[leftcoastman]

Call me an a$$hat, but I don't believe in this whole "Buy American" crap. If you want me to buy American, make a better product or make it cheaper.

If I support an inefficient American industry for the sake of buying American, I am preventing Americans from "evolving" to higher value industries. Imagine if I was a die-hard supporter of American steel in the 1950's. I would have contributed to keeping Americans from "evolving" to a service economy and making mo' money!

Sorry OP for screwing up your thread.

Originally Posted by scottp999

I understand completly. I still have to enlighten people about General Motors all the time (I did a pretty big research paper on GM). GM is not a US Company. Yes they are incorporated here and have a nice corporate headquarters with lots of United States Flags outside, but as they have been shutting down plants here they have been opening them in Korea, Vietnam, etc. The old Daewoo is GM. Fully loaded cost of a Korean GM worker was 16 per hour, US based worker was over 70 per hour.

I am not knocking Korea. If people would just look deeper, they would understand the almost all problems in the US originate through our system of banking and the partnership the congress has with the Federal Reserve in order to borrow us into oblivion.

This is a good read that was slipped out by the OMB and Treasury just before the holiday season. This summary has links to the actual docs, "The Financial Report of the United States Government". Basically we are insolvent and the Federal Gov't admits that the accounting is in such disarray that they really don't knwo what al is going on. 70 trillion in IOU's. That's only federal, not state, local, and personal debt.

http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/ed...2006/1217.html

[Terry335]

Originally Posted by leftcoastman

All these "benefits" from cheap gas prices are only an illusion. You cannot incorrectly price something forever and shove your head under the blanket in hopes that correction will not occur.

All the benefits you get from cheap gas encourage development of an infrastructure that takes advantage of these artificially low gas prices (eg - suburban sprawl and big ass SUVs). Given our over-use (when prices are artificially low as they are now, people will tend to overuse given the costs that they are not taking into account when making purchase decisions), when it comes time to pay the piper, the pain will be all the worse.

Correct the imbalance by making people pay equivalent to the costs of their use of gasoline now ---- or suffer later when we all live in sprawl environments and drive big ass vehicles and wake up to see gas at $10 a gallon.

I'm with you on SUV's and other wasteful automobiles, but if not for suburban sprawl we'd be crowded together in expensive overcrowded sky-scrapers. Doesn't sound like fun to me.

$15/gallon is ridiculous, how did you arrive at that as the true "social" cost? What components are included?

[zenmaster]

Originally Posted by bnj

All emission regulations do that. Regulations are so similas that it does not make sense to have different versions.

This is incorrect information, for both past and present emission control systems.
However, today, meeting a country's emission law might just mean using different firmware on the ECU rather than different hardware. So it may make more sense than you are guessing. There are still US-spec cars being produced overseas that have differing HP and/or fuel economony due to US emissions laws.

[leftcoastman]

Originally Posted by Terry335

I'm with you on SUV's and other wasteful automobiles, but if not for suburban sprawl we'd be crowded together in expensive overcrowded sky-scrapers. Doesn't sound like fun to me.

$15/gallon is ridiculous, how did you arrive at that as the true "social" cost? What components are included?

Terry, my love, I ignored you but felt the need to un-ignore you to see what drivel you spewed in response to my post. But alas, it's actually a genuine response, albeit a bit misguided.

Suburban Sprawl is a new phenomenon that started in the US in the 1950s as a result of subsidized gov't home financing and tons of money being poured into highways. People have lived for centuries without it and nowadays people are discovering how good it is to live in a central location, not to mention people in Europe, where gas prices are high, don't have our patterns of sprawl, although it is beginning to happen.

Let me correct myself, btw. When I say sprawl, I don't just mean the seas of McMansions, but rather the car-dependent cities and suburbs we are building. What's interesting is you look at a place like Paris - poor people live in the suburbs and the rest want to be in the city.

Toll Brothers and KB Home have successfully brainwashed you. If we keep building the cities based on artificially cheap gas and become fully dependent on gas being cheap so we can drive everywhere, what do you think happens when the gas prices shoot up due to dwindling supply? We are creating a distorted infrastructure dependent on something that is clearly not going to last forever: cheap gas.

Regarding the true total cost of gasoline, it includes:

1) Tax subsidies for the oil industry
2) Other subsidies such as highways, oil exploration, etc.
3) Protection of oil supplies and motor vehicle agencies (btw - we ain't in Iraq b/c of freedom - Burma is plenty freedomless, but we aren't there b/c they're pretty oil-less too)
4) Environmental, health and social costs related to gas-induced air pollution

Read this report, it is one of many:

http://www.icta.org/doc/Real%20Price...20Gasoline.pdf

Before you call me a tree-hugging socialist, I'll let it be known that I am one o the biggest capitalists out there. If a socialist met me, he'd probably want to kick the crap out of me. However, I try to think further than the next week because I know there will be hell to pay if you keep ignoring reality.

