Raise the Hammer

> Cars are not an investment. All cars depreciate by some 15% as soon as you roll them off the lot, and they continue to lose value the longer you own them until they're only good for salvageable parts.

Houses at least tend to retain their (inflation-adjusted) value over the long term; cars are an economic sinkhole by any measure.

A car could be regarded as a necessary cost to get to work, except that the only reason people 'need' cars to commute is that we have made political decisions to arrange our land use (through public infrastructure spending decision and zoning regulations) around the assumption of mandatory car ownership.

That is, we have manufactured a self-fulfilling requirement. The free market has almost nothing to do with it.



This paragraph is so true, its' frustrating. How often in one's life do we intentionally go and buy something that instantly starts losing gobs of it's value the second you take it from the seller? We've been forced into this situation by the misuse of public money and through multi-trillion $ subsidies (to self proclaimed hard core capitalists no less).

Our society continues to amaze. I had to laugh this morning reading quotes from people who came to see Palin last night because she is "such a maverick and despises the big government, big media, big business etc...."

$12 million per speaking engagement, $1,000 per autograph and photo (give your heads a shake people). The only reason anyone knows her is because of big business and the media.

I'm sure the bigwigs at the largest corporations and biggest media empires just laugh their heads off in their board meetings when they hear people talk about her (or anyone else like her regardless of political leaning) as if she's some anti-establishment saviour. I wonder what it's like for those folks to sit back and know that they have complete control over society and over people's minds. It's easy to fault them, but the real blame lies in the masses who have permanently turned off their brains.