Nice Miata

That you mentioned 1994 as what you think was the start of the housing mess means you are conveniently ignoring the enablement of CDOs to be more easily traded as I mentioned, which happened a good decade and a half prior to the period you mentioned. Without that enablement there would not have been the eagerness to…

I still own the 96’ Tacoma I bought new my first year of college. I’ll probably never buy a new truck again. Trucks for me are for hauling crap and the frilly new trucks they make today are a bit “too nice” for that kind of work anyway.

always amazing to me how much people are willing to pay for plastic chrome and leather seats. Either way these things must be cash cows for GM as a result

Actually we likely agree on principle on the whole “what the wealthy pay” argument. In addition to what you mentioned when it comes to their investments and capital gains as a primary means of wealth generation which is grossly under-taxed. The progressive tax system we have is also not really truly progressive. For…

My reply was more generic because as someone in their late 30’s I’ve been through several recessions and its about the same every time when times are good. Yes, you’re correct that the article was more midsized SUVs and crossovers. But I also see a TON of full-sized, brand new shiny trucks on the freeways daily. Its…

I am going to guess that you’ve likely not had the level of experiences I’ve had, which is key to the discussion. I grew up in literally the deep, rural south in a deeply conservative state. The kid who grew up across the street was literally the first in his family to graduate from high school. I lived there until my…

First gear. It’s the same old American story. Bottom line, times are good, gas is cheap, and here we go again with big SUVs and trucks. Suburbia is all happy now and the “bad ole days” of the recession have quickly been forgotten and good times are here to stay.

STEM jobs are alive and well and I myself work in the tech biz- which is enormous. Now- one could easily point out that indeed- much of the tech we use today had its start in military form such as the communication systems ( basically wired data/the internet ), microprocessors and reliable semiconductors, and so on.…

If your idea of a defense-manufacturing economy were the norm then we would basically be living in the 1942-1945 American economy since that was the one and ONLY time that the US actually did have a total war manufacturing based economy.

The aforementioned 91% tax rate ( actually it was around 94% ) was a WW2 era tax levied on those whom made more than $200,000, which was something like around 2 million in today’s dollars. It was intended to be a temporary measure for the war effort but it wound up sticking around for close to 15 years after the war.…

I went to Detroit 6 years ago. The first thing I noticed was- holy shit, I’ve never seen such a concentration of American cars. Makes sense seeing as that’s the bread and butter though.

There are two extremes to any issue and taxes are one. I would consider myseld moderate on fiscal issues but there seems to be two very loud sides of the tax debate: One side that claims to raise taxes on everything and another whom says cut taxes on everything. Taxes pay for roads, schools, bridges and so on. Since…

But then how do you explain the fact that labor costs in Germany are actually higher than ours, their rate of union membership is far higher as well and yet they remain one of the biggest export-based manufacturing economies?

The difference is that we now have much lower taxes and much less of a union presence along with a small fraction of the benefits that existed in the 50’s. And yet somehow these companies “can’t” make a profit making cars here?

As someone who grew up in the rural South I can tell anyone exactly why all those European and Japanese automakers setup shop there: the state and local governments literally bent over backwards to get them by offering enormous tax cuts, land, and of course cheaper labor. Now- that has in turn changed the regional…

We were every bit as industrialized prior to the war for decades: the primary reason the allies won was because we had a huge manufacturing base that we turned into a tank and plane factory overnight to slam out the goods. Sure. Post ww2 was good to us. But as mentioned we had high taxes and exceptional work benefits…

Sort of a poor analogy. No, the construction company should instead look at using the backhoe more efficiently versus simply using a cheaper variation which in turn would cost more in the end anyway,which is what GM discovered the last time they shipped manufacture g across the border

Not sure I concur: back in the 1950’s taxes were higher and most workers had great benefits and pensions. Yet at the time we manufactured 50% of the worlds goods.

1st gear: