"Time to do a little thinking about your worldview and recognize that advances have to come gradually and be market tested. They have to show the ability to survive the market, otherwise we end up with a single car "authorized" by the government and available to all. And we know how the Lada worked out."RTWT.
Lada is not the best example. Perhaps Trabant would have been more appropriate? Over six times as many of the basic Lada were produced & exported, compared to the numbers of Trabant.
ReplyDeleteThe overall point is well made, though. These same folks think that government-run healthcare is a good idea - the very same folks who brought us, "If you don't have enough gum for the whole class, Jimmy..."
OTOH, the wiki-wander down the Lada hole was pretty neat.
the lada is actually a solid car. not pretty, not "fabulous" but cheap, sturdy, reliable and they last till eternity.
ReplyDeleteI note en passant that Skippy's List #33 & #34 (google it - wonderful) state that Skippy is "Not allowed to chew gum at formation even if I *did* bring enough for everybody."
ReplyDeleteThe essence of statism, in one bon mot.
Hey, whaddya know?! I have the same Tai Chi book on my shelf as the author!
ReplyDeleteAs for the post itself, I have nothing to add - it's an unarguable, self-evident axiom.
gvi
They just continue to show their stupidity... In the late 90's early 2000s I had a T-1 directly into my house. If somebody is willing to pay (or have it paid FOR), the tech existed then, and exists now... Want 10G, call a tier 1, they'll be happy to do a drop, but you're going to PAY for that privilege...
ReplyDeleteAlso have "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" but then again, doesn't everyone?
ReplyDeletegvi
"Over six times as many of the basic Lada were produced & exported, compared to the numbers of Trabant."
ReplyDeleteThe basic Lada was a Russian copy of the Fiat 124, and built in an Italian made factory in the USSR.....
It had a much larger market than the Trabi ..... of course they sold more ..... I doubt the central planners in Moscow would have allowed a satellite country to build a more successful car than Mother Russia ..... they couldn't design their own, so they bought one from Italy ....
Yeah, I was going to give the Trabant a shout out too. Perfect example of central state planning.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteEveryone talking bad about the Trabi!
ReplyDeleteAs for the Lada being a copy of the Fiat 124 made in the USSR in an Italian-made factory by Russians, did the Fiat come with on-board fire extinguisher?
Sorry about that, I thought I could put in a live link without it being 23 lines long.
Here's a partial list of products and services that could only be afforded by the very wealthy when they were new but eventually became available to everybody (in the first and new worlds).
ReplyDeleteTelephones (landline), electricity, firearms, indoor plumbing, radios, automobiles, motorcycles, air travel, central heating, air conditioning, computers, internet access, etc...
Al_in_Ottawa
Why does the Trabant have a rear window defroster?
ReplyDeleteSo you can keep your hands warm as you push.
In late 1982, my dad subscribed to a cellular telephone service so he could have a car phone for his business through GTE's brand-new Mobilnet service. It cost around $1400/month, plus exorbitant per-minute charges. It was worth it to him because it helped his sales numbers so much -- since nobody else could close the deals while stuck in the Bay Area's traffic, he made a lot of sales that would otherwise have gone to other companies.
ReplyDeleteThis year, my teenage son walked into WalMart and put $50 on the counter for a prepaid cell phone. It won't cost him another penny until he runs out of bandwidth -- which could be next week or next year.
In 1982, it cost about a dollar a minute to call long distance across the country. But people who could afford it paid that ridiculous charge -- and their willingness to pay funded the infrastructure that makes it possible, this year, to call anywhere in the country and it costs the same as if you'd just dialed the next door neighbor.
Because I've spent so much of my adult life truly poor, I love rich people when they spend ridiculous amounts of money on luxuries I wish I had, too. I know their happy willingness to pay through the nose is what makes it possible for me to get stuff for cheap or free .... next year, or the year after that.
Oh come on, an obsolescent FIAT built with worn out tooling by indentures, what could possibly go wrong?
ReplyDeleteDisclaimer of Bias: The Lampredi designed four banger is one of my favorite engines of all time. I've owned several and would buy one again today if I could find a fresh one at a reasonable price.
I used to be able to change a head gasket on one of those puppies by the side of the road in 30 minutes flat.
It's called, "practice."
kfg: If you had that much experience in changing head gaskets by the side of the road, it doesn't sound like much of a recommendation for the cars.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking of cell phones, a lot of pre-paid carriers run on top of the big four networks (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile). These are called Mobile Virtual Network Operators and exist because of government regulation. This regulation increases competition which is a good thing.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding is that Germany has a similar system for their cable/fiber ISPs: third parties buy up resources and sell them to consumers and compete. The end result is cheaper net access.
(Such regulation makes sense for telecomms since it's not like you can ship a cable service across the country.)
Water, electricity, and internet access should be cheap, not free. (That's where a lot of "nationalize everything"-types fall apart.)