[Terry335]

Originally Posted by leftcoastman

Terry, my love, I ignored you but felt the need to un-ignore you to see what drivel you spewed in response to my post. But alas, it's actually a genuine response, albeit a bit misguided.

Suburban Sprawl is a new phenomenon that started in the US in the 1950s as a result of subsidized gov't home financing and tons of money being poured into highways. People have lived for centuries without it and nowadays people are discovering how good it is to live in a central location, not to mention people in Europe, where gas prices are high, don't have our patterns of sprawl, although it is beginning to happen.

Let me correct myself, btw. When I say sprawl, I don't just mean the seas of McMansions, but rather the car-dependent cities and suburbs we are building. What's interesting is you look at a place like Paris - poor people live in the suburbs and the rest want to be in the city.

Toll Brothers and KB Home have successfully brainwashed you. If we keep building the cities based on artificially cheap gas and become fully dependent on gas being cheap so we can drive everywhere, what do you think happens when the gas prices shoot up due to dwindling supply? We are creating a distorted infrastructure dependent on something that is clearly not going to last forever: cheap gas.

Regarding the true total cost of gasoline, it includes:

1) Tax subsidies for the oil industry
2) Other subsidies such as highways, oil exploration, etc.
3) Protection of oil supplies and motor vehicle agencies (btw - we ain't in Iraq b/c of freedom - Burma is plenty freedomless, but we aren't there b/c they're pretty oil-less too)
4) Environmental, health and social costs related to gas-induced air pollution

Read this report, it is one of many:

http://www.icta.org/doc/Real%20Price...20Gasoline.pdf

Before you call me a tree-hugging socialist, I'll let it be known that I am one o the biggest capitalists out there. If a socialist met me, he'd probably want to kick the crap out of me. However, I try to think further than the next week because I know there will be hell to pay if you keep ignoring reality.

Ignoring your other arguments for now (I disagree, but will detail why later), why not just put capitalism aside for this single issue and let the Fed's mandate 40mpg cars? Isn't that solution easier to implement? Or is your problem more to do with the post WW2 American way of life?

[leftcoastman]

Originally Posted by Terry335

Ignoring your other arguments for now (I disagree, but will detail why later), why not just put capitalism aside for this single issue and let the Fed's mandate 40mpg cars? Isn't that solution easier to implement? Or is your problem more to do with the post WW2 American way of life?

Philosophically, as an economist, I believe in the power of market forces (corrected for market failures) more so than I am in command and control. There are many negative impacts of command and control.

Attacking uneconomical cars is attacking the symptom. Why not go for the cause?

BTW - I love the postWW2 sprawl patterns....as long as I'm only thinking in the short term. People like you line my pockets with money on a daily basis. But if I try to think a little longer term, that love disappears.

[Terry335]

Originally Posted by leftcoastman

Philosophically, as an economist, I believe in the power of market forces (corrected for market failures) more so than I am in command and control. There are many negative impacts of command and control.

Attacking uneconomical cars is attacking the symptom. Why not go for the cause?

BTW - I love the postWW2 sprawl patterns....as long as I'm only thinking in the short term. People like you line my pockets with money on a daily basis. But if I try to think a little longer term, that love disappears.

It takes cars to sprawl. Let's meet half way and raise gas to around $6/gallon. It will cut out the SUVs, but not totally cripple the economy.

[bnj]

Originally Posted by zenmaster

This is incorrect information, for both past and present emission control systems.
However, today, meeting a country's emission law might just mean using different firmware on the ECU rather than different hardware. So it may make more sense than you are guessing. There are still US-spec cars being produced overseas that have differing HP and/or fuel economony due to US emissions laws.

Really? What are those cars (in production now) that have differing power output/fuel economy in US due to US emission laws? I don't know any at the moment, but it might be because I don't live in US so I might well have missed something.

[elucas730]

Originally Posted by bnj

Really? What are those cars (in production now) that have differing power output/fuel economy in US due to US emission laws? I don't know any at the moment, but it might be because I don't live in US so I might well have missed something.

I also was trying to think of this. I know for certain that there were cars in the past where this was true, but as for any now, I'm not sure. Maybe cars with emissions problems? Mercedes E diesel, Mazda RX-8...
The 2.5L turbo boxer on my STi was created specifically for the USDM to comply with emissions laws. The JDM 2.0L STi motor was not compliant, so they had to come up with this new engine. Now, all markets except Japan get the 2.5L.

Edit: In fact, according to wikipedia, the JDM RX-8 6-speed gets 255hp while the US version gets 237hp.

[bnj]

leftcoastman, I belong to the Econ church as well and ideally (not possible in practice) the taxes should be gathered by setting prices to socially costly behavior - not having taxes on salaries as there is nothing wrong in working...

