excerpt from the “Whiskey and Gunpowder” enewsletter: [bold by CC]
[background on earlier european empires…]
The powers of empire hinged on the command of valuable natural resources such as these.
Today, that hinge is oil. America?s oil infrastructure is old, past its zenith. Meanwhile, the car culture drinks gasoline in rivers with no sign of slowing down. Cars and trucks burn two out of three barrels of oil in the U.S. Of the 530 million cars in the world, more than 200 million are in the U.S. All of this has led to America?s consuming 25% of the world?s energy while holding only 5% of the resource.
There was a time when those numbers went the other way. For most of America?s rise to power in the 20th century, it produced far more oil than it consumed. As late as 1964, the U.S. found 48 billion barrels of oil and used only 23 billion. Ever since, it?s been getting tighter. By 1988, it was dead even. By 2005, America used 5 times more than it found.
making full circle with the discussion about personal and financial responsibilities and finance in general, this is in the closing paragraph: [bold added]
And that brings us the second mark of empire: the rise of finance at the expense of making things. Empires past all had their manufacturing capabilities hollowed out. In place of that stood the business of financing things, of pushing paper, of printing money.
Spanish observers in the 17th century wrote smugly about how London made fine fabrics, Holland chambrays, Florence cloth, and India linens. But it was Spain that enjoyed these things, because Spain had money. The Dutch and British held a similar conceit. The British economist William Stanley Jevons wrote with assurance: ?The plains of North America and Russia are our cornfields, Chicago and Odessa are our granaries, Canada and the Baltic our timber forests, Australia our sheep farms?? and on and on. The whole world worked for Britain, which paid in sterling.
But this prosperity has a sort of soap bubble fragility to it. It depends on debt and easy credit. The empires of the past became bankrupt because of their spendthrift ways and financial ineptitude.
posters who’ve touted their own financial acumen are to be applauded. but what about the idiots in washington?
they’re blowing the tax monies your kids and grandkids will OWE decades down the line. and also SPENDING the lives of your sons and daughters in these wars made necessary to satisfy our collective need for a gasoline “fix” every day.
bscar, I’m with you. We are debt free and pay our credit card in full every month. Our practice has always been to buy only what we can afford after saving at least 15%. As a result, I am now able to pay cash for the kind of car I have wanted for 40 years without touching our retirement nest egg.
Two things bother me about this thread.
The first is parents without enough backbone to tell their kid that, as long as he is a minor living at their expense, he will make do with whatever car they choose for him. They do not need to justify their decision. After he is out on his own and supporting himself, what he drives becomes his decision and, perhaps, his problem.
The second is the anti-car rant underlying this thread. Fuel is fuel whether it is burned in an econobox, a muscle car, a boat, an airplane or some kind of public transportation. I think the OP’s real objection is to high performance cars that are fun to drive as opposed to mundane transportation. My retirement toy, an Infiniti G37, isn’t an old muscle car, but neither is it a Prius. If driving it is wasteful and irresponsible then, in my opinion, earning the money to pay for it was equally wasteful and irresponsible.
Roger! Tsk Tsk! Soldiers are not dying for petroleum, they were sent there over imaginary WMD’s! Now they’re dealing with a civil war that is centered around religion and culture. (I can say this, I’m a Marine’s widow) I have a muscle car myself, and I’m in love with her. Since revamping the fuel system to run on E85, I get about 11 mpg. I was getting closer to 13 when I was on 87 octane.
The caller is a mother. Mothers never want to let go, or let thier kids grow up. She wants that kid under her thumb until she can’t hold him there anymore.
Owning a muscle car, or any classic for that matter, takes love, responsibility, patience, and commitment (and deep pockets really help). If the kid is not ready for responsibility, or commitment, he should hold off on the muscle car until he is ready.
Oh, and one more thing… it’s not about safety, or fuel. Any car can be fitted with ABS, air bags, fuel injection, etc. Any car can be converted to run on propane, ethanol, alcohol, etc. It’s only a matter of tech know-how (and money). And as far as the cost of parts, it’s sad but true that parts for a 350 Chevy are cheaper than any Ford or Mopar engine.
If the kid is ready to be a responsible adult in a committed relationship with a classic car, he should be given the freedom to do so.
And Roger, people like you that think older cars need to be destroyed are the reason that people like me have so much trouble finding parts for our American Beauties. (Tsk Tsk)
I agree this is not appropriate political stuff. That nonsense about the war in Iraq being for petroleum is absolute garbage. For what we are spending on the war, we could buy all the petroleum we want and have billions left over. Also, in the end, we are still paying for it at the market price. Please spare us the nonsense like this.
When I started driving I wanted a Muscle car too. . .Actually my first car WAS a muscle car, that I bought to boot it was a Mustang Cobra. I wasn’t able to drive it at first so I was stuck driving my parents car till was able to afford a beater. But I tell you what I was happy my parents let me use their car. Driving their vehicle taught me to not drive wild because if the fact it wasn’t my car. and i even had to drive their mini-van too. But it was better than walking. I say you gotta start somewhere and you shouldn’t complain about what you have to do to get there. . .just do it.
You know what… my first car was an old 86 Toyota tercel 4wd and it got 40 some mpg… Sounds to me that a kid that wants a classic mussle car is spoiled and rather deserves a beater to learn on. And can you imagine how much the insurance would be???