Since the first Clean Air Act was passed in 1963 Americans have been howling about the pros and cons of The Gubmint controlling what comes out of vehicle tailpipes. The new regs didn’t have any profound effects on what we drove until that raging liberal Richard Nixon— no doubt distracted by the Vietnam War and influenced by the hydrocarbon-o-riffic air quality of his native Southern California— allowed the Clean Air Act Extension of 1970 to become law. The automakers, having relied upon their vast lobbying power to keep them safe from such troublesome government meddling, hadn’t done much to prepare for heavy-duty restrictions on exhaust emissions and had no choice but to go for the low-tech, power-killing solutions that made the Malaise Era feel so endless. We’re talking about good old-fashioned “smog” emissions here, i.e. hydrocarbons, oxides of nitrogen, and carbon monoxide, not greenhouse gases. The stuff that made Los Angeles air nearly unbreathable for decades. California and federal smog standards made a huge difference in air quality in Southern California and elsewhere, but complying with those standards cost the American automotive industry dearly. Was it worth it? Cars sure as hell put out tiny fractions of the pollutants they once did; you can’t smell hydrocarbons on the freeway these days unless you’re behind an old car, and they say new cars don’t even make enough CO to kill you by running in a closed garage.
There are two ways to look at the early history of tailpipe emission laws in the United States, depending on one’s biases. If you hate and/or fear any form of government regulation of industry, then such laws were a conscious effort to destroy the foundations of American free enterprise, leading directly to meals of groats in the communal kitchen and your children sentenced to 25 years in the Gulag under Article 58, end of story. If you think big corporations just want to externalize all costs at the expense of public health, etc., while sucking the blood out of the working class as an added bonus, then it’s pretty obvious: the only problem with tailpipe emission laws, then and now, is their weakness. We used to have more nuanced ways of looking at such issues, but a decade or so of internet discourse has simplified matters: pick your side!
So, was it worth it? Do the less-blackened lungs of 20 million urban Californians justify a decade of 130-horsepower V8s and billions of lost profits for Detroit? Would market forces have solved the smog problem on their own? Is smog really a problem? Was it a conspiracy? Discuss.
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Government IMHO did HAVE TO mandate lower emissions. They just could have given the automakers more time to figure out how to make it work and perhaps more support in developing fuel injection systems.
Wasn’t it Japan’s small physical size and lack of raw materials that basically mandated Japanese cars to be small and fuel efficient? The way I see it, necessity is the mother of invention. If forced to innovate, your company will either innovate or go extinct. Now we have 4000 pound cars with turboed 4 cylinder cars that get decent MPG.
I moved to Denver in 1995, and I landed a temp job test-driving cars in the mountains (this is where automakers do a lot of their high-altitude durability testing). We used to test in “caravans” of 10 cars or so, and we all had CB radios. My fellow testers were a nice bunch of duffers who were looking for a low stress job to supplement their pensions, and to a man, they were ALL politically right wing. I was the sole left winger. They would listen to Rush Limbaugh all day on KOA, and whenever he apparently said something relevant, they’d all hop on the CB to chime in.
On one day, I guess Rush’s rant of the day was about excessive government regulations. That day, we came down out of the mountains eastbound on I-70, and as I looked down, I saw the infamous “brown cloud” that used to surround Denver for the first time. As we descended downwards towards Denver, the effect was like being in a jetliner descending through clouds, except that these clouds were brown. I got on the CB and said, “Yep, Rush is right…we don’t need the damn gummint to regulate anything.”
Pure silence from the CB.
Since the state instituted stricter emissions standards, we rarely have this issue anymore.
I’m from Denver as well (lived here on and off since 1970) and when I saw this article, THE BROWN CLOUD was the first thing I thought of…
There have been a lot of changes to help the pollution in Denver – less gravel on the streets during winter storms, which of course gets ground-up into dust and then goes into the air, is a huge improvement for one – but yeah, there is no doubting the amazing effects of diminished auto emissions.
Denver air is s a good example of a positive outcome for The Tragedy of the Commons dilemma played out in the US, and a great example of how to attack community wide problem and address it systemically. (And that means government involvement.) I’d be curious to read some research that discuses the impact of auto emissions in Denver over the last 50 years or so; it’s just made an incredible improvement in quality of life.
Exactly. As much as people bitch about Envirotest, and not being able to burn wood in your fireplace, there’s no doubt that the regulations have made this a MUCH nicer place to live.
A nice side benefit: Denver hasn’t suffered nearly as much in this recession as some other Western cities have. Any correlation? You decide. :)
Get a LOPI or similar burner and burn away.
Wonderful story. Thanks. As a bicyclist and runner, in a suburban area, I am grateful for the pollution standards, knowing I can breathe easier when I exercise, and that I’m less likely to come down with certain chronic illnesses.
As a car guy, I’m grateful I don’t have to apologize for much pollution on the part of my favorite machines.
I do remember, early on in the push for pollution control, the ’76 Volare my parents bought. The damn thing would choke as you took off, dangerously, and the factory couldn’t seem to do anything about it. The car was totaled in the early ’80s when it stalled coming out onto a main drag and someone, blinded by the glare on an icy, snowy day, rear-ended it. “We’re well rid of that car,” my father said.
My friend, Don Miller, a mechanic says that when people brought those things into his shop a second time for that problem, they would drill something out in the carb, which cleared the problem up. Too bad I didn’t know Don when my parents bought that thing.
Agreed.
as much as ‘car guys’ rag on my ’77 Chevelle, I’ll leave the converter on the exhaust and the rest of the stock emission controls on it. They don’t really rob that much power, except for the obsolete factory pellet catalytic converter.
Back when I had my 76 and had to have it smogged, it always amazed me at how effective they were despite being super primitive. I remember a few times it being cleaner than mom’s then new ’92 LeSabre. Of course I kept it tuned to an inch of its life, but I appreciate clean air as well.
In the spring of ’93, I drove out to the Green Mountain area west of Denver to help a friend set up a new computer. As I exited my car, I turned to look east and saw – that I couldn’t see – the city center. It looked like a lake of dirty brown water had submerged everything east of Federal Blvd. I thought “damn: I’ve been breathing that”.
2 months after that morning, I received a telephone call from a friend in Colorado Springs, a bit less than an hour’s drive south of where I was living. He was taking up a special project in another state and wanted someone to look after his house while he was away for 18 months. I didn’t hesitate to take him up on the offer, and quickly found a reason to remain in the city upon his return. The spectre of Denver’s infamous brown cloud was more than enough incentive for me to find something to do here, even with the greater opportunities to the north.
