I'm sorry, but I'm not seeing the sense of including things that you need with either a new or old car - like parking and tolls. I get you're trying to show a percentage of TCO, but it's a moot point, IMO. Insurance goes DOWN when the car is older (it makes no sense to have comprehensive coverage at some point). Also, in my area, we pay a yearly ad-valorem tax when we register the cars - based on the "value." My cars started at over $250, but now cost me less than $100/year for that. Over the last six years, I've save probably about $800/each just for that tax alone. Monetarily, holding on to a well maintained, good running vehicle will save you a LOT of money over trading it in. Depreciation SLOWS over time, so suggesting trade in values are higher for a less-old car also doesn't make sense, because you haven't been making payments for the extra four years.
And you're math still doesn't work, because, assuming a 5 year loan, you're neglecting the fact that you don't have a car payment for one year if you buy every six.... but you don't have car payments for 5 years if you buy every 10. In fact, if you take the car payment you're no longer making and save it, you end up being able to get a much nicer car over over time - even if you save only a fraction of it.
But really - I don't understand why people spend so much on cars. There's going to be a bust at some point, like housing. People used to get 10 year loans, then 15, 20, now they get 30 and even sometimes 40 year loans just so they can buy more house than they can afford. Then when the market turned upside down, they whined and complained about it. The only justification for getting more than a 36 month loan is if they offer 0% (or close to it) financing (in which case it doesn't make much sense to NOT get the longest term you can). Honestly, if you can't afford the payments for a 36 month loan, then you can't afford the car - it's just that simple.
I make a decent amount over six figures, and I'd never even entertain the idea of wasting my money on a $35k car. My shortlist, to replace my car when it does start costing more to maintain, includes cars from $18k to $26k - and I'd be happy with any of them. It's good not to care about being judged based on your vehicle - I'd rather make the smart choice.
Back to the article - the nonsense is that cars are getting more expensive because people are buying more expensive cars. If they stuck to the reliable and safe low end of the range, you'd see more choices there. Averages don't mean anything as long as there are good choices out there. We just paid about $16.5k for a new car for my son - one that was recommended by Consumer Reports and that I was very happy with when I test drove it. Reliable, safe, and inexpensive... and actually kind of cool (a Scion IA). Granted, we waited for the right time to get that price (actually $750 under invoice) , but that's another aspect of car buying - don't wait until you absolutely need a car to buy one, buy one when you can get deals and incentives, and more easily walk away from dirty salesperson (which is about 99% of car salespeople).
For the record, both my primary vehicles (my wife's car and mine) are north of 10 years old - mine is 12 years and well over 200k miles, and looks good and runs great because I reasonably maintained it - and made a wise choice in brands and models when I bought it. Why on earth would I willingly want to make car payments when I don't have to? All that extra monthly cash flow is helping a LOT more than new cars would.
You're setting up a long-term relationship and it's benefiting YOUR CUSTOMERS to do it. Why are you so outraged that you can do something simple to save YOUR CUSTOMERS money?
It's what I don't get... the customers benefit (the most important thing); no content providers get screwed (unlike comcast charging content providers); any content provider can sign up.... the customers benefit, the streaming companies benefit (happier customers and lower bandwidth for THEM, too), and T-Mobile benefits. I don't understand why people are complaining.... yes, they say it hurts streaming services that don't sign up, but is there a single case of T-Mobile rejecting a legitimate service?
The difference between the Comcast/Netflix issue and Binge On is that they are pretty much completely opposite. Comcast's customers are already paying for the bandwidth they use to watch Netflix - not only would Comcast be double dipping on that data, but because they offer a competing service it amounts to an anti-competitive practice. T-Mobile is not only not charging the content providers a damn thing, they're also benefiting their customers - so it's not anti-competitive nor anti-consumer, especially given the fact that it's an optional service. The problem isn't with the concept of net neutrality, per se, but in this case if it can be used to shut down a service that, frankly, benefits EVERYBODY involved, then the legislation is simply far too overreaching.
And, on top of that, people with comcast often have very little in the way of options for high speed internet - either services that are not as fast, or are far more expensive. Cell phone service, on the other hand, is a far more competitive industry - there's choice of several big providers virtually nationwide, as well as a number of smaller providers just about everywhere in the U.S.
