Posts Tagged ‘Cars’
This graph charts a curious trend. It appears that fewer and fewer young Americans are taking to the highways.
The graph compares the percent of that population with driver’s licenses in 1978 with those in 2008. In 1978 the numbers of licensees is noticably higher. What can account for such a change in culture in thirty years?
As Richard Florida explains:
Younger people today — in fact, people of all ages — no longer see the car as a necessary expense or a source of personal freedom. In fact, it is increasingly just the opposite: not owning a car and not owning a house are seen by more and more as a path to greater flexibility, choice, and personal autonomy.
Once upon a time, owning cars and houses were seen as a way to distinguish those who were “savers” from those who were “spenders”. Today these categorizations seem less relevant.
Movements in many major cities point to new interest in the use of public transportation, improved infrastructure, and construction of bike lanes. This trend can imply something beneficial – with a new generation of young people not as concerned with using the car as their primary source of transportation.
This generation might be more supportive of efforts to cut back reliance on oil and harness new potential energy saving technologies.
Less driving could be a driving force in the way we treat the environment.
Thanks to Wikicommons and Philip Kromer.
We at US Democrazy have been hearing a clunk clunk cha-ching sound every time we go out for a drive. Sounds like a bad transmission. We’d sell the heaving hunk of junk… but no one would buy it… unless your name is Uncle Sam!
That’s right, that clunk clunk cha-ching is the sound of Americans swapping in their old junk box cars for 4,500 federal greenbacks towards a BRAND NEW CAR!!!
You too can trade in your old gas guzzler for government money towards a new set of wheels through the Car Allowance Rebate System, popularly called Cash for Clunker.
Now before you get to excited some small print applies.
- The car being traded in must be less than 25 years old.
- The car being traded in must get less than 18 miles per gallon.
- The car being traded in must be drivable.
- The car being traded in must be yours (that’s right, put your neighbors car back).
- Don’t have any emotional attachment to you old car as all traded in cars are scrapped.
Sounds like a great deal? Well it seems many American’s think so. The rate of new car sales for the past two weeks has been double of that for the first half of 2009.
In fact the program has been so popular it has run out of the $1 billion dollars set aside to pay for the clunkers!
Don’t worry though, the program is still going and Congress has passed a law providing $2 billion more for Clunkers.
Oh, by the way crummy car collectors may love this program but not everyone shares this sentiment.
An opinion article in the Wall Street Journal commented
The subsidy won’t add to net national wealth, since it merely transfers money to one taxpayer’s pocket from someone else’s, and merely pays that taxpayer to destroy a perfectly serviceable asset in return for something he might have bought anyway. By this logic, everyone should burn the sofa and dining room set and refurnish the homestead every couple of years.
The chaps over at the Economist, however, seemed to like this program saying
The boost in demand that the rebates have brought about is exactly the sort of stimulus that is urgently needed
Rick Newman, blogging for US News & World Report, warns that, as the cars traded in under the program must be destroyed,
there will even be a used-car bubble, with a shortage now leading used-car dealers to stock up on inventory. But when the clunker rebates end, dealers could end up with too many cars, causing prices to seesaw the other way.
Frankly we don’t care what those “experts” have to say. What we really want is your complaints and snide remarks well voiced discourses and comments.
P.S. We just called our mechanic and that clunk clunk cha-ching is our transmission. $4,500 dollars here we come!
Have you ever submitted a project and been told to try again? We writers at USDemocrazy sure have (apparently my editor felt “Why I HATE Broccoli” is not worthy of a newsblog like ours).
Chrysler and General Motors are now facing that sting. Their plans for restructuring their failling companies have been roundly rejected by the Obama administration for not going far enough to cut costs.
When we say rejected we really mean it. Rick Wagoner, the Chairman and CEO of GM, was asked (read: ordered) to step down by the White House (no fat bonuses available for this dude) .
This means that GM has 60 days and Chrysler 30 days to come up with new ideas. No new plans, no new money.
So if their plans were not good enough, what does Obama want?
One solution that has been thrown around is is to invoke the dreaded Chapter 11, better known as bankruptcy.
WHAT? BANKRUPTCY!?! Isn’t that what Washington is trying to avoid?
In fact, no. Bankruptcy does of course mean the company closes shop. But bankruptcy is also a powerful legal tool that allows companies to avoid many contractual obligations (such as pesky union agreements).The hope is while in a temporary state of bankrutcy the floundering company can reorganize and resurrect itself.
So why has Detroit avoided the B-word like the plague? Quite simply… Who wants to buy a car from a bankrupt company (a five year warranty means nothing if the Chrysler is gone in two)?
The White House has a solution. Obama supports a plan for federal funds to cover GM and Chrysler warranties in the events the companies should go under.
Let’s hope Detroit’s next plan makes the grade. Otherwise we’ll need to change Detroit’s nickname from Motown to No Town.
