Carvana value up

But you'll have to change your name, that's the biggest deal around here.

 

K

 

It used to be a Ferrari thing to blacklist buyers. I know Ferarri makes potential customers buy cheaper models before they can have access to their higher end collection. Jay Leno has had a few choice words about that.

Porsche started blacklisting buyers around 2020 who sold their 911 GT3RS cars due to the long wait times for new builds. I think it's around a 3 year wait for one now.

I believe Ford did it with their Ford GT's. The 2005-2006 era Ford GT is the only one I'd want to own, but this one is interesting...

https://www.ford.com/performance/gt/mk-iv/

 

I don't think that will happen anytime soon. At least as long as inflation is high and job numbers are up.

 

that may be, but all the 'experts' have all acknowledged that inflation has basically ran away on us for a good many years. i don't expect the fed to change course very soon, as there's a lot of inflationary ground to make up. the markets are primed to be a mess for a good number of years from now. in my area what should be run-down $100k houses are still getting snapped up by people for $200k+ in less than 24 hours yet, which is a good indication that the fed's inflationary measures have started to take effect, but haven't taken full effect yet.

some of it is the american fast food mentality-- it takes a very long time for financial and cultural parts of the US to change course or be corrected. for a historical example, the entire 'everyone goes to college' push was a reagan-era policy specifically in response to how we fell behind the chinese in core STEM education, and it's taken this long to start to fall apart with the trades now lacking replacements for the old guys retiring and very few picking up their tool belts.

i'm also watching to see what happens with baltimore, as they've already got the channel diverted around the wreck for a majority of freight, so while i expect an impact, i suspect it's going to be more of the kind where businesses take the opportunity to raise prices because they already needed to and were waiting for an opportunity, not because they need to raise prices for physical supply issues.

 

Right!?

We live in such a dissatisfied throw away insatiable thirst for consumer goods society, no wonder the planet is going to shit. “Oh look! Shiny!”

 

some of us do.

i saw a free but useless trailer.


which turned into buying a second cheap but useless trailer.


which has now all been turned into a pile of parts that i hope to turn into a semi-useful trailer...


this is the part a dozen people tell me how i could buy a new trailer for half the cost i've sunk into 'free'...

no one said saving the planet was going to be easy!

 

Nice! “Reduce-Recycle-Reuse”

Seems like most people could care less about making stuff last. I really can’t stand “engineered obsolescence”

 

it helps to grow up on the poor side of town! sometimes it's better to make do with what you've got!

my grandma still gets all over me for the amount of garbage picking i do. one of my parents neighbors just cleared out a whole garage of stuff. ended up with a tool box, 2 handheld fertilizer spreaders, a complete tackle box, and an inflatable row boat... scrap money routinely pays for my weekend food runs...

 

It sure does! My better half is the same way, she grew up on a farm, so you make do with what you have.

Elderly neighbor had an early 70s GMC 2500 that has been sitting in the weeds for the last 17 years, he gave it to his teenage grandson, who spent the weekend tinkering with it, got it to fire up and it drove out under its own power, now he is over there fixing it up every chance he gets to make it is his daily driver. That impresses waaay more than dudes going through new vehicles like underwear.

Most of the electronic Gee Gaws on new vehicles is utter bullshit, what they need to do is build vehicles that have a service life of 20 years/500K miles that doesn’t need much other than consumables. Instead we get piped in “V8 noises” and Va-Jay-Jay warmers…