High Truck Sales Portent Public/Government Contoversy

I heard on the radio this morning that truck sales are high. Let's not get confused by thinking that trucks are only 18-wheeler's. Pickup trucks and SUVs are categorized as light trucks.

I then checked the Internet to find some detail and found the following: "Americans' appetite for trucks of all kinds rebounded strongly in December, boosting pickups, vans and SUVs to a combined 54.8% of new vehicle sales. The truck trend seems to defy logic: Trucks use a lot of fuel, and gasoline is stubbornly above $3 a gallon".

Why the high truck sales? The answer is simple. People want them, and they are willing to spend their money and credit to buy them.

However this creates a major problem. Truck buyers are thinking one way and the government is thinking a different way. Recall that government is thinking of energy generation from solar and wind sources. The generated energy is electricity, which can be used for electric cars. Government has been promoting electric cars, and has been dumping taxpayer money into solar and wind energy development.

Is this ideology difference between truck buyers and government bad? Not necessarily. The public doesn't always look at the big picture, whereas public-service representatives believe they have a better view of the big picture. However, the problem is that the public is not generally wrong, whereas the track record of government "big picture" decisions is poor. There is little doubt that fossil fuels have a limited long term availability, while we expect solar and wind energy to be with us forever. The more pertinent observation is that fossil fuels are much more efficient as energy sources and the life expectancy of supplies is really unknown, although it is obviously not infinite. New potential resources, especially gas and oil, are continuing to be found. They are not mostly being developed because of government restrictions, presumably in order to favor solar and wind development.

The larger problem is that in present forms of government, the public elects representatives (Congress and a President) to operate government. The theory is that the representatives will do the bidding of the public. However it doesn't work that way. The representatives have their own idea as to what is best for the public and operate accordingly. See the above paragraph.

This is all tied into the basic characteristics of humanity. One part of a human being desires opportunity to advance his well-being, through power, money, and long life. Another part of the human being desires that he be taken care of. These two characteristics are in continued conflict.

In order to maintain their power, money, and long life, representatives use the "taken care of" process on the American public. The representatives grant social security, low-cost medical care, food stamps, reduced or free housing costs, etc. All of these appeal to the childlike aspect of being taken care of. However, government doesn't really have independent assets to supply all of these benefits. It does so by taxing the public and accumulating debt. Those receiving the benefits don't care about the taxing, because they usually don't pay them. Payment of taxes is reserved to "rich" people, who through another human characteristic of jealousy have, deserve to be taxed. With respect to debt, benefit receivers generally have no concept or at least have convinced themselves that such payment is way down the road, and they need not be concerned. The key point is that benefit receivers then vote to keep their representatives in power and maintain the flow of benefits.

The government has its own idea of what else should be done, as indicated in the first part of this essay. More recently it has decided that the public should no longer have access to incandescent light bulbs. To control this elimination, government now makes it illegal for manufacturers to produce them. Whether an individual wants an incandescent light bulb or not, it will no longer be available to him. He may not like this restriction on his independence, but after all, look at all the other benefits he is receiving from government. In other words, it is a compromise. The saying is that there is no free lunch. If an individual receives benefits from the government, he will pay in one form or another. Usually it's a matter of giving up independent rights. In that, we have to consider freedom. The essence is whether people want to be taken care of by government, with the long-term possibility that government may run out sources for assets. This is much like whether we will eventually run out of fossil fuels. The other possibility is whether people want to retain independence with respect to opportunity for personal development of those same benefits (power, money, and long life), which government representatives presently have.

It can go one way or the other. After the War of Independence, the United States had a number of years of small government with few restrictions, and opportunities for personal investment were almost unlimited. Through the years, that has slowly changed to a large percentage of the population now having a "taken care of" mentality. If that is what the people desire, things are going well, but if it is not or has the prospect that it will change to "not", consideration should be given for making some radical changes.

The question is whether the US public wants to return to "a land of opportunity" or a "land of dependence". A land of opportunity offers potential benefits for capable individuals willing to work, with the possibility of failure. A land of dependence offers immediate benefits to individuals whether capable or not and without effort. With the latter.there is no possibility for personal failure, but there is a longer-term certainty that benefits will run out. Do we want to have a way of life such as the Cubans have had under the Castro regime, wherein government controlled all significant aspects of personal life, or do we want opportunities for personal advancement?