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Old 07-03-2011, 01:50 AM   #43 (permalink)
jamesqf
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cfg83 View Post
But I also think context helps explain the story. We had Texas oil fields for the longest time. Japan *always* had to conserve energy and other resources because it has no raw materials.
But that's still only part of the story. Sure, economic incentives would have inclined some people towards smaller/more efficient cars, but even when gas was cheap, there were still plenty of people (me, for one) who simply prefer small cars, even though we could easily afford the costs associated with running a big one. Detroit just threw this market away - no, more than that, they tried to convince the public that our size preference was somehow unnatural and "unAmerican".
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