10,000 Hits Per Month

     Setting the record straight:   When you Google "Runcible Cats Bazaar,   one of the little paragraphs that pops up is a piece that defines this website as having "300 hits per month".   I don't know where this came from, but in recent months, there has not been a single month that this site has had fewer than 10,000 visits.   Perhaps this piece was written back when The Cat first went on the net, at which time it would have been correct. Which brings up another problem about all information you find on the net:   There is no way to know if it is current.   One should always keep this in mind.
     More interesting than the sheer number of visitors to this site is where they come from.   They come from over 100 different countries, but mostly from the United States and Europe, both Western Europe and Eastern Europe.

Electric Cars--The Real Question

                  If you have spent the last several years wondering when electric cars will finally become viable, then join the club.  I have pondered this for forty years.  But the facts we would need to know to answer that question are the facts that no one is telling us.

                  We all know that sooner or later, the electric car has to happen. Petroleum is a finite resource, and it will eventually be gone.  The shale/fracking technology will buy us a brief reprieve, perhaps a decade or so, but eventually the oil will be gone.  While the day that the last barrel of oil is burned may still be far in the future, every year that we inch further toward that day the world's remaining oil will be scarcer, more expensive, and more likely to be either geologically inaccessible---or politically controlled by those who despise us.

                  Yet we also know that the wind power resources of the high plains alone could provide  a hundred times as much energy as our entire country consumes, and any three counties in New Mexico could hold enough solar panels to run the whole country.  So if replacing of our fleet of gas-buggies with fully electric vehicles is pretty much a no-brainer, why hasn't it happened yet? 

                  The news on this subject is conflicting at best.  In May, Tesla Automotive announced that it had just had its first profitable quarter ever, and that it had fully repaid its government loan.  Tesla stock gained 81% in May alone.   But priced at $62,000 to $106,000-- the Tesla is mostly just a rich man's toy.  It's only influence on the car market so far is to prove that an electric car can deliver high performance.  Tesla claims that their ultimate aim is to produce and sell a moderately priced family sedan.  Yet that goal had also been the stated goal of Fisker Automotive, which declared bankruptcy in May.   GM is offering a plug-in hybrid, the Volt, for about $39,000, less the $7,500 federal tax credit. Ford sells an all-electric Focus for about the same price. And both are selling only an infinitesimal number of cars.  So what's the problem?

                  The problem is this:  There are millions of Americans who can afford to spend $39,000 for a car. And there are millions of Americans who are being badly hurt by rising gas prices.  But it's not the same people.  Anyone who can spend $39 k for a car has probably never had to choose between filling the gas tank and putting food on the table.  And those who are forced to make such a choice have probably never owned a new car in their entire lives--and never will.  The real market for electric cars would be the market for cheap used ones.  But there can be no used ones till somebody buys some  new ones.  The people buying $40 k SUVs may complain about rising gas price, but if they really worried about it,  they would have stopped buying gas-guzzlers.   The purchasers of forty-thousand-dollar SUVs that get 20 mpg could at any time have switched to buying a twenty-thousand-dollar Ford focus that gets 40 mpg. If they have not yet done that, then they are not really worried about gas price.

                  Last year, I bought a Ford Focus. It's a plain, gas-powered Focus. It's an excellent car and I'm quite happy with it. On the highway, with no wind, I get up to 44 mpg.  After all the rebates and other incentives, the price was  $18,000.   That was the most money I had ever paid for a car in my entire life, and it scared the hell out of me. I have a reasonably comfortable retirement, and yet I found myself asking,  "Just what sense does it make for a retired person living on a fixed income to take on $18,000 of debt?"  But I bought it anyway, because I do worry about raising gas price. In my view, the target price that electric car makers will have to hit for electric cars to become viable is this:  Ford will have to sell its Electric Focus for about the same price that it sells its regular focus, which is $18 k-$22 k.  But that isn't going to happen anytime soon.  The CEO of Ford Motors disclosed last year that 1/3 of the cost of the $39 k Electric Focus is the cost of the battery.  So if the battery cost alone is $15,000, then the car cannot be sold for $18,000.  I suspect that the battery cost will have to drop to around $3,000 to $5,000 before the car price can become competitive. 

                  Of course, many will ask, "What about fuel savings?   Couldn't people afford to spend more on a car if they didn't have to buy gas?"  To compute that answer, this is what we will need to know:  How many miles will the car last?  Will the original battery last the life of the car, or will it have to be replaced after a certain number of charge/discharge cycles?  If so, then how many charge/discharge cycles will the battery last before it has to be replaced, and how many miles will have been driven by that time?  And what will be the net exchange price for the replacement battery? And how many kwh of electric power will be purchased over the life of the car, and at what price?  I cannot get any hard answers for any of these questions.

