----Chris has a point. Fuel efficiency standards were brought into law. The SUV was the loophole to dodge the standards. Politicians and lobbyists allowed a product to capture a large share of the market. A product that yields some private benefit (a feeling of power, a Marlboro man--but the rollovers become the cancer of the Marlboro analogy) at a large public cost (fuel usage and pollution and crowding). If the SUV was counted as part of the CAFE standards it would have not been built in such quantities.
I don't know what that acronym means, although I've heard it before.
Does it mean that the automobile makers should take what they like and leave the rest from the regulatory menu?
Last Sunday morning: I live across the street from a church, and I park my car on the street. There was one space left in front of my little Corolla. Somehow I managed to get in my car just as one of the world's largest SUVs came up the street. The driver started backing into the space (which would easily have fit a Taurus or Camry...) -- their bumper about at my windshield height. I honked my horn to warn them of the impending collision. They evidently concluded that, with me in the way, they were not going to get into that space and drove off down the street. I'm sure their mood was not made more beatific by the incident, but at least I didn't have a damaged car with only The Invisible Hand to blame (i.e., a no-fault claim to raise my insurance rate yet again).
These Chappaqua haute housewives really should stop sublimating and, like Catherine the Great, get themselves to the stable! A Corolla would get them there quiet nicely.
\brad mccormick
arthur
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2003 9:25 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [Futurework] "Wettbewerb macht frei"? (market competition)
Harry Pollard wrote:
Detroit made more money from replacement parts than from their cars - until the Japanese arrived. Then competition from those who made a $100 profit a car, rather than Detroit's $1,200 forced them to rethink.
Also, the Japanese cars were better as well as cheaper.
Nothing like a little market competition to cut down corporation excess.
Then Detroit discovered the SUV, enabling them to make a $10,000 profit a car for crappy hardware. (Even $15,000 for the GM Suburban SUV.) And guess what, the Japs copied that too. Even the Euros copied it, because it's such a great cash cow. But wait, aren't the consumers (which you say you love so much) being ripped off by selling them overpriced, accident-prone crap with much higher running costs (i.a. fuel consumption) ?? And aren't all people being screwed with much higher air pollution and cancer rates by those SUVs ? (a SUV with 10 mpg emits about __40 times more__ cancer-causing particles than a conventional non-diesel car with 40 mpg)
Car manufacturers have a choice: either jump on the SUV bandwagon or go out of business. Makers of previously popular light/solar vehicles can go packing because in the "arms race on the road" ignited by SUVs, people grab for rolling fortresses in order not to be crushed by others.
So much for the wonderful market competition. Which then continues in the "health market" cashing in on all those cancer & accident victims.
Maybe it has to do with the fact that America has the best politicians money can buy. Competition even in the _market_ of politicians...
Chris
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Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
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