Roody

"Groovy"?

BTW. What are you snacking on?

slagjumper

Bicycle riding actually encourages more car sales. How can this be? Every person who rides a bike, is one less buyer of gasoline, one less person “competing” to buy gas, one less person who is driving up the price of gas. That means that every one who bikes, rather than drives a car is working to lower the price of gas. Lower gas prices mean more car sales and more miles driven.

Thank you George. By helping your buds in the oil industry, you are making the roads more enjoyable for cycling. I liked the way you gave SUVs a big tax break, then Ford got addicted to those profits and failed to quickly implement new, higher MPG vehicles. Now they will sell even less cars.

George, buddy you are crazy like a fox.

Thor29

The law of unintended consequences... It's an interesting thought - if more people started riding bikes, then traffic would decrease and gas would cost less, thus car driving might become more attractive. Then again, people really aren't very logical or rational anyway.

An interesting aside - there was an interesting computer model that showed that recycling is actually a bad thing because it would increase the efficiency of the economy, allowing it to grow even larger and destroy more of the planet before it crashes. (See any of the series of books called "Limits to Growth"). The same might be true if hybrid cars and wind power become more of a reality. They will just postpone the inevitable crash. An economy built on limitless growth on a finite planet will eventually hit limits whether economists believe it or not.

brokenrobot

Has anyone thought about the number of lives that would be saved if most americans cut back on driving? The number of children saved from athsma?

I'm tired of this idea that the economy must grow by 10% a year for life to be worth living; quality of living and happiness are concepts vastly more complex than can be summed up as "biggest house possible, filled with the most consumer durables" - and if economic growth takes a hit when Americans decide that life, limb, and human rights are more important than industry, I've got no problem with that.

brokenrobot

Awesome summary. I'm going to steal this for innumerable future arguments...

I-Like-To-Bike

Far Out, Man! Right On!

brokenrobot

You know what I love most about you? The quality and breadth of your intellect.

Later on, if you'd like, I'll spew sarcastic Rand-isms for you, if you'll agree to keep up with the ironic hippy slang. How about it?

I-Like-To-Bike

All Power to the People, eh?

slagjumper

Could it be that capitalism’s downfall will be that it was too successful? I know that the best business models call for a doubling of profits every year. I dont think that people are rational, but they are motivated by price almost as much as sex.

brokenrobot

That's the spirit! Now let me try:

Corporations are people with constitutionally-protected rights, just like you!
Mexicans are stealing our jobs!
Moving factories to Mexico employs Americans!
Poverty is caused by laziness!
Tax cuts will fix (x)!
All rich men go to heaven!
Clearcutting grows healthy forests!
Science can't be trusted!
Intellect is weakness!
Disagreement is treason!


Whew! That was fun... your turn again!

I-Like-To-Bike

Out of sight!
But why not stick with the tried and true mantra about the simple people bicycling about the commune, or to and fro, and its potential impact on the corrupt culture/economy that all the know-nothings endure? It makes for such a spiffy image and matches the swirling colors of my imagination.

onyourbike

What I find striking when reading about the automobile sector in the US is how many foreign cars Americans buy. Sure German and Japanese cars are usually good quality, but at a time when GM is reportedly facing possible bankruptcy, shouldn't Amercicans at least consider buying American? Toyota is a huge force in the international car industry and the way they're going it seems they could become very dominant soon. Of course I don't know all the facts, but that's how it seems to me.

cerewa

Food for thought: many of Toyota's cars are built in the U.S. Many cars from General Motors, Dodge/Chrysler, and Ford are built in Mexico or Canada. When I drive it's usually a car designed by Toyota (in japan I think), built in the US, at a Toyota factory, and sold by General motors.

jonathan180iq

Your making a very improbable assumption that Americans will ever give up their cars.
I'd like to think that it is possible, but we must all know that it is not.

Let's assume that this happens, in a hypothetical world, and that everything happens just as you assume. All of the car companies go out of business and there are no more jobs left for anyone else to assume. The country would then have maybe a million unemployed people. This, undoubtedly would be terrible for those people and those families. However, maybe it would help this country realize how excessive we are in our lives and how unnecessary our NEEDS(tons and tons of cars) really are.

Are 2-3 cars per household a necessity? Does the family who rarely travels together and rarely has more than 2 people in one automobile need an 8-seater SUV?
Would it be so bad to downsize? This doesn't only apply to cars and such, but also to our shopping habits, etc. I mean, this entire economy is based on the fact that people are greedy and always want to buy more things that they don't need. If it weren't for this fact, our economy would fall apart.

