Wealth Graphic in America`

From the Jan 22, 2011 Economist special report (page 6)

Picture inequality today thus:

Imagine people's height being proportional to their income, so that someone with average income is of average height. Now imagine the entire adult population of America is walking past you in a single hour, in ascending order of income.

The first passers-by, the owners of loss-making businesses, are invisible: their heads are below the ground. Then comes the jobless and the working poor, who are midgets. After half an hour the strollers are still only waist high-since America's median income is only half the mean. It takes nearly 45 minutes before normal-sized people appear. But then, in the final minutes, giants thunder by. With 6 minutes to go, they are 12 feet tall. When the 400 highest earners walk by, right at the end, each is more than two miles tall.

Car Buying in the Way it Should Be

It's possible to bypass a car company's web site and shop on-line in another country. England, for example (since we won't have to translate from another language). This may provide insight into the different car buying choices of Americans and the English.

If we are the land of opportunity, the land of choice, then why do car companies treat us like morons when it comes to car buying? Contra VW England. If you shop for a car there, say the new Tiguan, you get the following: four choices of style, each available in two or four wheel drive:

Then you configure the style with one of four engines:

Then you mate the engine to a transmission, either manual or automatic (note: a manual transmission is the first choice - that's driving):

Only at this point do you need to get to the less important options like wheel size, color, and whether the car has heated leather seats. Remember (1) Choose model, (2) choose engine, (3) choose transmission. Note that the choice of 5 models times 4 engines time 2 transmissions gives you 40 possible configurations.

Now let's see what you get here.

First, there are only three models:

From that configuration, your choices get narrowed pretty qyickly: you can get a maunual only in the base trim, and you cannot get all wheel drive. You can choose all wheel drive only for the automatic. So your choices are 1 + 2 x 3 = 7. ????.

Personally, I don't understand the limited options for a manual tranmsission. They are so much more fun to drive and, by VW's admission, they are faster and get better gas mileage. Compare the following two posts.

First the manual: note 0-60 in 7.8 seconds and 19/26 MPG.

Then the automatic: note 0-60 in 7.9 seconds and 18/24 MPG.

Okay, I recognize a lot of people prefer automatic transmissions. But grant me that the manual transmission is the ideal mode of sport driving. Do you really want to see a Porsche ad where the driver is not shifting? Would James Bond not plant the car into a 180 degree spin without jamming the Aston Martin into first? Grant me that the popular conception of driving may differ from driving in practice. It stands to reason that the car companies should actually want to support the minority of drivers that actually can drive, no? Why does VW USA not push the cars that are more fun to drive, faster and get better mileage? Why do we not want to drive those cars that are more fun, faster and get better mileage?

Also, note the following picture. In Europe, VW makes pickup trucks and the Eurovan. Why can't we get those here?

On a last note, anyone who has been to Europe knows the general level of incorporation of neat technology, at least in the parts that count, is higher than here. The VW USA website is pretty clunky. Check out the VW UK site, especially the Toareg offroad animation here. Also, lastly, since the UK cars are so cool, and assuming you could get the same features on the Continent with right hand drive, why did VW USA discontinue their European delivery program? I note that Audi, VW's upscale sister, does have such a program.

From the Department of

Not Saying What They Mean

A curent Geiko add suggests the product is a deal by rhetorically asking something like "is a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" and cutting to a parody of the Antiques Road Show with a lady being surprised that her statute of a bird in the hand really is worth two in the bush at auction.

Doesn't this misapply the saying, a bird in the hand is worth [more than] two in the bush? The point is that something that is too speculative, i.e. catching two birds in the bush, is worth less than appearances, i.e. a risky opportunity to get two is really worth [less than] one of a sure thing (a bird in hand). The commercial suggests getting Geiko is really a good deal. But isn't the better view of what the commercial is saying is that its product is risky and hard to value, and worth less than it might appear at face value? Or is it just saying that 1 = 2? Either way, faulty logic is not exactly what I would look for in an insurance product.

Or the kind of message I would pay a marketing department to produce.