil will take the heelmost. and, ‘oh! i have slipped the surly bond of this bit of earth…’
we’re all strangers in a strange land anyway, & wherever we go, there we are. mar(s)tini – shaken, not stirred.
The USA is emulating the 3rd world, it’s becoming third world. So I don’t understand the desire to go to the third world for wealth building. For a government that leaves most people alone because it doesn’t have the resources sure, but they’ll focus their resources like a laser beam on people with wealth to steal.
Maybe I have the wrong image… or maybe there’s a certain level where the problems kick in.
BrentP. That’s an intriguing question, “The USA is emulating the 3rd world, it’s becoming third world. So I don’t understand the desire to go to the third world for wealth building”
The old saying, “It gets worse, before it gets better” comes to mind.
I mean, think about it. A bully gets some power over a weakling. It goes to his head at first and he does all kinds of terrible things. Then, as he gets bored (or something) he’s not so cruel, not so extreme. He hasn’t the gusto he had before.
The gusto is gone in the currently third world nations.
It’s just building to a crescendo here.
A.k.a. where would you rather be: at the middle of the avalanche, or at the bottom where it was just a slow rolling rock or pebble you could easily sidestep and everybody was used to it and ignored it?
That said. I’m in the Danger Zone for Rocks Falling. I currently have No plans to evacuate. Although I’m sure it’s a damn good idea to do so. The sign up ahead says there’s turns in the road and steep downhill/steep uphill up ahead. Oh boy.
I won’t be surprised, but I’m sure as hell betting the clovers of the world will be. They’ll be the death of many of us, same as with a thrashing panicked drowning man to a rescuing swimmer.
@Eric–whenever I start indulging my Get Out Of Dodge fantasy, I read a post like yours that brings me back to reality; chances are, we’ll end up fighting this out here.
Then I whipsaw back to the thought–“How stupid did the ‘stay-and-fight’ Jewish Germans feel?”
Which whipsaws me back to “it’s world-wide this time”
At the end of the day, I’ll go wherever I can keep my weapons, blend in when needed, and protect my family effectively.
That’s looking more and more like rural Texas, or the American Redoubt–Montana/Wyoming/Idaho.
@Helot—” They’ll be the death of many of us, same as with a thrashing panicked drowning man to a rescuing swimmer.”
Another reason to get out of the cities.
meth…
have you been in very many fights? any where you were vastly outnumbered (or outmatched)? if yes, then your synthesis is different than mine. or mine now. it has changed, expanded, i’d say, from when i was younger. if i were then as now, maybe i’d not be afflicted with physical damages sustained decades ago. ‘course, life is fare, & they get collected one way or another, until the ferryman takes your last bit & drops you the other side of the styx….
most of the stay-behinds didn’t have the easy option. official channels were narrow even before they were closed entirely. so, it was more of a wetback prospect, but “getting out”, esp families intact, within/without europe, had much slimmer odds of success.
it has been “worldwide” twice in the past century. but that characterization was/is just a “bit” of arrogance, as you know. “we are the world” (say the overweening assholes…let them keep saying it, & let them have it).
“weapons”. firearms, yes? they are a sense of security on par with piggy’s estimation of the conch. which is to say: false. my old man, synthesis-stuck, went to prison, at about the age i am now, for “manslaughter”. that didn’t protect the family. nor would it have if he’d been the one killed. he put himself in that situation, & situations just like it, practically his whole life. it only has to go wrong once. which happens often enough mana a mano. when you’re facing an 8 deck shoe of card-carrying authoritarian chain–of-commandos, well, it ain’t nothing like card counting (which even that can fetch an ass-whipping).
situational awareness – is that like…volunteering for, or choosing, or reflexing to, masada, thermopylae, wackamolewaco, bloodyrubiesridge, martyrdom, mythopoeia, screenplay scripts (with as many takes as needed)? i don’t think so.
“everybody needs a place…to escape” tim o. talks up situwareness in this enjoyable flick – couldn’t find a clip.
i get the all or nothing, this place or that place, horns of false dilemma thing. it’s an electrochemical default, a rheostat. a cheap umbrella policy gives better potentio(per)meter of life ☻…better to have & not need than….
brent p’s “3rd world” factors not the most important bit to “wealth building”, which is simply: don’t lose, or waste, $ that can be converted to capital (it’s just another kind of frugality, or living below one’s means…). in the overweening (mentally constructed/swaddled) “1st world”, graft & corruption are highly sophisticated & institutionalized, the skim comes right off the top, of everything, automatically – starting with the clipped fed notes themselves. there’s a lot of opportunity cost to be “1st”. then you go, & see just what a lumpish construct “3rd” is. panama city…may as well be miami, but w/all the good sophistication, & a lot less of the bad . montevideo? quito? buenos aries? santiago? plenty of satellite environs around & about these friendlier bits of the planet, earthling. earthling. valentine smith was martian, not some arbitrary, warlorded, fraction thereof.
Fewer guys interested in cars means fewer guys wanting to be mechanics.
Fewer potential mechanics means the price of service has to go up or the quality down, or both.
My experience has been both.
A few years ago during a State inspection at a Dealership, they told me my car failed due to the center mounted stop light not working. My vehicle has a hatch back.
They said they could pass the vehicle only if they could fix it and then asked me to sign them up for the job. When I suggested I would drive it home or to another inspection station, they told me the vehicle was unsafe, and they would notify the police if I got in it.
This was on a work day , mind you, and I was losing revenue with every hour I was gone. So I reluctantly let them try. Knowing my Jeep pretty well – having rebuilt EVERYTHING in it at least once – I couldn’t imagine it taking more than a few minutes to fix.
An hour passed – and they told me it was in line for a mechanic’s attention … but I saw the kid they had working on it pulling it to a corner of the garage …and he never left it.
They probably didn’t have a mechanic there over the age of 30. And the service manager was maybe 31 or 32. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but in retrospect it seemed pretty important.
Three hours later, I am very impatient. And I start asking them what the he!| is going on.
Eventually they present me with a $370 bill for labor, tell me that the computer is either fried, or shorted, and that is why the center mounted high stop light isn’t coming on. They still decline to let me have my keys back and tell me they’ll call the police if I try to drive it.
Now I am burning mad. So they send their service manager. He comes out with a handful of gadgets including Chrysler diagnostic computers of varying ages, OBDII scanners, etc. And proceeds to plug them in and show me how the switch isn’t working, but the various computers can’t determine why not.
So – on the verge of being ready to tear the kid’s head off – I walk to the back, open the hatch and grab the rubber conduit through which the wire harness passes. I told him to press on the brake while I fiddled with it – because that’s the obvious place for a wiring failure in the hatch to occur first. Of course, the light immediately comes on. I jiggle it and it turns back off. So I tear off the rubber conduit and plain as day the insulation has cracked on a wire.
I had it fixed before he got to the back of jeep. And still being hot under the collar, I asked him why, WHY! his “professional” mechanics couldn’t find and fix a lightbulb in over four hours with all the reams of information on my jeep they had and I didn’t, while I found and fixed it in less than 5 minutes???
His lame response was that they have a diagnostic procedure to follow, and they can’t deviate from it.
BS! The problem was that they weren’t mechanics at all, just wrench-turners with a gadget fetish. And between them and the gadget, the gadgets were the smarter of the pair.
I don’t know how you kept your cool.
Threaten me? My immediate response would be “Fuck you, I’m taking it. Do your worst you little shit.”
That’s one of the worst mechanic stories I’ve heard in a long time. Man, threatening customers? “Ooooh, we’ll call the police”
Mealy-mouthed little authority-fetishers. Probably beat off into an old cop hat they keep under the bed.
He told you correctly.
They have procedures.
People don’t think any more. That’s been the goal for the last century. Turning people into drones that follow instructions.
I hope you refused to pay them. I would have just left at the first instance of their attempted shakedown, then pulled into a nearby parking lot and fixed it.
Wow!
Me, I was so burnt-out from having been in a car-related business for some years, that for a while, I was getting to where I’d actually go to a high-priced mechanic to have stuff done. I take a van to him on which the horn didn’t work. Should be a simple fix, eh? He couldn’t figure it out…but his computer was suggesting all sorts of possibilities. He assured me that he would try and not charge me more than a certain amount.
Rather than let him play with it, I took it to another guy who had a reputation of being good with wiring….he figured it out in two minutes, without a computer and the repair was under $50.
I’ve since gone back to doing my own repairs- there’s just too much incompetence and dishonesty out there- and with even seasoned mechanics following computer prompts and diagnostic procedures, it’s like all thinking has been removed- and it’s always the obvious, simple things which get overlooked.
The fact that modern cars are so needlessly complex exacerbates the problem- because a general mechanic these days has to have more knowledge than a doctor, to be good- but few people with the ability want to be mechanics these days- so instead, you get the guys entering the profession who are there because they were whisked off to vo-tec school because they were too dumb for other things; and too dumb to even know what they were getting into, and that they could never excel at it. And those who are truly good and competent, and passionate about the profession, are working at Lambo dealers…not at the Chevy dealer or Joe’s Garage. Bad situation!
Your story takes the cake though0- threatening to call the cops on you! That’s worse than the time a friend had some carpet installed, and the installers called the fire inspector on him!
The best thing to do, if you choose to do your own work on your vehicles is to obtain the factory service manual for each of your vehicles. A bit expensive? Possibly, but well-worth it. I have NEVER paid a mechanic for automotive repairs, save those that were under warranty.
The factory service manuals are much more detailed than those to Chiltons or other manuals.
I’ll amen this… I have factory manuals for all my stuff. The Chiltons (and so on) manuals are okay for basic stuff, but often lack specificity for a particular model. Anyone who intends to seriously wrench should consider factory manuals in the same light as a good set of the right tools – which in a way is exactly what these manuals are!
I would take one look at the “I’m gonna call a cop” guy and…
I had my motorcycle at the big authorized dealership to have the 4 carbs checked and synchronized before a long trip. @ $100.00/ Hr the “expert” mechanic screwed it up worse then before. So back on the phone for the redo. Soonest they could get me in was five days later. They languished around all day knowing I was waiting, then finally re-adjusted my carbs. Still wrong. After the trip I bought a $30.00 flow tool, turned one screw 1/4 turn & smooth as could be. Service manager claimed concern (as per policy I assume) but really did nothing, couldn’t care less, and still charged me full price.
Sad to say I think we have arrived at the ultimate lack of skills time/ money dichotomy with so many things.
Hi Gary,
It’s particularly important to be cautious about allowing anyone unknown to you to wrench on an older bike. A 26 year old “tech” at the dealer may have no clue how to deal with a bike that’s older than he is. Sure, he could grab a manual – assuming he has one – and follow procedure. But then, so could you. And you don’t have to charge yourself by the hour to do it.
Hi Eric. They are a very large dealership and repair shop. A Honda ST1100 is not exotic or rare and the procedure is simple & straightforward. My feeling is the mechanic just wanted it out of his way and tried to do it by ear. And the service manager…I don’t know… but he sure left me with a bad taste over the affair. Granted the dealer gets $100.00 / Hr and the wrench turner gets a whole lot less. But it is our current state of affairs that quality for the money is gone and has been replaced by Get-R-Done greed and mediocrity.
That’s pretty sad, Gary.
Truth is, though, I dinna trust any of them. I do all my own wrenching. That way, I know it was done right. Especially valve clearance checks.
Tell Honda about your experience.
@Ron – I thought about it at the time, but that was 2 years ago. Since then I have taken Eric’s advice. I have the books, tools & time (billed to me @$100.00/ Hr.) to do my own now.
USA #1
Well at least we used to be. It is happening just as Ayn Rand predicted in Atlas Shrugged.