Then let the free market to form the behavior to be socially more favourable.

Setting prices on social / environmental costs is much better than just relying on indivudual's willingness to do good.

Good posts by everyone.

[zenmaster]

Originally Posted by bnj

Really? What are those cars (in production now) that have differing power output/fuel economy in US due to US emission laws? I don't know any at the moment, but it might be because I don't live in US so I might well have missed something.

Do a search for horsepower us spec emissions

http://media.vw.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=9755
http://www.importtuner.com/tech/0311...ion/index.html
http://www.modernracer.com/history/m...o8history.html
http://blog.wired.com/cars/2007/02/geneva_debut_fo.html

[bnj]

Originally Posted by zenmaster

Do a search for horsepower us spec emissions

http://media.vw.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=9755
http://www.importtuner.com/tech/0311...ion/index.html
http://www.modernracer.com/history/m...o8history.html
http://blog.wired.com/cars/2007/02/geneva_debut_fo.html

In the first article they say that the engine is different, because US gas has more sulphure. Nothing about US emission restrictions being more strict. No mention about US emission restrictions being more strict in 2nd and 3rd article either. In fact the EU version of evo 9 is rated at a few hp less which would imply that if anything the US restrictions ar not more strict. In fourth link they say that US restrictions are getting more strict, which can probably be said about all countries.

[inductivetheory]

Originally Posted by Terry335

Don't forget to add back in the benefit of having a labor force that can quickly commute from home to work. Maybe we should all spend 4 hours out of the day riding bikes to work?

how about getting a fuel efficient vehicle? i didn't know that bikes were the only alternative to gas guzzlers...

[leftcoastman]

Originally Posted by bnj

leftcoastman, I belong to the Econ church as well and ideally (not possible in practice) the taxes should be gathered by setting prices to socially costly behavior - not having taxes on salaries as there is nothing wrong in working...

Then let the free market to form the behavior to be socially more favourable.

Setting prices on social / environmental costs is much better than just relying on indivudual's willingness to do good.

Good posts by everyone.

Correct. You internalize the external costs (make the social cost into a private one) and people will consume the correct amount due to their selfishness.

Fix the market failure of not having individuals paying the proper amount given the true costs they impose and then then let the selfishness of the people solve the problem.

BTW - While I am not jealous of your super-progressive tax system (there is such a thing as overtaxation), I would probably pay it gladly just to be able to be around Finland's HOT women! You guys don't know how good you have it.

[stressdoc]

Any good ideas how to get the US government out of so much stinking debt?

Not that it would have saved our butts, but does anyone remember how the brilliant ones roasted Al Gore over his supposedly absurd idea for a 50¢ a gallon gas tax a decade or so back?

[DCJAX]

Originally Posted by scottp999

I understand completly. I still have to enlighten people about General Motors all the time (I did a pretty big research paper on GM). GM is not a US Company. Yes they are incorporated here and have a nice corporate headquarters with lots of United States Flags outside, but as they have been shutting down plants here they have been opening them in Korea, Vietnam, etc. The old Daewoo is GM. Fully loaded cost of a Korean GM worker was 16 per hour, US based worker was over 70 per hour.

I am not knocking Korea. If people would just look deeper, they would understand the almost all problems in the US originate through our system of banking and the partnership the congress has with the Federal Reserve in order to borrow us into oblivion.

This is a good read that was slipped out by the OMB and Treasury just before the holiday season. This summary has links to the actual docs, "The Financial Report of the United States Government". Basically we are insolvent and the Federal Gov't admits (Comtroller of the United States) that the accounting is in such disarray that they really don't know what is going on. 53 trillion in IOU's. That's only federal, not state, local, corporate, and personal debt.

http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/ed...2006/1217.html

End Rant....sorry.

Yes, the whole "american" product thing isn't nearly as cut and dry as it once was. I still contend that GM contributes more to the US economy per car than any other competitor, even those like honda that produces quite a few cars here. 60% percent of GM cars are US content, double that of Honda etc.

I believe the new numbers indicate that if we used the corporate accounting system (essentially what we owe versus what we have already paid) each household has like $518,000 in federal debt.

Originally Posted by leftcoastman

Call me an a$$hat, but I don't believe in this whole "Buy American" crap. If you want me to buy American, make a better product or make it cheaper.

If I support an inefficient American industry for the sake of buying American, I am preventing Americans from "evolving" to higher value industries. Imagine if I was a die-hard supporter of American steel in the 1950's. I would have contributed to keeping Americans from "evolving" to a service economy and making mo' money!

Sorry OP for screwing up your thread.

Don't get me wrong, I only ask people to look at the products and give the US stuff a fair shot. (this goes well beyond cars, for some reason the US auto industry is sacrosanct while other industries are forgotten) This is exactly what I did, I looked at domestic offerings first, and couldn't find what I needed/wanted. So that's why I ordered a 335i.