While I will not argue against the clean air regulations in general I do believe they need to be appllied equally, especially when comparing modern automobile ICE performance to the myriad small engines in use throughout urban and suburban areas. Yes, the days of the super lightweight bagless, magnesium deck lawn mowers may be long gone, but one thing I don’t miss about that era was the visible particulate cloud even a well tuned small engine of that period produced.
The thing anyone in Denver has to realize is that Denver has topographic and atmospheric conditions as peculiar as the Los Angeles basin, causing smog buildup in both places. Emissions standards have dramatically improved the air quality there, but the effect was smaller in other places, and negligible in some, like Boston, whose pollution gets blown over the Atlantic.
“The bowl” and the inversion layer which exacerbates the problem is the main reason I do not begrudge Colorado adopting California’s more strict exhaust quality standards for motor vehicles, especially for Denver and the surrounding areas. I believe the biggest air quality hazard there now happens after snowstorms bring out the plows and grit spreaders; as the roads dry up, the material ends up being ground into airborne particulates by passing traffic. Here in El Paso county, the weather pattens rapidly disperse any airborne pollutants.
When I was in Telluride, I was told about the infamous inversion layer and the small scale version of LA in the mountains. The biggest offender was from the burning of wood, so a permit system was instituted. To burn your fireplace, you needed a permit and there was a limited number issued. The smoke problem was solved but there was an unintended consequence. Permits in short supply traded hands for whatever the market would bear. My last trip there was 5 years ago, and the going advertised price was $10,000.00. Since the hyperwealthy who built slopeside McMansions needed several permits, the price of them is out of reach for most people. That was a bad side effect. And those fireplaces in the McMansions don’t even get used very often.
My house is one of the few in the neighborhood which does not have a fireplace – a decision on my part based on prior experience with real fireplaces. I find that a 27inch TV with a suitable crackling fire DVD continuously displayed compares very favorably with the actual fireplace experience.
I find that a 27inch TV with a suitable crackling fire DVD continuously displayed compares very favorably with the actual fireplace experience.
Do you also find that watching people drive on tv compares favorably with the actual driving experience?
Do you find that watching people have sex on tv compares favorably with the actual experience of having sex?
You’re taking the comparison a step too far. It should probably be:
Do you also find that watching people drive on tv compares favorably with watching a live race?
Do you find that watching people have sex on tv compares favorably with watching a live sex show?
I would say they’re both acceptable substitutes considering they require less money and effort and it’s still a passive experience either way. A live fire really isn’t that exciting to me. If you find that the gap between a porn video and real sex or between watching racing on television and actually driving a track is comparable to the gap between watching an artificial fire and a real fire, one of us is doing something wrong!
Footprint curve based fuel per distance with max emmissions per mile of each specific pollutant + registration checks periodically + fuel standards would seem to be logical regulation. Also need to set long time periods to give certainty. global harmonization would be nice. Some discouragement of safety-by-mass approach. Not too far off today’s but far enough and varied enough to be frustrating.
As someone who suffers from asthma and knowing that ground level ozone can greatly affect your breathing from day to day, I really have no issue with mandating limits on what pollutants cars emit. In fact, if it weren’t for stricter limits on emissions, we probably wouldn’t have the outstanding durability of engines as we do these days. This has been an indirect benefit of the govt compelling the companies to ensure the emissions controls work for 100,000 miles.
What’s really scary is to see that diagram of the 70’s Honda CVCC vacuum lines. Considering that most other manufacturer’s had something similar, it’s amazing that any of those cars ran at all!
Hondas were far and away the worst offenders for number of vacuum hoses. The fact that many of them went to the vacuum computer made it even more of a pain to diagnose and repair. The one nice thing is that they did print the “circuit” number on the hose every few inches. Still doing head gaskets and replacing engines was a nightmare on those cars.
Yes, hah hah hah, I used to have that exact same diagram burned into my eyelids as I owned four 1986-7 carbureted 1.5l Civics, and each one of them had driveability issues which required HOURS of troubleshooting (each individual vacuum-controlled system, there were 10-15 IIRC, had to be checked and ruled out).
I still am in amazement when I see a Honda of that era driving around today, as nobody knows how (or wants) to work on those things anymore.
When I saw that vacuum tube diagram, I considered myself fortunate that my 1982 Buick Skylark with 173cid V6 motor didn’t have that needlessly complicated system.
The small fuel leak in the proximity of carburettor set ablaze while I was waiting for that damn left turn signal to go green. The result was melted vacuum tubes and a few minor cosmetic damage.
Thinking it would be easy buying the new set of vacuum tubes and reconnecting them as shown in the repair manual, right? Wrong! None of the repair manual on market (circa 1988) didn’t show any damn diagram at all.
I spent a few weeks scouting the second-hand car forecourts, looking for the GM X-Body cars with carburetted 173cid V6. They were damn hard to come by nowadays (no surprise if the vacuum tubes had led them astray and into the pasture).
After finishing up putting together the tubes in the appropriate plugs and such, the Saturn V rocket had better fuel consumption than my Buick. I had to fill up the tank almost every two days as it got about five to eight miles per gallon in city driving and astounding ten to twelve on highway.
I considered fitting the 100 gallon tank in the trunk, but my father put it up for sale and gave me the 1986 Chevrolet Celebrity.
Yes, I remember when my brother bought a brand new 1978 Mercury Zephyr ES (Ford Fairmont clone, we were Mercury people!) with a 2.3L 4 cylinder and a 4 speed manual trans. That car didn’t run well from the factory, and after many, many attempts by the local LM dealer to fix issues with the car (stalling, rough running, poor fuel mileage, so common for the times), they threw up their hands in frustration.
He was pretty disheartened to pay on that car for three years and never getting it to run right. He kept the car for six years and eventually replaced it with an AMC Eagle that had way fewer problems and lasted for 14 years…
Is this proposition really debatable today? I spent a summer working in Los Angeles in 1969. There were days when the air was a kind of “white” color and I would go into coughing spasms. How did Detroit “lose money”? The emissions mandate was the equivalent of a tax, universally imposed. So no one company should have been competitively disadvantaged, unless, of course, their response to the mandate was cars that ran poorly, relative to others. Sure, most of the cars made in the mid-1970s (even before Jimmy Carter was elected president) ran poorly. But the key to effective emission controls that do not rob power and decrease fuel economy seems to have been the availability of cheap computing power to optimize all of the operating parameters of an ICE in real time. That computing power certainly was not available in the 1970s. So, I don’t think it’s fair to flay Detroit too heavily.
