04-29-2018, 08:40 AM
There are people for whom the SUV is the right family 'car'. (An SUV is really a truck, but that is a different matter). This is a large, upper-income family, or a business-owning family that needs it for transporting certain types of equipment. For everyone else it is the wrong vehicle. It is telling that SUVs have a rapid depreciation not for a lack of quality of manufacture as reflected in frequency of repair, but instead because there is little aftermarket for used SUVs. You can buy a used SUV more cheaply than you can buy a subcompact car of similar age. You can easily figure who would buy a used subcompact car: low-income people who have jobs to which to commute, especially in rural areas. Old pick-ups at least have obvious use at work (farming, construction), which explains why one sees lots of elderly pickups.
To be sure, Ford Motor Company is abandoning the subcompact because it has a low profit margin. It could rationalize selling its own subcompacts because people who buy those while single commuters working as clerks or factory laborers might eventually make the transition from a Ford subcompact to something more lucrative for Ford (its pricier, gas-guzzling vehicles whose customers are willing to put up with a cost of $50 more a month for 'luxury' appointments on a lease).
Of course, to be a true patriot (in Trump's America) one must believe that there is no nobler role in life than to go deeply in debt for overpriced consumer goods and exercise prodigality in the use of energy. Burn that coal! Burn that petroleum! Avoid solar power! Ravage the environment and impoverish your great-grandchildren in cruel ways!
To be sure, Ford Motor Company is abandoning the subcompact because it has a low profit margin. It could rationalize selling its own subcompacts because people who buy those while single commuters working as clerks or factory laborers might eventually make the transition from a Ford subcompact to something more lucrative for Ford (its pricier, gas-guzzling vehicles whose customers are willing to put up with a cost of $50 more a month for 'luxury' appointments on a lease).
Of course, to be a true patriot (in Trump's America) one must believe that there is no nobler role in life than to go deeply in debt for overpriced consumer goods and exercise prodigality in the use of energy. Burn that coal! Burn that petroleum! Avoid solar power! Ravage the environment and impoverish your great-grandchildren in cruel ways!
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.