"Shortwave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 06:44:01 -0500, "P. Fritz"
wrote:


"NOYB" wrote in message
hlink.net...

"Shortwave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 01:27:34 GMT, "NOYB" wrote:


"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 00:14:20 GMT, "NOYB" wrote:

But I can assure you that in their latest
entries to the market, the American auto maufacturer's quality and
engineering is on par with the best of them again.

Let's talk again after 100,000 miles.

I'll be out of it before 40,000 miles. ;-)

see - thats what i don't understand. you dont gain anything by
leasing a vehicle for a stated length of time.



I gain a new car every 3-3 1/2 years. If I bought the car, but
financed
it,
I'd barely be even in 3 years. If I paid cash, and traded it, I'd
lose
$25k
in depreciation in that time period.


we ordinarily keep our cars for at least 100k if not more than that -
i think the grand marquis my wife had before the town car had 140k on
it when we traded it in.

You're smarter than me. But I've got a soft spot for new cars. Your
way is
of course the smartest way to own a car.

Not necessarily......if you drive exactly the miles that the lease
alllows
you every year, it is better to lease, at the end of the lease, if market
value is higher than the buy option, you simply buy it and sell it, if it
is
lower, you let the auto company take the loss.

i know someobdy in the car business, less than 1% of the lease cars
ever are returned at or under their milage and almost never in prime
condition.

That is the catch ;-)

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 08:23:11 -0500, RCE wrote:


Whatever happened to breeder reactors? They are supposed to produce more
fuel than they use.

And another plus, breeders can be used to reprocess existing waste. I
believe the limitations are cost, breeders are more expensive to run, and
proliferation fears, breeders can produce weapons grade material. Also,
by Executive Order (Carter), reprocessing nuclear fuel has been banned
here.

"Fred Dehl" wrote in message
...

If sales go up, profits should as well.

Not necessarily.

"jps" wrote in message
...
In article . net,
says...

"jps" wrote in message
...
In article . net,
says...

"jps" wrote in message
...
In article . net,
says...

"jps" wrote in message
...
In article
. net,
says...

"Tamaroak" wrote in message
. ..
More people are living in cardboard boxes in this country than
ever
and
these fat cats are making more and paying less taxes than
ever.
And
we
are
STILL cutting taxes while the deficit skyrockets. How can
these
people
call themselves conservative?

The deficit fell from '04 to '05...and its expected to continue
to
fall
through at least '09.

In the past 30 years we've gone from:

Biggest importer of raw materials and exporter of finished goods

to

Biggest exporter of raw materials and largest importer of
finished
goods.

China and Japan own a large percentage of our currency,
corporations
are
allowed to operate offshore to avoid taxation and more of our
currency
is flooding into the mid-east than ever before.

I just had a meeting with some very nice folks from the mid-east
who
don't mind us being in Iraq at all. Their friends are making
money
hand
over fist supplying goods and services to our troops.

Not only are we sending them tankerloads of oil money, we're
paying
them
seven different ways for supplying our country with goods and
services.

Something wrong with this picture? Why are we so damned
near-sighted???

The biggest danger to our country is allowing jobs to escape to
countries
that are not our allies. China is our biggest threat...and
corporations
have bought into the Chinese government horse and pony show that
paints
such
a rosy scenario over there. It's a facade...and China's recent
restrictions
placed on Google are a perfect example of how screwed up things are
over
there right now.

For the first time in the last half decade, I decided to buy an
American
car
again. I would hope you and every other American would consider
doing
the
same. For a very long time, American car manufacturers had their
problems,
and you were right to stay away. But I can assure you that in
their
latest
entries to the market, the American auto maufacturer's quality and
engineering is on par with the best of them again.

Awhile back you stated that if a car manufacturer made an
all-wheel-drive
sport sedan that is comparable to what you were driving at the time
(an
Audi
Quattro?), you'd buy it. So now I'm going to hold you to your
word:
go
drive the Cadillac STS AWD or the Chrysler 300M AWD and buy
whichever
you
like better. Either should fit your needs nicely. I went from an
Infiniti
G35 to a Cadillac STS and have been very happy with the choice.