The rotary engine in my 1973 Mazda RX-2 started easily and ran well. It also would not get better than 20 mpg on the highway . . . which is pathetic for a small car that probably weighed 2000 lbs. The Honda CVCC engine in my 1978 Accord ran well and was easy on fuel. The car was, by today’s standards, very small, very light and not at all crash-worthy. With emissions being regulated in grams/mile, obviously a smaller displacement engine working less hard to propel a lighter vehicle is going to have an easier time of it. The first “normal” sized car I owned was a 1984 Jeep Cherokee with a 4-cylinder. It started easily and ran well . . . and got about 24 mpg on the highway. It also had some electronic engine controls, IIRC.
Fuel economy standards are another subject entirely. There are no more “externalities” to fuel economy than there are to a myriad of other individual purchase decisions, like, say, the size of the house one lives in (or a house vs. an equivalent size townhouse or apartment).
My own theory is that part of the “global warming/climate change” movement is simply driven by the pre-existing network of advocacy groups and regulatory agencies that lobbied against pollution which are now looking for a new mission. This is a common phenomenon. The “March of Dimes” originated as a foundation that collected dimes in containers placed in stores to work to care for children afflicted with polio. Polio having been eradicated in the U.S. and in most advanced countries, the “March of Dimes” didn’t just fold up and say “We won!” It “repurposed” itself into a foundation that “fights premature birth.” Since there are a myriad of causes of premature birth, some unavoidable, this mission will be never-ending, which of course serves the institutional interest of the foundation and its employees.
Interesting, but if you think the US has ‘won’ the CO2 emissions issue, and that these agencies should be disbanded because their mission is no longer relevant, or that they don’t have enough work as it is, take a look the link below. That’s a graph of CO2 emissions per capita in the US, which has been flat for about the last 30 years, after a small decrease in the early 1970’s.
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met_y=en_atm_co2e_pc&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=co2+emissions
That graph looks bogus. Turn on the Afghanistan dataset and see how low the World Bank claims their per capita emissions are. Really? Wood, coal, or peat cooking fires don’t release CO2?
http://transitionculture.org/2008/05/19/is-burning-wood-really-a-long-term-energy-descent-strategy/
They probably called all forms of “pre-industrial” activity “carbon-neutral” in order to make a point and exert leverage on people in “first world” countries.
If that logic is acceptable, then I can claim my car is solar-powered. After all, the dead dinos ate plants which were powered by the sun!
@SP
You’re kidding, right? About Afghanistan? That’s a third world country. The US is the major industrialized nation with the greatest per capita co2 emissions. the average denizen of the Third World uses a tiny fraction of the amount of energy used by an American. There simply is no comparison. For example, the average American consumes about 12,000 kwh/yr. The average Afghani: around 35. The per capita income in Afghanistan is less than $1000.
You can compute your own CO2 score at http://www.earthlab.com. (You can put in bogus email address to protect yourself from spam.) That site says the average USA person scores about 15. The google site gives USA per capita of 19, but I suppose that includes non-personal emissions such as manufacturing etc.
@David Holzman:
No, I am absolutely not kidding, and I know Afghanistan is third-world, as implied by my reference to first-world countries (see above).
I looked further into the World Bank’s data, and there is an explanation that they only included “the burning of fossil fuels and the manufacture of cement”. So, as I had guessed, they deliberately excluded most of the CO2 that the Afghanis actually do emit.
If you use dry grass to heat a stew-pot, it most definitely does emit CO2, and at a faster rate than if you had allowed it to naturally decompose. So I think it is very intellectually dishonest to exclude that from a “carbon footprint” comparison. (On a personal note, I suspect that it was done that way because of a certain bi… Oops, almost said the banning word … frame of mind on the part of the chart’s sponsors and/or authors.)
Here is an interesting paper on the subject of CO2 emissions from wood, apparently undertaken in the interest of complying with labyrinthine European standards on the subject.
http://www.americanhardwood.org/…/A_preliminary_assessment_of_the_carbon_footprint_of_American_hardwood.doc
The first listed assumption seems to be the most relevant. “The amount of carbon stored in dry wood is approximately 50% by weight. When burnt, 1 kg of carbon will produce 3.67 tonnes of carbon dioxide.”
The World Bank says that Afghanis only emit 0.03 metric tons of CO2 per capita per year. Unfortunately, that much CO2 is released by the burning of … 16 grams of wood. I am pretty sure that each Afghani uses more than 16 grams of wood per year.
(The World Bank might counter these facts with the point that the paper I linked to is about *American* hardwood, which explains its evil planet-killing AGW potential. But I tend to think that wood burns the same all over.)
Further musings on the subject … If the Taliban blows up a Humvee, or if the US bombs an IED plant, who gets blamed for the CO2 emissions?
Burning wood is pretty much carbon-neutral unless you’re doing it on a massive scale.
I don’t think people realize what “carbon neutral” is. Burning wood isn’t really a big deal: that carbon hasn’t been out of the atmosphere for long and would be readily reabsorbed by the biosphere (provided we don’t defoliate the planet). The same applies to, eg, breathing or cattle ranching.
What is a concern is releasing previously-locked-up carbon by the megaton into the atmosphere and oceans at a rate beyond which the biosphere can cope. Climate change is one result; ocean acidification is another, potentially much nastier problem.
This is why carbon sequestration shows some potential. It would be nice, too, if we weren’t destroying many of nature’s own sequestration systems.
Wow! Did I ever say that? AFAIC, the CO2 “emissions issue” is a non-issue. Why? Not because “global warming” isn’t happening (although that appears to be debatable). Not because industrial-scale CO2 emissions are not a material factor in global warming (although that, too, appears to be debatable). But because the proposed “solutions” have such huge costs and produce such negligible mitigation. Adaptation, assuming it is necessary, seems like a far more optimum solution.
Regardless of ethnicity, nationality or any other factor, it is a constant that industrialization and urbanization reduce population growth to zero, or, in some countries, like Japan, to less than zero. What that means is that global population has likely peaked and will soon decline. That and the inevitable increase in efficiency of industrial processes and transportation will reduce CO2 emissions, assuming it’s a concern; and assuming political foolishness does not cause the rejection of non-combustion energy sources like nuclear power.
@SP “When burnt, 1 kg of carbon will produce 3.67 tonnes of carbon dioxide.”
—
That is off by a factor of exactly 1,000.
Atomic weight of carbon = 12, atomic weight of oxygen = 16
Molecular weight of CO2 = 12 + 2*16 = 44,
44/12 = 3.67
Ergo – 1 weight unit of C gives 3.67 weight units of CO2.
+1. Most do not want to admit that the emmissions problem has been essentially solved. Did they have to be so tough on auto emissions? Interesting questions, as attention to emissions from powerplants and other stationary sources have been huge as well. How many houses heat with coal now as compared to the 1940s?
Any discussion going forward has to address the law of dminishing returns. But there is no serious debate that the air is much cleaner now and that this is largely due to the regulation of combustion emissions of all kinds.
