I have fallen way off of reading… anything at all of substance of late. Haven’t read but like three books all year. None of them fiction.
I want to reset on that end. I want to read some classic works of fiction. Like high school reading list, Great Novel stuff; Dickens, Steinbeck, Hemingway, etc.
Where should I be looking at to start? I am a 31 year old man with an upsettingly short attention span, so something that can grab me quick would be best.
Any novel Hemingway wrote is worth your time. For Whom the Bell Tolls is the best, but The Old Man and the Sea is my favorite, and it's a three-hour read.
Steinbeck--I'd start with In Dubious Battle. His more famous works are a little longer and a lot more difficult to absorb.
Dickens is a tough case because you have to love the language of the time to get into it. Bartleby the Scrivener is the place to start here, and after you read it, watch the movie "Office Space."
I’ve read For Whom the Bell Tolls a couple times before. Great book, though the language used is odd to me. The way formal Spanish is translated to English? It’s strange. Good though.
"Pretty big talk for guys who aren't even supposed to be in my country, homes. Why'chnt you pack up your fat wives and your 37 kids and go the fuck home?"
I’ve read TSAR several times. First when I was directionless after college, and then again around the time of COVID. It was very impactful. One of my favorite books ever.
Portnoy’s Complaint is something I’ll put at the front of the list though! Never came across that one.
YES. Saroyan is 100% worth it. There are a bunch of collections of his short stories that are a good introduction to him. About half of everything in my hometown is named after him.
Also, John Fante. "Ask the Dust" "Wait Until Spring, Bandini" "Dreams from Bunker Hill"
There's a funny story about Saroyan being hired by a Hollywood studio to read script submissions and unknowingly rejecting Fante's script. I think Fante confronted Saroyan over it in some LA bar.
Joan Didion's novel, "Play it as it Lays" is also good.
Piling on….highly recommend Hemingway. TSAR is great, but also consider “Farewell to Arms” and “For Whom the Bell Tolls”. I read all of these about 1000 years ago when I was in my 20’s and realized my engineering education left me glaringly unread in the classics department.
Moby Dick utterly surprised me. I was not prepared for what it actually was, and could not put it down. Other people have bitched about what I liked about it, so, you know, your mileage may vary.
I wanted to mention Hemingway but others have already talked about him. As much as I enjoyed Moby Dick I LOVED The Old Man and the Sea. Hemingway is peak American literature to me. I'm ashamed I did not enjoy his work when I was in high school, but I suppose I needed a bit of experience to appreciate it.
I read Moby Dick Sophomore year in High School. For our 20th reunion, we had the same English teacher have a class discussion about Moby Dick. He assigned us certain passages beforehand and we had a great discussion. Our conclusion was why were we reading that in High School? So much is about moving into manhood and the itch to make it so. We certainly didn't understand the desire to leave home, explore and make our way in the world. We would a few years later, however.
I found Portnoy's Complaint over-rated. I think the issue is what was so scandalous when Roth wrote it is almost pedestrian now. That of course is not an indictment of Roth, because the sexual predilections and oedipal complex he explored were of course taboo at the time. So in that way, it was scandalous and groundbreaking. But it hasn't aged well, in the sense that few will be shocked by it today.
Have you read crime and punishment? Short enough. Count of monte christo is good but looong. I got 1/3 through don quixote before life got to me last year. After this kid gets big enough to move a bit, i need to get back to books.
I read that when I was in Japan and left my copy with my coworker. I heard someone somewhere say once that the meaning of life is written in the Spanish Inquisitor part of the book, but I am too stupid to have gotten it.
To OP, it's not a literary classic, but a great read about Russians is Clancy's Red Storm Rising. The audiobook is my go-to companion on long road trips.
I did get through Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago and want to read In the First Circle as a result.
Crime and Punishment for sure. Also The Idiot. I can't recall which are best, but translators matter. Read a page or two of different versions if you can.
While I'm on translations, read The Odyssey and the Illiad in the prose translation by Rouse.
Edited to add a few authors: Hermann Hesse, Somerset Maugham, Stephen Crane.
Last month was the 100th anniversary of The Great Gatsby and I bought an annotated copy published by the Library of America with an introduction by Amor Towles. The comments throughout really make that novel a different experience.
Speaking of Towles I am almost finished with his first, Rules of Civility. I think Jack would enjoy expounding on the characters within.
Also Suttree, but I'm an odd one that prefers Cormac's Appalachian stories.
I'll have to pick that up. I'm a big fan of Towles and Gatsby has been on my list for a while. Jack's review turned me on to A Gentleman in Moscow and I binged the rest of Towles work right after. I'd especially like to hear Jack's thoughts on The Lincoln Highway. I think a lot of it's themes resonate with ACF. It would be a good choice if First Principles had a book club segment.
Too many of my friends and relatives in the Marine Corps have touted that movie as gospel. Not even the nude shower scenes will tempt me to watch it. Heinlein cannot be translated to to the screen.
Aw balls, I might as well think of the Battlefield Earth movie as "inspired by" the novel. There's no G-d-damned comparison to be made. All due respect sir, but fuck that noise.
You're missing out. As a 90's campy Verhoeven (Robocop, Total Recall) piece, it's entertaining. I saw it long before ever reading the book and was like WTF, but I've seen the movie a few times but will probably never pick up the book again.
I'm reading John Buchan at the moment. (Courts of the Morning in particular)
If they were written today they would just be an ordinary thriller - which will help extend your attention span - but being written in the 1930s, the author has a rich vocabulary and understands the technical structure of a sentence.
I particularly enjoy reading books from the early 20th century as the world was in a particular state of flux at that time. Communism and Fascism were both new political movements; the empires were breaking up and new countries were experimenting with new forms of independence and America was taking her first steps as a superpower. I enjoy the insight into how people saw the world, especially as we know how the particular situations panned out and find it helps my world view today. People think our current situation is so unique and unprecedented but you read these books and realise that people have had the same problems for at least the past hundred years.
Might take a look at Graham Greene. 'The Quiet American' is where everyone (including Hollywood) goes. I'm partial to 'The Power and the Glory', which starts like this:
Mr Tench went out to look for his ether cylinder-- out into the blazing Mexican sun and the bleaching dust. A few buzzards looked down from the roof with shabby indifference: He wasn't carrion yet.
Infinite Jest, the short attention span and endless footnotes is something he predicted and the funniest part is so many of the footnotes are kind of made up. Lmk we can start an ACF book club
I need to read Infinite Jest... thank you for the reminder. I have no idea why I think this, or if it is even true, but I've always thought of Infinite Jest as its generation's Gravity's Rainbow.
We could use the substack chat to build a “ACF book club community” where we all talk there and set progressional goals ahead of time to stay on schedule. Biweekly ideally
I would suggest you not begin with the high school reading list that is mostly meant to discourage a love of reading. Generally, I recommend the great pulp authors like Westlake, Spillane, etc. to coax the attention span back out of its burrow. Westlake alone writes such magnificent sentences you'll be breadcrumbed along and before you know it you'll be closing the book on the final page. It is from that success and enjoyment you can build on your reading appetite and attention span.
I would probably say Heinlein might be next. But Daddy Heinlein is more or less must reading along with Tolkien in order to be a "man of your time" and such.
Almost everything popular now is derivative from writers in the mid century or earlier folks like stoker and Shelley. Good place and time to anchor a reading habit instead of iambic pentameter and Elizabethan density of prose.
Essentially just before the marxists occupied academia so thoroughly in the nam era.
Haven't read All the Pretty Horses, but I'll second Blood Meridian. I have a very small home (850 sq ft) and not a lot of storage space, so I don't keep a lot of books.
Blood Meridian has a permanent place on the shelf. I'll return to it one day.
I've never read All The Pretty Horses. Will need to do that some day.
Blood Meridian is maybe the most difficult-to-read book I've ever allowed myself to consume for "fun" both in terms of how it's written and for subject matter. It beyond brilliant though.
I recently picked up The Great Gatsby, given that it just turned 100 years old.
This most definitely is not on a high school reading list, but I'll recommend Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. It is a seamless braided narrative that blends World War II codebreaking and covert operations with what was at the time of its writing (late 1990s) an up-to-the-minute account of building a data haven to facilitate internet banking and crypto currency (though cryptocurrency didn't exist at the time, Stephenson was, as usual, glimpsing the future.).
I realize that sounds _super_ nerdy, and it is - but in all the best ways. It's a doorstop of a book - something like 700 pages, because Stephenson gonna Stephenson, - but it's a great read and goes quickly. A great techno-thriller action story with great characters.
I loved Stephenson's early works, liked his middle ones, and have failed to get through some of the more recent. He's clearly a brilliant guy, and a weird mix of great and terrible writers. He's never been good at endings, and he's both great at weaving technical detail into a novel and terrible at knowing when to stop. I'm not sure how much of my opinion going downhill over time is me getting older, him getting worse, or him getting too big to have an editor keep him under control.
What makes him so frustrating is he's got fascinating ideas and he knows how to craft a riveting story, but he needs an editor with the balls to say "No. That doesn't work. At all. Cut it. And while you're at it, cut this. And this. And rework that..."
Seveneves was good until the midway through the third act.
So far Termination Shock is his best work since Cryptonomicon, but I'm only a bit more than half way through. Still plenty of room for him to fuck it up.
Agree on TS. Quite readable. Funny, though - the diversity in Snow Crash felt real but in TS I felt him checking the boxes.
Fall, Or Dodge in Hell was the worst book I have ever read to completion. I just could not believe it was as bad as it was, and that was after reading Seveneves.
Yeah, I can see that about the diversity, but think it's less his writing and more the fact the current age has made YOU MUST HAVE ALL THE DIVERSITY IN ALL THE THINGS HERE IS YOUR LIST so prevalent that when someone like Stephenson, who has done it organically in the past, does it, it can come across as forced.
I dunno if that makes sense.
I was so frustrated by Fall. I kept thinking, "Really? REALLY? DO YOU NOT HAVE AN EDITOR? This is at least THREE different novels, and only one of them is interesting." And Seveneves.... I talk about that later in this thread, but Yeah. I was almost pissed about that one when I finished it:
"Hi. Neal here. So... after giving you 500-plus pages about the destruction of all life on earth and the restoration of humanity in space, where the entire human race is now descended from seven women (the seven eves! get it? it's spelled the same way backward! aren't I clever!), I'm gonna mention, almost in passing, "Oh. By the way. This entire civilization - founded by the father of one of those seven Eves - thrived deep underground. But wait! This other entire civilization, founded by the husband of another one of those seven eves, thrived deep in the ocean. Yeah, it kinda undermines most of the plot about the seven eves being the saviors of earth, but whatever."
The fact that not one editor at William Morrow / HarperCollins thought to say, "Uh, Neal..." suggests they just let him run amok.
I have long said the EXACT same thing - Stephenson's work has steadily declined since Cryptonomicon. I didn't even attempt The Baroque Cycle, and I gave up on Anathem a few hundred pages in. I read Reamde, which as I recall was a pretty standard techno thriller that, honestly, felt like he was writing it with the goal of seeing it made into a movie.
Your point about him not being able to nail a landing is spot-on, and it is why I have many, many thoughts on Seveneves.
(((SPOILER AHEAD - SKIP TO THE NEXT GRAF if you want to read the novel.)))
I enjoyed Seveneves - fascinating premise, manageable length, good pacing even if he did get a big bogged down in the final third with almost masturbatory descriptions of the technology and world building. BUT he lost me midway through the third act when he mentions the Pingers, who get maybe a couple of pages. And then the Diggers, who get a couple of paragraphs. TWO ENTIRE FUCKING CIVILIZATIONS who survived the destruction of all life on earth and carried on the human race by living underground and underwater for 5,000 years and he just sort of hand-waves them off.
(((End spoilers)))
And then there was Fall: Or Dodge In Hell. That was one hot mess of a novel. Actually, it wasn't one novel, it was three, crammed into a doorstop. It started with an interesting premise (creating a measure of immortality by uploading once's mind to the internet) but devolved into something akin to Minecraft and then, even worse, a fucking RPG-style quest. The one part of the novel that I found interesting was the journey through Ameristan, which made me wish he'd developed that into a proper novel. Years later I read American War, in which Omar El Akkad did exactly that two years before Stephenson published Fall.
I am now reading Termination Shock, Stephenson's look at the climatic, environmental, and geopolitical implications of geo-engineering by cloud-seeding with sulfur. I am about 400 pages in (it is 700 pages) and have to say, it is, so far, his best work since Cryptonomicon. That said, I'm waiting for him to fuck it up some how, though I hope he doesn't.
All in all, though Stephenson is in desperate need of an editor willing to say, "No. Cut that. And that. And this, too. And what the fuck is this? No. And we're gonna do this to the third act..."
A whole thread about Neal Stepheson and not one mention of Diamond Age. Probably one of his best examples of world building that still isn't dated yet.
Snow Crash was one of my favorites, but a lot of the things he wrote about (35 years ago) have already happened.
Cryptonomicon is always a fun read, but it's rooted in the late 1990's. Reading it now is like opening a time capsule. And getting someone to read it the first time is like trying to get someone to read Jules Verne.
Diamond Age is next on the list - somehow I missed that one in my first foray through the Stephenson bibliography. I recently re-read Snow Crash and it was stunning just how closely he predicted VR / AR. Mark Zuckerberg oughtta be paying Stephenson royalties.
I read Cryptonomicon in 2000 or 2001 and again last year. I think it was prescient enough that it still holds up. And if nothing else, he explains exactly the correct way of eating Cap'n Crunch.
IMO Mark Twain is still one of America's greatest humorists. Forget Tom Sawyer, but there's a lot of variety in his work. For a completely different side of him, try Letters From the Earth. Bite sized pieces with great insight into the folly of humans. Hilarious!
The roman-a-clef novel "All the Kings Men" by Robert Penn Warren is the best piece of fiction i've read in a while. Other than that, Jack often recommends Updike, whose unassailable work is vastly better than what colleges and prep schools elect to shove down students' throats.
Regarding ATKM, it also (basically) tells you the story of legendary politician Huey Long, one of the last dying breaths of authentic grassroots American politicking. There were others (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6644717-target? ) but he was among the last chances the nation had of avoiding the brutally rough road we are now headed down.
Third on Patrick O'Brian. Such an epic timeframe, over 20-something books. It's nice to enjoy a series that pretty much never ends. When done, start over!
My take on Jaguar was that it was a relatively unsuccessful company for most of its existence. It sold niche products, many of which were plagued with serious drivability issues, and usually found just enough customers to keep the lights on.
But at least the styling was distinctive and unapologetic. Once that stopped being the case, which really happened around 2009, there was no good reason to buy one over a superior Lexus, Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche or even Genesis.
I think the decision to do a complete brand reboot was a wise one; however, I don’t agree with Jaguar’s ultimate implementation. Why go into the world of EVs? Why would Jaguar think it could be successful where vastly more capable and better-funded firms were not, regarding EVs? How could Jaguar possibly hope to compete with Rolls-Royce—which will likely fully transition into an EV brand within the next ten years—or even with Cadillac—whose Celestiq and Escalade IQ/L series genuinely are impressive as luxury cars?
I think that, especially if Jaguar wanted to go low-volume, it should have done the opposite of what it did. Bring back the V12, or at least keep the Jaguar V8 around, and make enviable performance gasoline cars, with effortlessly gorgeous design for the one-percent. The new car didn’t need to be as baroquely styled as Jaguars yore, but it needed to make a statement and inspire envy, and not look like something that was drawn on a napkin by a 9-year-old in the school cafeteria.
And the marketing? I mean, I’m a gay man, but to me, the marketing just read as apologetic and pandering, rather than strong.
Also, Jack, I do agree with your point a week ago about how automakers never seem to have the money to develop a new performance gasoline engine—or, in the case of GM and the L87 disaster, even to do right by a profitable and existing one—but there’s always money for a moonshot EV project that promises to fade into irrelevance.
If Jaguar was going to burn money and move upmarket, it could have done so on something that meant much more to everyone. Instead we get this low-poly-rendered garbage. I’m gobsmacked. It almost reminds me of how the Aztek came about, where it seemed like literally *no one* said, “Guys, what are we doing.”
Only, the Aztek was a culmination of budget cuts and the culture within GM, and just kind of happened by accident and at a point where it was too late to do anything to prevent it. Whereas the new Jaguar was designed on purpose.
Also, why the fuck did they debut a coupe when the production car will be a four-door GT? Someone explain *that* to me.
I saw it several times. My LR colleagues and I didn’t think much of it. Very Tesla-esque with W212 headlights.
Jaguar were in the shit for years. Their best yer of sales was 2016 I think when they sold something like 180k units. I wrote about it all at the end of last year.
Interesting. I imagined Ian Callum was more original than that.
O/T I really enjoyed your Beetle article on The Autopian the other day.
Beetle and Type 2 moved me from lorries to cars as a kid, and from car stats to modified vehicles as a young teen, so I started the article with my fight on.
By the middle of the article, I was laughing, and by the end, you nearly had me converted.