Gas Prices Soar To Nearly $6 A Gallon After Point Reyes Station Accident
CBS San Francisco
Drivers visiting western Marin County this week should make sure they have plenty of gasoline as damage to a Point Reyes Station gas station has left the area with few places to refuel, the California Highway Patrol said Wednesday. The next closest station in nearby Bolinas has raised prices to nearly six dollars a gallon as desperate drivers fuel up there. A vehicle collision at the Greenbridge Gas & Auto Service station at 11401 state Highway 1 in Point Reyes Station has caused major damage that disabled all gas pumps, according to CHP Officer Daniel Hill. The gas pumps will take 4 to 6 days to fix, leaving the Marin County coast area with only one gas station in Bolinas. The next closest gas station on the coast is in Bodega Bay, around 45 miles apart, Hill said.
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/05/14/gas-shortage-in-point-reyes-leaves-drivers-with-few-places-to-refuel-on-highway-1/
USA #1
Bay Bridge rods helping hold main cable are misaligned, may need repair
Charles Piller – The Sacramento Bee, San Francisco Chronicle
The anchor rods that hold in place strands of the main cable of the $6.5 billion San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge have a new problem: They are skewed off-center inside holes of the steel plate to which they are secured. Among the 274 rods in anchorage chambers at the eastern end of the suspension span, 205 are less than the required 10 millimeters from the inner surface of the holes through which they pass, according bridge authorities. In an earthquake, the rods – essential to the span’s structural stability could be damaged by friction or collision with the plates, said Andrew B. Fremier, deputy executive director of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, who revealed the problem at a meeting of the Bay Area Toll Authority on Tuesday.
http://www.sacbee.com/2014/05/15/6408924/bay-bridge-rods-helping-hold-main.html#mi_rss=Latest%20News#storylink=cpy and
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/New-Bay-Bridge-defect-could-be-trouble-in-5482092.php
Good thing these morons weren’t around to build the Golden Gate in 1934.
Dear El Gordo,
Your entire ordeal was a metaphor for the difference between the free market and statism.
I say this because the dealer did not represent the free market. The dealer invoked state violence so that he could get away with doing a number on you. The root of all evil is the initiation of force, the violation of the NAP.
Obamacare is the health industry counterpart to your ordeal.
We sort of did it to ourselves with the stupid prices given at heavily broadcasted car auctions like Barrett-Jackson, etc. Now every swinging dick with a rusted out 318 Duster sitting on blocks in the backyard thinks he has a $50,000 “classic”.
Hey Eric
The destruction of the old vehicle is well underway with the E10 fuel.
A recent example is a repair I undertook for a friend on an 86 Ford F-150 that was running too rich. The old 300-6 and Carter YF carb are a standard for old truck durability. Upon dismantling of the computer controlled carb I did not find the usual damaged float control situation I was expecting- but a petrified combo accelerator pump/power-valve diaphragm. On this model the diaphragm is pulled downward against spring tension by manifold vacuum at idle and light load- lifting the power-valve and injecting accelerator pump fuel on throttle motion or load (lower vacuum situations) As the diaphragm hardens – it shrunk and lifted to wide open power valve mode. A new “Hygrade” carb kit was installed and his computer controlled feedback system was made to function surprisingly well once again. (I have years of carb and feedback carb system knowledge and experience having repaired THOUSANDS) It was what I like to call a “Crowd Pleaser job” Running far better than the customer has ever remembered or experienced.
8 months later its back- blowing black fuel smoke and running like a dog. Dismantlement shows the identical situation- rock hard accelerator pump/power-valve. He has been using the standard E10 fuel.
Making a long story shorter- The kit is not warrantied due to massive failure and conditions beyond the manufacturers control (as per parts house) Needing a solution- I locate with much searching a diaphragm that is alcohol claimed resistant and install it- runs rich..etc fast forward 8 more dismantlings and modifications to the power valve lifting, height etc… It will NOT work. The fuel is being drawn from underneath the diaphragm by engine vacuum AND the characteristics of the alcohol resistant diaphragm do not allow it the same travel and flexibility.
Repeat this situation over a wide variety of vehicles, motorcycles and power equipment. Motorcycles with cv carbs and rubber laden petcocks etc are turning to wood or mush. (rub syl-glide into the parts to resist deterioration)
I wont even get into carb metal deterioration from the alcohols water carrying effect…
I have heard of a lawsuit against the EPA and alcohol fuel by the small engine manufacturers but have not looked into it.
From the trenches of battle-
Ken
There are some places still selling unadulterated gas:
http://pure-gas.org/
Unfortunately I don’t have a source any reasonable distance from me. I have not had too much trouble yet with my old vehicles due to ethanol but I figure it’s just a matter of time.
It’s great that you have a high level of experience with those computer-controlled carbs, I see them as pretty ghastly. I have one on an old AMC Eagle 4-wheel-drive that gets used mainly for winter duty. (I think it’s actually a Ford system, the carb is a two-barrel Carter with a stepper motor controlled by the computer. The computer also fiddles with the ignition timing.) The engine compartment on this thing is a maze of vacuum lines and crazy emission control devices.
The New gas is death to many engines.Chain saws,lawn mowers and anything older.
I hear adding some 2 stroke oil to the gas helps out. Marvel mystery oil?
I’m fixing up a 91′ Mercedes 300te right now as my wife & kids daily driver.(let’s hope I don’t regret grabbing it cheap)
I hate having car payments. Her current car is a 91′ Volvo 740, with north of 280,000 miles on it…the odometer & speedometer broke around 30-50K ago at 280K…so who knows how many miles are on it.
It refuses to die, it’s amazing. She ran it both out of oil and coolant here in SC last summer, the temps at the time were somewhere above 100 degrees at the time. She called me and I drove out to take a look(she was just down the road from the house fortunately), after seeing what was going on I thought for sure it was finally dead. But just for kicks I put oil back in it and filled it up with water just to see….it fired up like nothing happened to it…lmao!
Now the half the seat belts have stopped working(it has the third row seating too), the paint has seen better days, hubcaps are missing on a couple of wheels, no working A/C…but I’ll be damned if it just won’t actually stop running. When she starts it, there’s a copious amount of piston slap and blue puffs of smoke out the tail pipe…it used to eat about a quart of oil now every 1000 miles, although now I use 20w-50 and it has cut it in half. I still have to top off the overflow reservoir every month too.
I hope the 300te will be as bullet proof…but the Volvo looks so rough and without functioning seat belts for the kids, I just couldn’t stand it anymore.(I have a wonderful wife that doesn’t car about any of that, but is more concerned with helping to maintain the household budget)
I’ve been working on this 300te in my shop now for a few weeks, fixing all of its issues….thinking about everything you posted in the above article as I’m doing it…it’s well written.
I’m soon to be 43 years old…if I was working on an old muscle car I’d probably be happier about the whole affair…but it’s a daily beater for my wife…so it’s drudgery for me. Still better than car payments though….most of my generation and younger “marvel” as my ability to fix cars(not all), it’s sad for me to witness only because it seems so easy(now I guess, I didn’t have a Dad around so I had to learn it all myself).
It’s a strange end game for a country that once was heralded for its love of cars…the economy and regulations have reduced the cars to utilitarian things without distinction to most of the US population. What an unceremonious death.
It’s a strange end game for a country that once was heralded for its love of cars…the economy and regulations have reduced the cars to utilitarian things without distinction to most of the US population. What an unceremonious death.
Well said. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.
I’m 27…I taught myself to fix my truck because I couldn’t afford it. Now I can, but I still do because I like to. Most people are amazed at my ability to do this as well, since it does seem to be a dying skill set. I don’t do new cars through. It is hard for the younger ones including people my age to get a good old car unless you are getting a real beater (see victory auto wreckers commercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0appa13XK4) or an old truck of some sort. At least truck prices have stayed fairly low, but 15mpg highway is not appealing for younger people either.
if I was working on an old muscle car I’d probably be happier about the whole affair…but it’s a daily beater for my wife…so it’s drudgery for me. Still better than car payments though….
I feel the same way about maintaining our four 2000’ish family Volvos. Standardizing makes things easier though. 🙂
Yes there are so many that say the good old days of cars but it is my guess if you took 99 percent of the people back then that they would prefer to have one of our modern cars. Kind of ironic isn’t it?
Well, Clover, wouldn’t it be nice to find out? By leaving people free to make – and sell – such cars? If, as you believe, simple, inexpensive cars without air bags and so on would never make it in the market – why not get rid of laws forbidding their manufacture?
If such cars are so undesirable, then surely there’s no need for those laws… right, Clover?
PS: We’re still waiting to hear about your latest engine rebuild. I’m sure you’ll get right to it after you come back from winning in your SCCA class this weekend…
Eric you ask about my latest engine rebuild. Eric I have not seen a car engine that needed to be rebuilt that was manufactured in the past 15 years. I am sure there may have been a couple but not like the huge numbers of the ones built 50 years ago. Eric I am not going to change the laws to make cars get only 9 mpg again and you will not either. Only a stupid person would argue to bring back death traps and gas lines.
You ask me about my engine rebuilds and I ask you the details of how your world is going to work without any taxes or government. My last engine rebuild was a jet-ski engine. Give me the details on how your new society is supposed to work?
Clover, I don’t believe you’ve ever torn down/put back together an engine. Your idea of “rebuild” probably means replacing the air filter.
Which you no doubt installed upside down.
I’d pay to see you put in front of a workbench with a disassembled car or motorcycle engine and all the tools/parts needed to put it back together.
It’d be almost as fun as getting you to demonstrate your driving skills at VIR.
Open invitation.
If you squeeze real hard, you just might pop your head out of your ass.
engine rebuilds & “society” rebuilds….
one’s in the mechanical/engineering sphere, & one isn’t. this error in judgement is how tool wielders become wielded tools. organic vs borganic…..
“bliss” –
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAsgavFvohI
“Eric I am not going to change the laws to make cars get only 9 mpg again and you will not either. ”
You first mistake/fallacy is assuming cars would regress to this by striking down laws. You’ve confused the advance of technology with the legislative environment.
“Give me the details on how your new society is supposed to work?”
That’s what you don’t understand, society doesn’t need a great central planner, like the behemoth out of DC. If you asked people what their interaction was with the Feds prior to 1913 you’d have been hard pressed to find anyone saying anything other than the mail, and yet society advanced up to that point.
The fallacy you are proposing is that society’s advancement was because of central planning and further that the lack of such planning would end up with a societal regression.
Eric – I doubt clover can squeeze that hard. 😉
Nick and Eric again I asked how your society would work without government or taxes and again all I here is it would happen. No details. Not even a link anywhere explaining it. I know, libertarians want freedom but they do not have a clue or are smart enough to tell us how to handle it if it would happen.
Before 1913 there was little federal government? Why did you need much back then. Before that you road horses to where you were going. Life is hundreds of times more complex now then before 1913. If you want to go back to those days then get rid of planes and you will not have to worry about getting searched. You would not need to worry about someone flying down the interstate because there was none. I do not even know if the word terrorist was actually a word yet. Explain what would happen today without any taxes and government. Surely you can come up with something? I have not even seen an example of your ideal world in any country across the world. Surely there is one you are trying to pattern off of.
Eric I am busy this summer so I will have to decline your engine rebuild. I made enough money off of just car stocks to pay someone 20 bucks an hour to do it for me. Eric there are few guys with a college degree that are rebuilding engines for a living. Leave that work for the high school dropout. Eric it is not that difficult. You do not need a PHD to rebuild an engine. You do not need a high school education either to work on a modern car but you say it is so difficult.
