CSpec

I emailed Lutz once a few years ago, and he responded! I'm not sure if he still would, as I imagine many more people know his email address now.

Sigh. Have you never heard of demand curves? Charge more for something and less would be consumed. People would demand more efficient cars/TVs if gas/electricity were made more expensive. This Soviet rationing ensuring everyone pays a "fair" price is disastrous.

It's not confirmed yet, but this guy was most likely faking it to get out of his car payments. Link This becoming more of a farce every day. Audi was almost destroyed by an equally preposterous crusade by crackpots, elderly people looking for a scapegoat, and lawyers.

The insinuation is that Toyota covered up a huge scandal which killed scores of hapless people. In fact it's been blown completely out of proportion, and is now snowballing with dubious claims from crackpots, old people, and lawyers who can smell blood.

I am not afraid of my Toyota Prius I’ve been driving Toyota Priuses since 2001. As a junior defense lawyer in the mid-90s, I litigated a number of bogus sudden acceleration cases that were brought against General Motors. So the recent kerfuffle over alleged mysterious electronic problems with the Prius and other Toyotas has certainly caught my attention beyond just throwing my floor mat in the trunk. I knew the public hysteria had reached unprecedented proportions when my father, a Ph.D. geologist skeptical of everything from George W. Bush to global warming (and that’s just the G’s), credulously emailed me repeatedly to demand I read a press release from a plaintiff’s lawyer on how to prevent runaway vehicles. The short answer: hit the brake and stay on it. Every vehicle on the road today has a braking system more powerful than its engine. Shift into neutral. Then turn off the power. So James Sikes, who made a dramatic 911 call from his Prius on Interstate 8 in San Diego earlier this week, is effectively claiming he had an electrical problem that affected his throttle, his brake, and his power system, because it took him over 20 minutes to stop his car. Somehow no one in the press has asked Sikes how it is he could stop the car once it had slowed to 50 mph, but not when it was going 90 mph. Have Balloon Boy and the finger-in-the-chili taught us nothing? Even if one believes all the hype, the reaction so far has been a giant overreaction. Fifty-odd deaths over 10 years and millions of Toyotas is a drop in the bucket compared to the general risk of being on the road at all. It’s entirely possible that more people will be killed driving to the dealer for the recall than lives will be saved from going through the safety theater demanded by the Department of Transportation. As Carnegie Mellon University Professor Paul Fischbeck calculates, I face 19 times more risk walking home the mile back from my Toyota dealer than I would driving a car that one assumes has the electronic defect. But one shouldn’t believe the hype. We went through this a generation ago with the Audi 5000 and other autos accused of sudden acceleration, and, again, mysterious unknowable car components were supposedly at fault. In a North Carolina case I worked on, the plaintiff’s expert theorized that electromagnetic transmissions from submarines might have set off the throttle via the cruise control, though, unsurprisingly, he was not able to duplicate the effect while driving around electrical towers with much greater electromagnetic interference. Back then, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) spent millions studying the issue. They found that sudden acceleration was several times more likely among elderly drivers than young drivers, and much more frequent among the very short or someone who had just gotten into a vehicle. Electromagnetic rays don’t discriminate by age and height, which suggests very much that human factors were at play: in other words, pedal misapplication. A driver would step on the wrong pedal, panic when the car did not perform as expected, continue to mistake the accelerator for the brake, and press down on the accelerator even harder. This had disastrous consequences in a 1992 Washington Square Park incident that killed five and a 2003 Santa Monica Farmers’ Market incident that killed ten—the New York driver, Stella Maycheck, was 74 (and quite short); the California driver, George Russell Weller, 86. We’re seeing the same pattern again today. Initial reports of a problem, followed by dozens of new reports “coming to light” as people seek to blame their earlier accidents on sudden acceleration. Again, mysterious car components are at issue, this time, speculation of software or electronics going haywire. But if the problem is software, it is manifesting itself a lot like the Audi sudden acceleration did. The Los Angeles Times recently did a story detailing all of the NHTSA reports of Toyota “sudden acceleration” fatalities, and, though the Times did not mention it, the ages of the drivers involved were striking. In the 24 cases where driver age was reported or readily inferred, the drivers included those of the ages 60, 61, 63, 66, 68, 71, 72, 72, 77, 79, 83, 85, 89—and I’m leaving out the son whose age wasn’t identified, but whose 94-year-old father died as a passenger. These “electronic defects” apparently discriminate against the elderly, just as the sudden acceleration of Audis and GM autos did before them. (If computers are going to discriminate against anyone, they should be picking on the young, who are more likely to take up arms against the rise of the machines and future Terminators). But Toyota is being mau-maued by Democratic regulators and legislators in the pockets of trial lawyers—who, according to the Associated Press, stand to make a billion dollars from blaming Toyota for driver error. And that is before hundreds of past run-of-the-mill Toyota accidents that killed or injured people are re-classified in future lawsuits as an electronics failure in an attempt to win settlements against the company. Media irresponsibility severely damaged Audi’s brand for years in the U.S.; GM’s litigation expenses from sudden acceleration and similarly bogus product liability suits contributed to its recent need for a taxpayer bailout. Certainly, the dozens of deaths reported to NHTSA are real tragedies—as are the tens of thousands of other automobile-related deaths that occur every year. While it’s certainly possibly the case that floor mat troubles have caused a handful of accidents, the media needs to exhibit more skepticism before it does trial lawyers’ bidding against Toyota on a speculative theory of electronic defect that is absent of evidence.

