I’m pretty solidly against any “respect the flag” narrative, on either side of the debate. Disrespecting the flag is some pretty classic civil disobedience. I’m for it. That said, I don’t wear the flag on anything except if it happens to be on a sports jersey, and it has nothing to do with respect, and more to do with…

Obviously no data to support this, but I wonder if the traction control nannies paradoxically create unsafe situations because drivers can be more aggressive with the throttle - hoping the system will bail them out. A la the football vs. rugby injury thing where pads allow players to basically weaponize their bodies.

Miami tends to have a lot of exclusive cars, but the week the Urus was launched I saw two of them just in the town of Miami Lakes. Maybe what they should have done is made the SUV more exclusive instead of essentially an Audi chassis with a Porsche engine.

As far as I understand it - these numbers are for new cars. So - transaction prices could be going up for two main reasons:

Uhh... no. At the very most there was some continuity from the original through the G-Body (1989) - but even that’s a stretch. The 964 and certainly the 993 are significantly different cars. Not only do they look different, but they drive a lot different. Ask me how I know.

Pisses me off that we won’t get the hatch here. But every once in a while I throw around the idea of getting a GLA45 after 3 - 4 years of a depreciation curve that looks like a congressional approval rating.

What’s the argument you’re making? Why is 15 dollars the threshold to increase investment in automation? Or are you just saying anything over the current minimum wage? Is that a reason to keep people on wages they can’t live on?

Someone said to use the handle of a teaspoon on here. Can corroborate, this works, it’s thin enough to get under the membrane, and dull enough to work it loose without tearing it.

You’re hiding behind a semantic argument while missing the point. If I had said, “real wages” would you be clinging so hard to your reality?

Hell I grew out of those things at 35.

You need to look at the high low and mean of the fourth quintile - it’s probably closer to 30%. And even then - with wage growth skewing to the top 20% it starts looking worse. And used car inventories are shrinking. There’s no glut. This problem will continue as the average age of cars rises. So essentially - wrong…

After the Cayenne saved Porsche this is a real shocker!

Hell yeah! Even longer term loans and a longer period of time being upside down on their loan sounds like a great idea.

If sales are declining - and they want to grow - I’d say.. probably not.

What was your major?

What conclusion am I supposed to be drawing here? I see a few... none of them particularly great about the current situation.

Some of them buy new cars and overextend themselves anyway, or they lease, and both of those are also bad for them, and for the economy long-term. Because they see a new car as a necessity, they have less expendable income to consume elsewhere.

No one can. The car payment on a 25K+ loan is 450 dollars per month. So - assuming you have a decent trade-in, and add insurance, that puts your monthly cost at around 550 bucks just to own a car not including maintenance. Assuming two cars per household and some leasing instead of buying, only the fourth and fifth…

I think you’re being pretty arrogant. The limited sphere of your own experience doesn’t cover everyone’s experience. Being CTO of a company doesn’t make you qualified to comment - and your ironclad certitude despite....everything.... the professional in the article wrote, makes you less credible.

Transaction prices are probably rising because the only people buying cars are wealthier people, hence, more expensive cars - last time I looked at the data, a lot of car categories are holding fairly steady on pricing, except for the better selling segments, like CUVs and SUVs.