A free society would be organic, Clover. Individuals would freely associate – or not. They would cooperate as and when it seemed suitable and agreeable to all concerned parties. The only instance when violence would be countenanced would be in defense against violence. Otherwise, every interaction would be peaceful – and voluntary.
Such is inconceivable to you, I realize. Because when others disagree with you, you are not content to agree to disagree. You lust to force others to do as you believe they ought to – for the sake of “progress” (as you define it) or some other noble goal (such as “safety”).
What you are, Clover, is a creature who believes it has a natural right to lord it over others.
This is noxious beyond description, but it’s particularly galling coming from a mediocrity such as yourself. A person of – at best – very average intelligence, who is borderline illiterate as well as innumerate and who lacks any tangible skills or talent. Who almost certainly makes his “living” by make-work/shysterism, funded by money taken from others at gunpoint.
You have contempt for the doers – for people who can rebuild engines. Who understand “how to make it go.” Because you know you’re a nothing. A nonentity. A pathetic coward who lusts to do violence, but hides behind the skirts of euphemisms such as “society” and “government” – and lets others do the wet work.
Der tag kommt, Clover.
Assuming, Clover, that you’re not simply some jerk that is ‘being all he can be’ behind the anonymity of the Internet (e.g., you’re lying your ass off), your pompous arrogance is coming through, loud and clear.
First off, many folks whom are quite well-educated, at least in the formal sense (and I’ll put my own college degrees and training thanks to my service up against yours, anytime), not that “educaton” need be limited to the ivy-covered halls or the white-haired, lab-coated professor, lecturing from his proverbial ivory tower. Even some 40 years ago, learning to be a professional mechanic, well beyond the grease monkeys at Jiffy Lube, was no trivial matter, and it’s gotten yet more complex, though many principles remain the same as when I took auto shop at Lake Howell High School in Florida in the 1970s. I’ve fixed mine rides myself out of economic necessity, then for interest, including the desire for practical knowledge, something which obviously you have no familiarity with, and also self-reliance!
You are basically correct about the great increase in the scope of the Federal Government’s self-aggrandized powers since 1913…hardly a coincidence, as both the 16th and 17th Amendments were rammed through that year, AND the Federal Reserve Act passed. And since then we’ve had quite a few economic recessions and a “Great” Depression, which lasted over a DECADE (funny how most economic downturns prior were over in a matter of MONTHS, as a then “free” market founds its bottom on its own), only alleviated by another by-product of those events of 1913 – a war, more specifically, the “good war”, “Dubya-Dubya Two, Da Big One” (Archie Bunkerese), which in our part came but 23 years after the Nov 1918 Armistice that effectively, though not formally, ended the “Great” War, or “War to END all Wars” (laugh), never mind all the “police actions” that we’ve sent American boys (and a few girls) to die or get maimed in, in diverse locations like Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and so on. And as if the cost of fighting all these wars hasn’t been onerous enough, we’ve had an assorting of “wars” on domestic issues like crime, drugs, poverty, and so on, most of which, for all the monies spent and freedoms trampled upon, has, if anything, exacerbated the respective problems!
Clover, when it gets to the point where the State (of Confusion) Air Resources Board is so entangled in the car business in California that it prohibits, at seeming whim, the ability to buy or even “import” (from out of states suppliers) parts necessary to restore a 1966 Plymouth, even STOCK parts, with the obvious intent to frustrate the ability to make this vintage iron road-worthy, then it’s time to take action. Which in a limited way, I already did…I did drop off my absentee ballot at a public library yesterday, using the state Democrat party as a ‘guide’ (e.g., vote the OPPOSITE of what they recommend), we’ll see if it did any good. Somehow I suspect that if it really mattered then voting would be done away with. I’m sure, for example, that IF Prop 6 (repeal the “temporary” gas tax) passes, it’ll immediately be challenged in court, on whatever flimsy pretext I can only guess, and the will of the CA voter will again be frustrated by the PTB.
Clover writes:
“Nick and Eric again I asked how your society would work without government or taxes and again all I here is it would happen. No details. Not even a link anywhere explaining it. I know, libertarians want freedom but they do not have a clue or are smart enough to tell us how to handle it if it would happen.”
Clover, do you really think that people you dismiss as ignorant are obligated to educate your ignorant ass?
Go read a book or at least run an Internet search on libertarianism first.
You could start with The Market for Liberty, by Morris and Linda Tannehill, published in the 70s.
http://mises.org/document/6058
You could then go on to read hundreds of more books and thousands of online articles about free market solutions to social and economic problems.
Come back after you’ve educated your ignorant ass about the facts. On second thought, don’t bother.
Clover is never going to acknowledge the facts or follow the logic.
But for other readers who might be on the fence, here’s a video that might be informative.
If Not For Government
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzmOzQRq0ak&index=65&list=PLRkDC7LzbiK3DEMGadEnUx8TyCOaGGrzU
This is for all the people who don’t think we would have roads, protection, or anything else, without “taxes” (i.e., mass extortion) and the “guidance and management” (i.e., violent domination) of “government” (i.e., a parasitical ruling class).
You all are a joke. I asked how your society is going to work and you say “They would cooperate as and when it seemed suitable and agreeable to all concerned parties.”
Eric have you ever seen a business plan? So you start a business and for your plan you say you might get along with employees and maybe not. The end of business plan.
What a joke!
Eric when you live with 100s of millions of people you need to have more of a plan than that. You have not even explained how you will keep your local road up for repair. You have not explained how the interstate road system is going to change and how you will get together with others to determine it. Is your answer still something like “it will just happen”?
If the government will be gone tomorrow and no more taxes then what would you do tomorrow? What would you do this year? Would you just let whatever happen? When the local bridge starts to fall into the river what do you plan on doing?
What a joke you all are.
Clover, a business plan does not involve force. People elect to become employees – and can elect not to be employees.
Without realizing it, you’ve just explained how a Libertarian cooperative effort works!
Clover writes:
“If the government will be gone tomorrow and no more taxes then what would you do tomorrow? ”
Throw a party.
Hmm… write a “business plan” for the USA…
Gee…I believe the Soviet Union tried these things, they called them “Five-Year” plans, starting in 1928. This was on the heels of Lenin’s “New Economic Policy” (which meant that the Soviet government backed off on usurping the Russian/Soviet economy, lest they spark yet another revolution), and enabled the collectivizing of farms…which resulted, at least in the Ukraine (which had been the bread-basket of the erstswhile Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union), the Holodomor…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
Things got so bad for the Ukrainians that they welcomed the Germans, when they invaded in 1941, as LIBERATORS. Imagine that…
Of course, never let it be said that Commie rats like yourself LEARN from past mistakes. Good ol’ Chairman Mao (whom John Lennon at least admitted that if you read his little red book, you’re weren’t gonna make it with anyone, anyhow…) also applied HIS “business plan” to Red China in the 1950s, calling it the “Great Leap Forward”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward#Famine_deaths
Chinese historians estimate the death toll from a low of 23 millions to a high of 55 millions. So much for Mao’s ability to implement a “business plan” for China.
So…why in the HELL should anyone with two functioning brain cells trust some self-righteous, self-proclaimed twit with delusions of his own important and competence, to develop and implement any sort of “plan” for our lives? It seems that the Founding Fathers ALREADY set that forth, by leaving the populace, in their several states, to do fairly much as they damned well please, and in that Constitution, meant for purposes of unified foreign relations, and, where necessary, common defense (one of the phrases of the Preamble), there soon was also a list of LIMITS and PROHIBITIONS, at least intended to restrain this new creature of the several states from becoming all-powerful. Sadly, it has anyway.
Clover, Bevin hasn’t “decided” how our society would work. Notice that with you, everything is a collective? A collective held together by violence? Bevin wants to be left alone to do his thing; I want to be left in peace to do mine. We’ll leave you alone, too – and only ask that you extend the same courtesy to us in return.
Libertarians interact on the basis of free consent. Does this mean no cooperative interaction?
No, Clover. It does not.
Your premise – that cooperative effort is only possible via coercion – is preposterous.
If your neighbor approaches you, suggests it might be a good idea for the two of you to combine resources (financial or physical) to pursue “x” – and “x” seems worthwhile to you – are you really suggesting that you can’t cooperate unless government is there to force you to cooperate with your neighbor?
Or that the same idea – voluntary cooperative efforts – can’t work on a larger scale? That groups of people can’t get together on a non-coercive basis and pool their resources or work together toward a common goal without being forced to do so by government?
No, Clover. Even you must know that people can – and do – interact/cooperate without coercion.
What you object to is the idea of leaving people free to say no. To decide – for whatever reason – that they don’t want to cooperate with you, fund your project/approve your “plan.”
You are the ethical son of Hamilton. And Lenin and Hitler and every other murderous son of a bitch throughout the annals of history. All of them united by the same bedrock idea: That their “plans” trump other people’s rights. They all saw a “big picture” – and believed the ends justified the means.
Just like you.
Clover, you always ask others how [whatever is your question of the day].
Clover, what is your percentage ( number for the cost of government payroll, fixtures and operations) to pay for the wonderfulness you write so highly of?
Here is the current federal only number. Is yours higher or lower?
Between 2009 and 2012, the federal government recorded the largest budget deficits relative to the size of the economy since 1946, causing federal debt to soar. Federal debt held by the public is now about 73 percent of the economy’s annual output, or gross domestic product (GDP). That percentage is higher than at any point in U.S. history except a brief period around World War II, and it is twice the percentage at the end of 2007. If current laws generally remained in place, federal debt held by the public would decline slightly relative to GDP over the next several years, CBO projects. After that, however, growing deficits would ultimately push debt back above its current high level. CBO projects that federal debt held by the public would reach 100 percent of GDP in 2038, 25 years from now, even without accounting for the harmful efects that growing debt would have on the economy (see the figure below). Moreover, debt would be on an upward path relative to the size of the economy, a trend that could not be sustained indefinitely.
http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44521
I left out state sales tax, licensing, energy, property, vehicle, housing, local and municipal taxes, levies and fees required for a person to reside in the United States. We can add them in after you give us your magic federal number.
Clover – You back-pedal because despite your rhetoric, you couldn’t rebuild (or more accurately, overhaul) an engine. Let me give you a cute little anecdote to dwell on for a while that is appropriate to the “PhD” brain turd you expelled earlier. Back in the day (around 2005) I was in the smoking lounge of the Northwest World Club in Minneapolis listening as two other folks were discussing “environmental law.” A rather obese woman, obviously incensed by the man’s position she was engaging exclaimed “Well; I am a Juris Doctor” At which point he stamped out his cigarette obviously disgusted and left.
Being involved in “alternative energy” at that time, I picked up the conversation on environmental issues and after a few minutes Ms. J.D. Porker asked “Are you a doctorate?” I responded “No ma’am, I am not.” She continued with “What’s your degree in?” And I told her “I don’t have a degree.” She turned up her nose and her snide retort was “You don’t have a degree?” At that point I told her “No ma’am; I don’t need a degree. I have a brain.” She crushed out her cigarette and stomped out of the room.
When I related this to one of my coworkers a young female engineer heard me and asked “What’s that supposed to mean?” I said it’s from the Wizard of Oz. The scarecrow didn’t have a brain so the wizard gave him a degree. Based on what I’ve seen in the course of my life clover, especially on the “prestigious” campus of William & Mary when I was growing up, I’d much rather have a brain than a PhD any day.
Post o’ the day, Boothe!
You just made mine….
Boothe, I call people like that woman ‘good at school’. They are institutionalized people. They are good at schools, corporations, government, courts, institutions. Outside the institution where they play a sick social game they are useless. They are actually useless to the institutions they inhabit but because they are institutionalized they make a living at it. Since they put all their working hours into institutional affairs they rise in power and position.
