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Visitors to the upcoming Los Angeles Auto Show will see supercars, hoverboards, self-propelling luggage and all manner of new transportation options.
But they'll be hard pressed to find a clutch pedal or a stick shift. Available in nearly half of new models in the U.S. a decade ago, the manual transmission is going the way of the rumble seat, with stick availability falling to about a quarter this year.
Once standard equipment on all motor vehicles, preferred for its dependability, fuel efficiency and sporty characteristics, the four-on-the-floor is disappearing from major car manufacturers' lineups — and subsequently from the sprawling auto show's floors.
Consider, too, that electric vehicles don't even have a transmission.
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The Disappearing Stick Shift: Less Than 3% of Cars Sold in the U.S. Have Manual Transmissions
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 19 2016, @01:35AM
I never actually said people in China couldn't afford the cars. What I said was that there is a progressive trend towards people NOT being able to afford PRODUCTS that they themselves PRODUCE.
Like... cars?
So we should be concerned because employees can't afford to pay for industrial scale pumps, new high rises, or multi-billion dollar mergers? Not every demand is small.
Taking any economic scheme, here the demand-driven economy, to an irrational extreme is going to result in travesties of thought.
The reason why it hasn't had the same effect as it has on the US in some more developed and civilized countries is that they stood up to the corporations, drew a line in the sand, and said no further. Where you find strong organized labor and Progressive, or Liberal policies, you see workers afforded a living wage. So while I've seen many deride the EU and these more progressive countries, you cannot ignore the prosperity of their workers. For now. They will be dragged down too.
Cart before the horse. Strong economies allow a society to afford strong, organized labor and such. You can't have those policies and magically get the strong economy. China had the the strong policies, but it didn't get anywhere until it adopted freer and more capitalist policies wholesale.
Continue sticking your head in the sand about the real conditions of workers world wide, especially in the U.S. I don't blame you, it's pretty scary once you realize the true levels of exploitation in the world, and that Americans are coming towards being the highest levels soon. We've reached, or are within moments of reaching the breaking point in America. What kept us together was hope for the future, but that has been utterly removed from our hearts and replaced with stoicism and determination to fight to death so that we don't lose the last of what we have.
Again, this is just delusional. For example, even in the US [pewresearch.org] wages have been increasing since about 1994, which incidentally follows the end of the Japanese miracle. I believe a similar thing will happen when China grows to near parity with US wages. This whole drama has been due to globalization. And those businesses are running out of cheap global labor to exploit.
Notice in my link above that the US wages peaked around 1973 around the time of the first oil crisis and the beginning of Japanese competition in the US auto market. Then there's a long downward trend to 1994, which is after the end of the 1990-1991 recession which was a recession for both the US and Japan. Then there's been steady growth in wages since, despite growing competition from China.
And of course, there's my favorite graph [voxeu.org] (figure 1) which shows over a recent two decade period that two thirds of the world improved their income by 30% or better and the median global income increased by over 60%! You won't find another twenty year period in our past with that kind of global wealth gain.
How about ask the tens of thousands of homeless people across California set to go to concentration camps (excuse me FEMA camps) because of their destitution.
Not happening. Trump is not some magic bogeyman who will do every wicked thing you can dream up. Even if he did have such designs, you're not going along with them, right?
But... ummm.... when your "society" you love so much is mostly filled with desperate hungry people crowding around you while you go about your day (like places in India and Africa) will you still be so confident in your knowledge about what is actually going on?
Yes. My view wouldn't be impaired at all. The world is changing for the better in elimination of poverty and making everyone's lives better. Too bad you can't see that.