Question for automotive safety/sheet metal engineers and those who weld and fabricate custom cars:
For a pre-2003, pre-ISOFIX anchor / LATCH anchor car, would it be possible to fabricate and weld or bolt in a set of isofix anchors? There are many excellent enthusiast vehicles from the 60s-early 00s that I've had to rule out for lack of this
Why does lack of ISOFIX rule them out? Every car seat I've owned also supports being installed with the seat belt instead of ISOFIX/LATCH. In terms of safety, if you're willing to put your kid in a 1960s car, LATCH isn't gonna move the needle.
When I first typed the comment, I typed it as 90s-00s cars. Thinking old BMWs that could be LS swapped or hotrodded. E34s, E36 M3 sedan or euro E36 wagons. Even early E38s (possibly all E38s) and early E39s lacked isofix anchors, and both of those crash quite well.
Re: 60s cars, in large part you’re right. But even there - consider that isofix anchors limit motion in the event of a wreck. You could assume that whiplash, and other motion induced harm, would be reduced by securely attaching a car seat. Safety in a crash is partly about intrusion but also about not turning passengers into projectiles.
Forget Yachts, any boat. Don’t ask what “Racing” sails cost, or gas to run a 20 ft boat with a 250 for a 6 hour long distance lunch run, never mind what the multi engine stuff costs.
It’s incredible how anything with water access anywhere near a city has become completely out of reach. The concentration of wealth that COVID accelerated in this country is amazing.
The sad thing down here in Miami is that it’s not just national, we’re sucking in all the South American money too
The cabin in the middle of no where, WI, that my in-laws paid about $80k for in 1992 is worth around 10x that in 2025. Incredible. I don’t need or want a ski boat, but a Cobalt runabout (starting around $100k for a base CS23) would be lovely.
Julian, good point, I went to Miami for a day trip in November and i coukd not believe the number of 6 digit cars that were every where, RR, Bentley, big BMW, S Class. The streets were packed with very expense cars, and no one seemed to notice.
We have a K6 and my wife has an ILCA (aka new laser), which probably tells you where we sail. I’m still figuring this all out as a former rower, she is the real sailor.
We’re now trying to figure out what boat we should get to race in Miami since we’re down here “full time” now.
It didn't APPEAR as dramatic as you make it sound. but someone on the PR team that handled it probably got demoted to handling Skoda and Dacia events for the next two years.
"How the fuck did this happen? His name is on the "do not invite list" IN RED FUCKING LETTERS!, you fucking half-wit. Now get the fuck out of my office."
I'm confused about the ultra wealthy definition. The cover you use to illustrate seems to say it's $500,000 per year income, but you say $30 mil net worth. I know plenty of people who have made $500,000 a year, not so many with $30 mil net worth THAT I KNOW OF. And that's another issue; I know lots of people with an eight-figure net worth which one will never have a clue are worth that. People who drive a Subaru Legacy (true example) or a Porsche 911 that's being sold for an Audi because the kids are getting bigger (business sale, 40 year old fellow who was "in the right place at the right time").
I think if you're making $500,000 a year you're in the aspirational class, but if you blow it on $100,000 watches you'll never hit an eight figure net worth.
I agree. Plus I don’t think the 1% look to the ultra wealthy for cues because the gap is so wide between those two groups. I don’t think that most of the 1% even have any idea of how the truly ultra wealthy think or live. Maybe more so than me, but that’s not saying much.
I would agree, but also suggest that the ultra wealthy .1% or .01% we always read about don’t make sense to the rest of the 1% either. That ultra wealthy is it’s own weird media fueled bubble in my mind, that exists more in the imagination of the next 9% than it does the top 1%
I am sure. I’ve just seen that a lot of those newer $10-20 (or less) folks will appear much wealthier to the untrained eye than most of the real 40+ folks.
I think we have to separate class, income, and wealth to a large degree, but $500k is still firmly within the top 10% of income. I guess that just begs the question of where the upper middle is?
I think social media and the modern concentration of wealth have also completely warped what most people see as “normal” or “middle class,” and thats without counting how much of it is all a debt fueled mirage - even from the folks making $350k+
Anything above "comfortable" barely moves the needle. Slightly fancier dinners, slightly fancier cars, slightly fancier wine, a box of cigars here or there, fancier vacations, private school tuition. I'm not happier now than when I made 105k a year with two kids and sahw. I am more comfortable.
Anything above 300k in most places is solidly umc. Might be tempted to go down to 250 on this. It’s very easy to get house poor at those numbers though. Especially today. Anything over 1mm is solidly rich.
Top 2% in 2022 was $438k/yr. Not going to argue that’s “ultra rich” by any stretch, but it’s hardly “middle class”. We’re within spitting distance of that number and it ain’t rich either, though our spending habits have a lot to do with that.
If it isn’t middle class ($438k/yr) it is upper middle class. Especially if that is a young doctor who just finished 12 years of school and residency and has $500k in loans. That person should not be considered rich.
$500k in Manhattan and $500k in Little Rock are very different although I guess you can argue that a Little Rock address means you're capped at "middle class" no matter what.
500k a year as a freshly minted attending ER doctor in NYC with loan debt is wildly different from the same 500k a year earning general contractor who owns his own home building company in Mississippi.
When I moved from the MA to NC I took a small pay cut on paper, but my actual cash flow increased 30-40% due to the reduction in cost of living.
To me a better indicator of status that eliminates COL variances is to measure people on their ability to handle an unexpected 10k home or car repair without changing their regular spending habits. This measure also rules out the folks who lifestyle creep their way through career success. In my mind if you're living pay check to pay check regardless of the amount on the check, you're definitely not Upper Class, or IMO even Upper Middle Class.
While true, a large part of NW is time. Young people simply haven’t had enough time to contribute a lot to retirement and investment accounts, pay down mortgages, etc etc. Having a 7-figure net worth at age 30 and age 60 mean very different things.
I'd suggest that the Covid house price surge, and current interest rates, have gone a long way to narrow the gap between those cities. Our NYC 500ker rents at 6k a month. The Arkansas 500ker has a 6k a month mortgage.
Yeah but they live in different countries, effectively.
Neither could replace their income in the other location, unless the NYC resident can work fully remote (or they work for Warren Stephens).
Neither would desire the lifestyle of the other … although a well-off Arkansan couple is much more likely to visit NYC on vacation (to take pictures of Trump Tower, The Naked Cowboy in Times Square, the Empire State Building, Ground Zero, and Tavern on the Green) than the NYC couple is to pop into Little Rock for a long weekend.
I live in Northwest Arkansas and 500k here is not wealthy. Of course we have the Walton family effect. The third generation Waltons are making their mark now. A couple of the grandsons are working to make NWA a biking hotspot in the US. We hosted the World Cyclocross championships a couple of years ago.
I thought Covid and remote work could be a great leveler for home prices as high-income people moved to lower priced areas and drove up the prices. In NWA we currently have 260 homes on the market over $1M with the highest being $15M.
Montana registration: I have no sympathy for the *tax evasion* angle, and from my research it seems that most states have a longer grace period for personally-owned vehicles (often 60 days) than for business vehicles (often 0 days), so LLC ownership is counterproductive if you plan to snowbird.
But I do have a very intense longing for *mobility*: a way to handle licensing, insurance, registration, and titling to allow legal presence in any state (think "traveling nurse").
The requirement for people who move across state lines to re-title their vehicles which are properly titled in another state should be held unconstitutional, as it violates the Full Faith and Credit clause in Article IV, Section 1. This is a practical problem because although a vehicle could potentially be registered in multiple states (but not always), a vehicle can only be titled in a single state.
In general, I really wish there were a way to pay a little extra and become "50 state legal:" similar to the IRP but for light-duty vehicles with more privacy.
If anyone has practical suggestions on this point, please share!
'The requirement for people who move across state lines to re-title their vehicles which are properly titled in another state should be held unconstitutional, as it violates the Full Faith and Credit clause in Article IV, Section 1. This is a practical problem because although a vehicle could potentially be registered in multiple states (but not always), a vehicle can only be titled in a single state.'
Couldn't agree more.
Of course, the way the lizard people would LIKE to handle this is with a national vehicle title, which makes sense until you think about how it would be implemented.
The snowbird angle is an interesting one. We do it, but are Tennessee residents, and there is no issue with us changing plates as we never establish residency in the destination state, even if we own property there.
Where it gets complicated is when you don’t have residence or spend 184 days in a state and they try to claim de facto residence. Most states don’t seem to enforce the car thing, unless there’s income tax ramifications, and thats where the real dollars are.
If you "accepts employment or engages in any trade, profession, or occupation" in Florida, you must register your vehicle within 10 days. It would be interesting to see if remote work counts: I think out of state attorneys can practice remotely in Florida as long as they do not advertise practicing in Florida, but
FL does have a 90 day temporary tag that can be renewed for 90 days within a year, but that probably requires insurance, which tends to be difficult without a "garageable" local address.
Do not fuck with il, ny, or ca residency rules. They look for that shit. The car titles are cheap. Imagine paying 51% income taxes in California and bitching about sales taxes. The llc rules usually dont make registering vehicles easy. We dont even bother fucking with it. Although my dads mustang is registered in mi under the property there. Not an llc
The issue arises when a person's actual residence and employment are fluid and the sales tax was paid on the vehicle years or decades ago.
If you drive a car that you purchased in 2004 and got a 4-month contract in another state and planned to live in hotels, would you really surrender your IL license and the title and try to get insurance, a license, and re-title your vehicle in that other state? Only to then REPEAT THE ENTIRE PROCESS in IL 4 months later when you return? And do you know how difficult it would be to get a license, title, registration in a state where you do not have a permanent address and multiple Real ID-compliant proofs of address?
If people can find legal ways to not pay ridiculous taxes, more power to them IMO. Also, according to Farrah and DeMuro, a bunch of these are due to people having no practical way to register vehicles that are newer than 1974 or later since they won’t pass smog. They claim, and I tend to believe them, that a non-zero number of people would register in CA (or similar) states if there was an avenue to do so, but there just isn’t. In this case I’m happy to see CA screwed out of revenue due to their own inflexibility.
It’s not legal. It is legal from Montana’s perspective, but, for people who do have a fixed residence, it is illegal from that state’s perspective.
The smog point is interesting; perhaps the cutoff year should occasionally be moved forward, but as much as it pains me to say it, the state’s interest in not having heavy polluters operating within its borders is reasonable.
I guarantee the venn diagram of “heavy polluters” and “people with a MT LLC” are two different circles. Some dude registering a pre-smog Ferrari or Lambo or whatever that he drives a couple thousand miles a year in CA is not tangibly affecting the air quality.
Are we talking about *personal* vehicles, or company cars? And yes let's exclude commercial vehicles; they also created an Interstate Compact to cover fuel taxes decades ago.
My interest is in light-duty (under 26,000 lb GVRW) personal vehicles (cars, motorhomes, and motorcycles) that I titled and paid sales tax on years ago. But you were advocating for an LLC to own the vehicles, at which point they would not be personal vehicles.
The IRP is not about "fuel taxes," but registration: that's literally the "R" in IRP. Before the IRP, truckers would display or carry a plate for every state in which they operated:
In my reading of the laws of every state that I've investigated, personal vehicles have a grace period of X days, but commercial vehicles generally are not afforded that period.
Once again: I don't really LIKE the law, but it is what it is.
You remind me a lot of Nate: I asked you to specify a state, so that I wouldn't be searching the law for all 49 states that are NOT Montana, and you haven't even done that, let alone respond with a SINGLE citation; just conclusory statements and sarcastic insults. I don't think you care AT ALL about determining the truth.
Based on other discussions, I'll to assume that you, like Nate, are a resident of California and intend to operate the vehicle in California, like the vast majority of Montana LLC registrants.
The law is simple, if redundant, unless you are operating under IRP:
A) CVC §4000.4a: Except as provided in Sections 6700, 6702, and 6703, any vehicle which is registered to a nonresident owner [MONTANA LLC], and which is based in California or primarily used on California highways, shall be registered in California.
B) CVC §6700c: Any resident [YOU] who operates upon a highway of this state a vehicle owned by a nonresident [MONTANA LLC] who furnished the vehicle to the resident operator [YOU] for his or her regular use within this state, as defined in subdivision (b) of Section 4000.4, shall cause the vehicle to be registered in California within 20 days after its first operation within this state by the resident.
What about the exceptions in 6700, 6702, and 6703?
CVC §6700a: Irrelevant; applies to NEW California residents who previously registered the vehicle in their state of residence have 20 days to register after becoming resident / beginning employment.
CVC §6700b: Irrelevant, describing the EXACT THING YOU ARE ATTEMPTING: "This exemption does not apply if the nonresident owner [MONTANA LLC] rents, leases, lends, or otherwise furnishes the vehicle to a California resident [YOU] for regular use on the highways of this state, as defined in subdivision (b) of Section 4000.4."
CVC §6702: Irrelevant, but if your LLC had a place of business in CA, it would not have 20 days, but would be subject to IMMEDIATE registration: "Every nonresident, including any foreign corporation [MONTANA LLC], having an established place of business within this state, and regularly using a vehicle of a type subject to registration under this code, shall immediately register the vehicle upon entry into this state."
As discussed in responses to this thread, a high ranking CA DMV official said that cracking down on THIS particular thing is 'a “top-of-my-list” priority'.
Leno is rather publicly championing a new law to do just that. Instead of the permanent 1974 cutoff, they would shift to a rolling 35 year cutoff. It's even become known as "Lenos Law," which I keep misreading as "Lehto's Law," as I used to read/watch a lot of Steve Lehto.
Hey, you Canada-bashing Yankees will love this: A couple of years ago, the province of Ontario discontinued car registration fees (cost them — us — over a billion dollars). You have to keep your registration current but renewal is free.
Amen! Not that many years ago, when Colorado was a free state instead of a commie hellhole, my 94 Caprice renewed for just under 30 bucks. Then the politburo imposed a road and bridge "fee" and renewals more than doubled. Of course I get the right to vote on taxes increases but not "fees". In the same time frame, emissions testing was reimposed so I got the privilege of paying 25 bucks every other year on top of the "fees" and taxes. Despite the increased "fees" and new gas "fees" that look just like the pre-existing gas taxes, the roads in Colorado are undriveable. But the DOT managed to buy buses that rarely haul more than felons across the state with my "fees" and taxes.
Trucks are even worse, especially diesels. I have an old diesel truck that gets driven at most 200 miles a year. Tags are well over 100 bucks. Plus I get the privilege of doing annual emissions tests that run between 80 and 100 bucks depending on the shop. So that truck gets registered in a freedom loving border state. No emissions and a two year renewal is around 60 bucks. I'll take the risk, save some coin, and tell Colorado they can kiss my ass. I'll continue to pay gas taxes and "fees" to account for the wear and tear my driving imposes on the roads they don't maintain like any other interstate traveler. When states like this one are so hostile to its own citizens, I'll never begrudge anyone gaming the system.
What happened to Colorado, worked there in the 1980’s and it was a friendly easy going place? But gee, was there for a conference and left the hotel once and based on the street life downtown, I did not leave the hotel again until I checked out.
I wasn't born in Colorado but it has been home for most of my life. Watching the growth has made it unrecognizable. Out of respect for Jack's wishes, I won't go off on a lengthy political tangent except to say we seem to have told California to get out of the way and hold our beer. It's pretty frightening how quickly things have changed.
There is tax evasion, and there is also smog evasion. In the great golden state, all vehicles sold after 1975 are required to have all original smog equipment in place, and to have the car visually and sniff tested every two years. It really hampers the 'ol hot-rodding tendencies. Also why any nice 1975 is worth 10-20k more than a 1976. I see both sides of the story... Jesus said to render to Caesar, but also this country was founded on tax evasion(and tariffs), so...
ive heard plenty of stories of guys who were going to swap an engine into one car which would be illegal but the same engine in an older car is just fine
youd think theyd be more lenient given how may evs and low emissions cars are there
You know what? I'm sick of governmental entities considering taxes THEIR money, and people who keep it from them by whatever means as having somehow "stolen" it, or the gevernment entity in question having "missed out" or "lost" that cash.
I can no more "owe" taxes to The State than I can "owe" tribute to The Mafia and yes, they ARE pretty much the same thing.
The concept of "Owe" NEVER applies to the idea of "Tax."
50 state legal = LLC. Explain to me how another state can compel a vehicle owned by an entity legally resident in a particular state to change its vehicle’s licensing to that state? Companies do this all day, every day, in every state.
I don't like it, AND WOULD LOVE TO BE PROVEN WRONG!! but every state has a law that says "if you want to operate a vehicle on OUR roads, you need to register it in OUR state" with some minor exceptions.
Here is a lawyer licensed in Michigan (not Montana!) discussing the topic:
320.37 Registration not to apply to nonresidents.—
(1) The provisions of this chapter relative to the requirement for registration of motor vehicles and display of license number plates do not apply to a motor vehicle owned by a nonresident of this state if the owner thereof has complied with the provisions of the motor vehicle registration or licensing law of the foreign country, state, territory, or federal district of the owner’s residence and conspicuously displays his or her registration number as required thereby.