Tis true. With modern cars being incredibly clean burning, I’m racking my brain as to what a good anti-emissions argument would be.
Sure 120 hp V8s sucked, (as much horsepower as my ’87 Camry had, ha) but how much of this was just emissions regs, and how much of this was Detroit in general sucking? How much of this was caused by Detroit keeping old engine tech in production with bodge solutions instead of just, y’know, designing new engines for the new environment? I ask this question sincerely.
Because if the entire argument against emissions regs is that in the seventies it made certain traditional types of American cars (the land barge, the muscle car) less viable for a bit, I’d say it’s not much of an argument.
The idea may have been good, but the implementation was dreadful. We wasted massive amounts of fuel and money with grossly inefficient, unreliable, short lived garbage cars for a decade and a half because the government isn’t as smart as it thinks it is. Look at the Mercedes 3.5 liter V8 of 1971 compared with the 4.5 liter US market V8 of 1974. Fuel economy was off by 40% while performance was also reduced in spite of a displacement increase, and this was on an OHC FI engine from a company of serious engineers at the time. The effects in US cars were even worse. In the mid ’80s, when europe was getting ready to implement emissions controls similar to ours, the performance gap between their cars and ours was still dramatic, and MPG for comparable performing cars were still 40% better there. Adopting standards 15 years before the technology matured just cost us about a third of the gasoline used here between 1972 and 1992, plus most of our auto industry.
@CJ: Your sample concerning the MB motor is missing something. The train of thought was back in the carbureted days was high compression = high NOx levels. The big objective back then was to reduce NOx levels, and the fastest (and coincidentally cheapest) way was to reduce compression levels. Also, unleaded gasoline was a lower octane level, too. The only way to keep previous drivability levels was to increase displacement, practically every car maker did.
Speaking of unleaded gasoline, I had heard (years ago) that it took more crude oil to make unleaded fuel. I find this hard to believe, as “leaded” fuel had ethyl added to it to make it knock resistant. Still, in the back of my mind I’ve never been able to verify it.
Regardless, if the external forces (like the govt) had not acted on the car companies to clean up exhaust emissions, the technology would have been very slow in developing. Fuel injection, feedback converters and the processing power to run a complete engine management system would have taken longer to develop without this outside pressure, IMO.
Even the paragon of our sepia toned emissions controlled carburetor malaise memories, the Honda CVCC, could be an unreasonable b*tch if/when the carb or the vacuum lines got old and crotchety.
To your point, the implementation sucked because we hadn’t developed the tools, yet. The development of the modern car seems to lag a bit behind the development of modern micro-processing power pretty faithfully, IMO. And it did come at a high price, although domestically, I think CAFE did far, far more damage than emissions controls ever could have.
@CJ:
Comparing Mercedes engine technology to American engine technology circa 1971 is not exactly apt. Their cars had been engineered to a higher standard LONG before ours began to catch up…and that’s why they cost so much more.
No bias against the domestic automakers in that comment. No, none at all.
Given how arrogant the then-Big 3 were at the time, the only way any emissions restrictions were going to happen was with government regulation. The hysterics the big 3 auto execs pulled in congressional hearings on the subject in a way hurt them to this very day: it showed them making wild predictions of doom, none of which came true. This set the idea in many people’s minds that auto execs were liars in what could or could not be done. This was true with emissions, but became, uh, problematic when these same people tried to legislate electric cars into existence.
Also, fun fact about the politics of the time: Nixon saw that environmentalism was emerging as a political issue, and he wanted Republicans to own that territory. Hence the big moves into environmental regulation.
@neb – you have to admit that over the space of 10 years, the auto industry got hit with a lot. Emission regs, safety regs, then fuel economy regs. And none of the bad predictions came true? Studebaker finally quit the car business on the eve of new 1967 safety and 1968 emission requirements. AMC and Chrysler were nearly put under. These laws vastly increased costs in the industry, which would hit the smaller players hardest.
As for the US manufacturers, there was a long learning curve and it was not until the late 80s or early 90s that cars regained the basic drivability of those from the 60s or early 70s.
I do not quarrel with the safety or emission requirements, I understand why these had to be done (or at least why they were good ideas). CAFE, not so much. But there have been a lot of tradeoffs and unintended consequences that have resulted.
The technical problem of emissions has been solved, but the political problem will always be ongoing. There are political forces that want to dismantle any regulation that will put money in their pockets. The same with the current attack on unions. Child labor laws, workplace safety standards, wage standards, etc. are not set in stone. These things can be legislated out of existence. Another example: the dismantling of Glass-Steagall was, in some part, the root of our current depression and spawned the current legalized wild west Wall Street culture. People who say we don’t need air quality bureaucracies don’t know what they are talking about.
The repeal of the Glass Steagall Act had nothing to do with the current economic crisis. And the battle over public employee unions has nothing to do with this particular issue, either.
@JP: Good point about the auto industry getting hit with lots of new regs, not just emission standards. (Heck, not to mention the oil shocks.) In emission standards (at least) the government should have allowed industry to collaborate with each other, to bring down costs of implementing all this new technology. They didn’t, of course, so yeah, all these new external costs were a burden, especially to smaller players.
Maybe that’s where the nutmeat of this discussion lies: AMC and Chrysler were sick, even before these rounds of new regulations. How much of what eventually happened to the auto industry was a result of these costs denying resources to other areas? I don’t have an answer to that one.
AMC was killed by bad product decisions – in particular, the 1974 Matador coupe and 1975 Pacer. We can’t blame the government for AMC’s death.
Both of those cars required unique tooling that could only be recouped with relatively high volumes, but their strange styling guaranteed that this would never happen. The company should have invested that money in an update for the Hornet and Gremlin, which shared the same platform, had sold well and would have continued selling well with regular updates.
Chrysler suffered from bad product decisions as well, although CAFE and various government regulations gave it less room for error. Chrysler’s big problem was that it had never sold ENOUGH full-size and intermediate cars. Its strength was in relatively low-profit compacts (Valiant/Duster and Dart). GM and Ford sold lots of high-profit Delta 88s, DeVilles, Continental Mark Vs and LTD Landaus, all of which paid for the retooling required by CAFE.
“The repeal of the Glass Steagall Act had nothing to do with the current economic crisis.”
geeber, have you not heard of the phrase “Too Big To Fail?” The repeal of Glass-Steagall allowed commercial banks like Citibank to start engaging in activities that had been previously been reserved for investment banks, e.g., underwriting and trading collaterized debt obligations and mortgage-backed securities. When the value of these securities went south so did Citibank’s (and many others) financial health. No, the repeal of G-S was not the ONLY cause of our problems but it was a factor. I won’t discuss unions with you until you turn down the “Rush Limbaugh Show” on your radio.
