Costs, benefits, and punishment

Eric Peters asks: how much does it cost if it’s free mandated by the central government?

How Much Does Gas Mileage Cost Us?
“Penalties” are what you’re forced to pay when you’ve done nothing wrong – as opposed to something criminal. Like selling cars to people who wanted to buy them that use more gas than the government says they’re allowed to.

Stellantis – the corporation that currently owns the Dodge, Jeep and Ram truck brands – was recently “penalized” by the federal apparat to the tune of $235.5 million for doing just that. The “penalties” were imposed because Dodge, Jeep and Ram vehicles sold during the 2018-2019 model years didn’t complywith the apparat’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) decrees regarding how many miles-per-gallon a vehicle must go, irrespective of how little the buyer cares.

“The EPA said in December Stellantis had the lowest real-world fuel economy among all major automakers, at 21.3 miles per gallon on average in 2021,” according to a Reuters news story about this business.

Well, so?

Was anyone forced to buy one of these offending vehicles? As opposed to the force being applied by the apparat to force them off the market?

As the Reuters story explains, the “penalties” for “non-compliance” have tripled (to $15 for every 0.1 MPG of “non-compliance,” up from $5.50 before the Biden Thing was selected resident).

The MPG decrees have been coming down since the ’70s and are nearly double now what they originally were, approaching 40 miles-per-gallon and on track (because of newly hurled decrees) to ascend to 50.

“In April 2022, NHTSA sharply boosted fuel economy standards, reversing former President Donald Trump’s rollback of U.S. regulations aimed at improving gas mileage. The organization raised fuel efficiency requirements by 8 percent for both the 2024 and 2025 model years and 10 percent in 2026.”

This effectively out-regulates (as distinct from out-lawing) most of the vehicles Stellantis (and not just Stellantis) sells.

Or rather, that sell well.

They do not want most of us to be able drive certain kinds of cars, irrespective of our wants. And irrespective of the fact that “efficient” alternatives are and always have been available. This latter italicized because it’s important. No one has ever been forced to buy a “gas hog.” Not today – not before the regs came into existence some 45 years ago, either. Before there was CAFE there were 9 MPG Chrysler Newports – and 35 MPG VW Beetles. People were free to choose – and that was (and is) the real problem, insofar as the apparat (and the apparatchiks) are concerned.

They ultimately do not want most of us driving, period. This also ought to be obvious by now.

First to get out-regulated were big cars, the kind that average (not rich) Americans used to routinely drive, because they liked them and could afford them. Including the gas. These were penalized out of existence as mass-market/affordable vehicles by the early 1980s. Next to go were affordable SUVs and trucks – which had become the alternative to the big cars average Americans used to routinely drive. These are now also largely unaffordable – with prices on the lower end around $40,000 to start.

The end goal being to leave Americans no alternative, except the electric one. Which most of them won’t be able to afford, either. The CAFE regs green-light EVs – and red-flag anything that isn’t.

Whether people want it being entirely beside the point.

Well, of course. In a dictatorship such as this one, what The People want is entirely irrelevant, not worthy of consideration—you stupid children don’t have the vaguest clue what’s best for you, see. Which is why this, and every, decision must be left up to your “betters” in the “elite” and “expert” classes. That’s just part and parcel of being “elite” in the first place—although you better not ever let them hear you muttering anything about the “Divine right to rule,” or Kipling’s “White Man’s Burden” concept of “noblesse oblige.” Do that, and you’re REALLY gonna have a problem on your hands, bub.

Better just shut your hole and know your role from here on out then, Prole scum. Y’know, or else—always and forever the implied threat, just the same as with every other dimestore dictator throughout human history, no matter where he may hail from. Nice to know, I suppose, that we feeble, fallible, fragile hoomon-bean types still do have at least some traits in common, right? For certain values of the word “human,” that is.

Now why don’t you all just sit down, shut up, and go pedal your State-approved bicycle around your 15 Minute City and leave us alone for a while, eh? Don’t forget to put on your Health & Safety Mask™ before you leave your cramped, unlit, and unheated single-room government apartment, y’hear? Wouldn’t want you to inadvertently turn your short trip into some kind of deadly Superspreader Event™, don’tchaknow.

As I keep telling y’all: Yes, there is in fact a Plan. No, you don’t have any say in it. That is all, carry on. And since I mentioned Kipling just now, a brief snippet from the Greatest Western Poet seems an appropriate note to end this screed with.

Take up the White Man's burden—
    Send forth the best ye breed—
Go bind your sons to exile
    To serve your captives’ need;
To wait in heavy harness
    On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
    Half devil and half child.

Take up the White Man's burden—
    In patience to abide,
To veil the threat of terror
    And check the show of pride;
By open speech and simple,
    An hundred times made plain.
To seek another's profit,
    And work another's gain.

Take up the White Man's burden—
    The savage wars of peace—
Fill full the mouth of Famine
    And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
    The end for others sought,
Watch Sloth and heathen Folly
    Bring all your hopes to nought.

My God, but it sometimes seems to me as if ol' Rudyard must have had an actual, functioning crystal ball or something. Through every successive age, his words just go right on ringing true, with a bell-like clarity unparalleled by any historian, pundit, or raconteur. Some things really don’t ever change, it turns out.