1. Average transaction prices going up means nothing - all it means is that the people buying cars are are buying more expensive cars. Unit sales have been reasonably flat in the US. As a matter of fact, it may be more indicative that only wealthier people are buying cars, hence higher transaction prices. This may be…

Hard to take these arguments seriously without math. It’s like when people complain about the cost of universal healthcare while ignoring how much we’re currently spending that might offset most of that cost. While I’d like to see concrete data - and while I also think that every city and state needs to do their due…

I don’t know about you guys, but I heard endlessly increasing car complexity is good for keeping costs down, and it always goes well. I haven’t been less excited about new car news for years. Aside from the EV companies, no one seems to realize that what buyers really want is to keep horsepower where it is, while…

The relationship between the price of crude and pump prices doesn’t really seem as connected as it has in the past. For me - prices have been pretty high for most of the year relative to last year. 

That’s for sure what they think. But just looking at that product I’d say that confidence is seriously misplaced. You can build a custom cnc machine for wood fairly cheap. That’s not a far cry from what this does. It’s a short term gain. 

The business decisions some companies make boggle my mind. I’m not kidding when I say that probably inside this company’s strategy room they believe their product is so good that this type of model won’t hurt their business.

And?

You don’t really need a feeling. There’s decades of quantitative easing into the stock market to back that feeling up. It’s all vapor money. The moment any of it hits the street we are all fucked. 

What would you call paying for and passing off letters of intent from at best, barely legitimate businesses as sales?

Letters of intent are standard business. Paying for letters of intent and receive them from businesses that seem at best, barely legitimate and then passing them off as demand is... not standard business or ethical. Not sure what you’re trying to excuse here. 

Lemme get this straight. This research company shows that a whackjob CEO is essentially pumping up the stock price by running a PR campaign full of lies - and your takeaway is to be indignant at the research company for running a PR campaign that looks to be backed by some pretty standard due diligence that exposes…

Just curious but what ever happened to OLED. Are all of these alternatives just as good or better?

The problems barring people from participating is wealth inequality. If you’re living paycheck to paycheck you don’t have money for a 401k. So yeah. Eliminate that barrier and I’m with you. The bottom line is there are three economies. One is for the people with most of the money and they are making money hand over…

The best and most safe update you can give a modern car is a reverse camera. As a dyed in the wool oldcarophile it’s the one modern update that my 20+ year old cars MUST have. 

The best and most safe update you can give a modern car is a reverse camera. As a dyed in the wool oldcarophile it’s…

I think I used median because that’s what I wanted to use. I didn’t want to size the market. I wanted to show that the majority of Americans are small players. But uhh, thanks for writing a book.

I’m not sure of your point. Median is a better indicator than average here.

Pretty dumb take. A ton of people don’t have the additional income to participate meaningfully.

I think people overlook the scale of high net worth individuals and how much they have/gain in the stock market vs. relatively small players like 401k holders the median 401k balance is $22k. That’s really low.

I think that only half the country owns stocks is pretty telling. And I’d be more impressed with that number if it represented only the segment of the population with a meaningful net worth in the stock market vs. their age. Also, you’re ignoring the SCALE at which the real investor class is involved in the stock…

The entire stock market is fake money being propped up by quantitative easing that is only really going to the investor class. If all of that money actually started circulating we might even get some inflation. If there’s anything 2020 has done, is drive that point home.