@ geeber –
Ok, I’ll bite: while the repeal of Glass-Steagall did not *directly* lead to the implosion of the US economy, it was certainly a massive contributing factor. The repeal of this legislation essentially allowed the financial firms to raid the chicken coop and gorge themselves so much that the public sector was forced into saving them (and that’s a whole different argument for another day…).
Government’s responsibility is to protect “the commons” from the psychopaths of the world…of which there are many. These are the people who, by definition, have little to no empathy for others and who fixate on a goal and how to achieve it, regardless the potential consequences. This is why we have rule of law, why there are regulations for industries. The financial services industry tends to attract these types of individuals because the potential rewards are so great and the hyper-competitive nature of that business requires ruthlessness.
Glass-Steagall was very common sense legislation from a very common sense period of American history (1930s). We would do well to heed the lessons of that period because while history may not repeat itself, it sure does rhyme. (Mark Twain, I believe….)
Glass-Steagall did contribute to the financial crisis but all those banks were too big to fail well before GS was repealed. Citi had been effectively bailed out several times over the 20 or so years prior to the end of Glass-Steagall. The loose money policies of the Federal Reserve and the relaxing of mortgage underwriting standards to comply with the CRA were the major causes of the crisis. Just remember before Glass-Steagall was repealed all the money center banks had investment banking and trading arms anyway.
By the way, from what I have read of Rush Limbaugh’s thoughts on the financial crisis, you actually agree with him. How does thst feel? Or maybe you were just using him as a straw man to show how clever you are?
getacargetacheck: geeber, have you not heard of the phrase “Too Big To Fail?”
Yes, but it has nothing to do with the Glass-Steagall Act.
getacargetacheck: The repeal of Glass-Steagall allowed commercial banks like Citibank to start engaging in activities that had been previously been reserved for investment banks, e.g., underwriting and trading collaterized debt obligations and mortgage-backed securities. When the value of these securities went south so did Citibank’s (and many others) financial health.
It helps to understand exactly what both the Glass-Steagall Act and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act actually did.
The Glass-Steagall Act required the separation of investment and commercial banking. It prohibited commercial banks from underwriting or dealing in securities, or from affiliating with firms that engaged in that business.
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act only repealed the second provision, thus allowing banks and securities firms to be affiliated under the same holing compnany.
Banks are still prohibited from underwriting or dealing in securities.
The banks that got into trouble did so by investing in bad mortgages or mortgage-backed securities (still prohibited for certain banks – Gramm-Leach-Bliley did not affect this), not because of securities activities of an affiliated securities firm (the part that was allowed by Gramm-Leach-Bliley).
If anything, Gramm-Leach-Bliley enabled banks to diversify, thus strengthening them.
getacargetacheck: I won’t discuss unions with you until you turn down the “Rush Limbaugh Show” on your radio.
I don’t listen to Rush Limbaugh (I prefer classic rock myself), but then I don’t get my arguments from Solidarity or AFSCME publications, either. It’s probably best that you don’t discuss this topic, as union rhetoric from the latter two sources tends not to hold up too well in the real world.
To further Geeber’s points:
Allowing banks and securities firms to affiliate under the same holding company has had no effect on the current financial crisis.
None of the investment banks that have gotten into trouble — Bear, Lehman, Merrill, Goldman or Morgan Stanley — were affiliated with commercial banks.
And none of the banks that have major securities affiliates — Citibank, Bank of America, and J.P. Morgan Chase, to name a few — are among the banks that have thus far encountered serious financial problems. Indeed, the ability of these banks to diversify into non-banking activities has been a source of their strength.
Most important, the banks that have succumbed to financial problems — Wachovia (my former bank), Washington Mutual and IndyMac, among others — got into trouble by investing in bad mortgages or mortgage-backed securities, not because of the securities activities of an affiliated securities firm. Federal Reserve regulations significantly restrict transactions between banks and their affiliates.
So, no, Gramm-Leach-Bliley wasn’t the root of the problem.
For that you should check out the new book “Reckless Endangerment” by Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner.
“By the way, from what I have read of Rush Limbaugh’s thoughts on the financial crisis, you actually agree with him. How does th[a]t feel?”.
Great. I always knew he was a smart guy!
Government’s responsibility is to protect “the commons” from the psychopaths of the world…of which there are many.
And who will protect the commons (and private property as well) from the psychopaths in government?
Right now a friend of mine is facing 93 days in jail for growing tomatoes in her front yard. It’s bad enough that the city is hanging their case on the unquestionably unconstitutionally vague word “suitable”, but the city planner, an unelected and unaccountable bureaucrat is claiming that the dictionary definition of “suitable” is “common”. But then he also told the media that the vegetable planters “consume the entire front yard” when in fact they take up less than 25% of the front yard. Based on city officials’ support of the city planner and the city attorney’s vow to prosecute the case to the bitter end, I’m going to say that paying 25% of our property tax will take care of the “entire” debt.
http://oakparkhatesveggies.wordpress.com/
The banks that got into trouble did so by investing in bad mortgages or mortgage-backed securities
You’re missing the point. They didn’t merely invest in bad mortgages, they created them. They created those mortgages because they were motivated to create securities that could be sold off to investors.
The banking crisis was the result of banks migrating from a portfolio lending model to a servicing model. Instead of making money on the spread, they made money by taking fees, which naturally increased as the volumes increased. Because much of the risk had been shifted elsewhere via the security, they didn’t care about the underwriting nearly as much as they did about the opportunity for new fees, which came from renting out more money.
MBS’s include a small back piece held by the bankers that put the deal together. The risk was considered low enough that they wouldn’t be harmed by their relatively small share of the risk. They were wrong.
I’ve been in a finance-related business for some time. In my opinion, the last person who you want in charge of a bank during a time of financial crisis is a banker. Bankers are very good at renting out money to customers and at keeping track of the payments when those payments are made, but the same guys are next to worthless when the payments are stopped. They are in the business of marketing, not crisis management.
During the lead up to the Depression, banks made more aggressive loans in order to support new sources of revenue. Glass-Steagall put a stop to that, and made banking a very boring, low return but stable business. They were fools to get rid of it; it’s no mistake that we had a seven-decade gap between crashes when we had it, when we used to have depressions and panics every 10-20 years when we didn’t.
While I am all for emissions regulation, our current setup where some states abide by the federal regulations and others follow the California regulations is too complicated.
Emissions should be regulated at the federal level only, the individual states should get no say in something that is as mobile by its very nature as a car. Under our current system I can’t sell a new car to someone who wants to register it in CA emissions state even though that car is perfectly clean and legal in FL.
Let’s get all 50 states on board with the same requirements, cut out a bunch of beaurocracy, and save everyone some time and money.