When these degree types come at me I’ll often be crude and call it a dick measuring contest, then win it. Not many people can measure up to mine. I usually don’t say anything about it until someone gets like that woman.
Then there are people who know how to do things. I get along well with anyone who knows how to do things. People who a 180 degrees different from me in education like me because I will sit and listen to them.
Damn, this was good, Boothe: “No ma’am; I don’t need a degree. I have a brain.”
Ha! Ha! ha! The better-half of truth.
This shit by BrentP wasn’t bad, either: “I call people like that woman ‘good at school’. They are institutionalized people. They are good at schools, corporations, government, courts, institutions. Outside the institution where they play a sick social game they are useless.”
I may argue with you BrentP, I may give you Hell, but we’re on the same page on that. Brother.
I know a person who has never spent a day running a business or even being an employee (beyond low-level summer jobs) yet possesses a doctorate in business administration – and is now a professor of same.
Dear Boothe,
“The scarecrow didn’t have a brain so the wizard gave him a degree. ”
Truer words were never spoken.
I can’t begin to tell you how many intellechewal hacks with PhDs I’ve had the misfortune to deal with.
They were invariably “educated beyond their intelligence.”
Clover writes
“You all are a joke. I asked how your society is going to work and you say… “
Clover just doesn’t get it.
His tiny pea brain is trapped inside the top down, command economy conceptual paradigm.
He simply cannot grok a “world is flat” spontaneous order that does not involve someone at the top of a pyramidal hierarchy issuing commands backed by brute force intimidation.
So he projects his own blank incomprehension onto those who tell him he should be a free man and make decisions for himself.
What a joke.
Bevin I do not plan on rebuilding a car engine this summer. I have better things to do. I do not buy junk cars that need constant repairs so that I have more free time to do better things. Free time to go boating and water skiing. Free time to go for a walk in the country. Free time to go and see family. I work at a well paying job so I do not have to spend all of my free time working on an old rusted out car.
Thanks guys – It was certainly satisfying at the time to put that “J.D.” in her place. But I don’t want any of you to get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for folks who have useful degrees and actually use them. Many of the men I really look up to and who helped me the most growing up had degrees; usually in engineering and science. The one’s with totally useless degrees, like one of my aunts with her PhD in sociology from Berkley and a do nothing job at HUD, were typically what I call “granola people”; flakes, fruits and nuts. I’d stake a pretty good wager that if clover has a degree, it’s in the liberal arts. And that qualifies him to ask that one really deep philosophical question “Do want fries with that?”
Well, Clover, I’d rather have a brain than a degree.
I doubt very much you have degrees in anything “technical.” Conjuring Beauford T. Justice, there is no way, no way you could posses a mechanical or electrical engineering degree, or a degree in any truly technical subject. Prove me wrong, Clover. Give us your vitae. Tell us how you’ve applied your “technical” knowledge in the real world. What do you do for a living, Clover?
You’ve refused to divulge this information for years. Why, Clover? I think I know why. I think it’s because you’re some form of tax-feeding bureaucrat or rent seeker. Maybe an ex-cop. Maybe just a local government drone.
Clover demands to know “How would a free society do this, that, and the other.” He demands answers to questions he should have used his own mind to figure out.
That’s bad enough.
But when others point this out, and spoonfeed him some of the answers anyway, what does clover do?
He refuses to read them!!!
Why?
Because he suspects dimly (and I mean dimly) that they discredit his coercion based authoritarianism. So he concludes that if he fails to explicitly acknowledge them, no one can score points against him.
Talk about deluded. Clover doesn’t realize how such intellectual evasion discredits the statist worldview and makes converts to libertarianism.
“two highly technical degrees”
Even someone who had degrees from the local HVAC school would write in a much different manner than you do, Clover.
translation: some “BA” in “Natural Science” or other such non-disciplinary garbage that has ZERO marketability in the real world. At best, likely “Clover” could, IF (s)he puts him/herself through the appropriate graduate program, gain a teaching credential and inflict this nitwittery on a new generation of skulls full of mush, waiting to turn to shit.
Clarification:
I denounced credentialed academic hacks in a previous post.
Lest there be any confusion about this, I was not implying that clover was one of them.
No. Clover does not make the grade, even for that level. Clover cannot even write a grammatically and syntactically coherent sentence. He is borderline illiterate.
Many netizens fail to realize how much their online comments reveal about themselves, specifically about their level of education, and more importantly, their level of intelligence.
This is somewhat analogous to a lack of clothes sense. People with no clothes sense are usually oblivious about the gaffes they have made. For example, black dress socks with sneakers.
For example, as clover has penned on several occasions, “I could care less what… ”
Nuff said.
@Bevin – Clovers always accuse but never answer or solve. That and always lay the blame for the results of their disasters onto others for not giving the progressives enough time, money, or help.
Dear Gary,
That’s one of the most mind-boggling aspects about clover attachment to brute force coercion.
Clovers often insist that they value “freedom.” But wouldn’t anyone who values freedom seek solutions to social and economic problems that do not require pointing guns at peoples’ head and demanding their money?
When clovers insist that “Only robbing people at gunpoint can lead to solutions,” what else can one conclude? Other than that their real commitment was never to “freedom,” but to the sociopath’s classic compulsion to CONTROL other people?
@Bevin – Well of course. And it is for your own good too. Just because you are na ignorant incapable boob and someone smarter needs to walk you through life.
Dear Gary,
It’s no exaggeration to characterize this as a problem of human evolution.
Mankind is continuing its ongoing evolution, with both physical and mental components.
The worship of authority is a remnant of a more primitive stage in human evolution. It is a crude, savage mode of problem solving. Got a problem? No sweat. The more numerous faction within a tribe rams its solution down the throats of the less numerous. Democracy in action. Majority rule. The Will of the People.
The realization that solutions do not require brute force compulsion belongs to a more evolved stage in human evolution. Most people aren’t there yet. That is why free market anarchists run up against so much psychological resistance when attempting to promote 100% freedom.
You know what I think is funny clover?
I think people who buy a $25K car, thinking that they are going to “save money” over an older car after paying $30k or more with interest over 5 years(or more) and having to pony up for full coverage insurance each of those 5 years and WAY more in property taxes(in some states). Yea, I’m sure a couple extra oil changes are gonna balance the scales.
I’ve seen you spout a ton of bullshit in this comment section and wasn’t really interested in replying originally, well, because you are a moron. But since you’ve taken the time to make your moron argument with me, I’ll demonstrate a few of your moronic gems for everyone:
1. “I wounder(sic) how many people would complain about getting twice the gas mileage or far more. ”
First genius, you can get an older car that gets better gas mileage than a new Prius(I’m sure you are a big Prius fan) and all available new diesels here in the US. I owned one, it’s called a Honda CRX-HF. I routinely got over 60 mpg when trying in it. Mine was an 85′. You can find tons of these kind of older cars around(getting good gas mileage), if you aren’t lazy and do your research. (that’s not you obviously)
2. “One reason for that is the newer cars are a lot lighter than the old tanks we used to have to stop and the pads themselves are better.”
This is yet another moronic statement that need to be qualified. Cars have been gaining weight since the 80’s, PERIOD. Maybe I could buy your argument if you qualified it properly by saying you are referring to the 70’s, but you didn’t. You tried to cherry pick.
Side intrusion beams, airbags, etc. et al are all contributing to the weight increases since 80’s cars.
Further, it only takes one pad change on an older car to take advantage of the newer pad technology.
3. “Yes I remember the days when brakes had to be replaced every 30,000 miles and plugs every year or two”
So Mr. Mechanic, like the post above in regard to brake pads, have you yet to figure out that most older vehicle run great on iridium plugs? Do you even realize that the reason most manufactures say “no tune ups for 100k” is because of the plug technology on cars with distributorless ignitions?
I just put a set in on my old Bandit, they work great.
I have no problems with people that like buying new cars. I understand it. I love cars, new & old- but let’s not pretend that a new car is a better financial decision on the basis of maintenance or reliability when you compare it to a well chosen, well maintained older car when getting you from point A to point B as inexpensively as possible, because that is simply not the case.
Unless of course, you have no wrenching skills and the car is a older Mercedes or a basket case…or you make enough money where the opportunity cost is higher than paying someone else to do it.
So in summary, you are wrong, but I doubt that is going to stop you from running with the herd. If nothing else, you gave me an opportunity to demonstrate why so many people make poor financial decisions.
Nick, a local dealership has van out front on it that says…. 0% for 84 months. More debt. More punishing savers.
And indeed, cars hit their lightness and mpg peaks in the 1980s.
You forget one thing…if the customer WANTS a lawnmower with a windshield, then he ought to be able to BUY one from whomever is willing to build and market them. That’s the essence of FREE enterprise.
I support your right to pick and choose what “works for you”, but it’s obvious you don’t extend that “courtesy” to others.
@ Clover
Actually Clover, mine had 76hp and A/C as well.
It only makes sense from a design standpoint to ditch other power accessories as they aren’t needed for such a light car.(like power steering)
The big point being, people should have the choice of what they want to buy, the government and most people casting votes don’t like choices. But obviously you are on board with the whole concept of government choosing for us.
@Brent
7 years financing for a vehicle…wow…I guess we can thank inflation for that reality now. I wonder how many people actually qualify for the 0% rate…usually that stuff is just a “teaser” and you need a ridiculously high credit score to get it. But then again, I know there’s a lot of QE money floating about inside the TBTF’s.
Nick when cars had only 3 year loans the depreciation after 3 years was huge. It was about the same depreciation as a 7 year old car today. It is not that cars are all that much more expensive but they last a lot longer. 100,000 miles was a lot of miles on a car 50 years ago. Today the cars are almost like new after 100,000 miles if it was taken care of. I heard the average age of the cars on the road are around 11.4 years old. That is the average. That means at 7 years old the car would have more than half of its life left. Yes someone with common sense would understand that.
Nick it is not mandatory to have power steering or power brakes or power windows or seating for at least 4 but I do not even know of any new cars that do not have all of that. I know of no economy car that only seats 2 people. I am sure Eric may come up with one but I have not seen one. Nick even if something is not mandated by the government does not mean it is going to be an option. Many things in cars that are now mandated were standard equipment in many of the models first.
Bullshit – as usual, Clover.
The obvious example being air bags.
They were offered as optional equipment – initially. People could opt not to buy them.
Guess what, Clover? Very few people opted to buy them.
Your kind could not tolerate this. A “passive restraint” mandated was passed.
Now air bags are inescapable. If you wish to own a new (or even recent vintage) vehicle.
And not just the one or two air bags of 20 years ago, either.
Thanks to additional mandates – for our “safety” – most new cars now come with at least six air bags. Many have eight or more.
ABS was made de facto mandatory because stability control – which is mandatory – requires ABS.
The bottom line here, Clover, is that you and your kind refuse to let people freely choose what best meets their needs and wants. You believe what you think they ought to need and want justifies passing laws that impose your beliefs on others at gunpoint.
But it’s not just a moralizing fetish that obsesses you, Clover.
It’s also that you want others to subsidize what you want.
Air bags were extremely expensive when they were first offered as optional equipment. Clover wanted air bags – but didn’t like the price.
By requiring all new cars to be fitted with air bags, he figured he’d lower the cost. Which he did.
Of course, now everyone gets to pay – instead of just Clover.
I just realized that I’m being drawn in more than I’d like, but I’ll make one last response:
“100,000 miles was a lot of miles on a car 50 years ago. ”
We aren’t talking 50 years ago, we are talking 10-30 years ago. My 85′ CRX had 300K on it and didn’t even leak oil, it died in an accident.