(2) The exemption granted by this section does not apply to:
(a) A foreign corporation doing business in this state;
(b) Motor vehicles operated for hire, including any motor vehicle used in transporting agricultural or horticultural products or supplies if such vehicle otherwise meets the definition of a “for-hire vehicle”;
(c) Recreational vehicles or mobile homes located in this state for at least 6 consecutive months; or
I have no problem with he Montana LLCs. California is raping its citizens five ways to Sunday on taxes, so why shouldn’t people find a loophole to avoid their onerous fees and taxes? In my state, registration is $50 a year, and if the car is 7 years old or older, can pay $125 for a permanent registration that is good for as long as you own it. California will fuck you every which way on vehicle registration fees so I say screw them.
The issue is, there is no loophole. The loophole does not exist.
A California resident would be equally legal to drive around with NO license plates, LA DODGERS WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS 2024 plate, "UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs" plate, or
"explain to me" Once again: I don't really LIKE the law, but it is what it is.
You remind me a lot of Nate: I asked you to specify a state, so that I wouldn't have to find citations for all 49 states that are NOT Montana, and you haven't even done that, let alone respond with a SINGLE citation; just conclusory statements and sarcastic insults.
I'm going to assume that you, like Nate, are a resident of California and intend to operate the vehicle in California, like the vast majority of Montana LLC registrants.
The law is actually a bit redundant:
A) CVC §4000.4a: Except as provided in Sections 6700, 6702, and 6703, any vehicle which is registered to a nonresident owner [MONTANA LLC], and which is based in California or primarily used on California highways, shall be registered in California.
B) CVC §6700c: Any resident [YOU] who operates upon a highway of this state a vehicle owned by a nonresident [MONTANA LLC] who furnished the vehicle to the resident operator [YOU] for his or her regular use within this state, as defined in subdivision (b) of Section 4000.4, shall cause the vehicle to be registered in California within 20 days after its first operation within this state by the resident.
So what about the exceptions in 6700, 6702, and 6703?
CVC §6700a: Irrelevant; applies to NEW California residents who previously registered the vehicle in their state of residence have 20 days to register after becoming resident / beginning employment.
CVC §6700b: Irrelevant, describing the EXACT THING YOU ARE ATTEMPTING: "This exemption does not apply if the nonresident owner [MONTANA LLC] rents, leases, lends, or otherwise furnishes the vehicle to a California resident [YOU] for regular use on the highways of this state, as defined in subdivision (b) of Section 4000.4."
CVC §6702: Irrelevant, but if your LLC had a place of business in CA, it would not have 20 days, but would be subject to IMMEDIATE registration: "Every nonresident, including any foreign corporation [MONTANA LLC], having an established place of business within this state, and regularly using a vehicle of a type subject to registration under this code, shall immediately register the vehicle upon entry into this state."
As discussed in responses to this thread, a high ranking CA DMV official said that cracking down on THIS particular thing is 'a “top-of-my-list” priority'.
in '55 there were several alabama-tagged cars at colorado college. i think they'd send you a plate by mail for $12 or so. also a german had an alabama tag on his roadgoing 917 40-odd years ago.
I honestly don't see what's wrong with the tax evasion side of things in this.
Michigan collects what is effectively a sales tax on used car sales, repeatedly taxing the sale of the same object if it stays in state
Worse yet, unlike Ohio which charges a fairly modest registration fee, Michigan bases your registration fees on the original MSRP of a vehicle, and the scaling is not at all linear.
I pay nearly $1k/yr to register 3 vehicles here, half of that is for a jag I bought for the price of an equinox.
Want to daily a $15k Bentley turbo R, get ready for a 1k+ registration fee.
It's a regressive tax in a state that has been chronically unwilling to appropriately fund road repairs.
If I like the person I'm dealing with, I'll leave the sale price line of the title blank, and often I am extended the same courtesy; one of the many benefits of trading old shitboxes around with other citizens as opposed to going into debt for a depreciating asset from a dealer.
Oh and if a car is old enough, the registration is based on weight. Which means the 64 Imperial isn't a cheap tag either.
(for legal reasons, everyone I deal with is actually an asshole and does not get to skip out on sales tax, and I am an asshole as well so I also always pay sales tax)
I think Michigan's old weight-based system was more fair because heavier vehicles have a much greater impact on road life, but I can see how the OEMs didn't like that people were paying less to register BMWs than LTDs.
Nevertheless, the argument for tax evasion here really isn't much different than the argument for any other tax evasion. Nobody likes taxes. I think the compliance rate in India is about 30%.
My concern is that, suppose you pay your Michigan registration on January 2 and your mother in Cincinnati has surgery on February 1, so you drive down and work remotely while caring for her until June 1. Should you really have to pay all the fees (driver's license, title, VIN inspection, etc.) and a full year of Ohio registration, then repeat the process (DL, title, VIN inspection, registration) again in June?
It's not specific to Ohio: it's every state (Dan just mentioned OH). Some states do allow nonresident registration, so you don't need to change DL, some states allow you to keep your old title (IMO *all* should, per the "Full Faith and Credit clause, just like they recognize an out of state birth certificate or marriage license).
It's usually easier to avoid if you don't work...I suppose that remote work might offer some wiggle room. I am hoping that an attorney would chime in and offer me some comfort. Military and college students get an exception, and often migrant farm workers (which tend to have a specific statutory requirement that probably precludes arguing "a cubicle farm is a farm").
The Montana LLC vehicle registration 'loophole' is nothing compared to the shenanigans private jet owners will go through to avoid state sales and use tax.
Not sure I agree, considering the trajectory was set during the Ford era. Also, Ford never really had the money to get Jaguar to compete with Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, et al on technology and luxury…which is what it really needed.
I like the Slowtege Maverick. I think the Slate’s biggest influence will be the competition it produces. A two door Maverick would kill the Slate, but even without it I don’t see Slate being around in 5 years. Most of the current fanboys won’t buy one, they just like the *idea* of the Slate. That leaves the people who really want one, and once every one of those people has bought one, that will be it. Kind of like the Buick Reatta.
Bare bones products are not aspirational, and even if that’s all you can afford, basic items are usually just a stepping stone to a better, more aspirational, more comfortable product. Most Americans would say that the Slate is perfect for other people, just not for them. Of course, there will be richer people buying the Slate as a reverse play, to show everyone that they really are just like regular people. But that only works if you ignore everything else they own..
I agree that the competition produced is what will keep the Slate and it's niche going. I understand the idea of aspirational being a sales driver, not simply competence. The used market values competence and price in an attractive ratio, and is often a firmly different group in mindset from new vehicle/truck buyers.
Perhaps it will be the newly-employed, younger generation that thinks differently, and will say, "Forget outright aspiration, that's what other, older people did. I don't need the extra, just what I will use it for. I've seen the proverbial greener grass my parents went for, and its vanity holds no value for me."
Ah, well a new cultural mindset where outright aspiration is rejected would be totally refreshing and is distinctly possible. Let’s hope. I’m fascinated how the younger generation has widely rejected alcohol, which is something I never saw coming, so maybe there will be Slates and similar vehicles parked in front of non-McMansion houses in the near future!
As a late Boomer who is disgusted with the vanity of early Boomers, I’m all for youngsters rejecting older Boomer values.
Nice job on the renderings! Please do a few more. Maybe a Driving with Harambe for cars that don’t exist but I wished I owned! Here’s my favorite site for “cars that never were.” https://www.auto-visuals.com/cars-that-never-were-gallery
I find the cars of the “ultra wealthy” (really ultra high income based on the description of 500k+), quite spot on given what we see in Greenwich, Miami (the actual wealthy parts) or Nashville’s nicer suburbs. BMW has owned the SUV side of things, with the X7 being the default big German choice, while Mercedes still gets the S and E class buyers. With Ford, don’t forget the Expeditions, as the platinums and king ranch’s well outnumber Navigators. I wonder what the Toyota number actually is though, as Land Cruisers only seem to exist everywhere in Tennesee, even if the new one is popular in CT.
I have an uncle who is around a billionaire, completely self made. When he sold his first company circa 1983, family rumor was that he made 7 mil, an unbelievable sum to us. Bought his wife a Jaguar for Christmas and drove it to my grandmother's farm where six adults and eight kids stayed in a one bathroom farmhouse. To eight year old me, this looked like the ultimate symbol of wealth.
In full candor: My maternal grandfather potty trained me outside, which meant someone had to get an umbrella when it was raining and I needed to relieve myself.
All of the goodies that the 14% are purchasing to impress each other makes me fantasize of Trump calling for the end of income tax and placing the burden on sales tax as well as tariffs. Won't happen but I can dream.
That is what the Ranger should be...or I guess what a Ranchero could be.
If we went from income tax to a flat tax, the wealthy would soar off into the ether, away from the rest of us.
Normal people spend almost all of what they make. The wealthy can reinvest the bulk of it. What we need is a financial transactions tax, not a flat sales tax. IMO.
One of our greatest strengths as a country and where much of its vitality comes from is the strength of our capital markets. You do not want to kill it with a financial transactions tax. Money will flow to wherever it’s treated most favorably.
And I say this as someone who worked in the markets for decades and has no love for most of those people. But as distasteful as many of them are, they are essential to our national well being.
As essential as these people are, I wouldn't complain about living in a world where Amazon workers didn't feel pressured to piss in the warehouse corners and Bezos was worth a mere $30 billion or something as a result.
I see a lot of bad financial advisors in my job charging 1% managed fees while being beat by the s&p 500. Im thinking of branching off into that industry. Sadly some people need someone to call to hear “dont sell everytime the market dips”
While I sympathize with a plan like this, I really do, it never ends up working out or raising the intended revenue, even though it sounds good. No matter how clever the insiders in Washington think they are, the people they’re trying to tax are smarter and will find away around this, as they have teams of lawyers and lobbyists. Always remember that *a loophole is a law passed by Congress*.
To be effective, taxes should be basic and general in nature, and not be chasing esoteric things. Complexity only serves to obfuscate, and obfuscation only serves the insiders. See NGO funding by both sides.
At the end of the day, and everyone in Washington knows this, most of the money is in the middle to upper middle class (whatever that is), so that’s who ends up paying the bulk of the taxes. Just like Willie Sutton robbing banks because “that’s where the money is.” I personally find it disgusting that the 22% Federal income rate kicks in at $48,475 for an individual, no matter the deductions. That sends a terrible message to Americans who are working and striving but just getting by in life.
The problem as I see it is that the venture capital vultures have already strip-mined everything of long term value, and got rich(er) pulling the ladder up behind them.
Once upon a time every small town had a plethora of local stores and darn near anyone could open one.
Nowadays the price of entry is counted in millions and Walmart will undercut you right out of business without even noticing it in their profit margin past the fourth decimal place.
Too much "big business" in this country to leave any room for main street. And franchising is prohibitively expensive in a lot of cases.
Amazon and Wal-Mart and Target have a better proposition for consumers, in the aggregate. They outcompeted the mom and pop stores. I can order a household item right now (11:26 PM) from Amazon and it will be outside my door at 5 AM. And the price will be comparable to a big box store, if not cheaper. That’s valuable!
Even if, in a lot of cases, the quality of the product is purely 💩, and the origin of the product usually accounts for that! 🇨🇳
Wal-Mart started the trend towards this (which is why I actively avoid doing business there), and Mr. “Democracy Dies in Darkness” perfected it, as stated, delivering that stuff to customers within hours after they place an order. (I buy stuff from Amazon, but very sporadically; the sum-total of my order activity for the last five years is probably less than a lot of people’s average Amazon expenditures in an average month or couple of weeks.)
There would be many bugs to work out, staples declared tax free like groceries are now and of course there would be massive corruption where those decisions are made. I'd be delighted if the wealthy were investing in American manufacturing rather than a new yacht 6ft longer than the last.
I spend too much. I buy a hitch and cargo carrier only to borrow a 12 passenger van for the trip!
To be fair, the people who bought the van didn't own it when I ordered the rest of the stuff and I might just use the box to offload the crap in the back of the Highlander on a permanent basis. Stroller, groceries, etc, no problem.
You and me both... This is the most tired I've ever been. Kids 4 sleep schedule is slightly different and has me waking up at 4am to feed her most days. I'd have another one if the wife permitted. I'd probably push for it if we were five years younger.
Financial Transaction Tax is a terrible idea; capital flows like water, so capital markets go elsewhere, cost of capital for EVERY American company goes up.
Give me the moral imperative for this, if there is any.
Consumption advances the economy. Every cigar you smoke provides a real job for someone. Every dollar you invest simply widens the river into which the lizards dip their beaks, and further isolates the rich from the rest.
Furthermore, by definition, investing is not achievement. It is benefiting from the achievements of others. Cardinal Health stock might have gone up when I finished the hardware side of VitalPATH, but the investors contributed nothing and accomplished nothing. They were merely rewarded for what I'd accomplished.
You might as well characterize winning a Kentucky Derby bet as "achievement".
Achievement is inherently virtuous; I’m inclined to say that consumption is not. And I suspect you will agree with me on the latter point.
It is no secret in modern life that the key to true wealth is asset ownership. Asset prices - for the most part, depending on pricing execution (well bought is half sold), trends / demographics, and method of purchase (financing, margin, etc.) - tend to go up over time. Not owning assets is a choice.
Take my nemesis, Harelip, who today informed me that his retirement plan was to save up $1 million dollars (Doctor Evil voice) and then live on that plus social security. Unfortunately, he’s over $100K in the red now on his personal balance sheet, and he just spent $4K on “intensive training therapy” for the doggo he “rescued” so that he could take the prop to the dog park and meet women. The dog has bitten two humans and one other dog so far.
Agree. I've always liked the idea of a small financial transaction tax. I believe the system would be significantly more stable with that added friction.
There are already a bunch of fees on trades, they’re just not from the government (with a few minor exceptions), and the general public is not aware of them. I used to work on parsing out trade fees for a living, it can be extremely complex. Even coding the multitude of fees is sometimes impossible due to trade clearing system limitations, and my firm was then forced to credit or debit our clients at month end to make them whole. I am talking huge numbers that were produced by seemingly innocuous small fees. There are people at exchanges and clearing firms that do nothing but work on fees. It’s really a nightmare. Even though most fees are in cents or fraction of a cent, they all add up and can distort the cost of trading, especially in contracts that trade in high volumes.
A small transaction fee may sound reasonable but in practice it would be a mess. The last thing the government should be doing is making any market less efficient.
The problem lies in the word "small." Here in the UK we used to have a small "stamp duty" on transactions like share transfers and property purchases. I seem to recall that it was around 1% on property. I have just checked and if you were to buy a £2m house, that stamp duty would now be £153,750! It's a doubly dumb tax for a small, crowded country where we want to encourage older residents to downsize so the larger properties can be used by families in need of the space. Or people needing to move to take up a better paying job etc. It always starts "small" but rarely stays that way. How could it when the Government somehow needs £50bn to build a 100 mile railway!
The US Revenue Act of 1913 imposed a 1% tax on incomes above $3000.
With the Fed at the helm, also since 1913, and with one of their mandated goals to keep the dollar stable, the cumulative US inflation rate since 1913 is …………3140%!!!
So that $3000 tax threshold from 1913 would be $97,000 in today’s dollars.
I wish I would’ve screenshotted the cost of a Big Mac in 2019, before the Chinese released their little bug on the world. It’s $5.59 in northwest Ohio now.
A burger at someplace like Red Robin is $15, if not a little more. Used to be within a few cents of $10.
We need to talk about trade and migration. What little Adam Smith and Karl Marx may have said is obsolete in the era of the widebody jet, containerized shipping, and Internet.
I can't think of a good reason Ford couldn't compete directly with the Slate vehicle. Or for that matter beat it on price. Decontent the shit out of the Maverick, only put in what is federally mandated for safety. Make it hybrid. I drive a Transit 250 for my work vehicle. I know all too well Ford knows how to seriously decontent a vehicle. The screen that displays the back up camera (mandated) is maybe 3 inches wide.
I doubt they will though. The profit margins aren't high enough for the bean counters to ever approve it.
I doubt it. It’s an apples-and-oranges comparison.
I think the number of people who really want a decontented small pickup *and* who want it to be from Ford is pretty small, despite what all the bros on the Internet claim.
The Slate will sell because it’s cool and new and represents a modern counterculture. It will go to the sorts of well-moneyed people who spend $50K to humble-brag in an old RHD FJ40 Land Cruiser that can’t travel above 55 MPH. Whereas a Ford so positioned would only really appeal to fleets, and there’s not much money in that.
In short, I don’t see why Ford should *want* to compete with Slate, assuming such an enterprise would be remotely successful.
Ditto GM and Stellantis, if they felt so inclined, unless they spun up a new brand or subsidiary that was far divorced from the main works, a la Saturn (not that that was a good idea then).
Perhaps Toyota could get away with it, given the fanboyism for the brand’s trucks and trucky wares, but it’d probably have to be an honest-to-goodness ladder-frame truck, not a transverse-FWD unibody.
