I believe in purchasing a vehicle that gets good mileage when warranted. My wife drives a Prius which really does get nearly 50 MPG average. If I drive it in a manner to save gas I can get much better, but that is really beside the point. We didn’t purchase our cars to save money. A new car is the worst investment you can make. OTOH we did get the Prius to save gas which has nothing to do with saving money. (I agree with Richard). I happen to drive a 10 year old 4-WD mid size SUV to haul *stuff* that is too large, too heavy, to sharp, to greasy, or otherwise wouldn’t fit into the Prius.

Big against little. My car prior to the SUV was a TransAm with the corvette engine. A kid in a GMC Jimmy pulled out in front of me with all 4 burning. I had a chance to leave 12′ of skid marks before “T-boning” it. The TA stopped so quick all the antennas were pointed straight forward, The firewall bas back against the dash all the way across and the right front tire was against the right front seat. I wrapped the steering wheel right around the column. Me? I didn’t even get hurt, nor was I sore the next day. The kid in that big SUV ended up in the hospital.

I happen to believe in anthropogenic global warming, but also in taking a common sense approach to it as I’ve been an investor for nigh onto 3 decades and I did the best with coal.

However I do find fault with those who are worried about the costs of mitigating pollution. We’ve either passed the peak or it’s coming up real soon for the world production of oil, regardless of what we have for reserves which is either deep, (expensive to get) or heavy (expensive to process) the price of gas is going to go up and I’d wager within two years it’ll make the $4 to $4.50 we had a year ago look real attractive.

Investors seem to forget about supply and demand while the so called “man on the street” has no idea as to how it works. They continue to burn it as if it were an endless commodity and then complain about the price going up because they use so much. Regardless of what we use for fuel (including electric) it is going to get expensive when we start using a lot. Electric in particular is troublesome as the electric grid is the limiting factor no matter how much we can produce from what ever source. When we start using it in quantity for cars it’s going to get really expensive for home and industry as well. There are a number of alternative sources, but they are either expensive to implement, don’t scale well, are a long way from the consumers, has drastic side effects (removing crop land from producing food), or a combination of all.
When we reach that point I don’t think it’s going to matter much whether people believe in global warming or not. They will be cutting back and purchasing cars that get high mileage, that is when and if they can afford one.

It does make sense to use as little oil as necessary to reduce, or eliminate our (US) dependence on foreign oil. Probably the most sensible approach for the average citizen is to stop living on credit. IOW stop trying to live as if you are part of the upper class…even if you are. We had one multimillionaire here in town who drove old cars most of his life when he could pay cash for a corporate jet.

If you are asking about economic conditions in Poland, I can only give you a personal opinion: After all the media started talking about world wide crisis, in Poland we were thinking ‘what the hell are they talking about’ – 2007 and 2008 were great years for polish companies and people were extremely optimistic about their economic conditions. Only stock investors were affected. At the beginning of 2009 the situation had worsened – companies started to lay off people, real estate market ground to a halt and many businesses have suffered losses. Hovewer, it still doesn’t feel that bad, there were no banking sector problems and no spectacular bankruptcies or government bailouts (even the automotive sector has seen an increase in sales). There was a significant devaluation of polish currency at the beginning of 2009, I think it helped many exporters businesses survive and saved many jobs as Poland has again become a cheap country. Now the biggest problem I see is a huge national budget gap and overly optimistic government – they probably will have some bad news for us at the end of the year. And finally, last week I had to leave my full-time job and started to work as an individual contractor – all because my company needed to cut employment costs. However, I think this is a step in a right direction for me, hope I’ll never have to come back to full-time. Maybe this sounds overly optimistic, but remember Poland is still recovering from the years of communism so this crisis does not look that bad compared to the past.
Now, regarding the EU and USA situation, I’m rather pessimistic because I think many people will suffer when they will have to pay for governments spending and financial corporation excesses. I don’t know where we are headed, but certainly governments do a lot to get us deeper into this mess. EU will not revive the economy with more bureaucracy and central regulations and USA has fundamental economical problems that are hidden by government rather than solved. Hope it doesn’t end with even a bigger crisis.

Best regards and thanks for interesting read at this blog
Rafal

This is an experiment to see if it gets posted. You can write me personally at ranchLT 4 at gmail. com. Shove it all together, of course. Linda

I’m laughing delightedly over your descriptions. I have considerable experience in Germany (where sheer terror is a Porsche blinking his lights shrieking “GET OUT OF MY WAY!” as he zooms forward at 125 MPH, not to be confused with 125K, and the law says I have to shoehorn myself into wall-to-wall enormous trucks in the other lane. Fortunately, it also says–or said–that if I hit the trucks it is THEIR fault for not getting out of MY way, for what consolation that would have been) and Italy and Mexico, where the rule is as I said. If I don’t “see” them they aren’t there, road signs and markings are suggestions no one takes seriously, and the way to cross the Via Nazionale in Rome, 8 lanes wide, is just to pull out into traffic! Slide down into racing position, imagine you’re in a Lotus, and go proove you own the road. Funny? I observed a traffic accident outside Roma. The drivers boiled out, screaming at each other. The next six cars to arrive hadn’t seen the crunch, but every last driver jumped out and joined the fray on one side or another!

Gosh you speak great English. How I envy you. How about a report on conditions in Poland? Tell us what you do and what you think about where the EU and the USA are headed, please.

Warm regards,
Linda (Brady Traynham)