Heck, my grandmother had a 65′ Mustang that went 300k.
“It is not that cars are all that much more expensive but they last a lot longer. ”
So aside from whether cars are truly lasting longer or not, let’s look at your claim of them not being “much more expensive”:
http://www.mybudget360.com/cost-of-living-2014-inflation-1950-vs-2014-data-housing-cars-college/
So compared to 1950, Americans are spending almost a 1/3 more on cars now(in terms of their income) then in 1950.
So again, you are a wrong.
I’m not sure what the rest of your comment regarding options on cars was meant to represent, but for clarity, I’m arguing that people should be able to buy cars without airbags, side intrusion beams, 5 mph bumpers, and a host of other government mandated equipment that adds both price and weight to a car.
To not allow it in the purchase of a new car, is simply the refusal of allowing people choices and options, which is both sad and totalitarian.
Hi Nick,
Indeed.
The car industry is damned if it does – and damned if it doesn’t.
On the one hand, the government demands ever-escalating “safety” of new cars – which almost necessarily means adding structure, which adds weight.
On the other hand, government demands ever-escalating fuel efficiency, which is hard (or expensive – or both) to achieve when the car in question is heavy.
The “lightest” new cars are in the 2,400 lb. range – an obscenity. Most current “compacts” are close to (or even exceed) 3,000 lbs. (Case in point: The current Toyota Corolla weighs 2,800 lbs.).
Meanwhile, a circa 1970 VW Beetle weighed around 1,600 lbs.
If you took a car like the old Beetle – gave it an overdrive/CVT transmission and updated the little air-cooled engine with EFI – the thing would probably be capable of 50-plus MPG.
And would cost maybe $8,000 retail.
But Clover, et al, have decreed such cars to be “unsafe” – and thus, no car company may build such a car for sale to the public.
Instead, we are allowed to buy $15,000 cars that weigh 2,800 lbs that get 36 or so MPG but which – per Clover – are “safe.”
For our own good, donchaknow!
Today’s car is designed to hold up generally for about 150K to 200K miles, after which point if something like even a water pump fails, the car is fully depreciated and a throwaway. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the auto makers and the “Gubmint” have definitely colluded so that some wrench-twister will find it difficult, if not impossible, to buy a water pump, gaskets, hoses, and coolant, and spend a Saturday going at it. Either the parts are simply unavailable, or there’s specialized fasteners impeding accessibility.
Gimme an old Ford Pickup with the 300 Six. True, it’s a dog off the line, but has, for its displacement, gobs of torque…and you can’t kill the damn thing!
Clover,
You should take a closer look at how average people take care of their cars. A car can easily be trashed after 7 years. You still wouldn’t want most 100k mile cars out there.
“100,000 miles was a lot of miles on a car 50 years ago.”
It’s a matter of maintenance, with proper care you can get a lot of miles out of such vehicles. The current Hemmings “Classic Car” magazine (July 2014) has an article about a 1950 Ford that is still in the hands of its original owner. It was meticulously maintained and did not require an engine overhaul for well over 200,000 miles.
Yes, that Ford has needed a lot of work over the decades, but the point is that it was feasible to do so. There is hardly a part in that car that could not be rebuilt or manufactured by a competent machine shop. It is difficult to imagine any car being sold today that will still be usable in 64 years time.
Or even 20.
Around that point, a car equipped with port fuel injection, four cats, cylinder deactivation/variable cam/valve timing, auto-stop, eight air bags, traction/stability control, climate control AC, an LCD display dashboard, “haptic” touch controls – etc. – will reach its event horizon of economic viability.
Keep in mind, too, that many of these systems must be kept operational as they are part of the car’s mandated “safety” features.
Long before then, when something that was once eminently fixable on an older vehicle (meaning it was cost-effective to pay a mechanic to do the work) now costs more than the vehicle is worth.
Yes, IF you scrupulously maintain your car, and unless you can at least do the basic things like replace filters, do oil changes, and a basic brake job, you will pay out the nose for a professional. Have you priced a “30K”, or “60K”, or even “100K” service, which is nothing more than the ROUTINE service that any shade tree mechanic could do in an afternoon and put away a few beers while listening to the ball game? Most folks that buy new dispose of their rides between 60K and 100K miles, once the drive train warranty runs out, simply because they get that “new car itch”, but also because they don’t care for paying $800 for a simple brake job or $650 to replace an alternator, when likely I can do those same jobs for a third of the price and with the same parts. And if something goes wrong with the engine itself or the transaxle, the vehicle is essentially junk. It’s all well to have 5-7 years of relatively “trouble-free” driving, which is a tribute to modern automotive engineering, but it ain’t FREE. And nowhere does it excuse any Government duty to prevent some individual, IF he’s willing to go to the trouble of keeping an old ride road-worthy, from driving an old car, whether “Clover” thinks it’s worthwhile..or NOT. That’s the big trouble with these elitists…they PRESUME to know what’s best for we “mundanes”, and ENJOY enforcing their will on us.
You can say all you want that newer cars are all junk but the fact remains that the average age on cars has been going up for years and not down. You say the average cost of cars compared to inflation is going up. The average car way back when did not have power steering, air conditioning was an option, a radio was an option, there were not power windows, there was either not cruise control or it was an option. Most options of the past are standard equipment. Then if you figure in the average life of a newer vehicle is longer then the cost of a new car is less. You go out and look for a 2 or 3 year old car. You pay close to new price. Depreciation is less than it used to be.
Eric if you want to get rid of all safety equipment then the speed limits will be dropped back down do to the increase in the number of deaths on the roads. Speed limits are up because cars are safer with the things that you want taken out. Just a week or two ago Brent was talking about how the government is responsible for safe roads for drivers driving 45 mph over the already high limit for the road. You start taking out all safety equipment and deaths will go up a lot. Even Brent mentioned how much damage there is to a car by hitting it in the side at 20 mph. You want no reinforcement to doors. You want a death trap if there is an accident. Eric when the government or the car manufacturer see those statistics of how little changes increase safety they make the changes. You freak out that they did not immediately change out ignition switches to save a handful of lives but with your changes thousands will be killed. Tell me what manufacturer would advertise, hey we can save you a few dollars by removing things from your car but we will have the worst crash testing statistics of all manufacturers by a huge amount. Buy our cars! That is why many car manufacturers added things like side air bags before the government told them to.
Clover – your reading comprehension is nil. Either that, or you’re just a vicious little liar. I’ve never once argued or even implied that “newer cars are junk.”
I have stated that they are: Expensive, over-teched, nannyish, too heavy, not nearly as fuel-efficient as they might be.
But never – not once – have I claimed that they are “junk.”
Just as I have never defended “drunk” driving.
It’s bad enough that you’re an idiot. But you’re not even an honest idiot.
Clover writes:
“Eric when the government or the car manufacturer see those statistics of how little changes increase safety they make the changes.”
No, Clover. They don’t “make” changes. The government issues decrees – regulations that have the force of law (though under the Constitution, only Congress is empowered to write laws). The automakers must comply – or else. The “or else” being violent repercussions.
And as an individual, I am not even free to disable/remove the “safety” equipment foisted on me at gunpoint by you and yours.
It’s not about “making changes,” Clover. It’s about forcing people to accept/do things at gunpoint.
Clover writes:
“You freak out that they did not immediately change out ignition switches to save a handful of lives but with your changes thousands will be killed.”
There is a world of difference between selling a product known (internally) to be defective without disclosing that fact to buyers and selling a car that hasn’t got some or other “safety” feature, which fact is known to buyers – who choose to buy it (or not) based on their own value judgments/risk assessment.
Imbecile.
@Clover–
Listen to a wise man, Samuel Clemens AKA “Mark Twain”:
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
Your problem is so much of what you take for granted, just isn’t true. But you don’t examine your assumptions–and build new ones on top of them.
It’s a foundation of sand. The building WILL collapse.
methylamine:
They said I was daft to build a castle in a swamp.
Clover, people turn cars into junk. It’s nice to find that car someone didn’t mistreat, but that takes time and effort.
clove… remember that old gum? don’t see how the piece you & the other chewers are passing around, cauim/sake/chicha-like has any flavor left, let alone inebriate delight, but evidently it does….
for a true safety/innovation marketing emphasis – as opposed pretense – see “tucker 48”. realize that the car-tel of that day “did not appreciate” – & that was that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucker_48
today the cartel is more expansive. interlocked. borg’d. driver safety is a concern in the same way that beef cattle horns are a concern: herd productivity, efficiency, profitability. and so, livestock dehorning (& deballing) is de rigueur.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livestock_dehorning
“common good” is incorrect; pretense; one of the big lies. “herd good” is correct; reality reordering of subject-predicate. but grammar’s not the point.*
*when grrrrammarian animals attack, btw, it’s ad hominem, indictment-packing, a quantity theory, a paint color preference-insistence (like ford’s famous color options), etc….
More lies, Clover. Or are you really that dense?
I never stated that new cars are junk – or “worthless after 4 or 5 years.” That is your invention; your deliberate lie. Again.
Ha! eric, you soo crack me up every time you end your rant against The clover with the word, ‘Imbecile’.
He/she/it, is.
You remind me of some mechanics in the factory fixing stuff the operators broke (the look they had, the attitude they had while doing so, said the same thing)… among many other similar instances in life.
Some Day, a-clover-will-think.
…A guy can dream, can’t he?
Or, is that some kind of solid oxymoron? A clover,… thinking? Outside the box. …sigh, no wonder Gary North says the Only thing that will turn this ship around is a default.
Never mind that an old engine can often be readily retrofit with a modern ignition system..for example, there are several aftermarket kits to convert a Mopar V8 (doesn’t matter if it’s an LA or “Magnum” series, a “B” block, or even the old Canadian-built “A” engine, or “poly head”, they all have the same firing order) to a distributorless system (you keep the distributor in place to drive the oil pump) for about $700? However, how tough is it to set the points and TIME the engine? Takes about TEN MINUTES! And even for the “Poly” head that my son and I are custom-building to use a 360 LA engine crank and pistons (a ‘360 Poly’), we can also easily get the Chrysler Electronic Ignition, it uses the same distributor, and with iridium plugs should get 50K miles on a set of plugs…which would be only about $50 when needed.
Hi Doug,
I have several old vehicles; some have been updated to electronic ignition, others still have points. Both have their merits – and both are much more DIY repairable because they’re discrete and relatively simple systems. There’s only so much that can possibly go wrong – and in the very worst case, you can replace everything for next to nothing (compared with anything “modern”).
They are thus almost immortal. My Trans-Am and my old bikes will still be running long after I no longer am – assuming they haven’t been confiscated and crushed for the sake of the Earf and because saaaaaaaaafety. And all of them are already pushing 50 years old!
Anything built after the late ’90s (and possibly the late ’80s) has a built in Life Clock. They work for 15 or so years and then become too expensive to keep because they are too complex to keep up and because parts cost too much and because most people can’t service them themselves.
Eric – do ya think there’s any truth to the rumor that many of these cars with various PCMs (Power Control Modules) are programmed to ‘self-destruct’ after a certain age or mileage? Just as with what you term “Sail Fawns”, there’s actually proof that the big makers, Apple and Samsung, have actually sent, as part of so-called “upgrades”, to their older lines (like the iPhone IV, for example), code specifically designed to foul up the vintage contraption!
Ever more the reason to acquire several sets of points and condensers for that vintage Plymouth and not lose that point file that my Dad gave me! At least that doesn’t have some hidden code designed to ‘Obsolete’ the vehicle!