Reconciling an externality with a simple tax like this is the most economically efficient course of action. Reams of regulations dictating lightbulbs and TV energy usage is heinous. Also, the gas tax in this country is too low as it is (I don't think it's been increased since the early 90s). In the absence of road pricing, gas taxes are the best way to finance road construction, not through dipping into general revenue funds.

The car uses Brazilian tires? Has anyone informed Obama?

You're missing the point here--it is not up the state to micromanage like this, which destroys happiness and leads to a lumbering state bureaucracy. If too much fuel is really being used, then just increase duties on it and let people make their own choices on how to economize. The reason people buy their evil black interiors now is simply because they don't feel the full cost of that decision. If you tax fuel then some people will still find it worth it because they like black leather, and other people will demand a lighter color, as is their preference. When the thought police come in and manage individual components of individual products like this, you're on the path to collapse. Oh wait, California already is.

Because politicians love to tell people how to live their lives.

Been reading Atlas Shrugged, usonia?

The logic here is impeccable. A draconian ban somehow gives the consumer more choice. And how much taxpayer money will be wasted on a Salt Inspection Committee, arresting chefs for the heinous crime of making food delicious? Somehow I think the state legislature should have other priorities, like their huge budget gap and fleeing state population.

MYFOXNY.COM - Some New York City chefs and restaurant owners are taking aim at a bill introduced in the New York Legislature that, if passed, would ban the use of salt in restaurant cooking. "No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on the premises of such restaurant or off of such premises," the bill, A. 10129 , states in part. The legislation, which Assemblyman Felix Ortiz , D-Brooklyn, introduced on March 5, would fine restaurants $1,000 for each violation. "The consumer needs to make their own health choices. Just as doctors and the occasional visit to a hospital can't truly control how a person chooses to maintain their health, neither can chefs nor the occasional visit to a restaurant," said Jeff Nathan, the executive chef and co-owner of Abigael's on Broadway. "Modifying trans fats and sodium intake needs to be home based for optimal health. Regulating restaurants will not solve this health issue." Nathan is part of the group My Food My Choice , which calls itself a coalition of chefs, restaurant owners, and consumers, called the proposed law "absurd" in a press release issued on its Facebook page. Ortiz has said the salt ban would allow restaurant patrons to decide how salty they want their meals to be. "In this way, consumers have more control over the amount of sodium they intake, and are given the option to exercise healthier diets and healthier lifestyles," Ortiz said, according to a Nation's Restaurant News report. But many chefs and restaurant owners said they are tired of politicians dictating what they can serve and what people can eat. They have opposed the city's anti-sodium and anti-transfat campaigns. "Chefs would be handcuffed in their food preparation, and many are already in open rebellion over this legislation," said Orit Sklar, of My Food My Choice. "Ortiz and fellow anti-salt zealot Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City seek to undermine the food and restaurant business in the entire state." The American Heart Association encourages Americans to reduce their sodium intake and has advocated the reduction of sodium used by food manufacturers and restaurants by 50 percent over a 10-year period.

