If Madison Avenue is doing the talking (and that's who it seems most American consumers are listening to...) then we can have our cake and eat it too. We can impress our neighbors with our bigger badder behemoth and not have any economic consequences (because the only thing the average schmuck cares about is the monthly payment - with a lower monthly lease payment I CAN afford the monthly gas bill...).
If the campaign-contributing automakers are doing the talking (and that's who the politicians are listening to, and that's who is paying Madison Avenue (see above) to say what they are saying ...) then preserving the more-profitable bigger badder behemoths is what we should be doing.
If sensible people who examine their actual needs and make rational decisions are doing the talking, well they are all nerds, nobody is listening to them - or - they are trapped in the 2nd year of an upside down 5 year lease or note with payments that barely worked when gas was $2 but now is a killer at $3, and they have no exit.
dw
...vehicles, they just need leadership. This is idiocy! It implies that Americans can't FIND such vehicles when there are plenty to choose from. Do these politicians think they are so smart and the people such idiots that we need to wait for them to tell us to buy the higher mileage vehicles we supposedly already want?!

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