

2010 Toyota Prius

2010 Honda Insight
Base Prius gets a $1,000 price cut







Comments     Threshold


RE: Stop hybrid dumping!
By msomeoneelsez on 4/21/2009 9:07:17 PM , Rating: 1
This is the second entirely uninformed comment you have made in a week... You have been rated to the floor twice... Maybe that is incentive to think about what you are going to say, and why it may or may not be good, and actually do that BEFORE posting.

So do tell me this:
Why is it a good idea to help companies who made bad choices, but throw a big "Eff you" at those who are being successful by making the right choices?

* Second, we should put an anti-dumping charge on every foreign hybrid, to bring their prices in line with that of the Volt.

Umm... what? Are you trying to say that foreign automakers bringing competition to the market is a form of them dumping their cars on America? As if they couldn't sell them in Japan too?

* Third, in the event the Japanese try to end run our effort by building their hybrids here, we should levy a special tax on each of their employees to cover the health benefits of non-employees living in their communities who have no insurance.

You have a desire to kill the working man, don't you? Let me quote myself from another post, one that was actually responding to you...
It's a matter of fairness

No, it's a matter of your desire to work less, while being supported by those who work harder. Socialism is what you are talking about, and that has shown time after time to be unsuccessful. There are successes, few and far between... and they are VERY lucky.

Please, read that post as well, because it is very apparent that you need to.

Anyways, back onto topic, socialism (in this example that you give, it is where people are taxed when they are working so that they can support those who don't work) is a bad system because it gives people an incentive NOT to work. In a socialistic system, those who are on welfare don't have to work to get by, they just take their government paid healthcare, unemployment, welfare checks, food stamps, etc. and be a burden to the working class. It is the most backwards system that I know about aside from straight up communism.

Moving on though...
* Fourth, our government should declare our child-labor laws to have universal jurisdiction. This will stop the Japanese'spractice of employing schoolgirls on their factory-floor as slave laborers, whcih give them a distinctly unfair competitive advantage.

How powerful do you think the US is? Even if there were "schoolgirls on their factory-floor" we would have no control over it other than to embargo the product... And in this case, that would extremely hurt the economy, and political relations with Japan. Bad joo-joo.

But if we don't stop the hollowing out of our car industry, pretty soon none of us will have a job. Do you want a future where your kids will be starving like they do in Japan just so you can save a buck now?

We all work in car factories? I know I don't...
I also find it hard to believe that one of the most pervasive and innovative democratic controlled economies in the world has starvation running rampant. Yes, I am referring to Japan.

The future that I want is one where a man is entitled to his own work, or the value produced from it.
I want a future with a flat tax so that there is no more representation without taxation.
I want a future that forces those in poverty to work for their own benefit, with only minimal burden on the working population, instead of taking free education and throwing it away, free foodstamps and buying cheetos and mcdonalds.

I am going to repeat another part of my previous response to you.

Need I say more about how America is already too socialistic? We do NOT need more.

RE: Stop hybrid dumping!
By Alexstarfire on 4/21/2009 10:46:31 PM , Rating: 2
The only problem I see with the stats on the income tax are that the bottom 50% includes just about every teenager who holds a job. You can't honestly expect them to pay as much as someone who has an actual career. I do agree that it is very lopsided, but not as much as the stats suggest.

RE: Stop hybrid dumping!
By msomeoneelsez on 4/22/2009 12:25:32 AM , Rating: 2
Although I understand why you are bringing that up, but I believe it does not sway the information at all. I know many teenagers in my area who are doing anything and everything they can to move out, and get on welfare. They won't admit that they are going to go onto welfare, that is essentially what they do by removing themselves from the school environment and into the "working world."

It is sad, really...

I do definitely thank you for thinking about what is said instead of just spewing out what others have said. It is a nice change from borowki2 and those like him.

RE: Stop hybrid dumping!
By mindless1 on 4/22/2009 1:09:24 AM , Rating: 2
That's not the sad part, the sad part is these jobs which don't require higher education are mandatory for our quality of life in the US, and yet we aren't willing to pay them a livable wage.

The jobs have to get done, someone has to do them. Whether it be the best, the brightest, the luckiest or whoever that goes on to better jobs, there is still a need to provide at least enough incentive to do these jobs that they are done well.

Instead what do we have? As you wrote, we end up paying into welfare taking away the incentive of working so the work is bad, turnovers are high, it's a lose:lose result for everyone and yet we preserve it because we like to push people to achieve.

Furthering mankind is quite important, but sometimes I wonder if we are losing our humanity in the process.

