[KeithO]

The supposed standards about to be enacted might make performance cars more difficult to get for a while. I am wondering if we aren't looking at new-car performance similar to what we saw from 1973 through around 1987...

This is just more motivation for me to maintain my f-body.

Do you guys think that we will be able to achieve this? Regardless, how slow do you think new cars will get before performance returns?

[sgarnett]

I'm becoming ever more convinced that "free market" is a euphemism for "swarm of locusts". That doesn't mean I'm in favor of socialism, but I think the free market is desperately in need of some good dampers - economic/political Konis, so to speak.

Currently, everyone is desperately hoping that someone else will do the right or necessary thing so we don't have to, almost regardless of the topic.

Economically, many companies are embracing the "beatings will continue until morale improves" idea. They keep laying off employees and outsourcing more and more work while they wonder why spending is declining. On a personal level, we all know that unless spending picks up, we may lose our jobs, so we have to bump up the saving and cut spending. We (here at Frrax) really need everyone else to drive efficient cars so we don't have to. And so on.

Personally, I think it might be a pretty good thing if it became so expensive to ship that semi-local production became viable again.

Yeah, perhaps I am bitter as I wait to find out if I'm going to be another free market speed bump. There's more layoffs coming after this round, too. They started before the current downturn, and they'll continue afterward, enabled by the continuous stream of Filipino replacements (oops, I mean trainees) that keep rotating through.

Even beyond that though, the free market has an extremely short-term view, and will gleefully sacrifice the future to boost today. Like I said, I'm not advocating communism/socialism/whatever, or price controls and etc, but the free market can't be left entirely to its own mischief either. There's just far too much collateral damage.