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[askovdk]

I do believe that wealth inequality has been getting a bit out of whack - but you have to be careful when you read those graphs.  A significant chunk of wealth consists of present value of stocks, which is not "real" wealth.

You could take all that paper wealth and... it's not going to give you cheaper housing or cheaper health care or more affordable cars or anything like that.  It sounds like it should, but it just won't, because although money is fungible, wealth is not.  You can't convert a supercar into five family cars.  You can't convert a luxury yacht into four fishing boats.

The only thing you can do is change culture and/or incentives, over the course of a generation, so that people would rather invest in lower prices for things rather than more features for the same price, which is what we have now: the cheapest cars are the same (real) price as they used to be but with new gadgets. I'd rather have cars with the features from 10 years ago but at 75% the real price.  But this is just not what society is doing...

  Thank you for sharing this inconvenient truth. This is food for thoughts.
... yes, I think you are very right. Both that 'cheap living' should be made better, and also that focus should be on (ensured?*) disposable income instead of wealth.
If Facebook gave all employees equal shares in the company, ... then nothing(**) would change. ... Until the employee sold the shares, and then the wealth would again be concentrated on the few top percents.

(*) To me 'a good life' is not just money today, but also a trust that there will be money tomorrow.
(**) Having a 'dead' lump of wealth can be used as security for getting better terms on loans etc.

[Max™]

Also note that a lot of new cars being the same cost is due to things like massively more powerful engines, better fuel economy, and non-negotiable safety features. Really you should say you want the SUV to die like the unholy devilspawn it is.

[LordBaal]

I really dont know the obsession with this bigger cars thing. The freedom to go anywhere and carry a lot of things... moar moar MOAR!

I had a car, a Ford Ka. It wasn't thw best but it was perfect for me. It was small, ran a lot of Km with each liter of gas, was fast enough and ample enough for what I needed.

I recall refueling it once per week and sometimes even 10 days between refueling. And my work was 15km from home. That's 30km round trip per day. All this just refilling before it got half tank to preserve the injectors and don't put strain on the gas filter, so in practice it  have worked with even more scarse refilling.

I never needed anything bigger and in fact could have done it with a smaller car. Going to the beach? Well I could have done it very well in it. Camping? Who really does it here? Nobody, that's who.

It's like the people getting huge pickup trucks with double wheeled rear axles, 5 seats and several tonnes of cargo capacity.... to drive to the office and leave children in the school. It migth be afordavle here but Im pretty sure anyother country in the world is far more cheaper just to hire a van/truck for the very few times in your life that you are going to actually use that cargo capacity or rent something for that outroad trip that pay years of large gas tanks and expensier tires and spare parts in general.

Obviously there's people like contractors, deliveries or the like that do need this constantly, that's fine,  but the large majority of people... bah...

Sorry for the rant

[nenjin]

1. Sitting higher than the rest of traffic gives you a better perspective. (While fucking over everyone behind you.) It also makes you feel superior looking down on everyone else's car.
2. Hitting something smaller than means you'll probably survive/get hurt less. (While they will get hurt more.)
3. It's scientifically proven to make your genitalia feel 4 to 5x bigger.
4. Actual work, which I swear half of people don't actually do. I love looking at "KING RANCHER 4000" and seeing how pristine the paint is. No rock chips means you don't do any actual work with your "work truck." Same story with the tow hitch.

[Dunamisdeos]

Way more than half. America has a culture that venerates stupid wasteful dinguses and this translates well into our cars.

Only reasons to own a larger vehicle is:

1- You have a large family, and need a van or SUV or something to fit the kids into.
2- You have to haul larger-than-normal quantities of things regularly, and need a pickup/pickup equivalent like a trailer.
3- You are a fucking jackass, and need to get a normal car nobody is impressed by your ability to waste gas and money.

[SalmonGod]

In other words, this

[Trekkin]

Way more than half. America has a culture that venerates stupid wasteful dinguses and this translates well into our cars.

Only reasons to own a larger vehicle is:

1- You have a large family, and need a van or SUV or something to fit the kids into.
2- You have to haul larger-than-normal quantities of things regularly, and need a pickup/pickup equivalent like a trailer.
3- You are a fucking jackass, and need to get a normal car nobody is impressed by your ability to waste gas and money.