RE: Stop hybrid dumping!
By Alexstarfire on 4/22/2009 2:01:53 AM , Rating: 2
That's why a good bit of those jobs go to teenagers. You know because they don't need to make a living off of it. And I would argue against many of those jobs being "required." I'd bet most of those jobs include the fast food industry and the like which aren't required or necessary at all.

RE: Stop hybrid dumping!
By msomeoneelsez on 4/22/2009 3:19:12 AM , Rating: 2

I would like to add that many of these jobs are low profit as well, so an increase in the wage would either raise unemployment, or require a government subsidy, either of which is bad.

Haha, the government really WOULD be condoning fat people in America :P

RE: Stop hybrid dumping!
By mindless1 on 4/23/2009 1:22:25 AM , Rating: 2
... and a good bit of them (most actually, if we consider not only minimum wage but instead what I wrote, livable wage) are not going to teenagers.

Many teens, twentysomethings and beyond, do have to make a living. There are a finite number of well paying jobs.

I would argue that most of these jobs are required. Fast food jobs aren't required? Quite wrong, so long as people go to fast food restaurants it is required that someone be there to take orders, cook, clean, etc, etc. Same for any other business, it is required if society deems it important enough to be a good or service where money changes hands.

I think you drastically underestimate the value of these jobs, that you don't know much about industry. Do you have products in your home? Of course you do. Did you know that over 80% of the people involved in producing, delivering, or selling that product to you are in the lower income bracket, and I'm not even talking about sweatshops in China?

The fact is, most jobs do not require a lot of specialized training from a university. Even many of those who graduate from university do not acquire skills they later apply to any significant extent in the jobs they acquire (except arguably English/communication related, but they should have had a firm grasp of that by the end of high school).

Doesn't the poor state of the economy give you even more hints today about the state of the lower class? Record numbers of foreclosures aren't indicative of anything? High levels of debt aren't? It's easy to say people overextended themselves and I do think many do, but someone will let their credit card bill go unpaid before they stop their house payments so the remaining factors are not enough money or well paying jobs left.

Simply putting more kids through college, or them choosing to stay in college where that isn't increasing the number of well paying jobs but is increasing their debt too, is not a solution.

RE: Stop hybrid dumping!
By Alexstarfire on 4/23/2009 2:23:52 PM , Rating: 1
I'm well aware that there are tons of low wage jobs, since I've worked at several myself. There are very few things that are actually needed believe it or not. Restaurants of any kind simply aren't needed, they are a want. Places like PetSmart, and many other specialty stores aren't needed. Places like Bass Pro Shop certainly aren't needed. The list could go on forever. It's not that there aren't certain things these stores provide that are needed. I'm sure we'd all love to keep feeding our pets and fishing, but we don't need the gagillion toys at PetSmart or all the fancy boats at Bass Pro Shop. I'd wager a guess and say that probably half of what companies like UPS and FedEx deliver probably aren't needed by that person. That is a pure guess though, but I think I'm probably underestimating that number.

I would highly argue that the cause of this recession is debt. You know how many of my high school friends are in debt? Well, I suppose I should say were in debt since most have actually been paying them off. Half my friends were. They don't even have living expenses and still couldn't manage it. People just need to learn how to manage their fucking money. You don't need a god damn 3 bedroom house for 1 couple... unless you have kids on the way or something. But even then you don't need to have all the fancy homes. We have two neighborhoods in our town that are $500k+ homes. The average value of the houses surrounding it can't even be $200k. Since they are new it's not surprise no one is really living there. But before this really hit us people were buying up these houses in droves. They continuously spend outside of their income and that is no one's fault but themselves. Naturally this isn't true for EVERYONE, but for a good majority it is. While I can't say this for certain I feel my parents were sorta in that boat. I don't think they overspent, but kept it on the edge. Luckily they have guaranteed jobs so it isn't a problem. That's just my guess though, I don't know what their financial records look like. Could just all be in retirement since they are quickly approaching that date.

RE: Stop hybrid dumping!
By mindless1 on 5/2/2009 1:21:47 AM , Rating: 2
There are multiple reasons someone may want more bedrooms than they need. Suppose they have guests over. Suppose they buy the large home in a nicer neighborhood because they are stuck up, or don't like to deal with people in lower class neighborhoods, or see a home as a good investment they can enjoy at the same time unlike stocks or bonds.

I'm not trying to justify overbuying a house but the typical person isn't buying fancy boats or lots of pet toys. You are right that people have a lot of things they don't need, and certainly that they should have budgeted a bit better including more insulation from job loss by having more savings rather than debt, but at the same time we have to look at the media's influence on the sheep, they are trained to behave this way from early childhood.

Who really needs a cellphone? I bet a lot of people think they do. Regardless, having things you want instead of need to survive is what pushes people to work harder. Take away that incentive and you see more people on welfare which drags down the economy too.

