Amy must be rich because she drives two cars, too.

But is not like she is driving limo or fast sports cars around or an Entourage of SUVs.

Wow some people will use anything to disparage the opponent. So one sided sometimes from the consensus media.

What! What happened to the Pink Rambler. Have to go read the article again. I was joshin' on the two cars. I was suspect the old girl was gathering dust in a garage.

DH drove 2 cars for a while. So what? A lot of people have more than 1. Doesn't mean they're rich. My older bro who is anything but rich these days, has a Focus for every day and an '88 vette for fun. Neither cost much. But hey, turning it into a issue distracts the voting sheep form other thing,s right?

"I actually only have one car, a tiny 2004 Honda Insight, and I barely drive it anywhere. I have just over 20,000 miles on it in the years I've had it."

My 2004 Hyundai Snotter just passed the 142,000 mile mark. I think I got my money's worth. I've been looking at getting a nice Michigan-built Ford Focus to augment it. Like Miss Alkon says, the more people buy Detroit steel, the better off Detroiters are. Of course, the government can't take all the credit, though they'll try to anyway.

It surely is better for the poor (and everyone else) if "the rich" buy more cars, or services, or pretty much anything with their money. It isn't so good for the poor, or anyone else, when the government "taxes the rich" and expands.

A society that stifles success and catapults mediocrity and laziness is in trouble.

Even more so, a society turns to the political instead of the economical to get money is doomed.

Let's see some analysis as to how Pinch Sulzberger, NYT publisher, spends his money.

It is very wearisome to continuously hear the scions of inherited wealth, often speaking through mouthpieces such as Charles Blow (great name!), demonizing "the wealthy."

> I have just over 20,000 miles on it in the years I've had it.

I've got 60,000 miles on a SUV I've had for 12 years. I've had a few arguments w Prius driving leftist acquaintances about it. I don't care about carbon emissions, but they do, and they get quite upset when I tell them that the way I've structured my life puts less carbon in the air than their "wasteful arrogant driving". They sputter when I point out that despite 4 WD and a high center of gravity I'm emitting less per year than they are.

"But...but...but that's just because you LIVE closer to work! You started your own company, so you picked the office and have a 2 mile commute...I have to commute 25 miles!".

"So you're saying that the choices we make influence how much carbon we emit?"

"Yes...no! It's not that simple. Where I work -"

"You mean, where you choose to work..."

"I don't choose where the office is, the company chose that."

"...but you chose to work for that company. You made a conscious decision to drive 50 miles per day."

"But that's where the job IS!!!"

"So this PARTICULAR job is more important to you than saving the planet? It's worth driving 50 miles each and every day?"

"But I drive a Prius!"

I love it. It really forces them to confront the fact that they do whatever the F___ they please, and then get a "green" acountrement to demonstrate their supposed virtue.

...and yet, with my 18 MPG SUV, I'm the bad person.

A society that stifles success and catapults mediocrity and laziness is in trouble.

Even more so, a society turns to the political instead of the economical to get money is doomed.

Amen.

Crap. I would drive a space shuttle if I had the money.

A lot of people have more than 1. Doesn't mean they're rich.

To change the subject slightly, this is true, and it's also why I don't see objects as signs of wealth.

We have a combined seven computers, if you don't count our phones. Most of them were very cheap or cost nothing, or my husband repaired other people's cast-offs. Technology can be dirt cheap if you are willing to accept older models, which is why I'm baffled by reports that people aren't really poor if they have things like a fridge and a microwave and a cell phone.

"Technology can be dirt cheap if you are willing to accept older models, which is why I'm baffled by reports that people aren't really poor if they have things like a fridge and a microwave and a cell phone."

Combine that with the obesity often shown when the American "poor" are paraded, and bafflement should disappear.

Back to the vehicles: the lowest environmental impact you can buy on four wheels is a VW diesel, not a Prius, not an Insight. That's because nobody has to deal with that main propulsion battery and the advanced electrical components of the hybrid.

The HIGHEST impact crap you can endorse is alcohol - which incurs a 50% energy penalty per gallon no matter its source.

The absolutely infuriating thing about rich people. Not only do they make much more money than the rest of us, but they also have more stuff. Is that unfair, or what?

Let them make more money, but let's take their stuff.

(sarc)

I once had three cars, none of which were worth more than $800. I was not rich. I used the Bic pen theory of cars, buy them cheap and drive them until they quit and then throw them away. I could be pretty sure that on any given day, at least one of them would start.

I'm baffled by reports that people aren't really poor if they have things like a fridge and a microwave and a cell phone.

I got my first new appliance 2 years ago, a microwave. Everything else I got used, even my cell phone.
My car had 100,000 miles on it when I got it.

My microwave is 20 years old.

My parents' microwave outlived them. I'm going to leave it on the curb for anyone who wants it. I do not remember being alive before this microwave. It's that old. It still works. I feel bad tossing it.

Many of the "poor" people I know have a whole of cars...mind you all but one or two are on blocks in their yard.

Eh, its this whole American idea that anyone "elite" is bad... socio-economic elite, intellectual elite, looks elite.

Elite=Evil. Note how they both begin with "e"

its this whole American idea
I don't think it's an "American" idea. I'd say it's a leftist/Marxist idea. Up to about 20 years ago, this thinking was "anti-American", I'd wager. I would guess it started with Johnson's "Great Society", or maybe even earlier, and gradually picked up steam; now Obie and the elite government officials are denouncing the elite businesses for making too much money???? It's really interesting. If Obie gets re-elected, I guess the verbage will be even more similar to Mao's time, where the denounced were the "running dogs" of the evil dollar, and Obie and the sacred family, like Mao or Stalin, could live a lavish, elitest lifestyle, appropriating the villas of the rich and famous for their own use.