Yes you can. I did just that. I bought a new car in FL and registered it in CA 6 months later when I moved here. Of course, CA charges a hefty sales/registration tax to make sure you pay dearly (FL allows you to skirt the amount of sales tax on the value of your trade, CA does not).
While I am all for emissions regulation, our current setup where some states abide by the federal regulations and others follow the California regulations is too complicated
It’s actually not that complicated: either you build to CARB standards, or you don’t. Considering that California and other states that subscribe to CARB comprise the bulk of car buyers, we have a de facto standard.
I don’t think you’d ever get all 50 states on board, not when you’ve places with very different climates (political or otherwise) and, as such, any standard would end up being badly compromised. This does mean that people in non-CARB states get shafted, but really, it’s the market at work: more people live in states and vote for governments that support CARB regs.
Getacar – There are workarounds, yes. You can buy a car without CA Emissions and register it in a non-CA emissions state, then reregister it in a CA emissions state after moving. There are also some vehicles which are come 50 states certified, conforming to both CA and the federal emissions standards. However, the federal emissions standards aren’t exactly a subset of the CARB standards. Technically you aren’t supposed to register a CA emissions only (non 50 state) car in FL, though FL does let you, and since there is no inspection in most counties you can get away with it.
Trying to sell a non-CA emissions (and non 50 state emissions) car to be registered for the first time in a CA emissions state leads to trouble though. We run into it a lot with snowbirds who have plates from their northern home state who want to buy down here in FL but keep the registration and tags for the northern state. It’s happened where people have bought non CA-emissions cars, been told that they were not legal to drive when they got back up north, and created a paperwork nightmare where we had to buy the cars back and sell them back as used cars so they could keep their northern registrations and get around the CA emissions requirement for inspection/registration.
Psar –
I’d be fine with all 50 states using the CARB rules, or everyone using the federal rules, let’s just all use the same rules.
If the Soviet Union had ruled the entire world, none of their citizens would ever have known how bad they had it. Only comparison with other, slightly more enlightened locales, showed them their backwardness.
Competition always improves the participants, as they observe each others failures and successes, and adapt. There’s nothing special about regulation. It’s much better to regulate at as local a level as at all possible, and to err on the side of too local, rather than too wide. This goes for emissions regulation, health care, the silly efforts by the Euros directed at “tax harmonization”, and every other conceivable regulatory regime. Why on earth should someone living in a barren desert with no neighbors anywhere, be construed to have the same tradeoff preference between NoX emissions and vehicle cost, as someone living in Metro Los Angeles?
If such a local patchwork of legislation leads some (or all for that matter) to simply build to the strictest common denominator, that is simply an economic decision made against the backdrop of current technology. It will leave in place incentives for more differentiated manufacturing, providing a pot of gold for any entrepreneur capable of solving them.
Except that pollution is a global thing. If your vehicle’s pollution was confined to a cute little cloud that followed you around as you drove, then it would make sense that it should be regulated locally.
stuki –
While I agree with you in principle that “local is better”, I don’t think we can apply that to *all* situations. For example, take water rights in the southwestern US: policy set in Colorado effects those in Southern California since a major waterway travels that way.
Same with pollution – you can’t locally regulate it if it is something that can spread to other locales.
@Nullo: we pretty much are. There’s no point to making a non-CARB vehicle in North America because non-CARB states (and Canada) don’t buy as many cars as CARB states to make it worthwhile.
It’s not a real standard, but a de facto one, and not a bad one at that.
As others have noted, pollutants and their effects don’t usually have any regard for local political or property boundaries, so local regulations that are not coordinated with all the other local regions affected (or who might be affected) by such policies will likely be very problematic.
Good idea.
Detroit would never have implemented the systems needed on their own; why compromise the cash cow?
If the public demanded it – it would only be after air pollution was so bad, that the Japanese would have happily responded immediately with pollution controls.
Detroit would have lobbied and marketed and resisted.
Until sales tanked so bad, they were forced to respond out of desperation.
Have we seen this before? Seems kinda familiar.
Because, after all, the Japanese are living saints and Detroiters are demons.
Unfortunately many Americans suffer from oikophobia, fear of the familiar, the opposite of xenophobia.
Clean air is for wimps. I demand the right to have air that I can see, and I don’t understand why some limp-wristed hippie Marxist leftist pinko commie should keep me from enjoying it or the iron lung that I have purchased for my retirement.
Ha ha ha! Good one!
Hey, it’s the free market at work. You want clean air, you should pay for it.
If poor people can’t afford rebreathers and oxygen tanks, that’s their problem. The market clearly doesn’t demand cleaner-burning.
You have to remember that any truly free market, free enough to allow you to emit tiny lead particles into my lungs, will also allow me emitting .45 caliber ones into your head.
The common leftist chant that recognizing people benefit from freedom to arrange their lives and affairs, is somehow akin to justifying obvious pollution, only holds in the corner case of anarchy.
Stuki,
How dare you use logic to question our moral superiors?
stuki: “You have to remember that any truly free market, free enough to allow you to emit tiny lead particles into my lungs, will also allow me emitting .45 caliber ones into your head.”
Ronnie: “How dare you use logic to question our moral superiors?”
Logic? Violence and threats of violence mark the end of logic and argumentation. I see little logic or argumentation here.
I agree that allowing people the freedom to “arrange their lives and affairs” does not in itself entail pollution, but the complete absence of external, government regulations can only work if people are willing to self-regulate their actions so as to respect the freedoms and rights of their neighbors. In other words, people can and should be free to “arrange their lives and affairs” within reason. Unjustified threats to another with .45 caliber pieces of lead does not seem reasonable.
Regulation need not entail the denial of freedom, as some here suggest. In fact, I would argue that regulation is a necessary condition of any society that would recognize and respect the freedoms and rights of others. The only question is whether such regulation can be entirely internal (i.e. self-regulation) or external (some form of government).
The case of automobile emissions (and pollution in general) is an interesting one because its potential effects (given the cumulative effects of the mass production of emissions) extend well beyond the ‘lives and affairs’ of the individuals that produce such emissions (so that your ‘neighbor’ can actually be at the other end of the county, the state, the country, and even the world).
The real and very difficult question is whether we can rely upon all individuals to self-regulate their emissions production in a reasonable manner that respects the freedoms and rights of their local, state, national, international, and global neighbors, or whether regulation on that scale needs to be supplemented by the external regulation of government. I’ve seen some arguments supporting the latter, but very few (Ronnie’s moralistic pot shots aside) for the former.
Reading all of the above, it reminds me how bad the air really was 40 years ago and how much it has improved since.
