Only four things to do with the thing after spending money on the thing.
Use it. Sell it. Gift it. Toss it.
Most folks will use/consume it – whatever it is – for a bit then either
give/gift it to someone else,
try to sell it in exchange for cash/(rarely) trade,
or throw it away (welcome to the landfill/Great Pacific Garbage Patch).
When that thing is a car, funnily enough … wasn’t always that way, and was actually, really, better.
OK so the US average car note in the dos20’s is $700/month … not including registration, insurance, maintenance (oil change, tires, etc.), wondrous little added expenses like tolls, moving violations, paying to park (wat?yeh)
Good news (for Half/other half) … ain’t no (double neg but shaddup) car payments up in this piece. Seven vehicles total, three running, three projects, one in a state of repair, everything owned outright.
Someone else said that right there is the wealth gap, right there, in the form of monthly vehicle payments, either purchase or lease. And some of these contract terms are for 84, even 96 months.
Pretty sure that’ll get to 120 months, eventually, yup.
Umm … wat?
That translates to seven and eight years, respectively, possibly/predictably even 10 years.
For a car that likely will not last for the duration of the obligation.
But.
Public transportation in modern America is an unfunny joke.
But.
Early in the 20th century, only 1 in 10 Americans owned an automobile, and the US had some of the best, most convenient public transportation systems in the world.
Streetcars / trolley systems … with steel tracks and electric motors. Clean running, convenient, popular.
LA – that hotbed of traffic snarl and gridlock –had a trolley system comprised of 1,000 miles, traversing the valley from the ocean to the mountains.
Baltimore … NYC … Philadelphia … St. Louis … New Orleans … Salt Lake City … all those great cities were made even greater with a transit system that served the working, middle class.
By the 1940’s, the system was a mere shadow of itself.
Why, you (Other Person You) ask?
Why, money! Of course.
Seriously … what else could it be.
Turns out … in the 1920’s, Rubber, Gas, and Auto – corporately personified as Standard Oil, Firestone Tires, and GM – conspired to eliminate public transportation in the US because they wanted more money, and efficient, convenient, and popular transportation for the public stood as a barrier to their corrupt objective. {Mark 12:41}
GM, specifically, used propaganda to equate motoring with mobilization and modernization.
Actively promoted personal vehicle ownership a symbol of status, of “common wealth.”
Appeal to the aspirations of the plebes, and rich shall you be.
The big corps lobbied (Horseman for “bought”) the government (local-state-federal) to eliminate the rail alternatives … reduce streetcar service, space out trolley arrival&departure times, make it less convenient, raise the fares.
Charging more for less … sound familiar? Why yes it does!
Say hello to the advent corporatocracy of modern life.
So for about a decade, between 1926 through 1936, all over the country clean-running electric street cars were replaced with diesel bus fumes … Sounds about right.
Oh and after WWII, returning servicemen were flush with cash, including gov’t subsidies for new homes in previously undeveloped areas … aaaannnddd leaving the cities and heading to the suburbs.
Horsemen, now with wings.
GM also “lobbied” – heavily – for the massive expansion of the interstate national highway system under Eisenhower, for the largest public works program in history, justified on the basis of troop and materiel movements, forwhen in times of war. Riiiiiight.
FDR could only dream.
Aaannnndddd we get the Highway Trust Fund, paid for with a gasoline tax. Taxes are the lifeblood of gub’mint … but if the plebes don’t work/spend, ain’t none. So drive and drive and drive and drive …
Highways cut across neighborhoods, bifurcated communities, plowed asphalt right through small hometowns.
Remember the Bates Motel? Norman said business dried up because of the new highway.
Wonder if he donned the dress before or after the interstate was built?
Interesting to think that, at one point, no one really needed a car.
Could get from home to work to church to school to store, no problem.
Everyone more connected to community, neighborhood, neighbors, family.
Maybe that was the whole point.
Commonwealth replaced with … common wealth.
With the push of a button | alert of a sensor! | people can now drive directly into their garages, shut the door behind them, and never interact with the folks living right next door.
Unless, of course, there is a crisis … feral dogs death-maul a child, wildfires, flooding. Sigh.
Technology opens the world and shuts us off from each other.
And maybe that is the point.
Can’t fight for better alone.
Except that one guy with the shopping bags in Tiananmen Square.
Got a statute, but not a name. Probably sold for parts.
Speaking of … an independent mechanic recently posted about how he was unable to repair a customer’s vehicle due to lack of access to computer codes … could only be fixed at/by the dealership.
The flagship for the oily, musky funk only allows Nikola’s namesakes to be fixed in-house … which leads to years-long backup for basic repairs.
Welcome to our brave new world.
I pity the children.
And selfishly, especially my own.