Biden On the Move

I don't mean Joe Biden's poll numbers. I mean his transportation policy.

Joe Biden is a big car buff.  He owns a 1967 Corvette (as seen above) that he loves to take out on the road.  It's one of his most prized possessions.  He's also a big Amtrak supporter, having taken the national passenger railroad to work when he was a United States Senator.  So he knows how much we need public transit to get around and how much it would benefit the economy if we had more regional rail transit as well as a modernized Amtrak on par with the bullet-train networks of France and Japan.  But because he loves cars - and because he brags about having been instrumental in saving General Motors (his mantra from the 2012 presidential campaign when he ran for a second term as Obama's Vice President - "Bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive!") - no one can say he's out to take away people's cars.

But I won't be surprised if he takes away your Ford F-150 unless you need it for your job.  Nor would I be surprised if you might have to buy an inexpensive small hatchback or pay more than you already have to to buy a sport utility vehicle.  Biden also believes in fighting climate change, and among automobiles, gasoline-powered vehicles made on light-truck platforms are the worst offenders.  And it you do get a monster wagon, it's going to have to be electric.  Biden is advocating development of electric vehicles as a more sustainable alternative to gasoline-powered cars and trucks, and auto companies in both the U.S. and in other countries are already responding with such product - and electric vehicles are becoming less expensive as time goes on. That big, fossil-fuel-powered SUV you have is set to become as obsolete as that old sedan with the CD player you gave to your kid when he or she got a driver's license.  And if you want a pickup truck, I think you'd better have a carpenter's or plumber's license to avoid paying a gas-guzzler tax, because it's not a big leap of imagination to expect Biden to bring back Barack Obama's tough fuel-economy standards - the jettisoning of which by Trump is probably a reason Ford got rid of its fuel-efficient compacts.     

Biden is the most engaged presidential candidate on transportation issues since Michael Dukakis, because cars and trains are a personal passion of his - just like they are with me - and he knows what he has to do to make cars and public transit sustainable and affordable to give Americans freedom of mobility in an environmentally conscious world.  That's why he's against giving out more permits for fracking.  And while he has said he will not ban fracking where the practice is already operating . . .  trust me, with fracking going bust on its own, he won't have to.  We're moving on from oil and gas shale and going green.

Strong As a Bull

The Ford Motor Company surprised everyone by posting a billion-dollar profit for the third quarter of 2009. This proves that Ford's business decisions, dating back to their restructuring of a few years ago, are beginning to pay off. The company managed to avoid bankruptcy and produce some fine product - Ford cars are the best-made domestic cars right now - and they had fuel-efficient automobiles on the market during the "cash for clunkers" program when GM and Chrysler had few models in that market segment. Also, they continue to receive a lot of goodwill from car buyers by not taking federal bailout money.

Ford still has a few problems. They can't wipe out their debts the way GM and Chrysler did in Chapter 11, and getting unions to make concessions designed to cut costs hasn't been easy. But the way forward, as their restructuring plan was called, sounds more like a real plan of action than a slogan.

I happen to like the new Taurus. :-)

Downsizing

Perhaps the most interesting news story I came across in the paper this morning was a brief article reporting that Americans are losing interest in large houses, with the median size of a single-family new house decreasing from 2,277 square feet in 2007 to 2,215 last year. Not by much, but it could be the start of a steep drop.

Trends are changing due to the economy. The real estate market has virtually collapsed. Mortgage and maintenance costs are soaring. For some people, energy usage is another big deal. Even if and when the economy recovers - and no one expects a return to the supply-side-fueled boom that began in the early eighties and interrupted by two recessions before abruptly ending two years ago - more Americans are looking at houses as places to live rather than investments. That means no more luxury features, no walk-in linen closets the size of a guest room, and no more fancy bathrooms. People are expected to live more simply. Maybe we'll even pay more attention to our towns and neighborhoods as more people cut back on spending on private, indoor entertainments like flat-screen television sets.

The same rule applies for cars. Another article I found on the Internet reported on how Americans are trading down from big cars and sport-utility vehicles to small family sedans, which close less to insure and maintain. Some folks are keeping their cars longer rather than buy new ones. Those who insist on luxury cars are buying less prestigious premium models; one car buyer reportedly opted for a Hyundai Genesis over a BMW. Guess Hyundais really are cars that make sense. (If you remember the eighties, you remember that Hyundai slogan. You also remember that Hyundai started out selling basic, small economy cars only.)

And if we buy minivans, we're less likely to get them with video entertainment systems.

So Americans will not only have smaller houses with smaller garages, they'll have smaller cars to fit them in as the economy contracts more and China and India buy more oil at our expense to fuel their own economies, with less energy for us to run our houses and cars. Especially cars. We can still heat out houses with natural gas, but natural gas-powered vehicles are a way off, no matter what T. Boone Pickens says. We're about to (re)discover the joys of little cars and think small, as that classic Volkswagen ad asked us to. We'll demand more practicality and versatility in our cars as well.

One thing will likely not change - we won't buy hatchbacks.

Americans simply like trunks better than hatches. For all of its unorthodox features - a rear engine, air cooling - the Volkswagen Beetle was still a huge hit in America because, like the modern Jetta, it still had a trunk.

Hatchback doors are considered even weirder here than aircooled engines.

The Miller's Tale

The economic stimulus bill finally passed, and President Obama will sign it possibly as early as Tuesday. I got to thinking that the Republicans will do everything to stop it not because of the cost or the insufficient (for them) number of tax cuts, but for the fact that this bill will take money from some to help someone else.

For example, Republican Representative Candace Miller of Michigan voted against it in part because the bill is helping to finance bullet trains, particularly one to run between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Now why would she object to federal funding for bullet trains - indeed, all public transportation, as she intimated?

Gee, maybe because the preponderance of public transportation would cut into the very profitable business of Michigan's best known product - cars?

Rachel Maddow inexplicably couldn't see the logic of the Congresswoman's vote.

Expect Representative Miller to be very supportive of any future economic stimulus measure specifically aimed at highway spending.