We absolutely need to keep an eye and a leash on leadership (something we’ve been rather terrible at doing over the last 40+ years) but we also need to keep an eye and a leash on for-profit businesses lest they, as Ford did, decide that harming people is OK as long as it makes them money.
Businesses generally do not gladly open their doors for inspections from their customer base. Heck, try something easy tonight - go out to eat and ask the waiter to let you in the kitchen so you can test the freezer temperature and check for rats. After he laughs you out of the restaurant, consider how much harder it will be for you as John Q Public to inspect businesses that really have something to hide.
That’s why we need government to hold the business sector’s leash while we hold the government’s.
The big winners are the ones who set trends that they are ready to cash in on. We are an insanely trendy bunch in the US. And Image is the most important part of a trend. Most 1965 Mustangs were just wimpy Falcons wearing lipstick and Chevrolet sold tens of thousands of “Z-28s” when that was just a trim option to buyers clueless to what a real Z-28 was.
If we look around it’s easy to see so many things pumped up way beyond their actual worth that people miss a days work and stand in line all night to be among the first to own.
I keep seeing the word “OP” in relation to Mercedes… what does this stand for? Opinionated Personalities? Opulent Persians? Obsequious Punching Bags? It better not be Old People or I’ll hit you with my walking cane!
Aren’t the people that run businesses leaders, too? That immediately qualifies them for scrutiny, just like elected officials. A problem with allowing businesses to run completely free is that they have a lot more money than the people the treat poorly and can outlast almost any onslaught from individual citizens. That’s how tobacco companies stayed free of regulation for so long. Users get lung cancer, sue, and are dead long before the case gets anywhere in court. Most issues aren’t that severe, but the favorable outcome for the business is the same.
When the Prius was first introduced, you needed to get on a waiting list to buy one, my boss bought his in Houston simply because the waiting list was shorter there.
The surprising popularity of the first Prius cars put hybrids on the map.
Today you have to get on a waiting list to get a Tesla. I think we’ll see a lot more electric cars in the future because of this.
There is a Tesla driver in the neighborhood that has a vanity license plate that reads “OPEC LOL”. Makes me want to get a bumper sticker for my Yaris that reads “RANGE ANXIETY LOL”.
As a person who was born in Russia and witnessed first hand the tyranny and mismanagement of the Soviet Union before finally fleeing and witnessing the contrast between life in Russia and the U.S., you have to forgive Ayn Rand for being a fan of free market capitalism.
I wonder how much petroleum was consumed in the manufacture of that car, it wasn’t made down at the old saw mill.
Rather than spending $100K on an electric car I can invest the money is a stock that pays a 5% dividend. The annual dividend will pay for the fuel, motor oil, car insurance, a set of tires and a paint job for my old Dodge.
Also, not all electric power comes from wind and sunshine, not even close. Most of our electric power still comes from fossil fuels, including coal.
Electricity is not a source of energy, it is merely a vehicle for transporting energy from a distant power source to a place where the energy is utilized.
If people like Ayn Rand had their way, we might still have leaded gasoline. I just ran across this excerpt in a 1976 paper on The Impact of the Courts on Public Administration:
Recently in Ethyl Corp. v. EPA,(40) for example, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld an Environmental Protection Agency decision to remove lead from all gasoline because it posed a health hazard. The issue for the administrator of the EPA was whether preliminary health data justified a ban on lead. A few studies suggested that the coordination and intelligence of children, particularly in ghettos, might be adversely affected by lead from automobile emissions.(41) On the other side, removing lead from gasoline would require an $82 million one-time capital investment, increase the cost of gasoline at the pumps by approximately one-tenth of one cent per gallon, and increase the nation’s consumption of crude oil by approximately four-tenths of one percent.(42) The administrator decided the risk to the children’s health was not worth taking, and the court upheld him. The court ruled that Congress had delegated to the administrator a “legislative policy judgment”(43) in which Congress intended him to estimate risks and balance competing interests.
No, I really don’t have to forgive her. There’s a whole universe of options between “corrupt Russian kleptocracy” and “screw everything, choke the government!” She could have picked something more reasonable, but instead she went from one bad extreme to another.
Would Ayn Rand have opposed the court’s decision? She was opposed to anarchism as well as statism and collectivism, so it’s not like she wanted a completely impotent government or believed that anything goes.
The radical left has always been good at making strawmen of the people they disagree with.
Bingo!
Why does everything have to be reduced to a binary option?
Extremism–of any sort–only serves to help a fraction of a given population, whereas more moderate approaches to both political and economic matters is more likely to yield a broad benefit.
Speaking of strawmen, we were discussing her economic views. I think anyone who says “government help to business is just as disastrous as government persecution; the only way a government can be of service to national prosperity is by keeping its hands off” is pretty clear about where she stands on regulation of business, which is to say fiscal anarchy.
@Rod_Knox, I actually went through the numbers a year ago. I decided that a Corolla XSE ($21K), Prius 3 ($25K), and Prius Prime Premium ($29K) were about comparable. After I cranked in the state and federal tax credits for the Prius Prime, I came to the conclusion that the crossover points (where the Corolla becomes more expensive to run) are about ten years for the Prius 3 and six years for the Prius Prime. I bought a new Prius in 2005. It has been incredibly reliable, but I note that when it does need repairs, they seem to be pricier than they probably are for a Corolla. And it’s around ten years when I needed to start repairing things. I also note that the Corolla drives better. Prius steering has no feel, although the newer generations are somewhat better.
Overall, I think these gas-saving features have more to do with manufacturers meeting CAFE requirements than consumers using less gas. After all, the real savings in gas usage comes from driving less. Planning your errands will save a lot more gas than shutting down the engine at stoplights, but driving less is not in the CAFE algorithms. A higher gas tax (as done in Europe) is the most effective way of reducing gas usage.
Not just to VDCdriver (plus all involved) but please be sure to rein in the digression into Ayn Rand, so that it stays close to discussion of cars. Like the 2018 Volkswagen Atlas Shrugged, for instance.
It’s interesting that you appeared to engage me in a nuanced discussion and then followed it with a generalization about the “radical left.” For a minute I mistook you for a deep thinker.
As the quote I posted indicates, the law that mandated unleaded fuel was an administrative law that was justified using collectivism. It wasn’t a legislative statute.
Speaking of straw men, I never suggested Rand supported anarchy, but that’s a handsome straw man YOU put up.
I liked the stop/start feature in the Chevy Cruze. It worked very smoothly. I think Mercedes can achieve that, too. Maybe your car needs something adjusted or reprogrammed. It can take time for carmakers to work these things out. Has OP brought this complaint to a Mercedes dealer, or up the corporate chain as described in the owners manual? How they respond tells a lot about the dealer, but ultimately the carmaker.
They may have already found a solution. Maybe adjusting the fountainhead.
Wasn’t that the Chevy Tom Cruze (sic), which was manufactured with the permission of the Scientologists? You know, the car that thinks it has space aliens trapped in its ECM…