I don't really think most people now a days understand the difference between ladder-frame trucks and unibody trucks. They don't care about that. Both are light duty vehicles not intended for towing big things. They are intended for reliable basic usable transportation. With some utility also possible, within reason. If your intent is to tow big things, then either option is wrong.
I know a business man who summers in Charlevoix. A classic fat old man with a young trophy wife, fine whatever, but he buys and drives a new F250 every year with Montana plates. When I asked him about the plates he gloated about his tax dodge, fuck him and make him pay!
All you need is that matte black yacht and you can attract several young trophy wives/mistresses. I’ll renew my subscription and get you that much closer to every man’s dream!
1-The Pagani Utopia does look good, but it’s a shame the engine has a low redline and turbos. If only they could give it the HWA-supplied screamer from the Huayra R track car. Otherwise, for that money, visit Gordon Murray.
2-I saw a ratty Montana-plated 993 - it was a ‘95, which Jack knows as the worst of all 993s! - today, coincidentally. Montana plate = I can’t really afford this car, according to Doug DeMuro.
3-Jaguar was already all but dead, why not roll the dice? And WHO would buy an F Pace over a Velar?
4-I think there is some confounding in the Vehicles of the Ultra-Wealthy data: It’s from September of last year, so Tesla’s share is probably a bit lower (truly wealthy people can take a capital loss not to be seen in a clown car). It also smacks of The Millionaire Next Door chapter, in which the authors convinced a bunch of midwits that driving an F-150 would make those midwits millionaires! What do the ultra-wealthy really drive? Whatever they want to, subject to lifestyle and fitting in socially (see Tesla - it was once de rigueur, but is now a scarlet letter in many coastal markets). Most ultra-wealthy people - MOST people - don’t care about cars and view them as tools or appliances. I have a friend who would LIKE a Dakar or a PTS, loaded to the gills Targa, but he can’t get over the fact that “cars are depreciating assets.” He’d rather spend the money on Savile Row, or shotguns, or watches, or exquisite furniture. He’s also not going to show up at the very conservative, reserved country club of which he is a member in something remotely flashy.
That’s just his mindset. Further, no one in his inner circle would be caught dead fetishizing a car. A $10MM house in Sun Valley, sure. But spending big on cars is for nouveau riche and / or minorities in the view of many “Old Money” people (in the classical sense of the term, not the TikTok Ralph Lauren-cosplay sense; e.g., Ralph Lauren (the man) is new money).
Clothes certainly depreciate, even when you buy them from Anderson & Sheppard, unless your children want to wear your suits after you’re dead or got too fat. His son is in grade school, so it’ll be a while.
I read the first one when I was a kid and thought it was stupid, so I skipped the sequel, although I was aware of the title, however dimly.
It’s a great book about “becoming a millionaire” through being thrifty and controlling expenses. A better plan is to focus on upside, because that is unlimited and expenses cannot be cut to zero.
What about the millionaires that don’t give a shit what they drive? There is a local guy in my town that is worth high eight figures from gold mines who drives a beat to shit early 2000s GMC pickup truck around town. I do t know what he spends his money on. It it certainly isn’t is transportation!
“What do the ultra-wealthy really drive? Whatever they want to, subject to lifestyle and fitting in socially (see Tesla - it was once de rigueur, but is now a scarlet letter in many coastal markets). Most ultra-wealthy people - MOST people - don’t care about cars and view them as tools or appliances.”
One is more than plenty for most people. I have a friend who smoked 21 cigars on his 21st birthday. Real cigars, not cigarillos or short sticks. He spent most of the 24 hour period puffing. Said he didn’t feel so great the next day, but that may have been the Krug talking.
I did a vodkathon a couple years ago when the job and life got particularly stressful. Probably a liter a night for a month. Im back down to respectable glass of wine a night. Two if im going crazy
Like a Deloitte partner probably making $1.5 a year who would do the following most Sundays:
-Wake up (presumably) hungover
-Slow morning, get on the train from the burbs with Wife #2 and their young kids
-Once into the city, have brunch at the nicest spot around that would accommodate two elementary school aged children; a few cocktails and a bottle of champagne (split with wife)
-Arrive at cigar club; smoke 2-3 cigars and drink a bottle of Johnnie Walker
-Uber to airport to fly to jobsite (finish JW in flask if not yet complete)
-Drink on the flight in first class
-Uber to hotel room
He drank heavily every day but always seemed fine.
They may have an eye, but they don't *adjusts black turtleneck* have a CAR DESIGNERS eye. Different aesthetic. What they do doesn't really translate to an XJS very well at all.
An XJS is a discerning gentleman's express, not some downtown British RWB-alike. It requires a much more subtle and considered approach.
4-I agree. People these days seem to look at stats and appreciate their context. Do the cars have to be registered to an individual? How do you distinguish which of the cars a company owns are driven by which people in that company? What if a lease company owns them?
I'm just gonna say it. The Ford Jags were some of, if not the best Jags. The X308 had all the spirit plus relative reliability. Not uncommon at all to see these soldiering on easily past 150k miles. A shame, but that time is gone.
Agreed with the quote on the aspirational 14%. If you're in the retail car business at all, you know who's brands buyers are bulking up on most of the negative equity out there.
As someone in the 2% *for my age group*, the vehicles I own are remarkably Dave Ramseyish, if you look at them all individually rather than as a sum. No car notes.
Ford lost money on Jaguar. Despite what they spent those cars never sold well. Going up against the germans in the premium market was a mistake, and Jaguar was traditionally always the value luxury proposition.
For years Land Rover has outsold Jaguar by two or three cars to one, at much higher transaction prices and mostly for cash (ie not on finance).
The Ford Jaguars were fairly irrelevant, as much as I love them. Most of the money Ford lavished upon Jaguar was just to get it out of the hole it was in, especially in terms of production facilities. It wasn’t enough to make the cars particularly competitive or worth buying, unless English Drawing-Room Styling was your thing.
And even that stopped being the priority. The initiative to move to more modernly styled cars happened under Ford, and Tata just kept that going.
I find the Ford-era Jags, including my 1996 XJ12, interesting as relics. These days, they’re quite old, and quite unique, and quite cheap, right up to the final X358 XJs from 2009. But I’m not sure I would have spent my money on one at any point when it was reasonably new. There were just more compelling choices at the time. And, much as I say to everyone who remembers Saturn fondly because they drove a beat-up one during college…automakers don’t deal in cheap used cars, and they aren’t a viable business model in that arena.
I have to disagree within the context of Jaguar. The X30xs and X100 were great cars from a quality and design standpoint, something that couldn't be said about Jaguar since perhaps many decades prior. They truly revived a dead brand with real fresh product for a brief decade. The X308 R is still a legit desirable and worthy car, and was a powerhouse in it's day. Considering they sold a good deal of these cars, within the context of Jaguar of course, I'd consider them perhaps some of the most significant Jags ever.
The X308 and X100 were the best cars Jaguar could have made at the time, and they were cool for their day. They were also a dead end.
In the case of the X308, the basic engineering literally dated back to the ‘70s (when British Leyland began work on the XJ40 platform) and the dimensions were very…un-modern. Which turned a lot of buyers off. And the X100 borrowed portions of engineering from the XJS, which also originated in the ‘70s.
Off Topic:
I have fallen way off of reading… anything at all of substance of late. Haven’t read but like three books all year. None of them fiction.
I want to reset on that end. I want to read some classic works of fiction. Like high school reading list, Great Novel stuff; Dickens, Steinbeck, Hemingway, etc.
Where should I be looking at to start? I am a 31 year old man with an upsettingly short attention span, so something that can grab me quick would be best.
Any novel Hemingway wrote is worth your time. For Whom the Bell Tolls is the best, but The Old Man and the Sea is my favorite, and it's a three-hour read.
Steinbeck--I'd start with In Dubious Battle. His more famous works are a little longer and a lot more difficult to absorb.
Dickens is a tough case because you have to love the language of the time to get into it. Bartleby the Scrivener is the place to start here, and after you read it, watch the movie "Office Space."
I’ve read For Whom the Bell Tolls a couple times before. Great book, though the language used is odd to me. The way formal Spanish is translated to English? It’s strange. Good though.
Do you speak/read Spanish?
All my Spanish I got from Speedy Gonzalez cartoon and Predator movies.
I got mine from being cussed out by Mexican contractors:)
See, this is where my mouth gets me in trouble.
"Pretty big talk for guys who aren't even supposed to be in my country, homes. Why'chnt you pack up your fat wives and your 37 kids and go the fuck home?"
My spanish doesn't go much beyond "Uno mas cerveza por favor".
And later, donda este el banyo!
Very minimally. I can read it ~ok~ enough to usually make out what I'm looking at. I cannot speak it for shit.
You know this, but Bartleby is Melville.
I failed to make it clear; I was on the language-of-the-time kick. Thank you for pointing this out.
calder willingham and william faulkner--but for pure fun you can't beat the essays by s.j.perelman!
I'd second Hemingway and Steinbeck, but if KoR has a short attention span, it might be best start with a collection of Hemingway short stories.
They're good, but they tend to be depressing as hell.
Cannery Row.
I'll go against the grain here and just say to start out with East of Eden.
Can't argue with that.
Read "The Sun Also Rises". Then, if you're feeling like reading something that is both funny and vast, try Moby Dick. If not, try Portnoy's Complaint.
Might I suggest reading TSAR the second week of July? It's fun to keep up with the current festival while you enjoy the novel.
already aware of that last one
the fat pizza guy that wont shut up about a sign in a club
Sounds awful
he is
I’ve read TSAR several times. First when I was directionless after college, and then again around the time of COVID. It was very impactful. One of my favorite books ever.
Portnoy’s Complaint is something I’ll put at the front of the list though! Never came across that one.
Lovecraft.
The Dunwich Horror. Pickman's Model. The Shunned House. The Rats In The Walls. The Lurking Fear.
Lovecraft lost me when he tried to make penguins horrifying. Good stuff otherwise.
Oh yeah. Forgot about that one.
f. scott fitzgerald--this side of paradise is marvelous. also william saroyan!
YES. Saroyan is 100% worth it. There are a bunch of collections of his short stories that are a good introduction to him. About half of everything in my hometown is named after him.
Also, John Fante. "Ask the Dust" "Wait Until Spring, Bandini" "Dreams from Bunker Hill"
There's a funny story about Saroyan being hired by a Hollywood studio to read script submissions and unknowingly rejecting Fante's script. I think Fante confronted Saroyan over it in some LA bar.
Joan Didion's novel, "Play it as it Lays" is also good.
As a Bukowski fan I'm ashamed that I haven't read any Fante yet. Thanks for the recommendations.
Yes, read Bukowski's trilogy.
Piling on….highly recommend Hemingway. TSAR is great, but also consider “Farewell to Arms” and “For Whom the Bell Tolls”. I read all of these about 1000 years ago when I was in my 20’s and realized my engineering education left me glaringly unread in the classics department.
Moby Dick utterly surprised me. I was not prepared for what it actually was, and could not put it down. Other people have bitched about what I liked about it, so, you know, your mileage may vary.
Moby Dick is something I have to get to. It feels wrong that I've made it this far without having read it.
Same with Old Man and the Sea.
I wanted to mention Hemingway but others have already talked about him. As much as I enjoyed Moby Dick I LOVED The Old Man and the Sea. Hemingway is peak American literature to me. I'm ashamed I did not enjoy his work when I was in high school, but I suppose I needed a bit of experience to appreciate it.
I re-read some high school books. Yeah, they're not meant for high schoolers. The life experience makes them more relatable.
Its a fantastic book, and darkly funny in parts.
I read Moby Dick Sophomore year in High School. For our 20th reunion, we had the same English teacher have a class discussion about Moby Dick. He assigned us certain passages beforehand and we had a great discussion. Our conclusion was why were we reading that in High School? So much is about moving into manhood and the itch to make it so. We certainly didn't understand the desire to leave home, explore and make our way in the world. We would a few years later, however.
I found Portnoy's Complaint over-rated. I think the issue is what was so scandalous when Roth wrote it is almost pedestrian now. That of course is not an indictment of Roth, because the sexual predilections and oedipal complex he explored were of course taboo at the time. So in that way, it was scandalous and groundbreaking. But it hasn't aged well, in the sense that few will be shocked by it today.
Moby Dick is brilliant, and literally ANYTHING by Hemingway totally rocks.
I would also strongly recommend Heart of Darkness. Every time I read it I marvel that it was written by an ESL Polish author.
Have you read crime and punishment? Short enough. Count of monte christo is good but looong. I got 1/3 through don quixote before life got to me last year. After this kid gets big enough to move a bit, i need to get back to books.
Dostoevsky is mighty good. Working through the Brothers Karamazov for a second time as we speak.
I should add that to the list
I read that when I was in Japan and left my copy with my coworker. I heard someone somewhere say once that the meaning of life is written in the Spanish Inquisitor part of the book, but I am too stupid to have gotten it.
There are some interesting parallels between Dostoyevsky's Grand Inquisitor and Mustapha Mond in Brave New World. An exercise for the reader?
Crime & Punishment: "A Penguin Classic" :)
https://64.media.tumblr.com/b16f45928e68f999a86935d78212ce34/eed6fbd1d2ed10bf-c1/s1280x1920/4b0a507ec4b3f1deb62317dc58cbe7a3f31c3b0f.jpg
i tried to read crime and punishment in highschool and got scared and stopped reading
ill take this as a sign to try again
It's fantastic. Read it.
you got it
As did I and also will try again.
To OP, it's not a literary classic, but a great read about Russians is Clancy's Red Storm Rising. The audiobook is my go-to companion on long road trips.
I did get through Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago and want to read In the First Circle as a result.
I read a lot of Tom Clancy when I was like 10-13 years old. I was a weird kid.
I'd bet the number of ACF readers who read a lot of Clancy in that age range is not a small one. It's at least two!
I read all of them as a kid. Almost lit my bed on fire trying to read way past bedtime in 5th grade.
Crime and Punishment for sure. Also The Idiot. I can't recall which are best, but translators matter. Read a page or two of different versions if you can.
While I'm on translations, read The Odyssey and the Illiad in the prose translation by Rouse.
Edited to add a few authors: Hermann Hesse, Somerset Maugham, Stephen Crane.
Edited again to add the second "n" to Hermann.
I have not.
Russian literature always scared me away for some reason.
Will have to give it a shot
It takes a few chapters to get the names but the penguin classic has a nice index to help with that.
Last month was the 100th anniversary of The Great Gatsby and I bought an annotated copy published by the Library of America with an introduction by Amor Towles. The comments throughout really make that novel a different experience.
Speaking of Towles I am almost finished with his first, Rules of Civility. I think Jack would enjoy expounding on the characters within.
Also Suttree, but I'm an odd one that prefers Cormac's Appalachian stories.
I also rec Outer Dark and Child of God, both amazing and nightmarish. The ending of the former is terrifying
I favor the border trilogy.
100%. Amazing books
I adore Cormac, though I haven't read through all, or even most, of his work.
His stories tend to be emotionally very exhausting.
I'll have to pick that up. I'm a big fan of Towles and Gatsby has been on my list for a while. Jack's review turned me on to A Gentleman in Moscow and I binged the rest of Towles work right after. I'd especially like to hear Jack's thoughts on The Lincoln Highway. I think a lot of it's themes resonate with ACF. It would be a good choice if First Principles had a book club segment.
https://www.loa.org/books/the-annotated-great-gatsby/
Agreed; A Gentleman in Moscow is excellent. I too purchased it after Jack’s review.
Starship Troopers. But avoid the fuckin' movie.
Too many of my friends and relatives in the Marine Corps have touted that movie as gospel. Not even the nude shower scenes will tempt me to watch it. Heinlein cannot be translated to to the screen.
Don't think of it as a Heinlein movie. Think of it as "inspired by".
Aw balls, I might as well think of the Battlefield Earth movie as "inspired by" the novel. There's no G-d-damned comparison to be made. All due respect sir, but fuck that noise.
On the Heinlein topic, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Stranger in a Strange Land should also be on the list.
Stranger is one of the weirdest books I've ever read. Still liked it. I think I liked Friday better, though.
That was the one with John Travolta and Forrest Whitaker as nine-foot-tall Rastafarian Klingons, right?
That movie sucked.
Yeah, I saw half of it on VHS in a warehouse break room. I'll never forgive Travolta.
You're missing out. As a 90's campy Verhoeven (Robocop, Total Recall) piece, it's entertaining. I saw it long before ever reading the book and was like WTF, but I've seen the movie a few times but will probably never pick up the book again.
I find the movie hilarious when looked at as just some campy sci-fi.
NOTE: I have not seen the movie in probably 10 years.
I liked how when that movie came out, people were referring to Neil Patrick Harris' character as Doogie Hitler.
Novels are gay
I agree. They are all the trash in someone's brain served up with a veneer of respectability.
Buuuutttt......
