This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

Will Rogers once offered, “Americans will be the first nation to drive to the poorhouse in a new car.” Today, we might reprise that line to “The first to drive to the poorhouse because of a new car.” Crazy new car prices and along with crazy prices come crazy payments and crazy insurance. The average price of a new car is 48,000. (Cheap!) It has more clever technology than you would ever need or want.

If you want that super deluxe trim package or tinted windows or the neon green paint job, it’s gonna be a little extra. Time was when they just sold us rinky dink cars. They just took our money, then looked for somebody else to bother. Today, because of the high cost, the car lot must make more money on every sucker walking through the front door. Would you like your tires filled with nitrogen? Only $300! Let’s talk buyer protection plan and the undercoating! Oh lord yes, we can’t forget the undercoating.

And because the cost is so high and car dealers are so notorious, buyers are frightened away. Scared to even look, knowing or unknowing the peril they might face at a new car dealer’s lot. Consumers routinely tell pollsters they don’t like car dealerships. The shake down break down as they hook you on a car. Then they begin adding features you didn’t know you needed until finally they can’t get any more money out of you and turn you loose.

But somebody is going to the poorhouse. The on-hand supply of new cars is at a record high. The time the new cars are sitting on the lot is growing until unabsorbable. New cars from 2023 are still sitting on the lot. $150,000 Chevy Suburbans! Technically, you’d need an NFL contract to afford one. Would you like the 18” custom chrome wheels? It’s only a couple of thousand more!

There’s no money in econoboxes. The money is in the upsell! The money is in AM/FM hydraulic sneeze guards and live You Tube feeds. And even subscriptions. For just $29.95 per month, they’ll let you use all the features on that new car of yours. The one you just overpaid for. Look at this! A 14” touch screen to scroll through in heavy traffic while looking for the radio controls at night. Technology equals profits in the car business. That model offers a bigger computer, wider tires, bigger brakes or lighted cup holders.

But they’ve gone too far, and they can’t go back now. The system is infected with overpriced, unsellable cars. $80,000 pickup trucks for people who can only afford $40,000 pickup trucks. Nobody can afford to take the financial loss to move the merchandise and survive. It would bankrupt the dealers or the manufacturer and so they just sit. All of the big three automakers are closing down their factories and laying people off.

Consumers are scared off by the high prices, but also scared because of orange you know who and his big mouth. In a world of crazy madness and executive pronouncements. Tariffs and trade wars with mass arrests and troops in the streets. Maybe now isn’t a good time to buy a new car? Maybe now is a good time to buy some land out in the country and build a bunker of some sort. They should teach that in economics school. Scaring people is no way to run a railroad.

Last year, the People’s Republic of China purchased about $25 billion with a B dollars in soybeans from the American farmer. This year that figure is zero. China is the biggest customer of soybeans in the entire world. And all because of you know who had to open his big mouth and spew out his ill-conceived policies. And now that customer has gone to Brazil and won’t be back. And because of his big mouth jawing at the neighbors. The $100 billion-dollar F35 deal with Canada is under review. It seems SAAB will build fighter jets in Canada.

The farmers are rumbling about a bailout due to low commodity prices. You can almost feel it in your bones. The car manufactures are next and home prices are starting to tremble and shake. It’s beginning to look like 2008 again. A boom-and-bust economy trying to exist on the cheap. Wages haven’t kept up for workers since 1975. And they want you to pretend wages have kept up until you go bust.

Every sign and every indicator tells us this is the most unpopular administration in all of American history. While the media tells us everything is great! Sure. He’s real popular! The economy is doing fine! But you know it is a dirty lie. Everything is unaffordable. Eight dollars for a Big Mac combo? The public temper is rising. The polling says it’s gonna be a wipeout in the midterms.

Despite Winston Smith’s best efforts, it becomes clearer by the day there’s a storm coming. The administration is failing badly. Trump’s efforts in Alaska actually made things worse. Trump’s on again off again behavior in NATO has actually made things worse. Trump’s trade negotiations have actually made things worse. Trump’s economic policy is the greatest self-inflicted disaster in a century.

For a consumer economy to survive, you need consumers, and they have to have purchasing power. Otherwise, the system stops, cold dead. (See: 1929) Trump’s tariffs represent a 15% tax on top of that! There isn’t one area or field where you could say this administration has done a good job. It’s the Tasmanian Devil on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Teargas and pepper balls, soldiers in the streets. War brewing in Europe. Crazy delusional grandpa talk at the UN! Mass arrests! A public feeling the first inklings of fall and of economic distress. You can feel it in your bones, the pent-up anxiety of an entire nation wondering. “What will he do next?” How long before the other shoe drops? How long before he insults or offends another nation? How long before he does something that won’t wash off?

And they tell you with a straight face the president is polling at 29% popularity. I’d believe 9%. I might even believe 19% but I’ll stick with 9%. They can’t ever tell you the truth. The truth is too real! The truth reinforces all of those fears and trepidations you’ve been feeling. That this is all wrong! This is insanity! This is going to hurt! And this will all end badly!

“Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke. They stand four-square for the American home–but not for housing. They are strong for labor–but they are stronger for restricting labor’s rights. They favor minimum wage–the smaller the minimum wage the better. They endorse educational opportunity for all–but they won’t spend money for teachers or for schools. They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine–for people who can afford them. They consider electrical power a great blessing–but only when the private power companies get their rake-off. They think American standard of living is a fine thing–so long as it doesn’t spread to all the people. And they admire of Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it.”
― Harry S. Truman

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