Better Car Mandated: Path To Be Beaten

Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

That's been a pardigm of American exceptionalism. When you build a better product, given all the variables that go into the purchase of that product, it's clear that if it's better, you win in the battle for the allocation of scarce resources.

What are some of the variables? Good question. For now it's simply amazing that we hadn't used such a direct path to a better car. What were we thinking?

Now gas, that's something I can relate to when discussing the value of mandates. Since government mandated a "better gas" by requiring us to buy ethanol, I've seen my mileage reduced by twenty percent. I've been able to sidestep this drop in gas mileage by purchasing gas over in Chinook, Washington. They have the old, worse gas in supreme (high octane) grade. For those of you who continue to purchase your gas at an Oregon gas station, or at a "branded" gas station in Washington, you continue to lose twenty percent of your car's potential mileage.

But there are different variables yet in place, aren't there? I like buying Chevron branded gas, because the engineers at Chevron have come up with a series of additives that assure the user of longer life for their engines. Second, deaing with a reputable, branded dealer means that I'm less likely to deal with water in the fuel being pumped into my car. That is, the gas being delivered is pure gas.

But water in gas, protecting your engines injection system, all these variables when choosing gas really go out the window with ethanol. You know that you can't store ethanol. Ethanol sucks water out of the atmosphere. And into whatever storage device you use. Whether it's a large tank at a fuel farm, or the tank on your car, you wait too long and you've got a water problem.

Remember that this fall or winter when the lights go out, and you're not able to start your generator. Small engines are pretty cool, but they don't run on water.
(click on pic for more info.)
Point being, I'm pretty pumped that government has finally mandated better cars. As they have mandated better gas. As they want to mandate better health care. And they want to increase the cost of energy so that they can deal with the problem of Man Made Global Warming through Cap and Trade. (Please note: before you begin trading carbon offset certificates, the OregonGuy is putting into place a means for you to buy and sell carbon offset certificates locally. Serially. Hold onto your bucks for now.)

Now, when it comes to buying a car, what is it that determines which car that you purchase?

One of my better econ profs suggested--advice which I follow--the following scenario when approaching a car dealer's lot: when asked "what are you looking for?" reply, "I was thinking of buying a white car."

The point being, the salesman has lost a lot of pricing pressure. If you come in looking for a new Camaro, you limit yourself to a high demand vehicle that lacks elasticity. You might as well come onto the lot with hundred dollar bills hanging out of your pockets. But when you tell him you've simply a preference for "white", since white is a common colour there's a great deal of price elasticity that you have just introduced into the microeconomic choice you face. After you've looked at twenty white cars, you may have seen "the car" you want, and you can begin discussing whether or not that car "comes in white." Again, the elasticity of demand still remains below 1. And negotiating price with an elasticity of demand less than one is where you want to be!

Of course, economic theory goes out the window with the government's mandate for a better car. Because it's better, the elasticity of demand for this car will naturally be 1. The other variables that go into making a buying decision simply go out the window: colour, style, number of passengers, off-road ability, hauling capacity, crash survivability, roominess, acceleration, visibility, comfort; all these former variables of prefence, taste and choice, gone.

Because of the simplicity of government mandates, we've been saved, in the future, now.

I can't wait for my energy prices to double! Of course, I get no more energy. I just pay more. And that money goes to government. See? That's the beauty of cap and trade, a mandate to increase the price of energy. And, I can't wait for my new, better government mandated car. That's the beauty, a better car even though it may not really have anything in it's design or execution that would prompt me to buy it, the assurance that it is better is enough.

And I'm waiting for government mandated health care. It's going to be better, because that's what the mandate says. Whether my government can afford to maintain the level of health care I have now isn't important. It will be better because that's what the mandate says it will be.

It's a time for Change!™ If there's anything in your life that you wish was better, now that the new men are in power, it's time for your wishes be known. What do you want the government to mandate? I want better smokes, but the government has already mandated crappy cigarettes. Oh, they're better, I guess, if you want smokes that self-extinguish. But most smokers I know would prefer smokes that taste good and don't actually go out. Yannow, 'cause we're smoking them?

I want to mandate self-extinguishing candles. Open flame seems a lot more dangerous--and demonstrably more dangerous--than ciggies. Also? I want the trucks that move gasoline to service stations off the roads during normal business hours. After all, a gallon of gas has the explosive force of a stick of TNT! Forget about the LNG ships coming into our ports! Get these ubiquitous ticking time bombs off our streets!

Oh, and I want to mandate ponies. Ponies are cute. And Santa Claus. I really think we should mandate Santa Claus, because even if we're occasionally naughty, we're actually really nice and we should be able to get all the free sh*t. Oh, and a pay raise. I need a pay raise. (Really. How do you expect to pay your future, doubled energy costs?)

Well, time is now to get in line. The path to the door of the new Chrysler and GM dealerships is going to be deep, it's going to be long. And why wait? Just drop down and drop off a check. Be the first one on your block to have the miracle it took government to produce: a better car.

It would be churlish of me to point out that the current economic downturn is notably the product of government mandates for sub-prime mortgages, wouldn't it? That government tax mandates created the culture of "flipping"? That government mandates hit the poor and those least able to afford it, their ability to own and maintain their homes?

In fact, just about every negative economic variable that markets, from the financials to the super, result from government mandates?

It would be churlish. Sorry. Enjoy the future.

Change!™

UPDATE: Found at the Real King's place, a link to this story. Is it really this simple?

UPDATE: Found at the Feedlot, a link to this museum of stupidity past.