Maybe it was because of market realities? Reality tends not to conform to Utopian PC nonsense.

"For each one sugar growing and harvesting job saved through high U.S. sugar prices, nearly three confectionery manufacturing jobs are lost." http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/02/few-days-ago-i-posted-about-tariffs.html "Suppose the average American worker earns twenty dollars per hour while the average Chinese worker earns just two dollars per hour. Won’t free trade make it impossible to defend the higher American wage? Won’t there instead be a leveling down until, say, both American and Chinese workers earn eleven dollars per hour? The answer, once again, is no." http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/FreeTrade.html

And getting back to the point of this thread, would the protectionists here find it deplorable if it were shown that Phoenix and Las Vegas' growth was directly correlated with Detroit's collapse? Or is it only bad if a person with a funny name benefits?

That's right, because they produced a better product and won. I'm so sad I'm forced to only choose among superior products.

What on earth are you talking about? US dollars go to Chinese suppliers who make the cheap components for the cheap DVD player. Then what happens? The Apocalypse? No, those dollars are spent, either directly in the US or domestically in China for some other good, and those dollars can again make their way to the US, and this process is repeated ad infinitum. If you're so hung up on the accounting aspects of trade deficits and job statistics based on geographical boundaries, then in the long run the overall American employment picture is the same, but in the long run the American consumer is benefited! Because that DVD player is now cheaper. Not to mention the Chinese workers are also made richer, but you don't seem to care about that. You're trapped looking at very selective time windows, Olds.

Competition is reduced, leading to less innovation for features, quality, and price. Cars today are incredibly reliable and have all sorts of amazing technological features that people in the 70s couldn't even conceive of. There is no doubt that without the Japanese invasion in the 70s the domestic industry today would be vastly inferior.

Sigh. Taking an economics course would do you good, Olds. You're not following the chain of how goods get produced carefully enough. You're citing the laughable idea that competition is a race to the bottom. This has been disproved time and time again, as evidenced by the vast riches available today at incredibly low prices, and we have every reason to expect the bounty to exponentially increase unless people like you usher in a more command and control path to poverty. The next step in your rhetoric is North Korea, and that's not even hyperbole. I give you Kim Jong Il at a glorious people's fertilizer factory:

Guys, you're only looking at one side of the coin. You're falling into the propaganda trap of protectionists who profit from stifling trade, namely making a sob story out of people who lose their jobs directly to foreign competition. But the gains to everyone else are at least as much as the losses to that special interest group, but it's spread out across the whole country as incremental improvement for millions of people. And you're also assuming that putting random Americans out of work through machines or other Americans in another part of the country is somehow superior to the same exact phenomenon taking those jobs overseas.

How many horse and buggy makers did Henry put out of business? Are we poorer as a result?

You know, I'm rarely speechless, but this is one of those times. Maybe you should buy a summer house in Pyongyang, Olds.

OK, this is just disconnected from reality. How many people would actually rather live in the 70s with no Internet or cell phones or modern health technology?

You guys are looking at time windows that are too short. The rust belt has been in steady decline since the 1950s, while unemployment is high at the moment while resources shift around. The reason for the industrial decline is that the labor intensive, educationless work became very cost ineffective in this country compared to emerging hellholes around the globe. We get those durable goods for much cheaper, and those new trading partners engage the US in the sorts of goods we export. And we're all much richer as a result.

A mobile labor force is part of what makes the US such a great (and rich) country. Eventually these cities will be largely demolished like Detroit is planning to do in the near future. And does anyone think the country is actually worse off for having these anachronisms fade into the sunset?