Except that if it bothers you then you can opt out. I simply can't agree with any of the arguments against Binge-On... T-Mobile benefits, sure, but so do the customers - and certainly no one loses out on anything if they opt out to get the higher quality. If there's a single thing that should be changed is that it should be opt-in, instead.
The problem is that net neutrality is more than one thing. My knee-jerk capitalist reaction to NN was that it was anti-capitalist and ultimately anti-consumer, and if I didn't like comcast charging Netflix for their service, then I could switch. But it didn't take more than a moment or two to determine that that was a crock - that I am comcast's customer, and that I'm paying comcast to deliver the netflix content; that netflix isn't pushing it's content anywhere, it's being pulled by comcast's paying customers. Charging third party content providers amounts to double dipping, and it's anti-consumer.
At the same time, the notion of charging third parties was anti-competitive because comcast was pushing it's own streaming services to it's customers, so it owned the content and means of delivery and meant to use one to boost the other in an anti-competitive way.
So... I support net neutrality for those things, but to punish T-Mobile, for example - or it's customers, really, by forcing T-Mobile to charge for data from third parties, and any company can sign up for it, when T-Mobile is offering that streaming for free certainly IS anti-consumer, especially when both the consumer AND the content companies have the choice of whether or not to join. It's literally the OPPOSITE of what comcast wanted to do. So it turns out that, like most government legislation, it's good intentions paved the way to hell because they didn't think about the consequences and they went too far.
Smart Cars might be the dumbest vehicles on the road. You can pay less, get better gas mileage and better reliability and still get a vehicle that is incredibly easy to drive and park without sacrificing the ability to carry passengers or a weeks worth of groceries.
But he could have left it in neutral even if it was an automatic. The story is actually light on details, but that he apparently tried to momentarily exit the car - meaning he likely didn't shut it off or remove the key. I put my automatic in neutral all the time as a habit from my days of driving manual cars. If I'm pulling up somewhere to wait for someone while I'm in my car, it's neutral and parking brake, not park. Park (or first, if you're driving manual) is not good for the transmission to just sit there stressing under the weight of a vehicle - it's a backup to the actual parking brake. So even when I stop to park, I put in neutral, but the parking brake on and let it settle, then put it in park.
In my driveway (and no, nothing like this ever happened to me), starting in my garage, when I take the parking brake off, the car starts moving almost imperceptibly before picking up speed. There's nothing about this tragedy that can't easily be explained, despite the fact that it was stupid and likely that a knee-jerk reaction to attempt to avoid monetary loss (damaging the car or property) cost someone their life.
I assume it was an open door, as they surmised he started the car and then got out... if you were going to just run right in the door to your house to grab that thing you forgot, it's very possible you'd leave the door open. Slow enough to not rip the door off, but steep enough to crush you between it and the mailbox. It's definitely plausible. Keep in mind - stranger deaths have occurred, and it was referred to as a "freak" accident.
... on his way to rehearsal at 1:10 am Sunday morning (a.k.a. late Saturday night). Not that I didn't like the guy, and it is a sad tragedy, but come on...
I wouldn't call it condescending, nor a waste of time (any more than any other Barbie is), but it certainly isn't going to (nor should it) influence someone's choice in careers. When it comes to more [insert class identity] in STEM, I don't care - the people that want to do it should do it, the ones that don't shouldn't listen to the people trying to "empower" them into doing something they are not interested in.
Government providing a safety net certainly isn't part of core libertarian ideology, but most people are reasonable enough to understand you'll never get the ideals of a belief system (communist, socialist, or otherwise) to work entirely with problems, and so make concessions about what they accept despite their ideology. For example, I think it's pretty silly to think all roads should be privately owned toll roads. It's technically feasible now, with modern technology, but that doesn't mean it's an ideal way to do it. I also happen to have a great deal of respect for the USPS, and the only change I would make would be to unshackle it from the chains of the federal government.
Actually, you can be lazy and not counter what I wrote because your article doesn't counter what I wrote - there are municipalities that do that, and the smart people pay the optional tax, and the dumb ones don't - libertarians want you to be able to make that choice for yourself, even if it's a stupid one. But given the choice, most people pay. The interesting aspect is that you can't claim it adversely affects the poor - because in most municipalities they don't even have the option, yet they somehow manage to pay their property taxes.
