Amerika

“The SUV craze was a bubble and now it is bursting,” said George Hoffer, an economics professor at Virginia Commonwealth University whose research focuses on the automotive industry. “It’s an irrational vehicle. It’ll never come back.”

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This goes to show once again that Americans love excess, and will do anything to have more as long as it doesn’t cost more – for no other reason than it’s more and they can have it.

It seems to be just fine to own an SUV when gas is $0.99/gallon. Where were these economists ten years ago? Consider that Europe pays per liter nearly what we pay per gallon…3.8 liters to the gallon = nearly 4 times the price. Now that prices are higher here, suddenly people realize that owning a big truck or an SUV for no good reason doesn’t make any sense.

I’ve said for years that the only language Americans understand is the language of the dollar. Now that our dollar is nearly worthless, we curse when trading in that Toyota Sequoia for a Honda Civic. Must be that damn war in Iraq, or something.

Americans typically don’t account for total cost of vehicle ownership, compounding the problem of selling more trucks to idiots who don’t need them. Ford & GM are giving these trucks away at 0% financing plus cash back, and the buyers think it’s a steal, until gas prices rise. Do they think American manufacturers give these trucks away out of kindness?

Tags: consumerism, crowdism, overpopulation