> Here 25 years later, the market is flooded with
>"compact SUVs" essentially the same as the
>Aztek, and just as ugly.

That's not fair.

The modern ones don't even *approach* the Aztec's level of ugliness! But they *are* painfully bland.

the first time I saw an Aztec, my immediate reaction was surprise that AMC was making cars again. It didn't occur to me that anyone else could make something so hideous!

The study said that they're better: 19% better. That's not nothing! It's just not the 75% better that lab testing showed.

The link you provided is the experience of one driver, one who is conscientious and focused on minimizing fuel consumption (within reason; hypermilers would do better). The study looked at the real-world results across 800,000 drivers, most of whom apparently didn't take so much care to minimize fuel usage.

Also, it's not true in general that "hybrids use generators rather than ICE". That's true of PHEVs that are strictly serial hybrids, but most are series-parallel or "power split" hybrids, meaning they can drive the wheels with the electric motor, or the combustion engine, or both. Often both the electric motor and the ICE are too small to provide the target maximum performance so must be used in parallel when you step hard on the accelerator.

One fascinating strategy for power splitting is "through the road", which has no mechanical connection at all between the ICE and the traction motor, and uses the wheel-driven traction motor as the generator. The way it works is the ICE drives one axle and the traction motor drives the other. Battery charging is done "through the road", using the road itself to transmit power from the ICE-driven axle to the electrically-driven axle. The ICE spins one pair of wheels, driving the vehicle forward, which forces the other pair of wheels to spin which turns the electric motor which charges the battery. This only makes sense in AWD drive cars but it's peak design elegance.

If 100% of jobs meet some standard, we'll pick a higher standard. For example, consider the standard that employees not be chained to their benches, fed nothing but moldy bread and be brutally whipped if the overseer feels like it. 100% of legitimate jobs in the US exceed that standard. OSHA exists to ensure that jobs meet minimum workplace safety standards and minimum wage laws ensure that jobs pay at least a certain amount, so we don't discuss whether jobs meet those standards, we take them as a given and set the quality bar higher.

If a study finds that 40% of jobs meet some standard, it means that the researchers did a reasonably good job of writing a description of the median job, then tweaked it upward just a bit. It's not like there is some universal, eternal standard for what constitutes a "quality job". It would be interesting to take the current standard and apply to historical working conditions, 50, 100, 200, 500 years ago. I'll bet the 1975 percentage would be half of the 2026 percentage and the older percentages would quickly tail off to ~0.

Of course if you get rid of capitalism then you get a different systemic problem, massive shortfalls in production, making everyone worse off. Much like democracy, capitalism is the worst system except for all of the others.

worse.

They were forced to eat a bland cereal that turned soggy before the milk even hit it!

> Most of the very populated parts of Norway don't get too cold,

methinks that we have very different notions of "too cold" . . .

("Above" and "below" should never be part of a temperature!)

hawk

that, or you might be eaten by someone who identifies as a cat . . .

>A regular bank can't magic up $1M out of thin air,

uhmm . . . historically, this is *exactly* where paper money comes from, and why they are called "banknotes"!

Banks issued paper notes promising to pay the bearer a sum of money (i.e., an amount of gold or silver) upon presentation. This was a matter of convenience, the paper being easier to haul about. This led to the practice al matter that a bank could issue more paper than it held money, as long as it was careful enough not to issue so much that too much would come in to redeem.

This isn't fundamentally difference than the practice of lending deposits back out to other borrowers (which is generally how this new money created by the banking system was disbursed, anyway).

In time, government stepped in to regulate how much a bank cold lend in this manner (reserve requirement).

Until WWII, the majority of the paper money in the US was *not* issued by the government, but by banks and some other companies (e.g., Railroads printed $2.40 bills, as $2.40 was a common fare).

Even today, some cites print a local currency, generally (universally) backed 1:1 by federal money. It circulates and shows the effects of buying locally as these local bills start showing up in cash registers. (In the same vein, the US Navy used to deal with local discontent and calls for removing bases of rowdy sailors by paying in $2 bills. Once merchants noticed just how much of their registers were full of that uncommon note, attitudes changed quickly!)

The federal government has the exclusive power to coin money--but this means coining metal; it doesn't stop states or other entities from printing paper money.

doc hawk, displaced economics professor

Real 'Muricans don't leave the ol' US of A. Anyone who regularly travels beyond driving range of their home town is suspicious, frankly.

(Meanwhile, I got the extra-thick passport booklet and have made a good try at filling it with stamps.)

I live in Utah... I wonder what effect this will have on my power prices.

>30 minutes BEFORE Trump's announcement of 100% tariffs on China, I

the more interesting question is why it took so long for someone to place this bet: Trump's reaction was rather predictable; why did noone move faster?

>Why though?

for the same reason the Enterprise makes swishing, sounds of course!

>How many people know what 100hp gets them?

Probably not very many, given that it's peak output of about seven horses . . .

>Personally, if im bound by law to make loud
>sounds on my efficient and quiet vehicle, Iâ(TM)m
>inclined to make it the Peter Griffon awkward l
>laugh track.

Actually, I'm holding out for the Enterprise's main phasers (from Start Trek, not it's spinoffs!)

Possibly interspersed with photon torpedoes as it accelerates.

As an economist, I cringe at the typical IPO and related culture and expectations.

A huge runup in price on your IPO does *NOT* mean you've done well, or were a good choice.

It means that you *SCREWED UP*! You sold pieces of your company for less than people were willing to pay!

I would much prefer to see the new equity issued in a treasury style auction (price set at the highest price that sells them all, with everyone bidding that price or above receiving stock), a transparent direct sale into the market on an announced schedule, or one or more "dutch auctions", in which the price counts down from an initial high price until someone accepts (variants include anyone else being able to buy at the price before the clock resets).

And there's really no reason for investment bankers to be taking a fat seven or eight figure cut of the proceeds. The could either be done in house, or by firms that do it regularly. None are rocket science!

doc hawk