Comments on: The Market Can Regulate Automobiles

By: Gil

Gil — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 23:30:02 +0000

Really Free Market? What’s stopping people from buying small, efficient four-cyclinder cars right now? For most people fun starts at six cylinders.

By: T. Ralph Kays

T. Ralph Kays — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:51:57 +0000

Offshoring

You only made one mistake, it isn’t spelled mich, its much. Perfect otherwise.

By: Offshoring

Offshoring — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:46:39 +0000

How can “offshoring” be bad? Every time you buy food, you outsource that work to a farmer. Every time you buy a computer, you outsource that work to a computer maker. Every time you buy clothes, you outsource that work to a clothes maker. Every time you go to the hospital, you outsource that work to doctors. Why do you outsource all these things? Because you probably specialize in something and these people specialize in other things. If you did all these things yourself, you would have to do things you didn’t know as well so you wouldn’t produce as mich.

By: Offshoring

Offshoring — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:22:23 +0000

Offshoring is good for everyone. Jobs are costs, not benefits.

By: insurance

insurance — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:19:33 +0000

Insurance is a zero-sum game. If you get the insurance company to pay $100000 for something, that’s your gain but insurance company’s loss. The insurance company has to consider the probabilities of things like that happening and give you a premium based on those probabilities. And those probabilities can be different for different people, so premiums can be different.

By: free market

free market — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:15:18 +0000

Even if finance was a free market, so what? That doesn’t mean that the dow goes up one day and up more the next. It means that companies can actually go out of business and their stock can drop to 0 if they outlive their usefulness.

By: JD

JD — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:54:16 +0000

Regarding a business being too powerful??? Well, didn’t you all read Rothbard’s article “Origins of the Fed” a few days ago. Pretty much splains it all for me. That is the framework for today by which we live by today, but even more complex and colluded.

The problem with anything is govt. forces technology that maybe isn’t really there or even economically viable. Fairy tale, perfection, which isn’t in this world.

For me personally, K.I.S.S. regarding cars….Thats why I have a ’93 LX Musstang heavily modified. (Not just Stickers). You can’t get me in the new over-weight heavy regulated garbage…(This is long as the combustion engine is still the predominant power plant, by the way).

It’s still a matter of weight, gearing, etc. regarding efficiency. Or just plain old keeping your foot out of it. What happened to Choice?

By: Inquisitor

Inquisitor — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:46:12 +0000

“Oh yes, the free market does such an excellent job of regulating itself. Witness the financial-market meltdown of last year, the rampant abuses in the health insurance industry, and the wholesale offshoring of US jobs overseas. I can’t wait to put my family’s safety in the hands of auto company boardrooms and their stockholders. I’m sure they’ll respond to safety issues the way Toyota did to reports of lethal, runaway cars–by ignoring them.”

Life is hard being ignorant, isn’t it?

By: Free Man

Free Man — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:45:22 +0000

When Barack Obama said that the unions were part of the solution, this is when I knew he was pandering to the left and that he is nothing but yet another corrupt politician.

By: Free Man

Free Man — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:43:40 +0000

Greg,

The companies can’t listen to the customers when they are already forced by the government to listen only to the United Auto Workers union.

By: Shay

Shay — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:08:13 +0000

izdelava spletnih strani, the solution is to eliminate government involvement, so there's nothing for anyone in the market to pressure. It's similar in all areas, but people tend to ignore the government and focus on other things that interact with it, considering them the problem.

By: greg

greg — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:02:31 +0000

The US automakers can blame all of their problems on regulations in their industry and the truth of their problem is that they don’t listen to what the market wants and is failing every step of the way. I can’t see a single US automaker surviving if they operated within a free market. And maybe that would be a good thing!

On the consumer end, most purchases are on impulse. Very few buyers go through all the test results and engineering of the cars. This is the prime reason you actually see an Aztec on the road.

By: izdelava spletnih strani

izdelava spletnih strani — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:42:31 +0000

I think that car industry is to powerfull to let free market rules take over.

We had example just know when Obama gave up to the pressure of the industry.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:57:29 +0000

Of course that will be the solution. In our current zeitgeist, people cannot fathom any solution to any problem that does not involve government fiat. You kinda have to compartmentalize these days, use your own reason to take the good out of what you read and discard the bad.

By: Jerry Wells

Jerry Wells — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:47:36 +0000

In regards to Consumer Reports magazine, yes, it does provide a service to most consumers. However, in my observation, its solution to the problems in the products it reviews is almost always more government regulation, not free market choices.

By: Peter

Peter — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:37:34 +0000

Of course the market can regulate this. ItÂ´s just a question of the price of the several suitable energies.

If for example prices are higher (as due to taxes f.e. in europe) the cars consume less gas.
And if youÂ´re free to drive faster than 50mph – there do appear even cars that run over 100mph and still consume quite little gas.

The problem is the interest groups – Those made the governement in the US to regulate max speeds – to ensure low taxes on gas… why? To avoid expencive devellopment! American cars did just change their outside quite frequently – but the techniques did not really change. If you take f.e. a Mercedes – you cannot compare a 300D from 82 with a 300D from today – except from the Star…

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:15:37 +0000

I wouldn’t dismiss someone as a troll just because he’s a member of the ignorant masses. He sounds to me like he’s deluded by the usual socialist lines that America has a free market and that all social problems are caused by the free market and cured by government. Most people today are completely clueless about the fact that government interference in the economy is the cause of the vast majority of the major problems we’re facing in our time.

So with that being said, Winfield, you’re wrong. Spend some more time on this site and enlighten yourself before engaging in more embarrassing displays of ignorance.

By: Richie

Richie — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:10:25 +0000

And one more thing Winfield, try to be a bit more original. The non-sense you stated has been heard before. Did you copy and paste?

By: Richie

Richie — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 04:05:44 +0000

Hey Winfield,

You’re right, because as EVERYONE knows, every industry you cited is purely a free market. Indeed, the health insurance industry is not regulated at all.

Troll.

By: Winfield Scott

Winfield Scott — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:58:23 +0000

Oh yes, the free market does such an excellent job of regulating itself. Witness the financial-market meltdown of last year, the rampant abuses in the health insurance industry, and the wholesale offshoring of US jobs overseas. I can’t wait to put my family’s safety in the hands of auto company boardrooms and their stockholders. I’m sure they’ll respond to safety issues the way Toyota did to reports of lethal, runaway cars–by ignoring them.