Tags
Big cars are destroying America, Detroit auto show, Future of America, Future of the world, The obvious facts
Beautiful and powerful new cars were shown at the Detroit auto show, viewable here in a PopSci article (Do the 14 click-throughs to see their offerings). Detroit is now trotting out fabulous cars, but they are the ones that will put the final nails into the American self-created coffin. No, you scream! And I agree with the scream, but let me explain why these cars will bring to an end the dream of unlimited prosperity for every American – forever. There has been marked improvement in Detroit designers’ vision since I posted “You can’t cure stupid!” especially Detroit-stupid, three years ago. They are making a few more reasonable cars, but it is obvious that their love is still with the flamboyant extravaganza of fantasy extrusions powered by excessively powerful engines. The designers must love the cars that will keep Americans productive and they don’t, and instead they make practical cars and pickups grudgingly.
The graph above is of automobile manufacture from 1950 through 2010; also it roughly graphs fuel consumption. Obviously the oil in the ground, which powers the cars, would last ten times longer if there were 5 million of them rather than 50 million and they don’t wear out instantly so there is an absolute growth in the total number of cars. My cousin is still using a Ford pickup that has been in the family since 1947.
Detroit’s car designers and Americans in general are oblivious to the obvious problems. China is manufacturing cheap fuel-efficient cars, which will get their workers to their jobs much more cheaply than American workers can get to theirs. That increase in expense for millions of Americans driving big cars will show up in the increase in price of these workers’ product on the world market. The reverse is true of the Chinese workers whose cheap fuel-efficient cars will get them to work more cheaply and those expenses will be factored into the cost of production also. That small getting-to-work-expense is multiplied as the worker’s manufactured product moves through the distribution chain.
Chinese goods are already underselling everyone everywhere in the world, and because of this additional expense to American workers the Chinese workers will gain an additional advantage. That, my fellow Americans, is why so many American jobs are now in the hands of Chinese workers and will remain there. Sorry to say, your jobs won’t be coming back any time soon, if ever, because the Chinese now have the additional advantage of newer more efficient manufacturing equipment. That, coupled with the ability to get to work and back more cheaply, in their cheap cars, means your job won’t return until your wage drops below the world worker’s wage. Unfortunately, as the world population is still exploding, doubling every forty years, your wage will in a decade or two to be determined by the famine wage price of food anywhere in the developed world for the hungriest worker. Ugh! My post, The American automobile is going to eat the food off your plate, warned of the problem.
One would expect the life expectancy of a new car to be about ten years or even more. They are still driving fifty year old American cars in Cuba. By the time these new conspicuous consumption type of cars, so loved by the Detroit designers and the American public, reach their dotage the disaster they caused will be obvious to everyone. I am only speculating about the future based on simple obvious facts already in play.
America is still a wonderful place to live, and that is why so many people want to live here now, but the rest of the world is fast catching up, which is great for them. When they reach parity of life style, the only thing that will make America more desirable is the stability of our laws and the willingness of our people to abide by them. When our workers are being paid a much lower wage than they are now, so low the working person will have trouble paying for their food expenses, there will be far more political trouble than there is now. There is a difference between ignorance and stupidity. The reasonable thing to do is to immediately upgrade our national efficiency of production, and for the individual —
Own outright the cheapest car and house possible and then upgrade.