Are you claiming to be a good American or a good investor?

I don't think the above suggestion would satisfy both criteria.


I leased the car. 39 months, $422/mo (includes tax), $1850 out of
pocket.

The Chrysler is ugly.

$18,308 to have the privilege of driving a Cadillac for 39 months. I'd
rather make payments on a boat or summer cabin and have the 2nd home
write off.

Name me a single car with an MSRP over $40k that you could drive for less
than $18,500 over 39 months. Don't forget to include tax!

That's dependent on leasing. Most people don't lease.

Driving a vehicle over $40k for 39 months isn't a function of the value
of the car, it's a function of how many they've sold and how aggressive
the financing rates they're willing to offer to get you in the car.

The real value in a car is after you've paid it off and drive it another
50,000 miles. That's when the cost/mile goes down. Your cost/mile has
to be astronomical.

How long do *you* keep a car?



And, in order to purchase that car post-lease, you'd be buying a car
that's worth 2/3 of the residual. Cadillac will have to write off the
loss when it's incurred.

Correct. But GMAC takes the hit. And I go buy another car.

"P. Fritz" wrote in message
...

"NOYB" wrote in message
ink.net...

"Shortwave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 01:27:34 GMT, "NOYB" wrote:


"Wayne.B" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 00:14:20 GMT, "NOYB" wrote:

But I can assure you that in their latest
entries to the market, the American auto maufacturer's quality and
engineering is on par with the best of them again.

Let's talk again after 100,000 miles.

I'll be out of it before 40,000 miles. ;-)

see - thats what i don't understand. you dont gain anything by
leasing a vehicle for a stated length of time.



I gain a new car every 3-3 1/2 years. If I bought the car, but
financed it,
I'd barely be even in 3 years. If I paid cash, and traded it, I'd lose
$25k
in depreciation in that time period.


we ordinarily keep our cars for at least 100k if not more than that -
i think the grand marquis my wife had before the town car had 140k on
it when we traded it in.

You're smarter than me. But I've got a soft spot for new cars. Your
way is
of course the smartest way to own a car.

Not necessarily......if you drive exactly the miles that the lease
alllows you every year, it is better to lease, at the end of the lease, if
market value is higher than the buy option, you simply buy it and sell it,
if it is lower, you let the auto company take the loss.

I search for leases with the highest residual value. The car I just bought
had a 59% residual value after 39 months. That's about 20 percentage points
too high for what is realistic on that car. But it's GMAC taking the
hit...not me.

RCE wrote:
You know what? None of this matters. For every proven crook running a
company, I'll find you an honest, hard working example.


That's very true. It's also necessary for the functioning of
our whole hi-techindustrialized economy. But that doesn't
help if it's *your* IRA that's been plundered.


thunder wrote:
Personally, I'd expect you could find hundreds of honest businessmen for
each crook,

Cynic that I am, I agree wholeheartedly.

... but there lies the problem. As you know, it's quite
competitive out there. Competing with crooks isn't a level playing field.

Agreed.

If we don't punish the crooks far more heavily than we do, even an honest
businessman is tempted to shade the edges. What did Ebbers get? 25
years for an $11 billion fraud and there was talk that it was a "stiff"
sentence.

Look at the next part of the equation... who hands out lots
& lots of money to politicians? Mom-n-Pop stores? No.
Businessmen who can profitably make goods & services without
gov't intervention or plum cost-plus contracts? No again.

Therefor it is in the politicians interest to foster a
climate where huge comglomerates operate in murky fiscal
webs, large sums can change hands in the fog, and crooked
CEOs (or other corporate officers) go unpunished.

That's not cynicism, that's the hard cold reality of what is
happening today.


...If I'd lost my retirement and was forced to eat cat food
during my Golden Years because of some fat cat's greed, I'd be thinking
he'd better be spending heavily on security.

Oh, don't worry, they do. You might also want to check out
the recent growth in spending on security for gov't offices
& officials; and the bloom of laws about threats or assaults
on various gov't drones.


.....Obviously others here are not.
Makes the world go 'round. In my life there have been more people telling
me I couldn't do something than those who encouraged me to try. I rarely
listened to the first group.


