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…

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…

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…

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. 

Agreed. I’ve had PPIs on a bunch of cars - your best bet is finding a specialist in that particular car so they run through the gamut of known issues, but no one is going through your used car with a fine-toothed comb. PPIs have their limits. Depending on the cut and weld, damage to the C Pillar would have been pretty…

Yeah. Dude. Seriously how hard is it to design a screen in a 200k car that doesn’t look like it’s been tacked on as an afterthought. Honestly it’s the worst thing about modern interiors.

Why are the only options anemic NA or 800 HP turbo car?

The issue with the BRZ isn’t that it’s NA. It’s that in a 4 cylinder configuration, you aren’t getting enough nuts. It doesn’t need to have even 300 hp, but torque reaching in the 250 range, makes a ton of difference in usable speed. No one seriously wrings out a…

?? That’s it?

Most of those statements are true, but - how considerably? Because I’m not sure it would be that considerable.