The problem is that's only short term thinking. I'd take a term of the "greater evil" if it meant that third parties gained traction... and again in four years, and at some point got to the point they were allowed to debate and grow. We've always had a two party system, but those parties have changed over time. The current establishment has gotten quite a lock on that, the only way out may be a bit of suffering in the short term for long term gain.
They want the government to force me to give them money instead of having to say "thank you." Add in government bureaucracy, and you get a worse return on investment to make the people getting "feel better" about themselves. I will put it this way - and this is the libertarian kind of thinking that most people don't like, but I will not change - I don't want people being comfortable living off the labor of others. I would give it because I don't want people to starve, but I don't want their gratitude - they ought to be ashamed of themselves for not being able to provide for themselves and use that as incentive to work harder. I realize some people just can't, which is why I believe in charity (and which is why objectivism and libertarianism are actually somewhat incompatible on that issue), but otherwise the ones NOT using the charity of others to improve their lives, when they can, to the point they don't have to take charity SHOULD feel ashamed about it.
That's what I was saying - the post I was replying to mentioned "Fair Tax" style exemptions - there aren't any, which is part of what makes it better than alternatives.
There are plenty of municipalities where paying your fee to the local fire department is optional. For some reason, despite the attitude expressed in your comment, those areas aren't burning to the ground and people aren't dying en masse from house fires.
Agree with you on run off voting, but the idea that you shouldn't vote for the candidate you actually want is conditioning drilled into you by the establishment itself - it doesn't change until all of us who actually want change actually vote for change. I've never regretted my third party votes, and never will. The only vote I ever regretted was voting mainstream after being convinced I "had" to.
.. Large segments freezing to death for lack of shelter, starving to death for lack of food,...
The sad thing is that, while there are isolated cases of this, that you think it's some huge problem involving "large segments." There's 350 million or so people in the U.S., hearing about a tragedy here and there isn't representative of anything like "large segments."
Libertarianism is about personal liberties and freedoms and rights - subjugating you would be a violation of your rights (to life, liberty, and property), and incompatible with libertarianism. And I don't think there's a libertarian alive that doesn't believe in a minimalist government to enforce the laws that protect those rights.
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I'm sorry, but I'm not seeing the sense of including things that you need with either a new or old car - like parking and tolls. I get you're trying to show a percentage of TCO, but it's a moot point, IMO. Insurance goes DOWN when the car is older (it makes no sense to have comprehensive coverage at some point). Also, in my area, we pay a yearly ad-valorem tax when we register the cars - based on the "value." My cars started at over $250, but now cost me less than $100/year for that. Over the last six years, I've save probably about $800/each just for that tax alone. Monetarily, holding on to a well maintained, good running vehicle will save you a LOT of money over trading it in. Depreciation SLOWS over time, so suggesting trade in values are higher for a less-old car also doesn't make sense, because you haven't been making payments for the extra four years.
And you're math still doesn't work, because, assuming a 5 year loan, you're neglecting the fact that you don't have a car payment for one year if you buy every six.... but you don't have car payments for 5 years if you buy every 10. In fact, if you take the car payment you're no longer making and save it, you end up being able to get a much nicer car over over time - even if you save only a fraction of it.
But really - I don't understand why people spend so much on cars. There's going to be a bust at some point, like housing. People used to get 10 year loans, then 15, 20, now they get 30 and even sometimes 40 year loans just so they can buy more house than they can afford. Then when the market turned upside down, they whined and complained about it. The only justification for getting more than a 36 month loan is if they offer 0% (or close to it) financing (in which case it doesn't make much sense to NOT get the longest term you can). Honestly, if you can't afford the payments for a 36 month loan, then you can't afford the car - it's just that simple.
I make a decent amount over six figures, and I'd never even entertain the idea of wasting my money on a $35k car. My shortlist, to replace my car when it does start costing more to maintain, includes cars from $18k to $26k - and I'd be happy with any of them. It's good not to care about being judged based on your vehicle - I'd rather make the smart choice.
Back to the article - the nonsense is that cars are getting more expensive because people are buying more expensive cars. If they stuck to the reliable and safe low end of the range, you'd see more choices there. Averages don't mean anything as long as there are good choices out there. We just paid about $16.5k for a new car for my son - one that was recommended by Consumer Reports and that I was very happy with when I test drove it. Reliable, safe, and inexpensive... and actually kind of cool (a Scion IA). Granted, we waited for the right time to get that price (actually $750 under invoice) , but that's another aspect of car buying - don't wait until you absolutely need a car to buy one, buy one when you can get deals and incentives, and more easily walk away from dirty salesperson (which is about 99% of car salespeople).
