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Old 05-07-2018, 10:34 PM   #144 (permalink)
slowmover
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jamesqf View Post
Not so. There's a fairly firm short-term* base demand from those things, but on top of that there's a large recreational demand. Take a 500 mile road trip, go "camping" in your 40 ft RV, run your ORVs, power boats, and all the other gas-using toys? No one has to do those things.



*Which is elastic over the long term.
You’re ignoring the elephant in the living room. The people who built America’s cities were driven out of them by 1970. Post-war sprawl didn’t mean much till then. Post-1970 it exploded. The completion of the Interstate system circa 1972 made it possible. As Jim Kunstler notes, since then the greatest waste of resources in human history.

Public transportation still sufficed up till 1970. One car families. Choices possible.

Today it’s every adult with a car, for the most part. By necessity, not choice.

Vacationing, etc, doesn’t mean much.

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