Should have been taking bets... that's what I do (sometimes).

DSK

"Fred Dehl" wrote in message
...

The guy you voted for in 2000 said that the internal combustion
engine is the greatest threat to mankind, and you're calling the
purchase of its lifeblood "mandatory"?

In a sense, he's correct. In many parts of this country, there an almost
religious aversion to using mass transportation, an idea that's part of
normal life in some countries, and a few of our busier cities. The overusage
of private vehicles affects us in quite a few negative ways. At the top of
the list is a certain sort of stupidity that blinds people to the effects of
their decisions.

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 09:34:47 -0500, DSK wrote:


Look at the next part of the equation... who hands out lots & lots of
money to politicians? Mom-n-Pop stores? No. Businessmen who can profitably
make goods & services without gov't intervention or plum cost-plus
contracts? No again.

I've said it before, but I think the incestuous relationship between
corporate welfare, in it's various guises, and campaign finance is the
biggest threat we have to this democracy. This Abramoff mess is just one
example. You have to wonder who the politicos are working for.

Look at the next part of the equation... who hands out lots & lots of
money to politicians? Mom-n-Pop stores? No. Businessmen who can profitably
make goods & services without gov't intervention or plum cost-plus
contracts? No again.


thunder wrote:
I've said it before, but I think the incestuous relationship between
corporate welfare, in it's various guises, and campaign finance is the
biggest threat we have to this democracy. This Abramoff mess is just one
example. You have to wonder who the politicos are working for.

No, you don't wonder at all, if you pay attention.

Eisenhower warned us about this. Maybe we should be grateful
that the 'dictatorship of the corporate interests' has held
off as long as it did. Meanwhile, voters are about the least
important concerns in Washington- 3 election cycles now have
proved that voters are stupid, have no memory at all, and
can be easily shilled into impoverishing & imprisoning
themselves.

DSK

"Fred Dehl" wrote in message
...
"Doug Kanter" wrote in
:

"Fred Dehl" wrote in message
...

The guy you voted for in 2000 said that the internal combustion
engine is the greatest threat to mankind, and you're calling the
purchase of its lifeblood "mandatory"?

In a sense, he's correct. In many parts of this country, there an
almost religious aversion to using mass transportation, an idea that's
part of normal life in some countries, and a few of our busier cities.

Even in New York only 10% of commuters use mass transit.

The reasons to not use mass transit are numerous:

- It's slower. The average mass transit commute takes 75% longer than the
same commute by car.

- It takes quality time away from families. I run errands on my lunch
hour. In my car. If I took mass transit to work, I'd be tied to the
office and have to run errands after work, decreasing my evening at-home
time (over and above the time lost to the longer commute as described
above).

- It's inconvenient. Unlike cars, mass transit seldom provides door-to-
door service. So you end up walking in the elements (rain, snow, extreme
heat) or driving to the station (Hey, isn't the goal of mass transit to
"get us out of our cars"? Oops.)

- It degrades automobile travel. Buses move slowly, are impossible to
pass or see around, and stop every few blocks, slowing down traffic on
major arteries, decreasing fuel economy and increasing pollution
emissions. Plus if you drive to and from the transit station, your car
doesn't have a chance to warm up. This means greater engine wear and
decreased fuel economy.

- It's unsafe. Mass transit has a higher deaths-per-passenger-mile than
nearly every other method of transportation you can name. Also many mass
transit stations, centers, and bus stops are nests of criminal activity.

- It doesn't get us out of our cars. In addition to the need to drive
from home to the station, mass transit doesn't let us combine trips.
Transit won't let you go grocery shopping on your way home. Or get a
haircut. Or visit the doctor. Or pickup your children from school. With
a car you can do all that in one trip on the way home from work.

The overusage of private vehicles affects us in quite a few negative
ways. At the top of the list is a certain sort of stupidity that
blinds people to the effects of their decisions.

More smug condescension from the elitist left. Go back to your triple
latte and your Oprah-approved book o' lies.

You've proven my point. Meanwhile, how have other countries gotten around
some of the problems you've described? Are you aware of any of them, or do
you prefer to assume that things could not be much better?