                  Some of you may protest, "Even if there is no net savings for transportation cost, wouldn't we wish to switch to electric anyway, (assuming we can afford to) because it will mean burning less carbon and importing  less fuel? Supposing we were to find that a $15,000 battery only saves $10,000 in fuel over its lifetime. Shouldn't we do it anyway?" 

                    Well, we don't even know that for certain.  To compute how much we would be lowering our carbon footprint, we would have to know this:   When $15,000 is paid for a battery, just what did this money pay for?   And how much of the price involves goods and services that consume petroleum? Supposing  that $10,000 of the cost ends up being petroleum cost?  Then we might  not be lowering the carbon footprint at all, nor lessening our dependence on imported oil.  Do I know this to be the case?  No, I don't even suspect that this is the case--but I do not know for sure that it is not the case, and neither does anyone else. 

                  In order to predict just when the day of the electric car will arrive, these are the things we will have to know.  But these are precisely the things that no one is telling us. 

Cup of Joe--an Etymology.

The May 26/26 issue of Wall Street Journal contains Robert K. Landers'  review of a biography of Josephus Daniels, by Lee A. Craig.    Josephus Daniels was Secretary of the Navy under Wilson.    One of his less popular reforms was to prohibit alcohol on all navy vessels and shore stations.  Coffee was offered as a substitute.   This coffee was disparagingly referred to as "the  cup of Joe Daniels;"  and later, "a cup of joe."

Laundry List Sonnet

It has recently been suggested that I'm the kind of crazy bastard who would write his laundry lists in sonnets.  Well, it's all true--I confess.

Ye Olde Laundry List Sonnet:

My sweatshirts--prithee wash them cold with jeans.

(This last instruction should'st not be forgot.

Learned I when I was barely in my teens,

"Hand puppets" they become if washed too hot.)

And then my briefs--they number seven each.

Such briefs once sized to gird my youthful butt,

(Please wash them hot and do not spare the bleach)

Now  briefs too brief to span an aging gut.

And shirts, whose very image doth depress,

Their manufacture steeped in human sorrow;

Song of the Shirt, Triangle fire, and yes

In Bangladesh, our past is their tomorrow.

When finished with my socks, thou may'st inquire

If one lone stocking lurketh in the dryer.

170 Auto Makers in China

 

  An article in the April 10 issue of Wall Street Journal , "China Lets 170 Auto Makers Bloom," says that China has over 170 car manufacturing companies.  Though the Chinese government is now urging consolidation in this industry,  it had originally encouraged this growth.  We take for granted that having only three or four car manufacturers is a reasonable number.  And as the winnowing process in China progresses, they may ultimately reach this number. But it will take a lot of mergers, acquisitions and bankruptcies to get there.    And it will also take time---a lot of time---perhaps 90 years, because that's how long it took in the U.S.

            You see, The U.S. also had that many car companies at one time.   The American car industry began in 1894,  when Frank Duryea patented his gas-powered buggy.  He built this thing in Springfield MA.  But when Frank and his brother, Charles, made a serious attempt to mass produce this machine, they opened a factory in Waterloo, Iowa. They had made abortive attempts to build gas buggies in both Springfield, MA,  and in Illinois.  But to cheaply hire large numbers of machinists who actually knew how to build gas engines, Waterloo was the better choice.  Waterloo already had the world's first tractor factory, the Waterloo Gasoline Traction Engine Co. (which was later acquired by Deere & Co.)  This factory opened in 1892, by which time Waterloo had already enjoyed a thriving gas engine business for over a decade.   At that time, Waterloo was to the one-cylinder gas engine what Silicon Valley is to the chip today.  Toward the end of the 19th century, over a dozen companies built engines in Waterloo, and eventually, at least 175 different brands were built there.  In 1898,  the Duryea Power Company opened in Waterloo, located on Duryea street. Duryea street is still there, but alas, the factory closed after selling only 100 cars. The brothers could not agree on a final design and made continual changes. The investors soon grew weary of their bickering and withdrew their support.  But Waterloo soon had other car companies, some of which survived till the great depression.  There was the Maytag, shown above, whose plant manager, Fred Duesenberg, later produced a luxury car under his own name.  And the Wm. Galloway Farm Equipment company built a pickup truck.  And the Dart pickup was also built in Waterloo.   But by then, car factories were sprouting all over the country.  By 1898, you could buy a Cadillac or an Oldsmobile, and in 1903, the first trans-continental road race was won by someone driving a Winton.  Between 1900 and WWI,  almost every town of any size had its own car company.  No one knows just how many there were, but I'm sure it was over 170.   While few of these companies exist today,  many survived till the start of the Great Depression, and some closed their doors only at the start of WWII, when all auto manufacturing was shut down for the duration of the war.

