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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Drygulch Dan who wrote (155617)	10/9/2008 11:39:20 AM
From: Smiling Bob	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 306849

I heard an analyst stating how the holiday retail will be a disaster because of the lack of consumer credit available. Now what's wrong with that picture?

To: Drygulch Dan who wrote (155617)	10/9/2008 11:48:39 AM
From: Think4Yourself	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

"GM and F build crappy cars for the middle class." That's the perception but it's not true. Go check the quality ratings for the last few years. They do make some garbage cars but also make some excellent ones. I have a 18 year old Chevy and a 14 year old Chevy sitting in the garage. Both run great, despite the corrosive salt spread on the local roads every winter. Biggest issue I have is the difficulty of fixing them. Mechanics have told me that while it's true those "quality" foreign cars don't need maintenance until later in the life cycle, they are much harder and more expensive to fix. If you dump your car after 150K miles then a quality foreign car might be a good deal. I paid 12K total for both our cars (used) over a decade ago, and figure both have at least 5 years left in them. Total cost of ownership for both vehicles (less gas and insurance) averages less than $1000 a year. It's dropping by the day. Disclosure: I do take excellent care of my vehicles, changing filters and oil nearly on schedule.