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1 hour ago, ZRod said:

All very true. A large part of the elevated price is OEMs trying to bank cash to fund the future of EVs.

I can’t dispute your reason for elevated prices but I’m not convinced that accounts for much of the increase. My company makes things that are primarily steel but also have mechanical and electrical components. I’ve had to increase my sales prices a minimum of 25% and upwards to 50% for some items to reflect the increases in my material and labor costs. The scale and economics of my business is much different than auto manufacturers but I have to believe the majority of their 25% increases are for much the same reasons.

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1 hour ago, JJ Husker said:

I can’t dispute your reason for elevated prices but I’m not convinced that accounts for much of the increase. My company makes things that are primarily steel but also have mechanical and electrical components. I’ve had to increase my sales prices a minimum of 25% and upwards to 50% for some items to reflect the increases in my material and labor costs. The scale and economics of my business is much different than auto manufacturers but I have to believe the majority of their 25% increases are for much the same reasons.

Yes, that's also another large part of it. Steel/aluminum/copper went up with the tariffs, plastics went up with COVID and adverse weather, and they never came back down.

 

The cost isn't only passed on to the customer, the supply base who buys the raw materials to manufacture the components for these vehicles are also being squeezed as well.

 

But for the EVs; don't forget that these car companies are basically building all new assembly plants just to manufacture the batteries. Those are billion dollar investments. Normally when you launch a new vehicle you have a pre-existing plant to build it in or can modify one, that's often not the case for these batteries.

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16 minutes ago, ZRod said:

Yes, that's also another large part of it. Steel/aluminum/copper went up with the tariffs, plastics went up with COVID and adverse weather, and they never came back down.

 

The cost isn't only passed on to the customer, the supply base who buys the raw materials to manufacture the components for these vehicles are also being squeezed as well.

 

But for the EVs; don't forget that these car companies are basically building all new assembly plants just to manufacture the batteries. Those are billion dollar investments. Normally when you launch a new vehicle you have a pre-existing plant to build it in or can modify one, that's often not the case for these batteries.

Yeah, I know you know your s#!t about the auto industry. I was just highlighting that basic inflation is also a big factor across the board. It’s scary how much I’ve had to increase prices and there has been relatively little pushback or repercussions from customers…..so far anyway.

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4 hours ago, JJ Husker said:

Yeah, I know you know your s#!t about the auto industry. I was just highlighting that basic inflation is also a big factor across the board. It’s scary how much I’ve had to increase prices and there has been relatively little pushback or repercussions from customers…..so far anyway.

It's crazy that no one has said uncle yet on the consumer side. Although I think it's starting to happen very slowly.

 

I get that luxury vehicles have a higher profit margin on them, but I don't agree with that philosophy of producing them over affordable vehicles. It's bad for the consumer, but apparently the consumer doesn't care.

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57 minutes ago, Archy1221 said:

It would be nice if we figured out a way to not have to do this stupid dance and have at a minimum a balanced budget 

It would be nice if we figured out a way to not have to do this stupid dance and actually just understand we have to pay our bills.  Debate on spending is when the spending is approved.....not when the bill comes due.

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2 hours ago, Archy1221 said:

It would be nice if we figured out a way to not have to do this stupid dance and have at a minimum a balanced budget 

A balanced budget is good in theory, but really the goal should be to limit borrowing to healthy levels. 

 

Alas, it's probably no longer feasible to balance the budget. The political willpower is not there from either party - although Republicans are more disingenuous when it comes to fiscal matters. Democrats are only marginally better.

 

Even if both parties decided that balancing the budget was an actual priority, the demographic makeup of the country makes it borderline impossible to do so. 

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1 hour ago, BigRedBuster said:

It would be nice if we figured out a way to not have to do this stupid dance and actually just understand we have to pay our bills.  Debate on spending is when the spending is approved.....not when the bill comes due.

Seems like we are saying the same thing here but using different words. 

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Just now, Dr. Strangelove said:

 

Alas, it's probably no longer feasible to balance the budget. The political willpower is not there from either party - although Republicans are more disingenuous when it comes to fiscal matters. Democrats are only marginally better.

I agree with you here.  Republicans talk a good game, but then come up with excuses to go ahead and add expenditures to fund foreign wars without paying for it and Democrats are unashamed in saying they could care less about debt.  
 

At the current rate,  some point in the future, our debt service payments alone will be double the next highest expenditure.  Imagine a household that has just credit card interest as it’s highest expenditure (not even paying off the balance, just the interest) and has to borrow more money each month just to keep up with credit card interest payments.   Everyone would think that’s crazy, except our politicians and those citizens who think the bill doesn’t eventually come due.  

8 minutes ago, Dr. Strangelove said:

 

Even if both parties decided that balancing the budget was an actual priority, the demographic makeup of the country makes it borderline impossible to do so. 

What do you mean by this?  

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7 hours ago, Archy1221 said:

 What do you mean by this?  

By demographics, I'm referring to the ratio of older Americans - who collect social security and have high healthcare costs in Medicare - and that of prime age employees working to support them. 

 

The last time the United States had a balanced budget was in the late 1990s. Boomers were in their prime working ages (30-60 years old) and the number of older Americans - who had fewer childen during the Great Depression and during WWII -  Thus the ratio of employees/retirees was much less, leading to a surplus.

 

With the size of the Boomer generation in retirement, the current prime working age generation is not large enough to support a budget surplus. 

 

Add in plunging birth rates and it seems extremely unlikely the employee/retiree ratio will ever be at a point in which a balanced budget is possible. The political backlash against any cost cutting measures will grow more every year. 

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