I hate the car industry.  It is for rich people; those good at bartering and
manipulating others.  I hate it with so much passion, once in a reliable
auto, I ride it until the fenders fall off.  And so it was with my '91
nissan pickup.  But, as all things mechanical simply wear out in time, my
nissan is no longer cost beneficial, costing me too many ongoing repairs.

And so, I am forced to re-enter this no-man's land of virulent fast Eddy car
salesmen ready to take you for every drop of hard earned savings they can
wrestle from you in dealer fees, expanded markups, pricey options, rococco
slight of hand financing, rebate rollbacks, and just about every clown or
magic trick under the sun.

These are professionals who deal with the public day in and day out...who
know all the tricks, all the con games, all the mental twists, and have seen
every possible muster of defense the general public can bring against them.
It has become almost a science we the general public are up against.

You simply cannot win.  I know.  Just as an example, my cousin used to sell
new pontiacs at a dealership in South Carolina.  He would tell me, with a
chagrin, how the owner would make his largest profits off his own relatives
who thought they were getting deals.  With a swipe of a pen, my cousin would
tell of thousands of dollars of markup and pure profit going to his coffers,
while an endless supply of old ladies or young teenybop kids were sent on
their way, unawares to the grave economic losses they had incurred.  The
parlour game trick was to always make the customer 'feel and think' like
they were some smart cookie...who had pulled one over on the dearlship and
salesman and gotten away with a gem of deal.  Truth was, NO ONE EVER WON.
The dealer was always going to get their profit and the salesman, at the
very least, his wage...and usually much more.  Usually thousands more.

My cousin had to get out of the business after a few years because he said
it simply wore too much on his conscience...which is the first deathknell of
the salesman.  Salesmen cannot have a conscience when it same to profit he
would tell me...no matter how ridiculous.

And so I have to enter this battlefield once again...and I hate it with a
passion.

About five years ago, I started a plan.  I would pay myself what a car
payment would be...so I could save up and eliminate as much of the batering
as possible; to go into a dealership holding all the cards...a cash over the
barrell transaction.  My needs are meager...I liked the Hyundias for example
or Civics....just something dependable that would last, keeping me from
having to deal with these sharks for another 1 and a half decades hopefully
[that nissan was a great pickup].  Five years ago, $10,000 could get me into
a reasonably nice auto...maybe with less than 20k miles on it...a minivan or
something.

And so, my auto account now has the $10,000 and some change as planned...but
of course, I forgot about inflation and market price drift.  Ha, now I find
$10,000 won't make a dent in most car prices...even for those with 100,000
miles on it.  Sheese. $10,000 is an awful lot of money for me...represents
years and years of sweat and toil and doing without so I could 'save'.  I'm
not some ditch digger either.  I work at a needed occupation in the
community making an otherwise livable wage...even if only at a meager
lifestyle.

Part of my rant is to express a disbelief.  Do people live in the same world
I do?  Oh, the money for sure...I mean, who the hell affords these 40k+
vehicles anyway?  I mean, there's only so many managers and bosses and store
owners...while the great mass of people I see are pretty much like me.  Just
five years ago, it seemed like the meat of the new car market remained at
the 20k range with a fair portion in low teens...some even below 10k.  Now
it seems the great ground swell has moved up past the 30k range.  Who buys
these things at such prices???

In fact, I'm pretty well off really...a livable wage not having to slave at
hard labor all day long.  How do the store clerks, the janitors, street
sweepers, the truck drivers, the teachers, policemen, and firemen afford
these prices?  We can't.  But of course we must...for a reliable auto is a
necessity of survival.

So, that's the first part.  Someone of course buys these things or the
market would drop prices I suppose.  But there are other things at
hand...like peak oil and global warming and Iran sitting on a time bomb
nuclear attitude that could go off any day now.  Isreal nor the USA [and I
would think europe et.al.] will NOT allow Iran to have nuclear weapons.
Does anyone forsee what the effect of new conflict in that part of the world
would do to oil prices...and the price of gasoline?  This not to mention any
number of other scenarios that could happen in the region of the world, any
one of which could push oil prices well over $100 a barrel.  Can you afford
$5 a gallon gasoline?  Someone paying all these 30k price tags appears to be
saying they can.

When I started researching, I had hoped the market would reflect these
things...where people are no longer buying the gas guzzling SUV's and one
could get one for a song perhaps [not that I would want one]; or that
hybrids and other energy alternative forms of transportation were being made
affordable for the common wage earner in the world?

But the market appears to be unaffected...and the prices having risen
substantially...to where my $10,000 is not even a down payment for most
price tags I'm seeing.  All that saving...and all I was doing was treading
water, staying 'even'...not getting ahead.

Hell, I'm not even sure I want a car in fear of future of gas
prices...looking at mopeds and air balloons and anything else that might
provide an alternative for survival.  Not much is there you see.  Oh...the
hybrids of course...again, for the rich people [from where I observe life
anyway].

So...I'm depressed...despondent even...which allows me to rant like this in
public.  Wow...a measily $10,000...but for the last couple of years, it gave
me a sense of security...a buffer...just a little one, that if I ever lost
my job, or became sick or something, I could pay the mortgage at least for a
few months.  I was being smart...I was going to go in say 'this is what I
want and here's the cash for it'...no haggling, no finance misdirection, no
nothing.  I could even play one dealer against the next perhaps...dealer Joe
will take this much, can you better it?  Or, this is what I have, take it or
leave it.  Boy it would be nice too; for I'll go to my grave with this
darkness upon my soul, put there by these business minded types that have so
twisted me up inside in the past for sake of 'unfair play'.  Once upon a
time, used to trust people too.  I would argue, that no greater damage has
been done to human trust over the years, than that invoked by the modern car
salesman.  Bar none.

The auto industry.  I hate it with a passion.  End of rant.