“Nick and Eric again I asked how your society would work without government or taxes and again all I here(sic) is it would happen. ”
How am I supposed to respond this? I gave you the answer to your partially unintelligible question:
“That’s what you don’t understand, society doesn’t need a great central planner, like the behemoth out of DC. ”
If you can’t even understand my original answer, then it’s a waste of my time trying to explain it. Eric is obviously more patient than I am.
I think the question you really have to ask yourself, is why do you spend so much time on a website with viewpoints that you clearly mostly disagree with? Aren’t there more productive uses for your time? What do you get out of being here?
Ha! Nick. Your question to Clover, RE: ” What do you get out of being here?”
He/she/it is either being PAID to do so, or is just your typical troll.
Wow, I can’t believe what a lengthy bit they have on Wiki about internet trolls:
clover troll
Dear Nick, Helot,
Usually “Don’t feed the trolls” is the best approach.
But once in a while, it can be entertaining and even productive to “counter-troll” trolls who attempt to harass us, the way countersnipers pick off enemy snipers.
It’s a case of “Give them enough rope and they’ll hang themselves.”
Clover for example, has made explicit many of the charges libertarians level against statists. His responses, or non-responses as the case may be, have inadvertently revealed the intellectual bankruptcy of his belief system.
Nick what I am trying to show you is that you need to use your brain. I asked what are you going to do without taxes and government and you come back with a statement like before 1913 people got along just fine without much interaction with the federal government.
Do you want to go back to the times when we did not need a federal government? Do you want to go back to the time when there were few if any cars, no planes, no interstates and a time when few people traveled across the country? Back in the 1800s the primary government that you had to deal with was state and local. You had a local government/road commissioner to keep up the roads that were used by you and others and that was about it. If you lived in the city you had any city services at the time.
Yes you can do without any government if you never have to leave the place that you live and no one else does either. Our form of government is based on representation. If you lived in a small enough country you could have self representation. That is where you have a vote on everything. With 100s of millions of people that is not possible.
Then the realism hits that you are not going to be without a government or taxes anywhere in the world unless it is a small island. That is where your lack of using your brain comes in. That is when if you do not like it then you leave because you are only complaining about something that is not changing.
Clover writes:
“… what I am trying to show you is that you need to use your brain. ”
It’s not sporting to shoot fish in a barrel is it?
Ever notice how these government lovers, these statists argue that every advancement is due to the expansion of the government?
It makes the sun come up in the morning. The spring rains. Good crop yields…. just like in ancient times… just pay and obey or the snake god will eat the sun and everything will freeze and die.
“That is where your lack of using your brain comes in. ”
lol, you know what Clover? You are right.
I haven’t used my brain.
Had I used my brain, I wouldn’t have engaged in an argument with an idiot.
Not only have I been dragged down to your level, but you’ve beaten me with your experience.
You sir, are the winner. Congratulations.
Brent, Eric says you do not need a government. You just handle everything with your neighbor or whoever you need to deal with. Brent when you form an agreement with multiple people that is a form of government with self representation. Tell me Brent have you ever voted and why?
Clover, your package-dealing tricks will not work here.
The “multiple people” do not agree. A handful arrogate unto themselves authority to dictate to the rest based on the fiction of “representation.” No politician “represents” me, Clover. I have never given any of them a blank check to act on my behalf.
Perhaps you have. But that does not bind me, Clover.
No more than any agreement I make – any consent I give – binds you.
That’s what liberty is, Clover. Each of us a sovereign. No other person acting on our behalf – without our consent – forcing us to act against our will. Claiming to “represent” us; or because a “majority” has voted.
Why is that such a terrible vision, Clover?
And why is your vision – people lording it over one another, controlling their lives, doing them violence, never leaving them be – so got-damned appealing to you?
Answer: Because you’re a narcissist with psychopathic tendencies. It’s all about you – your feelings, your opinions, your beliefs – and and everyone else better play ball.
Or else.
@Nick
Yep, I just ignore everything he posts and put it in the trash can. For entertainment value Eric pulls out a few from time to time. I just wonder how much he gets paid to act like an idiot on this site. There is no way he believes what he writes.
@BrentP–excellent video! Sending it to all my friends now.
It’s amazing, isn’t it? This child-like belief, a religion much more fervent and faithful than the mainline “Christianity” glitter-bug bullshit they purportedly believe in.
Hold their feet to the fire and they’ll renounce that shit tout de suite and hold their pudgy little hand out to their REAL god, Big Brother.
Sickens me. Literally. I feel the bile rising.
Well, the good news is they’re not even a majority. Close; maybe 40%. But there’s a whole lot of reality out there and people are figuring it out.
Clover probably never will.
Our job after the reconstruction will be to keep the bastard occupied so he doesn’t put all this in place again.
Dear Brent, Meth,
The lyrics to the video are great. Complete with end rhyme even.
Rand pretty much nailed this with her “mystics of mind” and “mystics of muscle” dichotomy.
Democracy is the new, modern, progressive, secularized replacement for medieval religion.
The only thing that has not changed is the coerced belief and the inquisitors. The dungeons are now in Guantanamo, Abu Graib, and any local precinct station, where one may well be beaten to death by LEOs.
“The dungeons are now in Guantanamo, Abu Graib, and any local precinct station, where one may well be beaten to death by LEOs.”
Ain’t that the truth.
Game of Thrones, writ large?
I’m still shocked that so many others don’t see it too.
I guess they are too wrapped up in the false perception that, “Our form of government is based on representation.”
…And the tooth fairy is real.
Somehow I missed this the first read through, whoa does this ever pinpoint the error of so many?:
“Democracy is the new, modern, progressive, secularized replacement for medieval religion.
The only thing that has not changed is the coerced belief and the inquisitors.”
Bevin, you’re on fire, tonight.
In the background the crowd chants, “brink on the rack, bring on the _fill in the blank_ torture contraption”
Vampire nation.
Zombie nation.
Clads all around.
Blood sucking s.o.b.’s everywhere.
But at least they are Happy? … while your blood gets drained away. Or their neighbor gets beaten by the P.I.G.s. Or…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgPy3o_ML94
Ignorant Bastards.
Dear Helot,
“Democracy is the new, modern, progressive, secularized replacement for medieval religion.”
As the French say, “Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose.”
Or,
“The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
Hm, I knew that French saying.
I guess I’m the fool for having expected better of my fellow man, even If they were a day late and a Dollar short (Present company excepted)… I had, Great Expectations.
My mistake.
I don’t “say” (Christ!) they “will get together to decide what to do” about anything, Clover. Notice that with you, everything is implicitly coercive? Collective?
Individuals may elect to get together and may decide (each one acting for himself and himself alone) on a cooperative arrangement. Or, they may not. Any individual who does not agree with the others is free to be left out of the arrangement – and the others may not coerce his involvement.
Why is this concept (free association) so incomprehensible to you?
No one forces you to eat at McDonald’s, or work there. You’re free to eat there (or work there) or not.
Why should you be able to force me to pay for your road?
And yes, Clover, if I don’t pay, I don’t get to use it. Just like you don’t get a Quarter Pounder without paying for one.
So Eric you say you will only pay for the roads that you drive on. What kind of libertarian plan do you have that makes sure that you pay for those roads that you travel on? Who are you going to give the money to? Who do you pay for that road that you drove on 100 miles from home?
Clover, your utilitarian arguments are beside the point. The free market would sort it out. You want a cheeseburger? Go buy one. You want to use a private gym or country club … or toll road?
You pay the got-damned fee.
In any event, your cretinous control freaky is the ethical issue here. You want “x”? Then you make it, or pay someone else to – and buy it from them.
But don’t point guns at others who aren’t interested. That’s wrong, period – unless you’re defending yourself against physical violence.
Otherwise? Take your “plans” and shove off. If you can’t convince others to voluntarily support them – and aren’t willing to leave those who don’t alone and in peace – then you are just another thug.
You hide behind euphemisms such as “representation” and “majority rule” – but what it comes down to, asshole, is that you think you have the right to order other people about, take their things and threaten to have them caged or killed if they refuse to cooperate with you.
What makes you any different from the home-invasion robber? Answer? He’s got the balls to do his own wet work.
You don’t.
Eric, you say if you want a cheeseburger then go out and buy one? With what? Money is no longer good because dollars do not exist after the government is gone to back up the money. Then to make the cheeseburger you need to have the ingredients and way to get those ingredients to make the burger. Your roads fell apart because you did not spend any of your resources in maintaining them. Where are you getting those ingredients without a plan first? Is it just going to happen like you have been saying?
Eric you need to spend a few years in planning before you are ready to overthrow the government because you don’t have a clue what you and others will do.
Eric you keep talking about someone coming after us with guns to make us pay for things like roads. I have never seen it but libertarians say whatever they want to. If we had your libertarian society it would be ruled with guns because it would be self rule and self discipline. It would be like the wild west where the biggest or fastest gun wins. Take the guy out if he gets in your way.
Clover, you apparently do not understand what “money” is. It is not pieces of paper that have no value beyond that imputed to them by organized violence (government). “Money” – real money – has intrinsic value. Gold and silver. No need to “back up” gold and silver with anything because they back themselves up. I’d be much happier accepting gold or silver coins in payment for whatever than pieces of paper issued by a private bank backed up by organized violence.
Your paper dollars are worth less and less each year, Clover. A 2014 paper dollar is literally worth almost nothing compared with a paper dollar from 50 years ago.
Why is that Clover?
People such as yourself like paper money because it facilitates financial manipulation. “Investors” of your sort can pull cons such as lending “money” (value) that doesn’t exist in reality – at interest. Just print more paper! Then force the rubes to accept it and to use it. Make real money – gold and silver – illegal.
Your sort of “money” drives artificial “growth” – based on debt and speculation, not value produced and exchanged.
Without your sort of “money,” most of the evils we’re stuck with today would disappear.
On and on you go about your “plans” – which you maintain can only come together using violence. It’s pathetic, absurd and ridiculous. Self-evidently false.
PS: The “Wild West” was far more peaceful than today’s “law and order” society. Of course, you don’t know that because you’ve drunk the Kool Aid….
Eric, I figured that you would be a gold and silver guy. Nothing wrong with that except how many ounces of gold do you have in hand? I do not have any. Gold would have to be worth many thousands of our dollars today to cover the money we have in our economy today.
Eric if you live a miserable life there and you have no plan to change it other than a government overthrow then why don’t you move to another country that has what you are looking for. We will not miss you. We do not miss constant complainers without any plan on how to make things better. We do not need a person that just says there will be a big party with the change with drugs for all. It sounds like you need to go back to your college days. It sounds like you never grew up.
Clover – The “money” we are currently forced to accept as “legal tender” by “law” (i.e. under pain of physical violence against us if we try to use something else, witness the Liberty Dollar) is not backed by the government or even by industrial much less precious metal as required by the Constitution. Federal Reserve Notes are issued by a private banking cartel (the Fed member banks are not part of the government) and are nothing more than bills of credit; they are not money as spelled out in the Constitution. They truly are “counterfeit” and worthless. But because “investors” such as yourself buy into the ruse lock, stock and barrel, you like to ridicule and berate those of thus that actually see it for the massive fraud that it is.
If you would use your head and study a little history, you’d see what happened in the 19th century; overall prices went down due to productivity gains. The government did manage to force a couple of inflationary spikes with borrowing and paper money, due to a couple of unnecessary wars, but overall prices in real Constitutional money, dropped. It wasn’t until the Fed was given carte blanche authority to steal those productivity gains annually, then the gold and finally to issue bills of credit that steal capital as well, that inflation took off in earnest.
