The humble Volkswagen Beetle.

Hopefully we learn how to be less of an irritant and more of a help.

No offense but that’s kind of a shit attitude, not too far removed from “I got mine, everyone else can fuck off.”

To be fair, it’s been a shit idea for a while. It just took a while for the boomer nostalgia for the wonder of cars to wear off and for us to see what we are really doing. It’s not thunder road, it’s not American Grafitti, it’s Synchronicity- Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes, Contestants in a suicidal race. …

It’s not laziness, it’s a knowledge of exactly how much it’s going to cost to fix vs how much that depreciated car is actually worth. They do not factor in sentimental value or anything other than, your 2o20 Tesla is worth exactly X and it’s sustained Y damage. We are totaling it because Y is greater than X. It costs…

This planet is about to start trying to shake us off like an wet dog.

The issue is, 8 people were removed from the flight for smelling bad and 8 of the 8 were african american. The odds seem low that 8 passengers who just happened to be african american also just happened to be the only people who had an offensive smell on this flight.

On the one hand, this is the perfect vehicle for an average midwest city, where everything is “oh that’s about 10 minutes from here”- 30 miles is FINE if you live 5 miles from work, which is, again, entirely possible in a mid-sized midwestern city (Say, Madison WI or Dayton, OH or any number of places where the…

So, this is kind of a problem across the board for insurance and part of the reason it’s starting to get REALLY hard to get affordable insurance for anything.

The problem with Musk and Tesla is, Tesla is overvalued. As in, Tesla, a smallish car company that sold 1.8 million cars in 2023 (vs 6.2 million from GM) is somehow worth 560 billion dollars, (vs 50 billion for GM).

Having driven many a vehicle with heart and soul, I can tell you I’d rather have the camry. Buying that Jag, you’re buying anxiety. You’re buying, “what’s going to break today?” The feeling of joy you’ll get driving it is simply the relief that right now, at this minute, every one of it’s poorly designed mechanical…

Or you could buy a modern camry, which will outperform it in every possible way.

OK, serious question: do rental cars count?

I was thinking this morning about search and how, as an... older gentleman... I might be one of the people this affects the least- I was using the internet before google, so I remember shitty search. I remember having to scroll past a page or 2 of garbage results to get what I actually needed, I remember the bad…

Nope. Any list of pretty racecars that doesn’t contain the 1966 Gurney Eagle is incomplete

Doesn’t help that lots of formerly affordable little places are just being bought as airbnb income properties for people who can make a lot more money doing short term rental than they can through renting to their neighbors.

I’ve watched the value of my home more than double in the 18 years I’ve lived in it. Which seems great except my property taxes have gone up to match, to the point that my monthly payments are mostly going to the escrow account for taxes- the amount that actually goes to the mortgage is tiny.

So, yeah, that’s not a thing unless you want to live in a much smaller town/village. In my wholesome midwestern city, what you’re describing is closer to 600k. In my girlfriend’s wee midwestern town in a very affordable state, you’re still looking at 400k.

The key is walkable and park-adjacent. If you can live with…

My question is, how much of this $100,000 loss is LOSS- like, we will never see this money again we’re only doing this because we are bad at business, and how much of this is loss- like, Amazon famously never made a profit for years because they took everything and invested it in infrastructure and growth and now…

A thought- can you think of any other mainstream car company where you couldn’t just replace the CEO for poor performance? Or where every decision was attributed to the CEO?