I still read novels:
-as escapism and somewhere to unwind
-I love doing archaeology on the trash and getting fragments of ideas and understanding.
The other counterpoint is that most biographies are fictionalised to some extent and even textbooks are coloured by the opinions of the writer.
I'm reading John Buchan at the moment. (Courts of the Morning in particular)
If they were written today they would just be an ordinary thriller - which will help extend your attention span - but being written in the 1930s, the author has a rich vocabulary and understands the technical structure of a sentence.
I particularly enjoy reading books from the early 20th century as the world was in a particular state of flux at that time. Communism and Fascism were both new political movements; the empires were breaking up and new countries were experimenting with new forms of independence and America was taking her first steps as a superpower. I enjoy the insight into how people saw the world, especially as we know how the particular situations panned out and find it helps my world view today. People think our current situation is so unique and unprecedented but you read these books and realise that people have had the same problems for at least the past hundred years.
Might take a look at Graham Greene. 'The Quiet American' is where everyone (including Hollywood) goes. I'm partial to 'The Power and the Glory', which starts like this:
Mr Tench went out to look for his ether cylinder-- out into the blazing Mexican sun and the bleaching dust. A few buzzards looked down from the roof with shabby indifference: He wasn't carrion yet.
I’m partial to Our Man in Havana, which is really funny.
Infinite Jest, the short attention span and endless footnotes is something he predicted and the funniest part is so many of the footnotes are kind of made up. Lmk we can start an ACF book club
I need to read Infinite Jest... thank you for the reminder. I have no idea why I think this, or if it is even true, but I've always thought of Infinite Jest as its generation's Gravity's Rainbow.
Ooooh yeah Infinite Jest has gotta be on the list.
And I'm 100% down for an ACF bookclub.
CC: @Jack ^
ACF book club would be a cool idea. Struggle to belive you couldn't get at least ~10 or so people invested in such a thing.
We could use the substack chat to build a “ACF book club community” where we all talk there and set progressional goals ahead of time to stay on schedule. Biweekly ideally
I would suggest you not begin with the high school reading list that is mostly meant to discourage a love of reading. Generally, I recommend the great pulp authors like Westlake, Spillane, etc. to coax the attention span back out of its burrow. Westlake alone writes such magnificent sentences you'll be breadcrumbed along and before you know it you'll be closing the book on the final page. It is from that success and enjoyment you can build on your reading appetite and attention span.
I would probably say Heinlein might be next. But Daddy Heinlein is more or less must reading along with Tolkien in order to be a "man of your time" and such.
A "man of your time" -- in what, 1955?
Not arguing with your choices -- I like them both, but their way of thinking may be outdated, for better or worse.
Almost everything popular now is derivative from writers in the mid century or earlier folks like stoker and Shelley. Good place and time to anchor a reading habit instead of iambic pentameter and Elizabethan density of prose.
Essentially just before the marxists occupied academia so thoroughly in the nam era.
I'd take a swing at Cormac too. All the Pretty Horses and Blood Meridian are, in my opinion, two of the greatest books ever written.
Haven't read All the Pretty Horses, but I'll second Blood Meridian. I have a very small home (850 sq ft) and not a lot of storage space, so I don't keep a lot of books.
Blood Meridian has a permanent place on the shelf. I'll return to it one day.
All The Pretty Horses is astoundingly good
As adaptations go, the film does a pretty good job.
Haven’t seen the film but will definitely look for it
I've never read All The Pretty Horses. Will need to do that some day.
Blood Meridian is maybe the most difficult-to-read book I've ever allowed myself to consume for "fun" both in terms of how it's written and for subject matter. It beyond brilliant though.
"The Relic" by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.
Fuckin' LOVE that book.
I recently picked up The Great Gatsby, given that it just turned 100 years old.
This most definitely is not on a high school reading list, but I'll recommend Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. It is a seamless braided narrative that blends World War II codebreaking and covert operations with what was at the time of its writing (late 1990s) an up-to-the-minute account of building a data haven to facilitate internet banking and crypto currency (though cryptocurrency didn't exist at the time, Stephenson was, as usual, glimpsing the future.).
I realize that sounds _super_ nerdy, and it is - but in all the best ways. It's a doorstop of a book - something like 700 pages, because Stephenson gonna Stephenson, - but it's a great read and goes quickly. A great techno-thriller action story with great characters.
I loved Stephenson's early works, liked his middle ones, and have failed to get through some of the more recent. He's clearly a brilliant guy, and a weird mix of great and terrible writers. He's never been good at endings, and he's both great at weaving technical detail into a novel and terrible at knowing when to stop. I'm not sure how much of my opinion going downhill over time is me getting older, him getting worse, or him getting too big to have an editor keep him under control.
He got worse.
What makes him so frustrating is he's got fascinating ideas and he knows how to craft a riveting story, but he needs an editor with the balls to say "No. That doesn't work. At all. Cut it. And while you're at it, cut this. And this. And rework that..."
Seveneves was good until the midway through the third act.
So far Termination Shock is his best work since Cryptonomicon, but I'm only a bit more than half way through. Still plenty of room for him to fuck it up.
Agree on TS. Quite readable. Funny, though - the diversity in Snow Crash felt real but in TS I felt him checking the boxes.
Fall, Or Dodge in Hell was the worst book I have ever read to completion. I just could not believe it was as bad as it was, and that was after reading Seveneves.
Yeah, I can see that about the diversity, but think it's less his writing and more the fact the current age has made YOU MUST HAVE ALL THE DIVERSITY IN ALL THE THINGS HERE IS YOUR LIST so prevalent that when someone like Stephenson, who has done it organically in the past, does it, it can come across as forced.
I dunno if that makes sense.
I was so frustrated by Fall. I kept thinking, "Really? REALLY? DO YOU NOT HAVE AN EDITOR? This is at least THREE different novels, and only one of them is interesting." And Seveneves.... I talk about that later in this thread, but Yeah. I was almost pissed about that one when I finished it:
"Hi. Neal here. So... after giving you 500-plus pages about the destruction of all life on earth and the restoration of humanity in space, where the entire human race is now descended from seven women (the seven eves! get it? it's spelled the same way backward! aren't I clever!), I'm gonna mention, almost in passing, "Oh. By the way. This entire civilization - founded by the father of one of those seven Eves - thrived deep underground. But wait! This other entire civilization, founded by the husband of another one of those seven eves, thrived deep in the ocean. Yeah, it kinda undermines most of the plot about the seven eves being the saviors of earth, but whatever."
The fact that not one editor at William Morrow / HarperCollins thought to say, "Uh, Neal..." suggests they just let him run amok.
I have long said the EXACT same thing - Stephenson's work has steadily declined since Cryptonomicon. I didn't even attempt The Baroque Cycle, and I gave up on Anathem a few hundred pages in. I read Reamde, which as I recall was a pretty standard techno thriller that, honestly, felt like he was writing it with the goal of seeing it made into a movie.
Your point about him not being able to nail a landing is spot-on, and it is why I have many, many thoughts on Seveneves.
(((SPOILER AHEAD - SKIP TO THE NEXT GRAF if you want to read the novel.)))
I enjoyed Seveneves - fascinating premise, manageable length, good pacing even if he did get a big bogged down in the final third with almost masturbatory descriptions of the technology and world building. BUT he lost me midway through the third act when he mentions the Pingers, who get maybe a couple of pages. And then the Diggers, who get a couple of paragraphs. TWO ENTIRE FUCKING CIVILIZATIONS who survived the destruction of all life on earth and carried on the human race by living underground and underwater for 5,000 years and he just sort of hand-waves them off.
(((End spoilers)))
And then there was Fall: Or Dodge In Hell. That was one hot mess of a novel. Actually, it wasn't one novel, it was three, crammed into a doorstop. It started with an interesting premise (creating a measure of immortality by uploading once's mind to the internet) but devolved into something akin to Minecraft and then, even worse, a fucking RPG-style quest. The one part of the novel that I found interesting was the journey through Ameristan, which made me wish he'd developed that into a proper novel. Years later I read American War, in which Omar El Akkad did exactly that two years before Stephenson published Fall.
I am now reading Termination Shock, Stephenson's look at the climatic, environmental, and geopolitical implications of geo-engineering by cloud-seeding with sulfur. I am about 400 pages in (it is 700 pages) and have to say, it is, so far, his best work since Cryptonomicon. That said, I'm waiting for him to fuck it up some how, though I hope he doesn't.
All in all, though Stephenson is in desperate need of an editor willing to say, "No. Cut that. And that. And this, too. And what the fuck is this? No. And we're gonna do this to the third act..."
A whole thread about Neal Stepheson and not one mention of Diamond Age. Probably one of his best examples of world building that still isn't dated yet.
Snow Crash was one of my favorites, but a lot of the things he wrote about (35 years ago) have already happened.
Cryptonomicon is always a fun read, but it's rooted in the late 1990's. Reading it now is like opening a time capsule. And getting someone to read it the first time is like trying to get someone to read Jules Verne.
Diamond Age is next on the list - somehow I missed that one in my first foray through the Stephenson bibliography. I recently re-read Snow Crash and it was stunning just how closely he predicted VR / AR. Mark Zuckerberg oughtta be paying Stephenson royalties.
I read Cryptonomicon in 2000 or 2001 and again last year. I think it was prescient enough that it still holds up. And if nothing else, he explains exactly the correct way of eating Cap'n Crunch.
IMO Mark Twain is still one of America's greatest humorists. Forget Tom Sawyer, but there's a lot of variety in his work. For a completely different side of him, try Letters From the Earth. Bite sized pieces with great insight into the folly of humans. Hilarious!
The roman-a-clef novel "All the Kings Men" by Robert Penn Warren is the best piece of fiction i've read in a while. Other than that, Jack often recommends Updike, whose unassailable work is vastly better than what colleges and prep schools elect to shove down students' throats.
Regarding ATKM, it also (basically) tells you the story of legendary politician Huey Long, one of the last dying breaths of authentic grassroots American politicking. There were others (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6644717-target? ) but he was among the last chances the nation had of avoiding the brutally rough road we are now headed down.
That's one of my favorites as well. Judging from his use of language, it did not hurt that he was also a poet.
That sounds right up my alley
The Aubrey/Maturin series from Patrick O’Brian. Also, the Flashman Papers by George MacDonald Fraser are a rippin’ good read.
Second on Patrick O'Brian. I think it will join the classics in time.
I should add a recommendation for A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin, possibly the best book I have ever read that is not a classic (yet).
Third on Patrick O'Brian. Such an epic timeframe, over 20-something books. It's nice to enjoy a series that pretty much never ends. When done, start over!
I listen to the audiobooks every 10 years.
I assume you’re referring to all the Flashman novels. If so, start with the eponymous one.
My take on Jaguar was that it was a relatively unsuccessful company for most of its existence. It sold niche products, many of which were plagued with serious drivability issues, and usually found just enough customers to keep the lights on.
But at least the styling was distinctive and unapologetic. Once that stopped being the case, which really happened around 2009, there was no good reason to buy one over a superior Lexus, Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche or even Genesis.
I think the decision to do a complete brand reboot was a wise one; however, I don’t agree with Jaguar’s ultimate implementation. Why go into the world of EVs? Why would Jaguar think it could be successful where vastly more capable and better-funded firms were not, regarding EVs? How could Jaguar possibly hope to compete with Rolls-Royce—which will likely fully transition into an EV brand within the next ten years—or even with Cadillac—whose Celestiq and Escalade IQ/L series genuinely are impressive as luxury cars?
I think that, especially if Jaguar wanted to go low-volume, it should have done the opposite of what it did. Bring back the V12, or at least keep the Jaguar V8 around, and make enviable performance gasoline cars, with effortlessly gorgeous design for the one-percent. The new car didn’t need to be as baroquely styled as Jaguars yore, but it needed to make a statement and inspire envy, and not look like something that was drawn on a napkin by a 9-year-old in the school cafeteria.
And the marketing? I mean, I’m a gay man, but to me, the marketing just read as apologetic and pandering, rather than strong.
Also, Jack, I do agree with your point a week ago about how automakers never seem to have the money to develop a new performance gasoline engine—or, in the case of GM and the L87 disaster, even to do right by a profitable and existing one—but there’s always money for a moonshot EV project that promises to fade into irrelevance.
If Jaguar was going to burn money and move upmarket, it could have done so on something that meant much more to everyone. Instead we get this low-poly-rendered garbage. I’m gobsmacked. It almost reminds me of how the Aztek came about, where it seemed like literally *no one* said, “Guys, what are we doing.”
Only, the Aztek was a culmination of budget cuts and the culture within GM, and just kind of happened by accident and at a point where it was too late to do anything to prevent it. Whereas the new Jaguar was designed on purpose.
Also, why the fuck did they debut a coupe when the production car will be a four-door GT? Someone explain *that* to me.
They WERE cool at least
The saddest thing is that they had an Ian Callum designed XJ ready to be launched and the chucked it in the bin.
Richard Porter apparently saw it in the metal when he was at Brown's Lane for some other reason and thought it was really good.
I saw it several times. My LR colleagues and I didn’t think much of it. Very Tesla-esque with W212 headlights.
Jaguar were in the shit for years. Their best yer of sales was 2016 I think when they sold something like 180k units. I wrote about it all at the end of last year.
Interesting. I imagined Ian Callum was more original than that.
O/T I really enjoyed your Beetle article on The Autopian the other day.
Beetle and Type 2 moved me from lorries to cars as a kid, and from car stats to modified vehicles as a young teen, so I started the article with my fight on.
By the middle of the article, I was laughing, and by the end, you nearly had me converted.
Can someone link me to an image of this? All I am seeing is this: https://www.autoevolution.com/news/this-is-what-the-abandoned-jaguar-xj-ev-would-ve-looked-like-is-it-good-they-killed-it-243259.html#
Well said
Question for automotive safety/sheet metal engineers and those who weld and fabricate custom cars:
For a pre-2003, pre-ISOFIX anchor / LATCH anchor car, would it be possible to fabricate and weld or bolt in a set of isofix anchors? There are many excellent enthusiast vehicles from the 60s-early 00s that I've had to rule out for lack of this
Why does lack of ISOFIX rule them out? Every car seat I've owned also supports being installed with the seat belt instead of ISOFIX/LATCH. In terms of safety, if you're willing to put your kid in a 1960s car, LATCH isn't gonna move the needle.
When I first typed the comment, I typed it as 90s-00s cars. Thinking old BMWs that could be LS swapped or hotrodded. E34s, E36 M3 sedan or euro E36 wagons. Even early E38s (possibly all E38s) and early E39s lacked isofix anchors, and both of those crash quite well.
Re: 60s cars, in large part you’re right. But even there - consider that isofix anchors limit motion in the event of a wreck. You could assume that whiplash, and other motion induced harm, would be reduced by securely attaching a car seat. Safety in a crash is partly about intrusion but also about not turning passengers into projectiles.
Yacht ownership makes racing look cheap. You’ll spend 20k in gas in a weekend
Forget Yachts, any boat. Don’t ask what “Racing” sails cost, or gas to run a 20 ft boat with a 250 for a 6 hour long distance lunch run, never mind what the multi engine stuff costs.
3mpg is a good day with a 250
We used to spend $200 a weekend on gas. Parent paid the fixed costs. Now i dont have time to mooch off it
Ski boat.
This is why my we bought a small racing sailboat, and wait for my father in law to take us out on his powerboats.
My “being rich” dreams are a lakeplace and a ski boat of my own. Not affordable anymore
It’s incredible how anything with water access anywhere near a city has become completely out of reach. The concentration of wealth that COVID accelerated in this country is amazing.
The sad thing down here in Miami is that it’s not just national, we’re sucking in all the South American money too
If id bought in two years earlier id have gotten half a million tax free. Wouldve paid off a lot of my buy in. Fuckin covid.
The cabin in the middle of no where, WI, that my in-laws paid about $80k for in 1992 is worth around 10x that in 2025. Incredible. I don’t need or want a ski boat, but a Cobalt runabout (starting around $100k for a base CS23) would be lovely.
Julian, good point, I went to Miami for a day trip in November and i coukd not believe the number of 6 digit cars that were every where, RR, Bentley, big BMW, S Class. The streets were packed with very expense cars, and no one seemed to notice.
I only learned a few years ago that one could finance a “frozen snot” (fiberglass) boat for 15, 20, or even 30 years.
Even the rich are dumb with their money
What kind of boat? I have a NACRA 6.0 that rips! could do 25 mph!
We have a K6 and my wife has an ILCA (aka new laser), which probably tells you where we sail. I’m still figuring this all out as a former rower, she is the real sailor.
We’re now trying to figure out what boat we should get to race in Miami since we’re down here “full time” now.
The Etec on my 16ft polar kraft isn't too bad on consumption, it's the proprietary etec oil that'll get ya.
They have to get you somewhere
Those E-tecs are awesome engines. My dad has a 40, 50, and 200 H.O.
$1000 was the most fuel I’ve burned in a day. 250 miles from key west to St. Pete.
BOAT. Break Out Another Thousand.
Probably BOATT now
Or Break Out Another Trillion if you're playing with CVNs.