For the record, both my primary vehicles (my wife's car and mine) are north of 10 years old - mine is 12 years and well over 200k miles, and looks good and runs great because I reasonably maintained it - and made a wise choice in brands and models when I bought it. Why on earth would I willingly want to make car payments when I don't have to? All that extra monthly cash flow is helping a LOT more than new cars would.
You're setting up a long-term relationship and it's benefiting YOUR CUSTOMERS to do it. Why are you so outraged that you can do something simple to save YOUR CUSTOMERS money?
It's what I don't get... the customers benefit (the most important thing); no content providers get screwed (unlike comcast charging content providers); any content provider can sign up.... the customers benefit, the streaming companies benefit (happier customers and lower bandwidth for THEM, too), and T-Mobile benefits. I don't understand why people are complaining.... yes, they say it hurts streaming services that don't sign up, but is there a single case of T-Mobile rejecting a legitimate service?
The difference between the Comcast/Netflix issue and Binge On is that they are pretty much completely opposite. Comcast's customers are already paying for the bandwidth they use to watch Netflix - not only would Comcast be double dipping on that data, but because they offer a competing service it amounts to an anti-competitive practice. T-Mobile is not only not charging the content providers a damn thing, they're also benefiting their customers - so it's not anti-competitive nor anti-consumer, especially given the fact that it's an optional service. The problem isn't with the concept of net neutrality, per se, but in this case if it can be used to shut down a service that, frankly, benefits EVERYBODY involved, then the legislation is simply far too overreaching.
And, on top of that, people with comcast often have very little in the way of options for high speed internet - either services that are not as fast, or are far more expensive. Cell phone service, on the other hand, is a far more competitive industry - there's choice of several big providers virtually nationwide, as well as a number of smaller providers just about everywhere in the U.S.
Except that if it bothers you then you can opt out. I simply can't agree with any of the arguments against Binge-On... T-Mobile benefits, sure, but so do the customers - and certainly no one loses out on anything if they opt out to get the higher quality. If there's a single thing that should be changed is that it should be opt-in, instead.
The problem is that net neutrality is more than one thing. My knee-jerk capitalist reaction to NN was that it was anti-capitalist and ultimately anti-consumer, and if I didn't like comcast charging Netflix for their service, then I could switch. But it didn't take more than a moment or two to determine that that was a crock - that I am comcast's customer, and that I'm paying comcast to deliver the netflix content; that netflix isn't pushing it's content anywhere, it's being pulled by comcast's paying customers. Charging third party content providers amounts to double dipping, and it's anti-consumer.
At the same time, the notion of charging third parties was anti-competitive because comcast was pushing it's own streaming services to it's customers, so it owned the content and means of delivery and meant to use one to boost the other in an anti-competitive way.
So... I support net neutrality for those things, but to punish T-Mobile, for example - or it's customers, really, by forcing T-Mobile to charge for data from third parties, and any company can sign up for it, when T-Mobile is offering that streaming for free certainly IS anti-consumer, especially when both the consumer AND the content companies have the choice of whether or not to join. It's literally the OPPOSITE of what comcast wanted to do. So it turns out that, like most government legislation, it's good intentions paved the way to hell because they didn't think about the consequences and they went too far.
Because there really is no god.
Smart Cars might be the dumbest vehicles on the road. You can pay less, get better gas mileage and better reliability and still get a vehicle that is incredibly easy to drive and park without sacrificing the ability to carry passengers or a weeks worth of groceries.
But he could have left it in neutral even if it was an automatic. The story is actually light on details, but that he apparently tried to momentarily exit the car - meaning he likely didn't shut it off or remove the key. I put my automatic in neutral all the time as a habit from my days of driving manual cars. If I'm pulling up somewhere to wait for someone while I'm in my car, it's neutral and parking brake, not park. Park (or first, if you're driving manual) is not good for the transmission to just sit there stressing under the weight of a vehicle - it's a backup to the actual parking brake. So even when I stop to park, I put in neutral, but the parking brake on and let it settle, then put it in park.