Gold would not be worth “thousands of dollars” because gold is in fact one standard upon which a “dollar” is based. A lawful U.S. dollar would actually be worth a tad bit less than 1/20 of an ounce of gold (or 3/4 troy ounce of silver) and if the law was reinstated and the standard upheld, the Treasury not the Fed would be responsible for issuing real money; gold and silver coin (or by extension fully redeemable gold and silver certificates). Prices and wages would drop over night and the banksters would go broke. But that won’t be allowed to happen, because the banksters themselves pull the real levers of power.
But if it did, as you implied, the government would have to revalue the currency at say $1200 dollars an ounce of gold or thereabouts to facilitate a “bumpless transfer.” It wouldn’t be perfect, but it would be doable and would benefit the average person in the long run. But as long as you and your ilk go along with and worse cheer on this bogus system, because after all “you’ve got yours, screw everybody else”, nothing will change. Delusion must be a wonderful thing clover, because you cling onto it like a tick in dog’s ear.
You can deny the facts in this case all you want, but that doesn’t change the truth of the matter; the international banksters have ruined our money and our economy with government sanction. Just because you claim to speculate with some measure of financial success (shorting stock is gambling, clover) doesn’t change that fact. So you admit that you operate under a corrupt system; that you go along to get along. Wow, I’m impressed. Guess what that makes you?
Methinks “Clover” and his ilk O’d on Star Trek, which was chock full of Gene Roddenberry’s bullshit ideas and his pollyanna notion that mankind would somehow overcome its very nature and get its collective shit together in some futuristic communist utopia. Man, that “Next Generation” series, which did end up hitting its stride as it wore on, nearly wore out its welcome with old Gene’s nutty ideas about humans no longer interested in “material” wealth (funny how Jean-Luc’s brother, whom he has an ongoing feud with, is the one that keeps the family vineyard going, or is he growing wine grapes for the ‘greater good’?) or even needing MONEY…or especially how Riker can wear lingerie and somehow bone the 6’2″ blonde head honch-ess, I guess that even in the 24th century size DOES matter!
Whenever I read or hear of somehow speak of ‘society’ in the context of ‘social engineering’, I roll my eyes and tell myself, here is someone on whom academics and related facilities, equipment, and money have been utterly WASTED.
Amen, Doug!
I am a fan of the original, but the insufferable PC proselytizing of Next Generation (Riker in a dress; that useless eater “counselor” who reminds me of the therapist who helped kill my marriage) ruins it for me. I found myself rooting for the Klingons or the Romulans…
I rooted for the Cardassians (they’re out-and-out SOBs and are damned proud of it) and the Ferengi, especially Quark, though both races hit their stride in Deep Space Nine.
As for counselor Troi, in spite of her feel-goody half-Betazed BS, she was eye candy, and nothing more (Martina Sirtis would probably STILL look tantalizing in that ‘bunny suit’!). I liked it when that temporary Captain, Jellico (Ronny Cox), while Picard and Crusher are on some covert mission in Cardassian space (why those two made no military sense), orders Troi to wear a goddamned Starfleet uniform, as she IS a Lieutenant Commander! And Ms. Sirtis did make THAT otherwise unisex travesty look good! But don’t EVER assume that LCDR Deanna Troi is ANYTHING like her equivalent in the United States Navy, and we can thank “Gawd” for it! My ideal fictional female naval officer would be Debra Messing’s portrayal of LT (later LCDR) Carpenter in the 1997 remake of “McHale’s Navy”! Few ever looked that good in USN whites!
Oh – another actress whom looked great even in that StarFleet leotard was Elizabeth Dennehy, daughter of longtime actor Brian Dennehy, she portraying LCDR Shelby, rival and foil to Riker (at times).
Even Ashley Judd looked “cute” (she was only about 23 when she starred in “The Game” in 1991), too bad as an obvious love interest for Wesley (give him something challenging!) the producers didn’t stick with the ESG Robin Lefler character. Too bad Ms. Judd has turned out to be a complete nut case!
A while back I came to a realization. Socialists hate the productive. They hate merit. It’s called socialism because they want everything to be a social order. Like social animals. Insects. whathaveyou.
That’s what why material wealth that is produced by merit and skill is demonized and never has a damn thing to do with what is produced through social hierarchy alone. Socialists are very bootstrappy when it comes to playing social games and sex. But they are first to make sure to steal from the economic success of some geek to make sure he can’t translate that into social or sexual success.
As to Picard’s brother, someone has to make the wine for the high party officials.
Clover, much of the engine problems and frequent oil changes was because the oil sucked. The rest is because the materials weren’t as good. This is why an engine rebuilt with modern materials using modern oils is just fine. Sure with a carb and tolerances in those engines they won’t go 10K, but they’ll do 6K with a good modern oil.
Hi Brent,
I rebuilt the 455 in my Trans Am about 15 years ago. Still tight as the proverbial drum. Granted, I do not drive it daily. But it could be driven daily. The main upgrade I did was to install an OD transmission. With the Q-jet dialed in right, the car starts/runs/drives very much like a modern car. It only feels/acts “old” when you need to stop in a hurry. I’m the first to admit that the factory disc/drum set-up (and 15×7 tires) were marginal back in ’76 – and atrocious compared with modern brakes/tires.
There are so few old (pre-1980) cars on the road there’s no need to ‘go after’ them.
Shoot, my daily driver is a 1997 Subaru, but as Eric pointed out in a previous column, one airbag deployment and it will be sold for scrap (too expensive to fix).
“Classic” cars are also an old man’s game – the kids or their kids will sell grandpa’s meticulously restored ’55 Chevy the week following the old guy’s funeral (soon the only place you’ll see those is a museum.)
I wonder if there is a business opportunity in buying cars where the bags have gone off and selling them in states with no auto inspections? Just a thought…
Hence why in the Gran Torino movie that it would have been tragic for Walt’s ’72 Torino to end up in his brat of a granddaughter’s mitts. At least the Hmong kid that he mentors and defends learns to appreciate the manly arts, including making your way in the world with your hands and your WITS…something lost on the “Soy Boys” that may as well rip off their testicles and nail them to the wall, which your average bull dyke feminazi would love to see happen!
Hi Doug,
It looks like I’m eventually going to play the role of Walt myself; what to do with my Trans-Am when it comes time for me to shuffle off to Buffalo? Hopefully that’s awhile off, but the thought does cross my mind.
They have to make cars too expensive for us to own to fully implement United Nations Agenda 21. Look into it if you are not informed. There are also other agendas here also, such a tracking and spying on us….
As far as I know guns that last forever as long as they make bullets for it, most old cars die within 10 years.
Not if you let them get rusty!
While I would never admit to how I know this, one “can” defeatthe “tax-by-the-mile” issue by purchasing another spedo cluster (GM electronic odo for certain) and periodically swap clusters.
Since any vehicle that deploys airbags is scrapped, these are plentiful and inexpensive.
Shhhhhh……..
The sad thing is cars seem to become just a way to get from A to B. I am an exception as I like historic cars. But Id say it’s more like the combo of safety-uber alles and social media that did the job.
Another factor is that the teenagers/young adults of today don’t need to drive anywhere to socialize, hang out, hook up, roll with their posse, whatever you call it. Used to be, teenagers did that in physical locations like the soda fountain, drive-in, or the mall. Now, the youth of today does so on Facebook, Twitter, etc.
What’s more, a car, particularly a fast or showy car, is no longer considered a status symbol among teenagers/young adults. Today, a gaming system or the latest smartphone is that status symbol. I figured that out by listening to the radio. Used to be, pop music used to have a lot of songs about cars, from “Little GTO” (1964) to “We Roll Tight Whips.” (2004). Since about the mid-2000s, I’ve been hearing more songs about social media and smartphones. The only car that young people are excited about to any degree is the Prius.
Finally, in the name of safety uber alles, it has become much harder for young people to get driver’s licenses, thanks to graduated licensing requirements (none of which has been proven to make safer drivers, incidentally.)
You have a graduated license system? What is it based on? – the person’s pulse or his favorite video game? How can a restricted driver be any worse than the other bumbling baffoons I have seen on US roads?
What I mean by that is that it’s no longer enough to show up at the DMV when you turn 16, take a simple test and you’re done. You have to get 100 hours of supervised training to get your license. After that, you can only drive at certain hours of the day (midnight-5 AM is off limits) and can’t have more than 1 person in the car with you until you’re 18.
Hi Bryce,
Yup. I pity ’em – the current crop of kids.
If it were actual training – vehicle dynamics, maneuvering and such like – that would be one thing. But we’re talking sonorous Cloveritic indoctrination sessions, whose main mantra is:
Submit & Obey.
Next up:
Speed kills.
Safety uber alles!
You must live on the east coast. The beacon of freedom place.
Sounds like Washington State :oP
Eric, cars built after the early 80s are much harder or impossible to work on by do-it-yourselfers. Add in the changing demographics of the country who only care about bling and you have a dying breed. I used to work on my own car but todays cars are computers with 4 wheels, not for self taught mechanics.
There are some you can still work on, so long as you don’t have to screw with the computer. I think Ford strings every wire in the car across the engine specifically to discourage “tinkering”. Both Toyotas I’ve had and my current Chevy are very easy to wrench on.
However, the ease of DIY is inversely proportional to power and fun-factor.
My 2000’ish Volvos, 870, S70, C70 are not too difficult to work on. Pretty much necessary given the price of professional service these days. I’ve replaced control arms, shocks, spring seats, sway bar end links, engine mounts, drive axles (cv joints bad), brake pads, timing belts, water pumps, radiators, thermostats, hoses, overflow tanks, tires, fuel pump, fuel filter, serpentine belt, ETM (electronic throttle module), plugs, COPs (coil on plugs). And some ghetto fixes like for the AC compressor clutch wear problem. Parts are often freely available on Amazon or Ebay. OBDII codes often tell you pretty much what’s wrong, or get you close enough to quickly find out. And then there’s this new technology called The Internet, with auto users’ groups that document common problems and fixes with repair instructions. I’ll admit though that some cars are more repairable than others.
People keep saying this, but it’s not true.
Simply not many people understand the practical mechanical/electrical and the computer networking and control systems. There are people who know one but not the other. See El Gordo’s story. They knew the later but not the former.
I have the luxury of understanding both well enough to get by. I actually like leveraging OBD2 in diagnosis. When it fails me I still have a vacuum gauge.
Newer cars are not that difficult to work on. With that said they often do not need work. You pretty much do not have to touch them for the first 150,000 miles except for fluid changes. I replaced the brake pads on my car a couple of months ago because it was a nice day and I thought they would be about due. The car had 105,000 miles on it. When I took the front pads off there was still many miles left on them. The back brakes hardly looked worn at all. One reason for that is the newer cars are a lot lighter than the old tanks we used to have to stop and the pads themselves are better. I changed the spark plugs at the same time and they still looked good. Yes I remember the days when brakes had to be replaced every 30,000 miles and plugs every year or two. I remember the exhaust having to be replaced every 3 years or 4 years. My last car had way over 200,000 miles and the exhaust was never touched. Yes the reason as Eric puts it that dad does not work on the car anymore is because it seldom needs work unless it is over 10 years old.
Then there is the fear that you can not keep your very old car. That is something the government does not really worry about. They are becoming such a small percentage of the vehicles on the road every day that who cares? Most people do not want to keep one of the old ones on the road every day that only got 12 mpg or whatever for just a car and needed a lot more maintenance. Newer trucks get better gas mileage than the cars of the past. In the snow zones the older cars that were on the road every day pretty much turned to dust all by themselves.
Clover – you don’t work on cars. You have no mechanical knowledge. How would you know anything about the function of new cars?
Your “knowledge” consists of your Clovertic feelings and opinons.
When you’ve rebuilt your first engine – and the thing actually runs – call me.