What I wanna know is how the hosts reacted when you walked into the show on a screwed up invite.
Oh it's not as dramatic as I'm probably making it sound.
“Baruth. Weve got jack barith here!”
“See no one cares”
https://youtu.be/D4MUBQNbTYo?si=XUxXkpQjNV4LBVlO
It didn't APPEAR as dramatic as you make it sound. but someone on the PR team that handled it probably got demoted to handling Skoda and Dacia events for the next two years.
"How the fuck did this happen? His name is on the "do not invite list" IN RED FUCKING LETTERS!, you fucking half-wit. Now get the fuck out of my office."
I'm confused about the ultra wealthy definition. The cover you use to illustrate seems to say it's $500,000 per year income, but you say $30 mil net worth. I know plenty of people who have made $500,000 a year, not so many with $30 mil net worth THAT I KNOW OF. And that's another issue; I know lots of people with an eight-figure net worth which one will never have a clue are worth that. People who drive a Subaru Legacy (true example) or a Porsche 911 that's being sold for an Audi because the kids are getting bigger (business sale, 40 year old fellow who was "in the right place at the right time").
I think if you're making $500,000 a year you're in the aspirational class, but if you blow it on $100,000 watches you'll never hit an eight figure net worth.
I agree. Plus I don’t think the 1% look to the ultra wealthy for cues because the gap is so wide between those two groups. I don’t think that most of the 1% even have any idea of how the truly ultra wealthy think or live. Maybe more so than me, but that’s not saying much.
I would agree, but also suggest that the ultra wealthy .1% or .01% we always read about don’t make sense to the rest of the 1% either. That ultra wealthy is it’s own weird media fueled bubble in my mind, that exists more in the imagination of the next 9% than it does the top 1%
I have ultra wealthy clients that are worth 20-40mm and clients who make them seem middle class
It’s fascinating, and I’m sure some of those 20-40mm folks have lived that appear more “ultra wealthy” than the actual folks in that bracket.
They live nice lives. All of them. Most of my super rich clients like to spend it. Especially the new money
I am sure. I’ve just seen that a lot of those newer $10-20 (or less) folks will appear much wealthier to the untrained eye than most of the real 40+ folks.
The graphic and the data have been through a few hands, which is why I ignored that description.
Making $500k a year, as a household, is middle class now.
I think we have to separate class, income, and wealth to a large degree, but $500k is still firmly within the top 10% of income. I guess that just begs the question of where the upper middle is?
I think social media and the modern concentration of wealth have also completely warped what most people see as “normal” or “middle class,” and thats without counting how much of it is all a debt fueled mirage - even from the folks making $350k+
Not gonna lie, I had years where I had a $400k household income a full twenty years ago and finished the year with debt.
Going racing will do that to you, as will getting on planes.
Those 1% (or really top .5%) hobbies can do that to you…
I totally get it though, we’ve been silly with things too - even though we are nuts about keeping out of debt beyond the house and cars
my 10-year-younger wife and i agreed that in 1970, a $50k/year income was the bottom edge of 'wealthy.'
I believe that in 2025, $150k/year 2025, happiness isn't determined by extra money.
Anything above "comfortable" barely moves the needle. Slightly fancier dinners, slightly fancier cars, slightly fancier wine, a box of cigars here or there, fancier vacations, private school tuition. I'm not happier now than when I made 105k a year with two kids and sahw. I am more comfortable.
I think my dad made 10k a year as a CPA in 1975.
Anything above 300k in most places is solidly umc. Might be tempted to go down to 250 on this. It’s very easy to get house poor at those numbers though. Especially today. Anything over 1mm is solidly rich.
Top 2% in 2022 was $438k/yr. Not going to argue that’s “ultra rich” by any stretch, but it’s hardly “middle class”. We’re within spitting distance of that number and it ain’t rich either, though our spending habits have a lot to do with that.
Hi Chris: I sent you an email on May 8: could you please check you Spam folder?
Sorry was a busy weekend for me, I’ll send you something tomorrow.
Thanks!
I think this is where wealth and income separate. Most of what we think of as ultra rich have tons of assets as opposed to annual income.
The ultra rich usually have both
If it isn’t middle class ($438k/yr) it is upper middle class. Especially if that is a young doctor who just finished 12 years of school and residency and has $500k in loans. That person should not be considered rich.
One of my "unpopular beliefs" is doctors don't make too much money. All that schooling, all that opportunity cost
True, but the risk (and variance?) is low.
IF you make it, otherwise you have medical school debt without a job.
All the med-$chool debt!
Middle income.
$500k in Manhattan and $500k in Little Rock are very different although I guess you can argue that a Little Rock address means you're capped at "middle class" no matter what.
Read “Class” by Paul Fussell.
Warren Stephens is the only Little Rock resident I can think of offhand who can claim upper class status (not that he would).
500k a year as a freshly minted attending ER doctor in NYC with loan debt is wildly different from the same 500k a year earning general contractor who owns his own home building company in Mississippi.
When I moved from the MA to NC I took a small pay cut on paper, but my actual cash flow increased 30-40% due to the reduction in cost of living.
To me a better indicator of status that eliminates COL variances is to measure people on their ability to handle an unexpected 10k home or car repair without changing their regular spending habits. This measure also rules out the folks who lifestyle creep their way through career success. In my mind if you're living pay check to pay check regardless of the amount on the check, you're definitely not Upper Class, or IMO even Upper Middle Class.
Always use NW. I know plenty of people who make big money but are poor as fuck.
While true, a large part of NW is time. Young people simply haven’t had enough time to contribute a lot to retirement and investment accounts, pay down mortgages, etc etc. Having a 7-figure net worth at age 30 and age 60 mean very different things.
I'd suggest that the Covid house price surge, and current interest rates, have gone a long way to narrow the gap between those cities. Our NYC 500ker rents at 6k a month. The Arkansas 500ker has a 6k a month mortgage.
Yeah but they live in different countries, effectively.
Neither could replace their income in the other location, unless the NYC resident can work fully remote (or they work for Warren Stephens).
Neither would desire the lifestyle of the other … although a well-off Arkansan couple is much more likely to visit NYC on vacation (to take pictures of Trump Tower, The Naked Cowboy in Times Square, the Empire State Building, Ground Zero, and Tavern on the Green) than the NYC couple is to pop into Little Rock for a long weekend.
I live in Northwest Arkansas and 500k here is not wealthy. Of course we have the Walton family effect. The third generation Waltons are making their mark now. A couple of the grandsons are working to make NWA a biking hotspot in the US. We hosted the World Cyclocross championships a couple of years ago.
I thought Covid and remote work could be a great leveler for home prices as high-income people moved to lower priced areas and drove up the prices. In NWA we currently have 260 homes on the market over $1M with the highest being $15M.
What’s the percentage of the total listings asking over $1MM?
Just curious.
Of course. This is why if you're looking to compare, do it by age cohort.
$500,000 a year WHERE? As the real estate agents say, location, location, location.
Montana registration: I have no sympathy for the *tax evasion* angle, and from my research it seems that most states have a longer grace period for personally-owned vehicles (often 60 days) than for business vehicles (often 0 days), so LLC ownership is counterproductive if you plan to snowbird.
But I do have a very intense longing for *mobility*: a way to handle licensing, insurance, registration, and titling to allow legal presence in any state (think "traveling nurse").
The requirement for people who move across state lines to re-title their vehicles which are properly titled in another state should be held unconstitutional, as it violates the Full Faith and Credit clause in Article IV, Section 1. This is a practical problem because although a vehicle could potentially be registered in multiple states (but not always), a vehicle can only be titled in a single state.
In general, I really wish there were a way to pay a little extra and become "50 state legal:" similar to the IRP but for light-duty vehicles with more privacy.
If anyone has practical suggestions on this point, please share!
'The requirement for people who move across state lines to re-title their vehicles which are properly titled in another state should be held unconstitutional, as it violates the Full Faith and Credit clause in Article IV, Section 1. This is a practical problem because although a vehicle could potentially be registered in multiple states (but not always), a vehicle can only be titled in a single state.'
Couldn't agree more.
Of course, the way the lizard people would LIKE to handle this is with a national vehicle title, which makes sense until you think about how it would be implemented.
The snowbird angle is an interesting one. We do it, but are Tennessee residents, and there is no issue with us changing plates as we never establish residency in the destination state, even if we own property there.
Where it gets complicated is when you don’t have residence or spend 184 days in a state and they try to claim de facto residence. Most states don’t seem to enforce the car thing, unless there’s income tax ramifications, and thats where the real dollars are.
If you "accepts employment or engages in any trade, profession, or occupation" in Florida, you must register your vehicle within 10 days. It would be interesting to see if remote work counts: I think out of state attorneys can practice remotely in Florida as long as they do not advertise practicing in Florida, but
http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0300-0399/0320/Sections/0320.38.html
FL does have a 90 day temporary tag that can be renewed for 90 days within a year, but that probably requires insurance, which tends to be difficult without a "garageable" local address.
Do not fuck with il, ny, or ca residency rules. They look for that shit. The car titles are cheap. Imagine paying 51% income taxes in California and bitching about sales taxes. The llc rules usually dont make registering vehicles easy. We dont even bother fucking with it. Although my dads mustang is registered in mi under the property there. Not an llc
The issue arises when a person's actual residence and employment are fluid and the sales tax was paid on the vehicle years or decades ago.
If you drive a car that you purchased in 2004 and got a 4-month contract in another state and planned to live in hotels, would you really surrender your IL license and the title and try to get insurance, a license, and re-title your vehicle in that other state? Only to then REPEAT THE ENTIRE PROCESS in IL 4 months later when you return? And do you know how difficult it would be to get a license, title, registration in a state where you do not have a permanent address and multiple Real ID-compliant proofs of address?
If people can find legal ways to not pay ridiculous taxes, more power to them IMO. Also, according to Farrah and DeMuro, a bunch of these are due to people having no practical way to register vehicles that are newer than 1974 or later since they won’t pass smog. They claim, and I tend to believe them, that a non-zero number of people would register in CA (or similar) states if there was an avenue to do so, but there just isn’t. In this case I’m happy to see CA screwed out of revenue due to their own inflexibility.
It’s not legal. It is legal from Montana’s perspective, but, for people who do have a fixed residence, it is illegal from that state’s perspective.
The smog point is interesting; perhaps the cutoff year should occasionally be moved forward, but as much as it pains me to say it, the state’s interest in not having heavy polluters operating within its borders is reasonable.
I guarantee the venn diagram of “heavy polluters” and “people with a MT LLC” are two different circles. Some dude registering a pre-smog Ferrari or Lambo or whatever that he drives a couple thousand miles a year in CA is not tangibly affecting the air quality.
Explain how it’s not legal for a company to have a car present in a state other than its home state
I don't LIKE it, but each state has clear statutory language about this issue. I don't want to provide 50 citations, but feel free to pick a state.
Interstate large trucks use the IRP ("International Registration Plan").
Are we talking about *personal* vehicles, or company cars? And yes let's exclude commercial vehicles; they also created an Interstate Compact to cover fuel taxes decades ago.
My interest is in light-duty (under 26,000 lb GVRW) personal vehicles (cars, motorhomes, and motorcycles) that I titled and paid sales tax on years ago. But you were advocating for an LLC to own the vehicles, at which point they would not be personal vehicles.
The IRP is not about "fuel taxes," but registration: that's literally the "R" in IRP. Before the IRP, truckers would display or carry a plate for every state in which they operated:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MovieDetails/comments/8ezt0t/in_duel_1971_the_license_plates_seen_on_the_front/#lightbox
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Registration_Plan
In my reading of the laws of every state that I've investigated, personal vehicles have a grace period of X days, but commercial vehicles generally are not afforded that period.
Once again: I don't really LIKE the law, but it is what it is.
You remind me a lot of Nate: I asked you to specify a state, so that I wouldn't be searching the law for all 49 states that are NOT Montana, and you haven't even done that, let alone respond with a SINGLE citation; just conclusory statements and sarcastic insults. I don't think you care AT ALL about determining the truth.
Based on other discussions, I'll to assume that you, like Nate, are a resident of California and intend to operate the vehicle in California, like the vast majority of Montana LLC registrants.
The law is simple, if redundant, unless you are operating under IRP:
A) CVC §4000.4a: Except as provided in Sections 6700, 6702, and 6703, any vehicle which is registered to a nonresident owner [MONTANA LLC], and which is based in California or primarily used on California highways, shall be registered in California.
B) CVC §6700c: Any resident [YOU] who operates upon a highway of this state a vehicle owned by a nonresident [MONTANA LLC] who furnished the vehicle to the resident operator [YOU] for his or her regular use within this state, as defined in subdivision (b) of Section 4000.4, shall cause the vehicle to be registered in California within 20 days after its first operation within this state by the resident.
What about the exceptions in 6700, 6702, and 6703?
CVC §6700a: Irrelevant; applies to NEW California residents who previously registered the vehicle in their state of residence have 20 days to register after becoming resident / beginning employment.
CVC §6700b: Irrelevant, describing the EXACT THING YOU ARE ATTEMPTING: "This exemption does not apply if the nonresident owner [MONTANA LLC] rents, leases, lends, or otherwise furnishes the vehicle to a California resident [YOU] for regular use on the highways of this state, as defined in subdivision (b) of Section 4000.4."
CVC §6702: Irrelevant, but if your LLC had a place of business in CA, it would not have 20 days, but would be subject to IMMEDIATE registration: "Every nonresident, including any foreign corporation [MONTANA LLC], having an established place of business within this state, and regularly using a vehicle of a type subject to registration under this code, shall immediately register the vehicle upon entry into this state."
CVC §6703: Irrelevant; applies to armed forces.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH§ionNum=4000.4
https://california.public.law/codes/vehicle_code_section_6700
As discussed in responses to this thread, a high ranking CA DMV official said that cracking down on THIS particular thing is 'a “top-of-my-list” priority'.
https://www.avoidablecontact.com/p/wednesday-ort-yugo-returns-montana/comment/117420815
Leno is rather publicly championing a new law to do just that. Instead of the permanent 1974 cutoff, they would shift to a rolling 35 year cutoff. It's even become known as "Lenos Law," which I keep misreading as "Lehto's Law," as I used to read/watch a lot of Steve Lehto.
https://www.sema.org/news-media/enews/2025/16/milestone-collector-cars-lenos-law-passes-senate-committee
Lehto Slaw!
(I met Steve at the Woodward Dream Cruise)
man if that passed my car would be california emissions exempt
neato
It's as bad as Canada. Well, the weather doesn't suck at least.
Hey, you Canada-bashing Yankees will love this: A couple of years ago, the province of Ontario discontinued car registration fees (cost them — us — over a billion dollars). You have to keep your registration current but renewal is free.
I actually think it has a really good chance!
It used to be the law -- a rolling 30 year cutoff.
But Gov Schwarzenegger, as one of his final acts pandering to the green lobby, froze the cutoff at 1976 just before he left office.
Amen! Not that many years ago, when Colorado was a free state instead of a commie hellhole, my 94 Caprice renewed for just under 30 bucks. Then the politburo imposed a road and bridge "fee" and renewals more than doubled. Of course I get the right to vote on taxes increases but not "fees". In the same time frame, emissions testing was reimposed so I got the privilege of paying 25 bucks every other year on top of the "fees" and taxes. Despite the increased "fees" and new gas "fees" that look just like the pre-existing gas taxes, the roads in Colorado are undriveable. But the DOT managed to buy buses that rarely haul more than felons across the state with my "fees" and taxes.
Trucks are even worse, especially diesels. I have an old diesel truck that gets driven at most 200 miles a year. Tags are well over 100 bucks. Plus I get the privilege of doing annual emissions tests that run between 80 and 100 bucks depending on the shop. So that truck gets registered in a freedom loving border state. No emissions and a two year renewal is around 60 bucks. I'll take the risk, save some coin, and tell Colorado they can kiss my ass. I'll continue to pay gas taxes and "fees" to account for the wear and tear my driving imposes on the roads they don't maintain like any other interstate traveler. When states like this one are so hostile to its own citizens, I'll never begrudge anyone gaming the system.
What happened to Colorado, worked there in the 1980’s and it was a friendly easy going place? But gee, was there for a conference and left the hotel once and based on the street life downtown, I did not leave the hotel again until I checked out.
I wasn't born in Colorado but it has been home for most of my life. Watching the growth has made it unrecognizable. Out of respect for Jack's wishes, I won't go off on a lengthy political tangent except to say we seem to have told California to get out of the way and hold our beer. It's pretty frightening how quickly things have changed.
Blue staters move in, vote for shit that makes everyone miserable and move on to do it to a new state.
a tale as old as time
Last election there was a measure to outlaw bobcat, mtn lion, and lynx hunting. Lynx are already outlawed! Federally!
A couple weeks ago I got a letter that I passed the emissions test because I drove by a mobile tester. Can't recall seeing one.