IMO, US steel would be a bad example, it was a superior product just much more expensive. Domestic steel production also offeres security in case of global supply problems/war. You could argue the same for the auto industry, GM and Ford really saved our asses in WWII by building tanks and fighter plans much faster than the germans....or to be specific faster than BMW. That makes my head hurt, how times change.

Originally Posted by stressdoc

Any good ideas how to get the US government out of so much stinking debt?

Not that it would have saved our butts, but does anyone remember how the brilliant ones roasted Al Gore over his supposedly absurd idea for a 50¢ a gallon gas tax a decade or so back?

Reign in spending (no huge military adventures, reasonable defense expenditures, now new huge government agencies), tax people at a reasonable rate (I think the pre 2000 rates were just fine for us normal folk). Tough to do though, too many politicians on both side of the aisle love to spend our money.

[leftcoastman]

Originally Posted by stressdoc

Any good ideas how to get the US government out of so much stinking debt?

Not that it would have saved our butts, but does anyone remember how the brilliant ones roasted Al Gore over his supposedly absurd idea for a 50¢ a gallon gas tax a decade or so back?

The ironic thing is that by NOT imposing that tax, we made infrastructure / vehicle purchase decisions at the time that have contributed to the current runup in prices.

I don't believe all gov't Debt is a bad thing, esp. the internal debt. Just like how for an individual, there's bad consumer debt and good debt (student loans, mortgage, etc.). If the gov't can borrow at 4.7% and use it to increase GDP, then by all means it makes sense.

Owing a crapload to China, well that's another story.

[elucas730]

[zenmaster]

Originally Posted by bnj

In the first article they say that the engine is different, because US gas has more sulphure. Nothing about US emission restrictions being more strict.

The point is not that the regulations are necessesarily more strict, but that there are different. For instance, they are measured differently. (but they ARE more strict - the Tier II is more strict than the Euro IV) 1) Different versions are made for the US than for other countries in order to comply with local measurement regulations (emissions & noise primarily) and 2) these versions tend to have less horsepower as a result of the compliance.

Mitsubishi Evo is another example. US is able to build cars such as the Ford Focus RS1 and the FPV F6 Typhoon which they can't even sell in the US, not due to lack of market, but due to emissions regulations.
http://www.e90post.com/forums/archiv...p/t-35974.html

[elucas730]

Originally Posted by zenmaster

The point is not that the regulations are necessesarily more strict, but that there are different. For instance, they are measured differently. (but they ARE more strict - the Tier II is more strict than the Euro IV) 1) Different versions are made for the US than for other countries in order to comply with local measurement regulations (emissions & noise primarily) and 2) these versions tend to have less horsepower as a result of the compliance.

Mitsubishi Evo is another example. US is able to build cars such as the Ford Focus RS1 and the FPV F6 Typhoon which they can't even sell in the US, not due to lack of market, but due to emissions regulations.
http://www.e90post.com/forums/archiv...p/t-35974.html

Yes, we all know that emissions regulations are different and that we don't get cars that other countries get (although by far the most likely reason for us not getting a certain car is because the manufacturer thinks that it won't sell well here; see: 1-series hatchback). The question that was asked by bnj in this thread is if there are any current-production cars which have been derated in order to meet US emissions requirements. You have not provided any of these. The Evo does not qualify. The JDM and USDM versions advertise 286hp, while EDM versions advertise 280hp.

The Mazda RX-8 6-speed is one. The JDM version puts out 255hp and the USDM version 237hp. Not sure if there are any others, but I would think to look at cars with 'emissions problems' (the rx-8 being one, diesels being others).

[Terry335]

Originally Posted by leftcoastman

The ironic thing is that by NOT imposing that tax, we made infrastructure / vehicle purchase decisions at the time that have contributed to the current runup in prices.

I still think $6/gallon combined with EPA 35-40mpg requirements (or a large gas-guzzler tax) is the way to go. It would be nice to shift the burden of road building, maint, highway patrol, etc directly to automobile drivers in direct proportion to their use, but only if the program was revenue neutral.

[bnj]

The Rx-8 255 hp rating is achieved by JIS standard which is similar to the old Sae Gross i.e. without auxiliaries (manifolds etc.). There is only one 6speed high power engine version of rx-8. Ecu, map, engine and exhaust are the same. No variations by geographical area. Only standards by which the power is measured are different in Japan, EU and US. Moreover, in order to be able to use "SAE certified" there must be a certified inspector present, which means that the power is probably measured from a different individual car in Japan according to JIS standard than in US according to SAE NET standard. JIS is the weakest hp. There is no constant multiplier, because it depends on e.g. by how much the auxiliaries decrease the output in each individual case.