Just to add:

4- You're handicapped. It varies depending on the specific issue, but it's generally easier to build accessibility measures like ramps into a larger car; anything smaller than a minivan can need extensive structural modifications, and that gets expensive.
5- It's what you can afford. Not everybody gets to pick which car they get, and plenty of people can only afford cars that have become unfashionable for one reason or another.

Now, I'm sure someone will be along shortly with a snarky, vulgar way to dismiss this in favor of more important matters like heaping contempt on everyone unlike them, but the fact remains that not everyone acts like a jackass by choice.

[SalmonGod]

Yeah, I have a crossover SUV because it's easier for my wife and get in and out of, due to back issues restricting her mobility.

And then there's people who hang nutsacks from the rear bumper of their trucks 

[Folly]

Only reasons to own a larger vehicle is:
1- You have a large family, and need a van or SUV or something to fit the kids into.
2- You have to haul larger-than-normal quantities of things regularly, and need a pickup/pickup equivalent like a trailer.
3- You are a fucking jackass, and need to get a normal car nobody is impressed by your ability to waste gas and money.

I used to drive a short car. Because I could not adequately see the flow of traffic around me, that short car is now dead. Now I drive a tall car, and have had no trouble navigating it safely.

[Folly]

In Congressworld, the last few weeks have seen Democrats steadily increasing their calls for initiation of impeachment proceedings. Trump fueled these fires today by ordering the White House to ignore subpoenas from Congress for paperwork.

On the other side of the aisle, some members of the GOP say that Trump's proposed tariffs against Mexico are a step too far. The GOP have traditionally been against tariffs, preferring instead to espouse the free market. They were willing to overlook Trump's other tariffs because they were being used to address perceived market inequities. However, these new tariffs are entirely in response to migration issues, which is being seen as an improper abuse of power.

It seems like all the pieces are starting to fall into place for impeachment proceedings.

[Telgin]

I'll believe it when I see it.  At best I expect them to talk Trump into dropping the tariffs.

Then again, nothing about this administration is predictable or believable.

[Dunamisdeos]

This doesn't seem like an impeachable thing? Just because they disagree with a tariff doesn't mean they're going to impeach him. Probably they'll make Trump use a veto and have to overrule him.

[hector13]

How many Republicans are willing to risk the wrath of the deplorables, though?

[sluissa]

This doesn't seem like an impeachable thing? Just because they disagree with a tariff doesn't mean they're going to impeach him. Probably they'll make Trump use a veto and have to overrule him.

Agreed, it's going to take more than this for republicans to flip on impeachment en masse. You MIGHT get one or two... maybe Cruz... to flip on him. Cruz has bad history with him and this might be the sort of thing that might actually be good for him in a weird way given he's one of the least liked Senators up there currently. Maybe someone like Rand Paul who cultivates the "renegade, willing to buck authority" image as long as the votes don't matter to the party.

But enough to matter? I don't see it. Trump's going to have to go a lot further than this.

While I think Pelosi's stance that it's not the right time for impeachment is correct, politically. I think there will be a point where they can no longer avoid it. If they can stretch it out into the elections season, that might be ideal as the whole time Trump's out trying to gather support the news is going to be reporting on impeachment investigations.

That said, we saw last time that there's no such thing as bad publicity... that might backfire as well. An early end to it could bump his polls as well, given that a lot of people would see acquittal under those circumstances to be evidence that it all WAS a witch hunt. Having it stretch out through the end of this term... I'm not even sure what the ramifications of that would be... especially if he were voted in again.

[Folly]

This doesn't seem like an impeachable thing? Just because they disagree with a tariff doesn't mean they're going to impeach him. Probably they'll make Trump use a veto and have to overrule him.

There are plenty of things Trump has done that could be considered impeachable. Obstruction of Justice seems the most likely candidate. The only thing stopping that from happening is a Republican Senate who believe that impeachment would look slightly worse for their party compared to riding this thing out. But if enough Republicans could be turned by an issue like this tariff, impeachment could easily happen.

Moreover, what I mentioned was not 'Impeachment', but rather 'Impeachment Proceedings'. The Dem's in the lower chamber don't necessarily need to think they can succeed before they start the process.
We are at a point where history will remember this Congress in one of two ways. One way is as the Congress who wasted their time and taxpayer dollars on an impeachment proceeding that they knew was doomed to failure. The other way is as the Congress who had incontrovertible proof that their President was commiting crimes against the American people, and chose to do nothing. They are both bad choices, but I know which way I would go in their place.