There is tax evasion, and there is also smog evasion. In the great golden state, all vehicles sold after 1975 are required to have all original smog equipment in place, and to have the car visually and sniff tested every two years. It really hampers the 'ol hot-rodding tendencies. Also why any nice 1975 is worth 10-20k more than a 1976. I see both sides of the story... Jesus said to render to Caesar, but also this country was founded on tax evasion(and tariffs), so...
that cutoff really is stupid
ive heard plenty of stories of guys who were going to swap an engine into one car which would be illegal but the same engine in an older car is just fine
youd think theyd be more lenient given how may evs and low emissions cars are there
We should all call all the CA senators and support Leno’s Law
https://www.sema.org/news-media/enews/2025/16/milestone-collector-cars-lenos-law-passes-senate-committee
You know what? I'm sick of governmental entities considering taxes THEIR money, and people who keep it from them by whatever means as having somehow "stolen" it, or the gevernment entity in question having "missed out" or "lost" that cash.
I can no more "owe" taxes to The State than I can "owe" tribute to The Mafia and yes, they ARE pretty much the same thing.
The concept of "Owe" NEVER applies to the idea of "Tax."
Taxation is theft
Governments are protection racketeers
50 state legal = LLC. Explain to me how another state can compel a vehicle owned by an entity legally resident in a particular state to change its vehicle’s licensing to that state? Companies do this all day, every day, in every state.
I don't like it, AND WOULD LOVE TO BE PROVEN WRONG!! but every state has a law that says "if you want to operate a vehicle on OUR roads, you need to register it in OUR state" with some minor exceptions.
Here is a lawyer licensed in Michigan (not Montana!) discussing the topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebDF-C7GJec
California encourages reporting here:
https://www.chp.ca.gov/notify-chp/chp-reg-(out-of-state-registration-violators)
Enforcement in CT:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th-6j3jVX2U
Many states have a grace period for individuals but ZERO grace period for COMMERCIAL vehicles. For example:
https://www.flsenate.gov/Laws/Statutes/2012/0320.37
320.37 Registration not to apply to nonresidents.—
(1) The provisions of this chapter relative to the requirement for registration of motor vehicles and display of license number plates do not apply to a motor vehicle owned by a nonresident of this state if the owner thereof has complied with the provisions of the motor vehicle registration or licensing law of the foreign country, state, territory, or federal district of the owner’s residence and conspicuously displays his or her registration number as required thereby.
(2) The exemption granted by this section does not apply to:
(a) A foreign corporation doing business in this state;
(b) Motor vehicles operated for hire, including any motor vehicle used in transporting agricultural or horticultural products or supplies if such vehicle otherwise meets the definition of a “for-hire vehicle”;
(c) Recreational vehicles or mobile homes located in this state for at least 6 consecutive months; or
(d) Commercial vehicles as defined in s. 316.003.
I have no problem with he Montana LLCs. California is raping its citizens five ways to Sunday on taxes, so why shouldn’t people find a loophole to avoid their onerous fees and taxes? In my state, registration is $50 a year, and if the car is 7 years old or older, can pay $125 for a permanent registration that is good for as long as you own it. California will fuck you every which way on vehicle registration fees so I say screw them.
The issue is, there is no loophole. The loophole does not exist.
A California resident would be equally legal to drive around with NO license plates, LA DODGERS WORLD SERIES CHAMPIONS 2024 plate, "UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs" plate, or
https://www.walmart.com/ip/212-Main-LPO6379-6-x-12-in-Sovereign-Citizen-Photo-License-Plate/1083461497
"explain to me" Once again: I don't really LIKE the law, but it is what it is.
You remind me a lot of Nate: I asked you to specify a state, so that I wouldn't have to find citations for all 49 states that are NOT Montana, and you haven't even done that, let alone respond with a SINGLE citation; just conclusory statements and sarcastic insults.
I'm going to assume that you, like Nate, are a resident of California and intend to operate the vehicle in California, like the vast majority of Montana LLC registrants.
The law is actually a bit redundant:
A) CVC §4000.4a: Except as provided in Sections 6700, 6702, and 6703, any vehicle which is registered to a nonresident owner [MONTANA LLC], and which is based in California or primarily used on California highways, shall be registered in California.
B) CVC §6700c: Any resident [YOU] who operates upon a highway of this state a vehicle owned by a nonresident [MONTANA LLC] who furnished the vehicle to the resident operator [YOU] for his or her regular use within this state, as defined in subdivision (b) of Section 4000.4, shall cause the vehicle to be registered in California within 20 days after its first operation within this state by the resident.
So what about the exceptions in 6700, 6702, and 6703?
CVC §6700a: Irrelevant; applies to NEW California residents who previously registered the vehicle in their state of residence have 20 days to register after becoming resident / beginning employment.
CVC §6700b: Irrelevant, describing the EXACT THING YOU ARE ATTEMPTING: "This exemption does not apply if the nonresident owner [MONTANA LLC] rents, leases, lends, or otherwise furnishes the vehicle to a California resident [YOU] for regular use on the highways of this state, as defined in subdivision (b) of Section 4000.4."
CVC §6702: Irrelevant, but if your LLC had a place of business in CA, it would not have 20 days, but would be subject to IMMEDIATE registration: "Every nonresident, including any foreign corporation [MONTANA LLC], having an established place of business within this state, and regularly using a vehicle of a type subject to registration under this code, shall immediately register the vehicle upon entry into this state."
CVC §6703: Irrelevant; applies to armed forces.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=VEH§ionNum=4000.4
https://california.public.law/codes/vehicle_code_section_6700
As discussed in responses to this thread, a high ranking CA DMV official said that cracking down on THIS particular thing is 'a “top-of-my-list” priority'.
https://www.avoidablecontact.com/p/wednesday-ort-yugo-returns-montana/comment/117420815
in '55 there were several alabama-tagged cars at colorado college. i think they'd send you a plate by mail for $12 or so. also a german had an alabama tag on his roadgoing 917 40-odd years ago.
Every state that I know of has exemptions for:
a) Active military
b) Full-time students
c) Short-term visitors
None of which apply to working taxpayers!
Count Rossi, I believe (the 917)
I honestly don't see what's wrong with the tax evasion side of things in this.
Michigan collects what is effectively a sales tax on used car sales, repeatedly taxing the sale of the same object if it stays in state
Worse yet, unlike Ohio which charges a fairly modest registration fee, Michigan bases your registration fees on the original MSRP of a vehicle, and the scaling is not at all linear.
I pay nearly $1k/yr to register 3 vehicles here, half of that is for a jag I bought for the price of an equinox.
Want to daily a $15k Bentley turbo R, get ready for a 1k+ registration fee.
It's a regressive tax in a state that has been chronically unwilling to appropriately fund road repairs.
If I like the person I'm dealing with, I'll leave the sale price line of the title blank, and often I am extended the same courtesy; one of the many benefits of trading old shitboxes around with other citizens as opposed to going into debt for a depreciating asset from a dealer.
Oh and if a car is old enough, the registration is based on weight. Which means the 64 Imperial isn't a cheap tag either.
(for legal reasons, everyone I deal with is actually an asshole and does not get to skip out on sales tax, and I am an asshole as well so I also always pay sales tax)
similar thing up here
a 13% tax is charged on the price you paid for your used car every time its registered to someone else which can get expensive pretty damn fast
there are ways around it of course
I think Michigan's old weight-based system was more fair because heavier vehicles have a much greater impact on road life, but I can see how the OEMs didn't like that people were paying less to register BMWs than LTDs.
Nevertheless, the argument for tax evasion here really isn't much different than the argument for any other tax evasion. Nobody likes taxes. I think the compliance rate in India is about 30%.
My concern is that, suppose you pay your Michigan registration on January 2 and your mother in Cincinnati has surgery on February 1, so you drive down and work remotely while caring for her until June 1. Should you really have to pay all the fees (driver's license, title, VIN inspection, etc.) and a full year of Ohio registration, then repeat the process (DL, title, VIN inspection, registration) again in June?
To your question; no that's ludicrous. I realize Ohio law may require you do to so in that situation, but fuck Ohio lol
It's not specific to Ohio: it's every state (Dan just mentioned OH). Some states do allow nonresident registration, so you don't need to change DL, some states allow you to keep your old title (IMO *all* should, per the "Full Faith and Credit clause, just like they recognize an out of state birth certificate or marriage license).
It's usually easier to avoid if you don't work...I suppose that remote work might offer some wiggle room. I am hoping that an attorney would chime in and offer me some comfort. Military and college students get an exception, and often migrant farm workers (which tend to have a specific statutory requirement that probably precludes arguing "a cubicle farm is a farm").
It disproportionately affects the hoodrich who want to drive cheap Bentleys
The Montana LLC vehicle registration 'loophole' is nothing compared to the shenanigans private jet owners will go through to avoid state sales and use tax.
Jaguar died the day it was sold to Tata.
India = Death
"Skilled Talents" protesting their grades in Brampton:
https://youtu.be/KfyPT2mPIeE&t=84s
And yet Land Rover grew, even if the product went to shit…
Because they look very posh and some people will endure much abuse to look good.
Not sure I agree, considering the trajectory was set during the Ford era. Also, Ford never really had the money to get Jaguar to compete with Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, et al on technology and luxury…which is what it really needed.
“India = death”
I would nitpick, India = samsara.
Possibly related? https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/2395928-trumpisatva
Now that's funny.
>fly by night "college"
>indian students protesting
>brampton
canada sure is an interesting place huh
I like the Slowtege Maverick. I think the Slate’s biggest influence will be the competition it produces. A two door Maverick would kill the Slate, but even without it I don’t see Slate being around in 5 years. Most of the current fanboys won’t buy one, they just like the *idea* of the Slate. That leaves the people who really want one, and once every one of those people has bought one, that will be it. Kind of like the Buick Reatta.
Bare bones products are not aspirational, and even if that’s all you can afford, basic items are usually just a stepping stone to a better, more aspirational, more comfortable product. Most Americans would say that the Slate is perfect for other people, just not for them. Of course, there will be richer people buying the Slate as a reverse play, to show everyone that they really are just like regular people. But that only works if you ignore everything else they own..
I agree that the competition produced is what will keep the Slate and it's niche going. I understand the idea of aspirational being a sales driver, not simply competence. The used market values competence and price in an attractive ratio, and is often a firmly different group in mindset from new vehicle/truck buyers.
Perhaps it will be the newly-employed, younger generation that thinks differently, and will say, "Forget outright aspiration, that's what other, older people did. I don't need the extra, just what I will use it for. I've seen the proverbial greener grass my parents went for, and its vanity holds no value for me."
There is some of that idea for sure, but that person is also probably looking at used Rangers.
Your regular cab Mav and Rivian look excellent, by the way!
Ah, well a new cultural mindset where outright aspiration is rejected would be totally refreshing and is distinctly possible. Let’s hope. I’m fascinated how the younger generation has widely rejected alcohol, which is something I never saw coming, so maybe there will be Slates and similar vehicles parked in front of non-McMansion houses in the near future!
As a late Boomer who is disgusted with the vanity of early Boomers, I’m all for youngsters rejecting older Boomer values.
Nice job on the renderings! Please do a few more. Maybe a Driving with Harambe for cars that don’t exist but I wished I owned! Here’s my favorite site for “cars that never were.” https://www.auto-visuals.com/cars-that-never-were-gallery
Link was good, thanks!
Those would be lotto cars for me!
I find the cars of the “ultra wealthy” (really ultra high income based on the description of 500k+), quite spot on given what we see in Greenwich, Miami (the actual wealthy parts) or Nashville’s nicer suburbs. BMW has owned the SUV side of things, with the X7 being the default big German choice, while Mercedes still gets the S and E class buyers. With Ford, don’t forget the Expeditions, as the platinums and king ranch’s well outnumber Navigators. I wonder what the Toyota number actually is though, as Land Cruisers only seem to exist everywhere in Tennesee, even if the new one is popular in CT.
Range rovers and maybachs are what my clients have been buying. Leases higher than my mortgage. Easier to write off a lease
The Toyotas are for driving to the train station, and what the nanny and kids drive in ultra wealthy families.
I have an uncle who is around a billionaire, completely self made. When he sold his first company circa 1983, family rumor was that he made 7 mil, an unbelievable sum to us. Bought his wife a Jaguar for Christmas and drove it to my grandmother's farm where six adults and eight kids stayed in a one bathroom farmhouse. To eight year old me, this looked like the ultimate symbol of wealth.
I kind of agree with your eight year old self!
That dude has been firmly .1% for years, has always driven an S Class and a Lexus GX.
sherman came from very humble beginnings i see
In full candor: My maternal grandfather potty trained me outside, which meant someone had to get an umbrella when it was raining and I needed to relieve myself.
I was potty trained in a five gallon bucket with a toilet seat screwed to the rim. So we have that in common….
Thats not cause youre a hillbilly as much as it was the cloven feet
All of the goodies that the 14% are purchasing to impress each other makes me fantasize of Trump calling for the end of income tax and placing the burden on sales tax as well as tariffs. Won't happen but I can dream.
That is what the Ranger should be...or I guess what a Ranchero could be.
If we went from income tax to a flat tax, the wealthy would soar off into the ether, away from the rest of us.
Normal people spend almost all of what they make. The wealthy can reinvest the bulk of it. What we need is a financial transactions tax, not a flat sales tax. IMO.
One of our greatest strengths as a country and where much of its vitality comes from is the strength of our capital markets. You do not want to kill it with a financial transactions tax. Money will flow to wherever it’s treated most favorably.
And I say this as someone who worked in the markets for decades and has no love for most of those people. But as distasteful as many of them are, they are essential to our national well being.
As essential as these people are, I wouldn't complain about living in a world where Amazon workers didn't feel pressured to piss in the warehouse corners and Bezos was worth a mere $30 billion or something as a result.
Unfortunately, if everyone around the world didn’t use Amazon, Bezos wouldn’t have all those billions.
I’d just like to see a world where the Amazon worker could tell his boss to shove it and then go find a better job.
Amazon didn't happen by accident. Amazon lost money for more than two decades and when it scraped a slim profit it traded at a P/E ratio over 550, not a typo or misunderstanding of what a price to earnings ratio is. https://www.ibtimes.com/amazon-nearly-20-years-business-it-still-doesnt-make-money-investors-dont-seem-care-1513368
I figure it's a CIA or Army front for logistics. Even with their crap products now, it's gotta be top logistics company in the world
"Infantry wins battles; logistics wins wars."
'You do not want to kill it with a financial transactions tax. Money will flow to wherever it’s treated most favorably.'
What do hedge funds charge? Two percent? Charge that. It doesn't to be confiscatory.
Hedge funds generate alpha, or they go out of business.
Come on!
Everyone generates alpha when the Fed prints money. We've been in "shoeshine boy stock land" for decades now.
I see a lot of bad financial advisors in my job charging 1% managed fees while being beat by the s&p 500. Im thinking of branching off into that industry. Sadly some people need someone to call to hear “dont sell everytime the market dips”
Definitionally, everyone CANNOT generate Alpha.
That’s Beta!
Come on!
While I sympathize with a plan like this, I really do, it never ends up working out or raising the intended revenue, even though it sounds good. No matter how clever the insiders in Washington think they are, the people they’re trying to tax are smarter and will find away around this, as they have teams of lawyers and lobbyists. Always remember that *a loophole is a law passed by Congress*.
To be effective, taxes should be basic and general in nature, and not be chasing esoteric things. Complexity only serves to obfuscate, and obfuscation only serves the insiders. See NGO funding by both sides.
At the end of the day, and everyone in Washington knows this, most of the money is in the middle to upper middle class (whatever that is), so that’s who ends up paying the bulk of the taxes. Just like Willie Sutton robbing banks because “that’s where the money is.” I personally find it disgusting that the 22% Federal income rate kicks in at $48,475 for an individual, no matter the deductions. That sends a terrible message to Americans who are working and striving but just getting by in life.
I'm thinking even less, just enough to damp high speed trading.
The problem as I see it is that the venture capital vultures have already strip-mined everything of long term value, and got rich(er) pulling the ladder up behind them.
Once upon a time every small town had a plethora of local stores and darn near anyone could open one.
Nowadays the price of entry is counted in millions and Walmart will undercut you right out of business without even noticing it in their profit margin past the fourth decimal place.
Too much "big business" in this country to leave any room for main street. And franchising is prohibitively expensive in a lot of cases.
Government policy furthered this. Those who did this in the government should be named and shamed, as they did it to line their pockets.
Tweet from Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt:
“Our ancestors settled a continent, tamed a frontier, and built a civilization from the wilderness.
But the people in power sold our country off for parts.
We can build great things again. But we have to put America first.”
Maybe instead of shaming we uhhh.... you know
ropes and oaks
or millstones but the millennials killed the granary industry or something
Pedantic point, but that’s really PE, not VC.
Amazon and Wal-Mart and Target have a better proposition for consumers, in the aggregate. They outcompeted the mom and pop stores. I can order a household item right now (11:26 PM) from Amazon and it will be outside my door at 5 AM. And the price will be comparable to a big box store, if not cheaper. That’s valuable!