For example, my old air force base – Beale AFB – is 40 miles north of Sacramento and about 10 miles east of Marysville-Yuba City. A few miles west of that is a geological formation known as the Sutter Buttes. On most days, especially in the mornings, I could look west and see the buttes so clearly I could almost touch them. I did notice increasingly more often, that when the wind was right, the brown smog would blow in either from the Bay Area or up the valley and on those days, it was as if those buttes never existed. The visibility would be reduced to around 4 miles. Even the Sierra foothills on the east side of the base only 4 miles from my barracks were fuzzy.
Was it a good thing to have the CAFE regulations? I suppose so. Ever follow along behind an un-updated old car from that era now? It stinks!
I will not delve into government policy or the right or wrong of it, but it appears something had to force the issue on how to deal with it. The big 3 certainly took their time implementing changes and what we wound up with were cars that couldn’t compete with the imports. People began buying the imports because of efficiency – in size and fuel saving. The workmanship of those imports were lacking, but were improving every day. The big three gave us ill-designed small engines, opera windows, Corinthian leather, rust, velour, shag carpeting, multiple-piece squeaky door panels and still charged us $75 bucks for an AM radio!
This comment made me think about government policy in general. Specifically – CAFE and getting people to buy more fuel efficient vehicles. For all of the bluster of CAFE for the last 30 years, it wasn’t until oil went into the stratosphere a few years ago that people started to trade down and economize on their vehicles. Six months of high fuel prices accomplished what 30 years of mandates couldn’t.
I think that there was enough popular support for the clean air act because enough people were negatively impacted by it. There hasn’t been as much support for raising gasoline taxes and thus the price of gasoline because people perceive that as a negative tax.
Weird, I know, but that’s how America works: hit ’em in the pocketbook and you’ll get a reaction.
While the early implementation was painful, the long term results were well worth it. Early emissions may have caused vehicles to run poorly, that handicap affected all carmakers. Much of the problems that Detroit had were not due to emmission regs. Poor fit and finsh were not caused by crappy EGR valves. Go to any boat show or car show and smell the unburned hydrocarbons. Now picture being stuck in a modern traffic jam. Anybody who thinks that modern emission controls are not needed is nuts. One of the primary reasons engines last so long is that we now have precise fuel delivery because of fuel injection. We have fuel injection because of emission requirments. And part of why this worked so well is that we slowly ratcheted up the standards on a reasonably consistant basis. Imagine how much less painful new mileage standards would be to meet had we had slow, incremental progress on mileage requiements instead of stagnating for two decades. The emission requirments stand out as a great achivement, period.
Hydrocarbons (HC), Carbon Monoxide(CO) and Oxides of Nitrogen (NOx) contribute to smog and are harmful to humans,animals and plants in higher concentrations. Control of these emissions is a legitimate role of government, and has been a driver of improved engine control technologies. Initial demands challenged all makers, but were particularly difficult to achieve with the larger vehicles Americans chose, and the Detroit 3 were producing, particularly in the early ’70’s. Today’s vehicles emit very low levels of these three constituents, and there is little reason to lower standards further.
Carbon Dioxide (C02) is the natural by-product of efficient combustion. We and all other animals exhale it, and plants need it to survive. Most CO2 emissions, 96.4%, are from natural sources. All human activity contributes the other 3.6%. Motor vehicles contribute 1/8 of all human CO2 emissions, or less than 1/2 of 1% of annual emissions to the atmosphere. On top of these facts, water vapor is actually the 800 lb gorilla among “greenhouse gases”, contributing 96% of the effect, though conveniently ignored by anthropomorphic global warming alarmists. All automotive CO2 emissions annually contribute less than 2 thousandths of 1% to the greenhouse gas effect in the earth’s atmosphere.
Though the alarmists don’t publicize this fact, they know that cessation of ALL human activity on the planet would have no perceptible effect on CO2 levels for decades.
Regarding emission standards; where does it end?
When can the air be no cleaner and who decides if it is? Lastly, what are the costs?
It’s a balancing act that sometimes gets confused with the freak-show. You’ll always have people in power who want ‘cleaner ‘ and you’ll have people in power who claim doing so will ‘harm business’. That’s the freak show aspect.
But the crux of the issue; when is the air clean enough? Zero pollution is not possible. Vegetation rots, dogs fart, natural gas leaks from the Earth, and lightening can cause forest fires…is that “pollution” or is that natural? Who decides?
And at what point does emission regulations do more harm (economical) than good (ecosystem)? That’s the balancing act. But who is manning the scale? The legislature? A legion of alphabet bureaucracies? The executive or judiciary? Or the citizenry?
I honestly do not know. That web of ‘power’ is most likely much-much-much more complicated than the vacuum system on an old Honda. A can of ether & $2.50 spent at your local parts store can probably fix most problems on the Honda. Trying to connect the dots, follow the $$$, and understand environmental law is much more difficult.
“But the crux of the issue; when is the air clean enough? Zero pollution is not possible. Vegetation rots, dogs fart, natural gas leaks from the Earth, and lightening can cause forest fires…is that “pollution” or is that natural? Who decides?”
Dog farts and rotting vegetation are not pollution. They are part of larger natural processes that have evolved over very long periods of time to constitute a complex, dynamic, but relatively stable system (temporally speaking) of ecological/environmental relations. Pollution is a relative, contextual term, and you really only get pollution when there are inputs into a system that the normal processing and cycling times of the system cannot handle, and that is harmful to the health or normal functioning of the system and its members or parts. Thus, speaking generally, something like carbon buildup on valves or the accumulation of sludge in an engine would actually be a kind of ‘pollution’ within that system that is harmful to the overall ‘health’ or well-functioning of that system.
In the context of human life, mass production (which really took off during the industrial revolution and has been expanding at seemingly ever-increasing rates since then) generally results in the production of emissions and other wastes at massive rates that far exceed the capacities of naturally evolved mechanisms and processes to handle. As a result, these excess wastes accumulate in those environments resulting in the harmful pollution of those environments. The problem is exacerbated even more by the production of wastes such as plastics and other technologically formed materials that natural systems have not yet evolved to handle.
To reduce the harms that these pollutions are having on our environmental systems we either have to reduce our emission and waste production to capacities that natural mechanisms and processes can better handle, or we devise technological mechanisms and processes for dealing with these excess wastes (or some combination of both). If we do nothing, the harms resulting from such pollutions will likely increase. Who decides what’s best to do? Well, either we decide, or good old mother nature (natural selection) may end up deciding for us.