            But in the 1950's, some of the old pre-war cars were still around.  When one of my brothers was in high school, he briefly owned an Essex and later had a Terraplane.  And one of his friends had  an Auburn,  and another friend had a Graham Page.   After WWII, there were far fewer car brands, but still a lot more than the three we have today.  When I was in college in the late 1950's, I drove whatever old, worn out car I could afford to buy.  At a time in my life when I had not yet owned a Chevy or a Ford, I had owned two Packards,  a Nash, and a Studebaker.  ,
Note:  If this kind of post interests you,  click on this:   http://runciblecatsbazaar.blogspot.com/2010/07/syncom-and-day-it-all-began.html

Not Well Accoutered

The tom kitty's passions won't scorch.
For the ladies, he carries no torch.
For since he's been neutered,
He's not well accoutered,
And spends all his time on the porch.

Saved by Our Inefficiency

            About 50% of the readers of this blog are located outside the United States.  This particular post is directed primarily towards this audience.  It is a simple attempt to explain to the outsider how political processes in the U.S.  came to be as absurd as they now are.  But readers in the U.S. would do well to read this post as a reminder of just how we came to have the mess that we now have.

               Democracy, especially American democracy, is a very inefficient system.   And it was designed to be.  Our organs of government are so cumbersome that it is nearly impossible to make any rapid changes, especially changes in important socio-economic arrangements.  This state of affairs did not simply happen.  It was deliberately designed to be the way it is.

            In most parliamentary  democracies, a single chamber can pass bills by a simple majority vote---and they become law.  In the United States, to become law, a bill must pass both houses of Congress, and also be approved by the President.  So to make any change, a party must simultaneously control both the Senate and the House of Representatives, and also the Presidency.  Yet no shift in voter allegiance will quickly change control of the Senate, since the six- year terms are staggered, with only one third of the seats up for vote every two years. So to take control of the Senate, a party would have to win the support of a majority of voters in a majority of states---and then keep that majority for six straight years.

             But the Senate is not apportioned according to population.  Each of the 50 states, no matter how large or small their population,  gets exactly two senators.  North Dakota gets the same representation as New York.  But sparsely populated rural states are usually fairly conservative  and rarely shift their political allegiances.  If this situation weren't absurd enough,  the Senate itself has established  rules that requires a 60% vote to bring any bill to a final vote. And  even a landslide shift in voter sympathy will not usually produce an electoral result where either party controls 60% of the seats in the Senate.

            Barack Obama was elected by an overwhelming majority, and in his first two years, his party had a majority in both houses.  But they did not quite have a 60% super-majority in the Senate.  So the Republican minority in the Senate was able to block most significant legislation, and very little got done.  Then, in two years, the Republicans rode to victory in the House, riding a wave of voter anger.  What were the voters angry about?  They were angry that nothing was getting done.  The same Republican obstructionists who prevented action were able to whip up resentment of the inaction which they themselves had caused, and ride it to victory.   How could voters be stupid enough to fall for such an idiotic game?   In any country, about half the voters pay no attention to government until a week before the election.  The other half pays intense attention to government, and knows exactly what's happening.  But the Republican Party was not worried about alienating  this faction because they vote for Democrats anyway.  In America, almost no one with an I.Q. higher than his sock size ever votes Republican, except for the billionaires who own and control that party.    

            In my lifetime, I have seen Democrats  strive to deliver all of the progressive things I ever thought this country needed--- universal health care,  free higher education,  fairer distribution of income, public transportation,  and much more.  All of these goals were shared by a majority of voters, but none it ever happened.  Many times, the Democrats have controlled the presidency and had a simple majority in both houses.  Yet they were stopped every time by Republican obstructionists.  The basic social safety net goals laid out by Roosevelt 70 years ago have still not become a reality, even though they are standard in nearly every country in Western Europe.  To me, this has been deeply disappointing. 

            And yet, if I could change our inefficient system, I'm not sure I would.  Why?  Because while there have been many times when good programs have been thwarted  by obstructionism,  there have also been times when some pretty evil initiatives  have been thwarted as well.   Over the last generation, the billionaires who own and control the Republican party have often had in their grasp the presidency and a slim majority in both houses.   And they advanced an agenda of unspeakable evil.  They attempted to loot and destroy our Social Security system (they called it "privatizing.")  They tried to break unions, with the goal of eventually outlawing them.  They tried to take total control of our educational institutions and turn them into right-wing propaganda machines. They tried to de-fund any government support for public health care,  so that any sick person who could not pay for treatment would be abandoned to die.  And these were just their publically  proclaimed goals.  Who knows what their secret agenda may have been?  But none of it ever happened, at least on the scale which they had intended.  Because liberals can obstruct the wheels injustice just as easily as conservatives can obstruct the wheels of justice.

            In the future, there will certainly be moments when the evil-doers are back in the saddle.  And when that moment comes, we will be well served by the inefficiency which the founders engineered into our system.  Behold; the obstructers shall become the obstructed.