I’ll listen to what you have to say then.
Eric I know more about mechanics than you do. I have lived all my life and have fixed everything that needed work done on it mechanically. I have never had anyone come to my house. I am the one that the people that know me call if they need help with anything. I have worked on furnaces and heat pumps, replaced roofs, worked on lawn mowers, tractors pretty much you name it Eric. You are an expert at what? You want to bring back the old Volkswagen why? So that you get less hp, an engine that needs to be rebuild all the time, not very good gas mileage and dangerous compared to newer cars. An expert would say that?
And you can’t write coherently – or grammatically – either!
“I have never had anyone come to my house.”
There’s a surprise!
Poor ol’ Clover.
Well Clover I am impressed! I never realized you are 150 years old with so much experience and expertise. I will pay more attention to your droolings in the future.
“I do not make my sole living on making sure grammar is perfect. I could care less… Tell me Eric how much perfect grammar pays you? ”
Not being an idiot is priceless, Clover.
Clover, you remind me of the Pakleds from an episode of Star Trek, Next Generation titled Samaritan Snare.
While I have long predicted government first tracking all our driving and then eventually making driving a privilege only for party members in good standing and eventually only for those in government and cronies, they aren’t going to move exterminate old cars for awhile yet.
The tax-by-mile system won’t be in car computer based or transponder based as far as I can tell. These systems are losing out to automated number plate reading. While this later system is the most expensive it is most the difficult to evade. It’s our wealth they are using to construct this grid so cost doesn’t matter, what matters is how effectively it controls the population.
In car systems can be tampered with, turned off, or otherwise subverted by the driver/owner. Once done it requires some sort of enforcement mechanism that detects there is a vehicle on the roads without valid permission. The number plate readers do the tracking -and- enforcement. They can alert on cars that don’t have permission to be on the road.
The big threat for in-car systems are automated cars/roads. This is where we get claybrookian driving forced upon us and older cars getting transponders and the like. The “Progressive” no braking over 0.3g. Most of my hard braking events are because some clover is waiting to pull out, can clearly see me, even makes eye contact, and then when I am close pulls right out in front of me. So clovers can then induce insurance rate increases on people. Since they are often trolls that do this sort of thing intentionally, we’ll get more of it, but I digress.
It’s just going to be a long painful disappearance of old cars. Unless… another thing I predict will come to pass. Remanufacturing. Old cars, in mass brought back to life because new cars are unaffordable. I’m not talking restorations or even what we call resto-mods today, although it will be close to resto-mods. It will be turning used up cars into solid daily drivers with a good factory-like appearance. When it becomes a big enough industry then the government will crack down hard on old cars. That’s where the ban comes in, when people start going around the edicts of the state.
Agreed BrentP.. Right now old cars ain’t the problem for grabbermint because plate readers cover their current ambitions.
Wonder what they’d do if everyone – collectively – removes their plates and refuses to register ever again. Then only the clovers (who will NEVER rise against state/federal edicts) can be easily controlled as they are now the minority. They can be the payers and their own worst enemy.
When will the illicit license plate rental market pop up?
Very soon average people will be able to create a visually identical copy of any license plate.
And inexpensive – or home made – vacuum forming press combined with an easy-to-make silk screen would do it – and that is the low tech way.
The tech is in the matching customer to provider with a hard-to-trace payment system.
I am not suggesting it. I am simply stating that people naturally work to evade such collars around their necks.
The ANPR system will simply flag the vehicle as having an invalid plate and officer friendly will show up.
Possibly one might be able to clone the plate of another person’s car of the same make, model, generation, and color and get away with until the system notices the same car is appearing on cameras 50 miles apart at the same time. That’s easy to have the software check. Both cars get flagged for officer friendly.
Could happen… but then again, we are all apt to have much bigger troubles in the days ahead. I see D. C., Chicago, etc. in flames… not in control.
Good luck with that.
No, things will continue getting worse and worse in that arrogant, war mongering Country – just as they have since the late ’60’s and exponentially since George Bush’s reign. No one gives a shit. The public is more concerned about the price of gasoline or watching people play with sticks and balls than their freedoms and privacies being pissed away by lying, self-serving, hypocritical politicians and their henchmen.
Those old car guys still remember how good it once was but they are a diminishing group and know most people now don’t know the difference between clutch play and foreplay. With any luck, at least a few of them will know when they are about to die and show their patriotism by taking a traffic judge, highway patrolman or politician with them.
I don’t see it that way. I see the major problem being that people are too concerned with politics and are looking to government to solve their problems. The Republicans are convinced that it is the evil Democrats that are the problem, and the Democrats are convinced the Republicans are trying to kill us all (deliberately). As a result, the major parties are electing men who are more and more bombastic and ruthless. Ironically, these bombastic ruthless men are the ones most likely to make things worse.
The solution the the problem is not to get involved, or do “something” especially politically. As the old dinosaur dies, the best solution to the problem is to stay out of the way, make more and closer friends, learn as many useful skills as possible, and not use government as the solution to any problem.
Get out of politics. Quit calling Senators and writing them (they don’t read your mail anyway). Quit demanding that congressman Blowhard pass this or that legislation (or stand up against this or that legislation) . It’s all heading over the cliff anyways. Don’t borrow money from the government. Don’t lend it money (by buying bonds etc. ). Don’t do any type of business you possibly can with it.
Use your time to make friends with useful skills. Use your time to learn new useful skills yourself. And if a law bothers you, just ignore it.
Kudos Paul!
Actually you’ve arrived at the same conclusion as one of the masters–Alexander Solzhenitsyn said:
Don’t Believe Them; Don’t Fear Them; Don’t Ask Anything of Them.
Paul – The thing I disagree with you on is the not contacting members of the congress and senate part. If you send them a pre-printed post card or form letter like those from a big organization or a simple email, even that data is compiled statistically. If you don’t express yourself, then other people’s data will be compiled instead and the majority of their constituents’ opinion statistics are typically that’s how the pols will vote; whatever they think it will get them back in office.
Years ago, when I was very active in the gun rights movement I had a congressional staffer tell me that when they got a phone call, a simple email or a post card, they counted that at as one vote. If they received a lengthy and well written email or typed letter they figured on 10 voters sharing that position. But he said if they received a hand written letter, a rarity even twenty years ago, they saw that as equivalent to 100 votes.
You are absolutely right about not taking any money from them, asking for favors, seeking advantage or anything else through government. But I take exception with not calling “poly-ticks” (i.e. multiple blood-sucking parasites) out on their lying, stealing and treason. Silence implies consent. Bear in mind that I absolutely do not agree with the “If you don’t vote don’t complain” delusion; if voting would change things it would be illegal (witness the recent referenda in the Ukraine and the “official” response from all sides that the landslide popular vote was “illegal.” So much for “democracy.”). No, I propose that if you don’t bitch…then don’t bitch.
The “ins” and the transnational thieves would love nothing more than for all of us in the Liberty camp to to shut up and go away (posting here and at other Liberty minded websites is self edifying, but other than the potential to sway the fence-sitters and enlighten the curious, it’s little more than blowing off steam). The overwhelming majority of politicians couldn’t care less about what’s actually right and wrong; that’s obvious. They only respond to the potential for losing their power. Thoughtful emails, phone calls and hand-written letters do count, because the “ins” see that a threat to their voting base…whether you actually vote or not is irrelevant.
So I don’t see where calling them out, voicing your distaste or better yet, your disgust with what they are doing and telling them you expect them to cut budgets, cut taxes, repeal laws and bring the troops home from these foreign entanglements is giving them “legitimacy.” Every dollar that’s cut from a budget, every position’s that cut from some bureau or agency and every program that is shut down is a step in the right direction. Remaining silent and doing nothing will accomplish exactly nothing; or worse, imply your consent. Think about it.
I’ll have to disagree, Boothe. I won’t play their game. It’s a lose-lose situation. You can’t bargain with a thief. They want to take my stuff, and I won’t beg them to “please take less”.
You seem to still believe that myth of authority.
Ron Paul said people always ask him, “What should I do?” His answer is, “Whatever you want!” Being free, I’ll do what I want, and when I do something they don’t approve of and they send their men with guns, I’ll outsmart them. And if all else fails, I’ll take a few with me. If everyone did that, there would be less people willing to work security for the largest group of criminals the world has ever seen.
Inconsistencies – You misunderstood me, I don’t believe in their myth of authority and I don’t “beg” and I don’t “bargain.” I’m not even polite. I call them out and tell them what they are doing is not only wrong, but violates their own oaths as well as the “Supreme Law of the Land.” I don’t ask them to take less; I’ve called, written and even confronted the IRS in their own office in person and demanded that they show me the law. The couldn’t do it. You tell me how that’s acknowledging their legitimacy or authority? Have you ever made an IRS office supervisor stutter and sweat? I doubt it; it’s a scary thing to do and few have the balls. I can honestly say I have. Did it change anything? No. Why? Because I’m smart enough to know that if I force the issue they will come and try to put me in cage. I will resist that. And right or wrong, they will probably kill me. I’m not ready to go yet, nor do I wish to endanger loved ones.
But I do have the satisfaction of having looked an IRS thug in the eye and making him realize he was nothing more than a thief, a fraud and a liar. Who knows; maybe he quit. Maybe he’s another Joe Bannister now. But if you’re still “paying in” and you haven’t even challenged them, because you think that gives them some legitimacy, then you really do have some “inconsistencies” in your belief system.
No, I don’t bargain with them. I have told them point blank, in writing, that they are stealing, committing treason, violating their oaths of office and killing innocent people. I stood up at one public hearing on “assault weapons” in Virginia, after they made other men sit down (or be removed) when they brought up the 2nd Amendment, and told the secretary of public safety to his face, along with the other goon-varmint toadies on the panel, that their attempt to ban military style weapons in Virginia would not “prevent crime, it is a crime.” The best he could do was stammer “Thank you very much Mr. _____” and he didn’t attempt to have me removed.
I’ve been doing things the PTB (and Clovers) don’t like and outsmarting them for years. Let’s face it, for the most part the gun-vermin functionaries are psychopaths, which means they’re slightly below average intelligence, so it’s not that hard. People also told me for years (regarding evading the cops on a bike), “You can’t outrun a radio.” Yeah, okay. But my response is “You sure can outrun the dickhead on the microphone.” From what I can tell around these parts, the cops are pretty well trained now; they don’t even try if you’re on a bike. Maybe they’re smarter than I thought.
No, Inconsistencies, it’s not a matter of playing their game. Their game is politely saying “Please sir, may I have another?” I say bullshit to that. I tell them point blank that they’re stealing, lying and committing treason. I tell them I expect them to…no…that I demand that they repeal un-Constitutional laws, abolish the income tax and stop killing people that have done nothing to us.
Does it really do any good? Hell, I can’t say for sure; but I have at least seen some state level efforts to nullify bogus laws and push back against the federal Leviathan recently, that I didn’t see in the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s. What I do know is that ruminating the same old message of Liberty amongst ourselves and not telling the de facto PTB that we object to what they’re doing won’t accomplish shit. Speak out, speak boldly and put your money where your mouth is, like financially supporting this website and other pro-gun and pro-Liberty groups. If you’re not doing something proactive, but think you’re just gonna wait around until you can “take some of them with you”, you’re waiting for something that we should hope will never happen and you’re not doing a damned thing to help in the mean time. And compared to what I’ve written to “my” (they ain’t mine) congress-critters and sin-ators, I am being very polite to you, by the way.
Excellent, Boothe. See, that’s why I come here.
Inconsistencies – Awesome mang; me too. Oh yeah and to aggravate clover and gil, but that’s a given. 😀