This. Amazon is predatory and with suppliers and competitors, but they provide one hell of a service to consumers.
Even if, in a lot of cases, the quality of the product is purely 💩, and the origin of the product usually accounts for that! 🇨🇳
Wal-Mart started the trend towards this (which is why I actively avoid doing business there), and Mr. “Democracy Dies in Darkness” perfected it, as stated, delivering that stuff to customers within hours after they place an order. (I buy stuff from Amazon, but very sporadically; the sum-total of my order activity for the last five years is probably less than a lot of people’s average Amazon expenditures in an average month or couple of weeks.)
There would be many bugs to work out, staples declared tax free like groceries are now and of course there would be massive corruption where those decisions are made. I'd be delighted if the wealthy were investing in American manufacturing rather than a new yacht 6ft longer than the last.
Illinois taxes groceries at 1% -- lower than most things, but not tax free.
Might as well charge carbon credits for the right to exhale.
I’ll trade you five carbon credits on your exhalation because I really need to rip a big fart. That should offset my gas emissions
going to sell some of my credits to the morbidly obese to turn a profit
im just copying tesla or whatever
Normal people spend too much. Even normal people making 500k a year
I spend too much. I buy a hitch and cargo carrier only to borrow a 12 passenger van for the trip!
To be fair, the people who bought the van didn't own it when I ordered the rest of the stuff and I might just use the box to offload the crap in the back of the Highlander on a permanent basis. Stroller, groceries, etc, no problem.
Yeah. I literally put a hitch on Monday. I look at what the wife spends on the kids and groceries and think “this is insane”
You and me both, and yet I keep having kids
You and me both... This is the most tired I've ever been. Kids 4 sleep schedule is slightly different and has me waking up at 4am to feed her most days. I'd have another one if the wife permitted. I'd probably push for it if we were five years younger.
Alright Bernie.
Sir, I own one house. By which I mean I'm renting it from the bank.
Financial Transaction Tax is a terrible idea; capital flows like water, so capital markets go elsewhere, cost of capital for EVERY American company goes up.
We should tax consumption, not achievement.
'We should tax consumption, not achievement.'
Give me the moral imperative for this, if there is any.
Consumption advances the economy. Every cigar you smoke provides a real job for someone. Every dollar you invest simply widens the river into which the lizards dip their beaks, and further isolates the rich from the rest.
Furthermore, by definition, investing is not achievement. It is benefiting from the achievements of others. Cardinal Health stock might have gone up when I finished the hardware side of VitalPATH, but the investors contributed nothing and accomplished nothing. They were merely rewarded for what I'd accomplished.
You might as well characterize winning a Kentucky Derby bet as "achievement".
Great question:
Achievement is inherently virtuous; I’m inclined to say that consumption is not. And I suspect you will agree with me on the latter point.
It is no secret in modern life that the key to true wealth is asset ownership. Asset prices - for the most part, depending on pricing execution (well bought is half sold), trends / demographics, and method of purchase (financing, margin, etc.) - tend to go up over time. Not owning assets is a choice.
Take my nemesis, Harelip, who today informed me that his retirement plan was to save up $1 million dollars (Doctor Evil voice) and then live on that plus social security. Unfortunately, he’s over $100K in the red now on his personal balance sheet, and he just spent $4K on “intensive training therapy” for the doggo he “rescued” so that he could take the prop to the dog park and meet women. The dog has bitten two humans and one other dog so far.
wait lizards have beaks
those weird mischling creatures need to be put down
And from your local municipality!
Yeah and that NEVER ends, unlike the mortgage.
The only tax in Ohio that is unfair so as to have been deemed unconstitutional is the real property school tax.
But there’s been nothing suggested to take its place.
This reminds me I have to pay my property taxes
Agree. I've always liked the idea of a small financial transaction tax. I believe the system would be significantly more stable with that added friction.
There are already a bunch of fees on trades, they’re just not from the government (with a few minor exceptions), and the general public is not aware of them. I used to work on parsing out trade fees for a living, it can be extremely complex. Even coding the multitude of fees is sometimes impossible due to trade clearing system limitations, and my firm was then forced to credit or debit our clients at month end to make them whole. I am talking huge numbers that were produced by seemingly innocuous small fees. There are people at exchanges and clearing firms that do nothing but work on fees. It’s really a nightmare. Even though most fees are in cents or fraction of a cent, they all add up and can distort the cost of trading, especially in contracts that trade in high volumes.
A small transaction fee may sound reasonable but in practice it would be a mess. The last thing the government should be doing is making any market less efficient.
Many western governments have made slave markets less efficient.
Comment of the day!
The problem lies in the word "small." Here in the UK we used to have a small "stamp duty" on transactions like share transfers and property purchases. I seem to recall that it was around 1% on property. I have just checked and if you were to buy a £2m house, that stamp duty would now be £153,750! It's a doubly dumb tax for a small, crowded country where we want to encourage older residents to downsize so the larger properties can be used by families in need of the space. Or people needing to move to take up a better paying job etc. It always starts "small" but rarely stays that way. How could it when the Government somehow needs £50bn to build a 100 mile railway!
The US Revenue Act of 1913 imposed a 1% tax on incomes above $3000.
With the Fed at the helm, also since 1913, and with one of their mandated goals to keep the dollar stable, the cumulative US inflation rate since 1913 is …………3140%!!!
So that $3000 tax threshold from 1913 would be $97,000 in today’s dollars.
I wish I would’ve screenshotted the cost of a Big Mac in 2019, before the Chinese released their little bug on the world. It’s $5.59 in northwest Ohio now.
A burger at someplace like Red Robin is $15, if not a little more. Used to be within a few cents of $10.
$50 is the new $20.
Charles Payne the financial guy just posted a before and after McDonalds price comparison.
Taxation is well-trodden territory.
We need to talk about trade and migration. What little Adam Smith and Karl Marx may have said is obsolete in the era of the widebody jet, containerized shipping, and Internet.
Here is one small attempt:
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/analysis/capitalism-and-free-trade-why-we-cant-have-both/
I can't think of a good reason Ford couldn't compete directly with the Slate vehicle. Or for that matter beat it on price. Decontent the shit out of the Maverick, only put in what is federally mandated for safety. Make it hybrid. I drive a Transit 250 for my work vehicle. I know all too well Ford knows how to seriously decontent a vehicle. The screen that displays the back up camera (mandated) is maybe 3 inches wide.
I doubt they will though. The profit margins aren't high enough for the bean counters to ever approve it.
I’m betting that the Big 3 will each counter Slate in some way, which is exactly what I’d like to see.
I doubt it. It’s an apples-and-oranges comparison.
I think the number of people who really want a decontented small pickup *and* who want it to be from Ford is pretty small, despite what all the bros on the Internet claim.
The Slate will sell because it’s cool and new and represents a modern counterculture. It will go to the sorts of well-moneyed people who spend $50K to humble-brag in an old RHD FJ40 Land Cruiser that can’t travel above 55 MPH. Whereas a Ford so positioned would only really appeal to fleets, and there’s not much money in that.
In short, I don’t see why Ford should *want* to compete with Slate, assuming such an enterprise would be remotely successful.
Ditto GM and Stellantis, if they felt so inclined, unless they spun up a new brand or subsidiary that was far divorced from the main works, a la Saturn (not that that was a good idea then).
Perhaps Toyota could get away with it, given the fanboyism for the brand’s trucks and trucky wares, but it’d probably have to be an honest-to-goodness ladder-frame truck, not a transverse-FWD unibody.
I don't really think most people now a days understand the difference between ladder-frame trucks and unibody trucks. They don't care about that. Both are light duty vehicles not intended for towing big things. They are intended for reliable basic usable transportation. With some utility also possible, within reason. If your intent is to tow big things, then either option is wrong.
I know a business man who summers in Charlevoix. A classic fat old man with a young trophy wife, fine whatever, but he buys and drives a new F250 every year with Montana plates. When I asked him about the plates he gloated about his tax dodge, fuck him and make him pay!
'A classic fat old man with a young trophy wife, fine whatever'
That was what I aspired to, but I only managed the first part of it!
Im riding my first marriage to the grave! Even if it’s an early one
All you need is that matte black yacht and you can attract several young trophy wives/mistresses. I’ll renew my subscription and get you that much closer to every man’s dream!
that's just envy and/or jealousy.
Wait until you learn about IRS Section 179.
0-Just ONE Cuban cigar?
1-The Pagani Utopia does look good, but it’s a shame the engine has a low redline and turbos. If only they could give it the HWA-supplied screamer from the Huayra R track car. Otherwise, for that money, visit Gordon Murray.
2-I saw a ratty Montana-plated 993 - it was a ‘95, which Jack knows as the worst of all 993s! - today, coincidentally. Montana plate = I can’t really afford this car, according to Doug DeMuro.
3-Jaguar was already all but dead, why not roll the dice? And WHO would buy an F Pace over a Velar?
4-I think there is some confounding in the Vehicles of the Ultra-Wealthy data: It’s from September of last year, so Tesla’s share is probably a bit lower (truly wealthy people can take a capital loss not to be seen in a clown car). It also smacks of The Millionaire Next Door chapter, in which the authors convinced a bunch of midwits that driving an F-150 would make those midwits millionaires! What do the ultra-wealthy really drive? Whatever they want to, subject to lifestyle and fitting in socially (see Tesla - it was once de rigueur, but is now a scarlet letter in many coastal markets). Most ultra-wealthy people - MOST people - don’t care about cars and view them as tools or appliances. I have a friend who would LIKE a Dakar or a PTS, loaded to the gills Targa, but he can’t get over the fact that “cars are depreciating assets.” He’d rather spend the money on Savile Row, or shotguns, or watches, or exquisite furniture. He’s also not going to show up at the very conservative, reserved country club of which he is a member in something remotely flashy.
...The Millionaire Next Door...
"but he can’t get over the fact that “cars are depreciating assets.”"
Doesn't this support the book's premise?
"He’d rather spend the money on Savile Row"
Clothes do not depreciate?
That’s just his mindset. Further, no one in his inner circle would be caught dead fetishizing a car. A $10MM house in Sun Valley, sure. But spending big on cars is for nouveau riche and / or minorities in the view of many “Old Money” people (in the classical sense of the term, not the TikTok Ralph Lauren-cosplay sense; e.g., Ralph Lauren (the man) is new money).
Clothes certainly depreciate, even when you buy them from Anderson & Sheppard, unless your children want to wear your suits after you’re dead or got too fat. His son is in grade school, so it’ll be a while.
"That’s just his mindset."
The sequel to _The Millionaire Next Door_ was called, wait for it: _The Millionaire Mind_.
I read the first one when I was a kid and thought it was stupid, so I skipped the sequel, although I was aware of the title, however dimly.
It’s a great book about “becoming a millionaire” through being thrifty and controlling expenses. A better plan is to focus on upside, because that is unlimited and expenses cannot be cut to zero.
What about the millionaires that don’t give a shit what they drive? There is a local guy in my town that is worth high eight figures from gold mines who drives a beat to shit early 2000s GMC pickup truck around town. I do t know what he spends his money on. It it certainly isn’t is transportation!
“What do the ultra-wealthy really drive? Whatever they want to, subject to lifestyle and fitting in socially (see Tesla - it was once de rigueur, but is now a scarlet letter in many coastal markets). Most ultra-wealthy people - MOST people - don’t care about cars and view them as tools or appliances.”
Surely you don't expect a 21-year-old girl to smoke two cigars in a night.
The next evening we had something Dominican, the house brand cigar for the club we were in.
One is more than plenty for most people. I have a friend who smoked 21 cigars on his 21st birthday. Real cigars, not cigarillos or short sticks. He spent most of the 24 hour period puffing. Said he didn’t feel so great the next day, but that may have been the Krug talking.
This is like the "vodkathon" I did when I was in my thirties, minus the part where I saw a particular woman naked for the first time.
I did a vodkathon a couple years ago when the job and life got particularly stressful. Probably a liter a night for a month. Im back down to respectable glass of wine a night. Two if im going crazy
"a liter a night for a month"
how in the fuck
this would literally kill me twice over
I know guys in Chicago who can REALLY drink.
Like a Deloitte partner probably making $1.5 a year who would do the following most Sundays:
-Wake up (presumably) hungover
-Slow morning, get on the train from the burbs with Wife #2 and their young kids
-Once into the city, have brunch at the nicest spot around that would accommodate two elementary school aged children; a few cocktails and a bottle of champagne (split with wife)
-Arrive at cigar club; smoke 2-3 cigars and drink a bottle of Johnnie Walker
-Uber to airport to fly to jobsite (finish JW in flask if not yet complete)
-Drink on the flight in first class
-Uber to hotel room
He drank heavily every day but always seemed fine.
Im a fairly big guy. Basically jacks size without the funny lomb dimensions.
No shit!
I had a few glasses of Tito’s last evening.
No hangover, but I always have a somewhat sleepless night if I overindulge.
Was this Vodka McTits or whatever her name was?!?
No, this was a nice young woman who worked in theater.
lung cancer any% speedrun
I rolled a cigar in the Dominican Republic on Tuesday, doing tourist shit. I might smoke it when I get home.
The best case scenario for Jaguar would've been a sale to Hyundai in 2012 or so. The Genesis stuff but under a known brand would've been a good fit.
The current G90 would make a lovely Jaguar.
Fortunately we have “The Kyza” and Magnus reanimating the XJ-S.
Yes thank God for them, the unwashed wind beneath our dirty wings.
the kyza is the favourite designer of every kid who plays forza
he should put down the stylus
That thing was utter garbage and way off base. Haven’t heard much about it since. Funny that.
Such a disappointment.
In my opinion, both Kyza and Magnus have 'an eye'.
I was not expecting such a half-assed sex-spec bodykit that disrespected the original lines so much.
They may have an eye, but they don't *adjusts black turtleneck* have a CAR DESIGNERS eye. Different aesthetic. What they do doesn't really translate to an XJS very well at all.
An XJS is a discerning gentleman's express, not some downtown British RWB-alike. It requires a much more subtle and considered approach.
4-I agree. People these days seem to look at stats and appreciate their context. Do the cars have to be registered to an individual? How do you distinguish which of the cars a company owns are driven by which people in that company? What if a lease company owns them?
I'm just gonna say it. The Ford Jags were some of, if not the best Jags. The X308 had all the spirit plus relative reliability. Not uncommon at all to see these soldiering on easily past 150k miles. A shame, but that time is gone.
Agreed with the quote on the aspirational 14%. If you're in the retail car business at all, you know who's brands buyers are bulking up on most of the negative equity out there.
As someone in the 2% *for my age group*, the vehicles I own are remarkably Dave Ramseyish, if you look at them all individually rather than as a sum. No car notes.
Ford Jags were fantastic. Ford lavished money and time on Jaguar. Tata sat there and burned up what Ford had spent.
They spent their resources wisely - on Land Rover.
Ford lost money on Jaguar. Despite what they spent those cars never sold well. Going up against the germans in the premium market was a mistake, and Jaguar was traditionally always the value luxury proposition.
For years Land Rover has outsold Jaguar by two or three cars to one, at much higher transaction prices and mostly for cash (ie not on finance).
The Ford rovers were also the foundation for that.
The Ford Jaguars were fairly irrelevant, as much as I love them. Most of the money Ford lavished upon Jaguar was just to get it out of the hole it was in, especially in terms of production facilities. It wasn’t enough to make the cars particularly competitive or worth buying, unless English Drawing-Room Styling was your thing.
And even that stopped being the priority. The initiative to move to more modernly styled cars happened under Ford, and Tata just kept that going.
I find the Ford-era Jags, including my 1996 XJ12, interesting as relics. These days, they’re quite old, and quite unique, and quite cheap, right up to the final X358 XJs from 2009. But I’m not sure I would have spent my money on one at any point when it was reasonably new. There were just more compelling choices at the time. And, much as I say to everyone who remembers Saturn fondly because they drove a beat-up one during college…automakers don’t deal in cheap used cars, and they aren’t a viable business model in that arena.
I have to disagree within the context of Jaguar. The X30xs and X100 were great cars from a quality and design standpoint, something that couldn't be said about Jaguar since perhaps many decades prior. They truly revived a dead brand with real fresh product for a brief decade. The X308 R is still a legit desirable and worthy car, and was a powerhouse in it's day. Considering they sold a good deal of these cars, within the context of Jaguar of course, I'd consider them perhaps some of the most significant Jags ever.
The X type however...
The X308 and X100 were the best cars Jaguar could have made at the time, and they were cool for their day. They were also a dead end.
In the case of the X308, the basic engineering literally dated back to the ‘70s (when British Leyland began work on the XJ40 platform) and the dimensions were very…un-modern. Which turned a lot of buyers off. And the X100 borrowed portions of engineering from the XJS, which also originated in the ‘70s.
This X-Type still lives in my head rent free:
https://www.supercars.net/blog/2002-jaguar-x-type-racing-concept/
Ford also produced the X200 and the X400. I suspect there are reasons the Ford defenders have forgotten to mention them in their comments.