In my driveway (and no, nothing like this ever happened to me), starting in my garage, when I take the parking brake off, the car starts moving almost imperceptibly before picking up speed. There's nothing about this tragedy that can't easily be explained, despite the fact that it was stupid and likely that a knee-jerk reaction to attempt to avoid monetary loss (damaging the car or property) cost someone their life.
I assume it was an open door, as they surmised he started the car and then got out... if you were going to just run right in the door to your house to grab that thing you forgot, it's very possible you'd leave the door open. Slow enough to not rip the door off, but steep enough to crush you between it and the mailbox. It's definitely plausible. Keep in mind - stranger deaths have occurred, and it was referred to as a "freak" accident.
... on his way to rehearsal at 1:10 am Sunday morning (a.k.a. late Saturday night). Not that I didn't like the guy, and it is a sad tragedy, but come on...
I wouldn't call it condescending, nor a waste of time (any more than any other Barbie is), but it certainly isn't going to (nor should it) influence someone's choice in careers. When it comes to more [insert class identity] in STEM, I don't care - the people that want to do it should do it, the ones that don't shouldn't listen to the people trying to "empower" them into doing something they are not interested in.
Yeah, my heart bleeds for insurance companies.
Government providing a safety net certainly isn't part of core libertarian ideology, but most people are reasonable enough to understand you'll never get the ideals of a belief system (communist, socialist, or otherwise) to work entirely with problems, and so make concessions about what they accept despite their ideology. For example, I think it's pretty silly to think all roads should be privately owned toll roads. It's technically feasible now, with modern technology, but that doesn't mean it's an ideal way to do it. I also happen to have a great deal of respect for the USPS, and the only change I would make would be to unshackle it from the chains of the federal government.
Actually, you can be lazy and not counter what I wrote because your article doesn't counter what I wrote - there are municipalities that do that, and the smart people pay the optional tax, and the dumb ones don't - libertarians want you to be able to make that choice for yourself, even if it's a stupid one. But given the choice, most people pay. The interesting aspect is that you can't claim it adversely affects the poor - because in most municipalities they don't even have the option, yet they somehow manage to pay their property taxes.
The problem is that's only short term thinking. I'd take a term of the "greater evil" if it meant that third parties gained traction... and again in four years, and at some point got to the point they were allowed to debate and grow. We've always had a two party system, but those parties have changed over time. The current establishment has gotten quite a lock on that, the only way out may be a bit of suffering in the short term for long term gain.
They want the government to force me to give them money instead of having to say "thank you." Add in government bureaucracy, and you get a worse return on investment to make the people getting "feel better" about themselves. I will put it this way - and this is the libertarian kind of thinking that most people don't like, but I will not change - I don't want people being comfortable living off the labor of others. I would give it because I don't want people to starve, but I don't want their gratitude - they ought to be ashamed of themselves for not being able to provide for themselves and use that as incentive to work harder. I realize some people just can't, which is why I believe in charity (and which is why objectivism and libertarianism are actually somewhat incompatible on that issue), but otherwise the ones NOT using the charity of others to improve their lives, when they can, to the point they don't have to take charity SHOULD feel ashamed about it.
That's what I was saying - the post I was replying to mentioned "Fair Tax" style exemptions - there aren't any, which is part of what makes it better than alternatives.
That actually even furthers my point, but the problem is those people in the middle are being attacked in a vain effort to get at that 1%.
Right - we should have a flat tax.
There are plenty of municipalities where paying your fee to the local fire department is optional. For some reason, despite the attitude expressed in your comment, those areas aren't burning to the ground and people aren't dying en masse from house fires.
Agree with you on run off voting, but the idea that you shouldn't vote for the candidate you actually want is conditioning drilled into you by the establishment itself - it doesn't change until all of us who actually want change actually vote for change. I've never regretted my third party votes, and never will. The only vote I ever regretted was voting mainstream after being convinced I "had" to.
.. Large segments freezing to death for lack of shelter, starving to death for lack of food, ...
The sad thing is that, while there are isolated cases of this, that you think it's some huge problem involving "large segments." There's 350 million or so people in the U.S., hearing about a tragedy here and there isn't representative of anything like "large segments."
... and why is it the government's job to keep the rich from getting richer, as long as they're doing it legally?
Libertarianism is about personal liberties and freedoms and rights - subjugating you would be a violation of your rights (to life, liberty, and property), and incompatible with libertarianism. And I don't think there's a libertarian alive that doesn't believe in a minimalist government to enforce the laws that protect those rights.