(03-31-2020, 09:30 PM)beechnut79 Wrote:(03-31-2020, 05:48 PM)TheNomad Wrote: No one wants to "pick a poison" anymore. As for the person wondering why there are WAY too many old people and they had said "why aren't the younger stepping up" these OLDER have a stranglehold on positions of power.
They need to step down/away simply to make room for younger people. It isn't that younger generations do not have the will or ability to do these things, just the opposite. They are being blockaded out by the ruffians above who earnestly believe these younger folks are not able or willing to do what is necessary.
This, even when most of these older generations in power barely know what is the Internet except their phone pushes a button with an icon. And their younger staff trains them on such things.
Again, it is my personal belief older folks in power cannot let go of their stranglehold because they are inherently dialed into a Values-Driven crusade. They cannot give up their authority because, to them, doing so is dereliction and abandonment of whatever thing god or the gods or their conscience or their values won't allow.
There are waves of younger people waiting to actually solve the emerging problems barely understood by the Ancients. We should find a way to force them into retirement lest these struggles of the past decades visit us with more doom.
But there are many examples of when one may need to “pick a poison”. I am at one such crossroads right now. My car is a 2009 model with over 250k miles. Over the past four years or so I have had to incur some quite expensive repair bills; the alternative being getting a new or more recent model car and be locked into a hefty mandatory payment for the next several years, in addition to higher insurance rates. When my dad was alive he would have definitely advised for the latter option. A classic “pick your poison “ situation if there ever was one. Know I will eventually have to succumb to the latter but hope to delay it as long as possible.
Oh, I was talking about the standard "pick poison" in "the not-so-best of 2 political candidates" systems we have all endured for a really long time.
That whole car thing is age-old yeah. The third option is to lease. They repair your vehicle when it's needed, then you hand it over for a new vehicle when the lease expires. That option is sort of better unless you are, in fact, sticking with your older model. Ownership of a vehicle is probably the worst type of ownership there is. The depreciation value on such a thing is legendary. I remember my dad pointing out how someone bought a brand new Mustang because they just wanted it, and he had said as soon as the ink was dry, that vehicle lost thousands in value simply by being owned. The wear on vehicles is ridiculous also, which sucks the "value" right out... unless you know how to get ahead of maintenance.
I cannot think of another item of purchase that is less appealing with that in mind. Really, the concept of "pride in ownership" of a vehicle hearkens back to when we all knew how to care for it ourselves... when the garage was not a storage unit but a place with tools we could apply to save on costs with said vehicle. And, the idea that the vehicles we drive are becoming more crappy as time goes on.... AND the idea of planned obsolescence. Vehicles are almost being made to break down, forcing us to get them fixed, buy new ones, etc. what yuck. All for The Economy. Where would we be without Planned Obsolescence? Our Economy hinges in a continued upward trend. If we stop consuming, we all lose. What shit. To be so tied to such a thing And now, recognizing that America cannot "pause" for anything without the threat of collapse. Back when the nation mourned for the dead president, we might today be being told it was our duty to not mourn too long, lest we put America in peril. I remember after 911, it was Bush's priority to even say in plain words "we should not stop shopping or going to the mall".
Sorry to digress.
When young, my brothers and I worked on our vehicles, buying the parts ourselves, etc.. that's almost unheard of today. AND so many people do not even live in a place where they could work on a vehicle if they wanted to. I sometimes see people parked in Walmart or Target parking lots trying to get under their cars.... OR, hogging up the sidewalks, or taking up that precious space on the street. So many things don't make sense anymore in America. And I'm not SO old as to think back to when just about everyone I went to school with - their families lived in HOMES. Not in condos or apartments.
If it were me, deal w your car until you can't anymore, but don't put any more value into "ownership" of a vehicle ever again if you can