Does one need proof that these "necessities" are excessive? Well then, they need loook no further than this forum. There are many people here who are living without an automobile and can travel almost anywhere they need, minus extreme distances.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now, let's assume that people really do "NEED" SUVs and their excessive lifestyle. I mean, it would be hard for the elderly to get very far if they were in bad shape.
In this case, why must the transportation device use so much fuel, or cost so much to operate and maintain? Why not have a 3 cylinder 150mile per gallon SUV,CAR,TRUCK,BUS? (Why not have transportation devices that are fueled by a wind turbine on top of your car that charges and electric motor while also purifying moisture in the air and turning it into drinking water that comes out the tailpipe so thirsty cyclists don't have to carry bottles of water?) The only thing these automobiles do is get us from one place to another faster than walking, running, or riding horses. They are nothing more.

And that's pretty much the whole point of living car-free. The bicycle if the most efficient machine that Man has ever created. I'd like to see someone run for 1+ hours straight without fainting or dying of a heartattack and averaging 14-17mph. It's simply not possible. The car can get us places mush mush faster than a bike, except in traffic and go travel very long distances, but can it do it using a light lunch as fuel? I don't think so. People will always have their cars because they NEED them. But it's not a very efficient way to go about one's daily life.

Oxymoron

Really all I want to know is where is this "Ball Kicking Stand"? I'm all about supporting the local small independent business owner.

ryansupak

You make a valid point, OP.

Nonetheless, I think we'll ultimately have to go with the long-term good, and write the economic shock off as a growing pain.

rs

wahoonc

Last time I checked the US Auto manufacturer's weren't building too much that I wanted to buy. All of their super economy cars appear to be re badged from someone else like Suzuki. FWIW we had a Mercury Tracer wagon, which is an American Manufacturer, however the car in question was built at a Mazda plant in Mexico... How American, move you manufacturing off shore to maximize profits. I believe in buying American as much as possible, however I am not going to buy something I don't want or don't need just because it was made in America.

Aaron

davidmcowan

The worse part about getting rid of cars is the sheer number of people that wouldn't die as a result of them. We would be overcome with population growth as these people led happy, healthy lives in which they had children whose children had children creating mass global chaos. Can you imagine the anarchy? There would be NO jobs for these people!

One only needs to take a look outside of American Culture to see many successful examples of people living on less and without cars. Some of the happiest people I've met lived with their entire family on a small piece of land in Costa Rica. America needs to reprioritize, then the idea of losing your job isn't necessarily the end of time. I believe that it is the slow preparation and adaptation to this that will create an economic, social, and political model that is sustainable and effective.

Bikepacker67

Subsidize mediocrity?

AlanK

It's not just capitalism, but any industrialized civilization that continuously expands will eventually collapse because it consumes resources more quickly than the ecosystem can replenish them. It's not a complicated concept: For instance, our society is structured as such that oil is a vital component of economic growth (or even just maintaining the economy). Since we (humanity) are consuming oil far more rapidly than it can be replenished (which will take at least several hundred years), eventually all oil will be completely depleted (about 70 years according to current estimates). It's possible that new technologies/resources will eventually replace oil, but right now that doesn't appear feasible.

It's sad, revealing fact that environmental degradation occurs in any area where there is a large industrialized population, even in supposedly 'green' cities. Seattle (where I live) is considered one of the most 'environmentally conscious' cities in the U.S., but the ecology of Puget Sound is declining because of all the pollution produced by a large, industrialized city. Industrialized civilization is intrinsically destructive.

thimblescratch

*I would be more worried about the outsourcing of our jobs to other countries.*
But even IF we can keep our automotive and related jobs in the US, as the internal combustion engine goes the way of the dinosaur, new technologies and job sectors will replace it.
If you want job security, find a solar panel factory. Green businesses have much more opportunity than the auto industry does, and the sooner we realize that, the sooner we begin to dig ourselves out of our (w)Hole of Sustainability.

Hobartlemagne 

JeffS

Assuming the economy stayed the same, people would just be spending the money on other things. Jobs would shift to new sectors and nothing would change.

It's more complicated than that obviously. To much so to be discussing intelligently on a message board. Regardless of the details, as far as I am concerned, it would be a change for the better.

JeffS

I do. I would celebrate either one of them going out of business. Any other company with such a poor business model, in any other market, that hadn't been propped up by the "buy american" party line would have been gone long ago.

My biggest regret is that they hung on long enough to entice the Japanese companies into the too-large vehicle category as well.

Buglady

It never occurred to me to consider buying a new car in my lifetime in the first place I can't be the only one to have sticker shock!