Reply #24: "Revitalized cities"

[krispos42]

What, housing prices in cities aren't high enough for you? $2,000 a month for a decent live-in closet or a roach-infested studio apartment isn't enough for you?

If we had continued to raise the CAFE standard during the 80's and 90's, even just a ½ MPG per year, it would be at nearly 40 MPG and the price of gas would be even cheaper. The truck-based SUV craze would never have occurred and the steady increase in horsepower we realized during the late 80s and 90s would have been reduced in favor of better fuel economy.

Furthermore, if we had fought the globalization and pro-corporate policies of Reagan, we'd still have plenty of manufacturing here and smaller, more diverse, more locally-owned corporations.


We COULD have gotten everything we wanted without having to pay these ridiculous prices for gasoline, but conservatives were in charge, not liberals.

<on edit>

Oh and those millions of gas-guzzling SUVs are not going to go away overnight. Their prices will fall, meaning that poorer folks (like me) that need a "new" car will be forced to buy a used SUV because we can't afford a new fuel-sipper. In my particular case, my parents was to sell me (or maybe just give me) an SUV to help me out. My current car is 19 years old and slowly falling apart, so I really can't pass up a 5-year-old well-maintained SUV that can give me fifteen years of service with little or no monthly payment. BUT... I would be going from 23mpg to 17mpg, and that's going to hurt.

Used SUVs and pickups are flooding used-car lots, and it's going to be the people with cash problems that are going to wind up buying most of them because the price is right. And stuck with the fuel bills.