Originally Posted by wahoonc

It gets people to start thinking and looking at their personal situation. Sort of like James Kunstler and his constant theory that it will be "next" year when the peasants are up in arms. He has been predicting the total collapse of the US economy for the past 3-4 years. Is he right? So far no, but it does make you take a closer look at things and think about how you might work to handle them.

Statistics are an interesting beast they are only as good as accuracy of the information gathered, as well as the way they are presented. They can be very broad or very precise. In the case of the cost of automobile ownership the numbers quoted are very broad, what I think is interesting is that they are working with averages, so there have to be people that are paying a whole lot more than the numbers, and I suspect quite few that are paying a lot less. FWIW I have a friend that bought a brand new car last year, I asked her to run the percentages for me and told her what to look for and she came out very close to the annual average I don't for a variety of reasons, primarily because I have and use my company car, and I use a bicycle much more than the average person does.

Aaron