On an evolutionary scale, we are a relatively new species and our current techno-scientific methods of mass production (and the lifestyle it engenders) is so recent and untested (despite how grand and important we may think ourselves to be) that it is but a speck, a micro-blip on an evolutionary time frame. It’s still far too early to determine, for example, whether our current techno-scientific approach to life is adaptive or maladaptive. The one advantage that we have is the capacity to study and understand the world and our place within in, and to evaluate, assess and if necessary alter our behavior as our understanding improves. If we don’t do this, however, then the harms resulting from our actions may alter environmental systems to the point where we are no longer able to thrive or even survive within it. So it’s pretty important that we not turn a blind eye to the effects that our techno-scientific methods of production are having on our environment, for there is a very real chance that the harms we are causing may end up coming back and biting us in ways we may not able to adequately predict or properly respond.
To those who think I’m merely fear-mongering, remember that evolution is really a long history of failures marked by occasional and sporadic successes that subsist through the reproductive repetition of individuals inheriting those relatively adaptive traits (for what counts as an adaptive trait is always relative to the type of environment within which that trait is situated). We think of ourselves not only as one of the successes, but as the greatest success story of them all. But we are a relatively new species, and our current techno-scientific mode of life is even newer and remains relatively untested on an evolutionary scale. We either learn how our environmental systems operate and what effects our pollutants will have on the health of those systems, or we suffer whatever our changing, destabilized environment throws at us.
I realize only a few people will likely read all this, but oh well…
@DrOlds
Good post and I agree with all you say.
I just wonder what point you are making about the water vapor issue…are you saying this problem is being caused by vehicles?
I don’t know the numbers or where else any “extra” vapor may be coming from over and above all that nature already provides.
Or are you just saying that water vapor is so much bigger a problem that we just should not worry about CO2?
Of course, the next ice age isn’t too far away so that will deal with most of the problems for us….unless it causes us to burn even more CO2 releasing compounds to keep warm.
Darn, solutions are never SIMPLE are they?
Which is why the internet, for all it’s virtues, can be problematic when “keyboard jockeys” seem to think their simplistic ideas will solve any problem and “why can’t everyone see it”? LOL
@SimonAlberta- Thanks! I introduce the water vapor factor in the greenhouse gas effect to bring perspective to how exceedingly small the CO2 contribution from motor vehicles actually is.
It would take 500 years at current vehicle CO2 emissions levels to add 1% to the GHG effect! Political agendas obscure this reality, causing most folks to think that CO2 is the only factor.
However, I am not saying we should completely ignore vehicle CO2 emissions. Given the forecast that China and India will each have over 400 million vehicles in the near future, on top of rising vehicle populations in the rest of the developing world, all auto emissions’ impact on the environment should be studied very closely. At the same time, the alarmists insistence on rapid imposition of draconian standards via CAFE is unjustified.
CAFE is a particularly dysfunctional public policy approach to improve fuel economy because it forces automakers to invest $billions to produce a fleet consumers likely do not want. In other words, vehicles are developed to satisfy regulators, not consumers. This has been extremely costly and damaging to the U.S. makers, uniquely. After all, the imports come from home markets where functional public policy inspires consumer demand for high economy. From the start of CAFE, all they had to do was bring existing products in to America. Sure, they have larger products now, beneficiaries of CAFE credits built up over years of primarily small car sales. Ironically, Honda is actually playing the CAFE game with Accord CrossTour certified as a “truck” because they now are struggling to meet the regulations.
No other nation in the world uses CAFE. Any other nation that wants to inspire more fuel efficiency does so by taxes or other policies that motivate consumers to demand higher efficiency. As has been pointed out here, money is the primary motivator of human behavior.
Doc a series of good posts, thanks.
doctor olds: “As has been pointed out here, money is the primary motivator of human behavior.”
While that may well be true for you and others like you, it does not seem to be true for many (and I would argue most) other people. There are a host of behavioral motivators besides money, and I’ll list just a few: love, sex, friendship, aesthetic enjoyment, pleasure, moral duty, satisfaction at a job well done, adventure, curiosity, the desire for knowledge, the search for the truth, and so on. Money is a relatively new addition to the list of behavior motivations, and humans have been motivated to behave in various ways long before money was ever invented.
To have money as the primary motivator of one’s behavior is actually very sterile and arid, if you ask me, and anyone who claims that money is the primary motivator of human action has a very distorted, abstract and myopic view of human nature.
@Philosophil- I did not write that money is the only motivator, but it surely is the primary motivator for most human economic decisions, such as vehicle purchases. Your comment is presumptuously idealistic, judgmental and simplistic. You certainly do not know me or have any right to stereotype me or “othere like me”.
Humans and the world are as they are, not as you would like or imagine them to be. You can deny human nature, but that does not change it.
“Your comment is presumptuously idealistic, judgmental and simplistic. You certainly do not know me or have any right to stereotype me or “othere like me”.
You don’t know me either, and yet you seem to think it’s okay for you to stereotype me and everyone else as having money as our primary motivator. Double standard perhaps?
As for which position is the more simplistic and idealistic, I think that speaks for itself. To claim that money is the primary motivator of human behavior (despite the fact that other motivators have been around far longer than money has) seems very simplistic to me.
There really isn’t an argument against emissions today, but it’s clear that the standards could have been imposed more gradually, and automakers allowed to develop systems jointly toward a national goal that would have saved customers from the multiple “solutions” each automaker came up with.
The key now is imposing a cost-benefit standard to any new limits. The majority of the benefit has been achieved, but regulators need to be restrained from imposing standards that provide minimal improvement at ever-increasing cost. Just as animal rights activists gravitate to working in animal shelters, pounds and animal regulatory agencies, environmental activists gravitate to the EPA and other regulatory agencies, and there’s a need to keep them from imposing their agenda on public policy.
I live in SoCal, but I have to agree with NulloModo, there should be one national standard. Some areas have local conditions, but the current standards now handle most of those local effects from cars. If you’ve done any extensive reading about CARB, you should have gotten the impression by now that they’re as much a political body as a regulatory agency, and their reach extends beyond car emissions to industrial emissions, lawnmowers, dry cleaners, laundromats and even backyard barbeques. They shouldn’t be even influencing national standards, let alone setting their own “superior” standards.
Cost/benefit analysis is a great idea; I think some people (like when CARB tried to mandate electric cars) see environmentalism as a moral rather then a rational imperative, which is probably why it doesn’t happen often.
Considering everything else, maybe adopting a federal standard similar to CARB, and then locking it in would be a good idea. Then we’d have a high standard, while automakers wouldn’t have to worry about moving goalposts. Hell, while we’re at it, can we change emission laws do that cars can have really efficient diesels again?
I’m not so sure. If humans disappeared off of Earth tomorrow.. No more clear cuts of forests. No more poisons being released into the air and water.
After 15 to 20 years, if you were to come back your home would most likely be pretty close to being overgrown with vegetation. The streets would be covered in tree litter, grass, and shrubs.
There is a lot of area of land that cannot support vegetation that would be sequestering CO2 if humans were not here.
However, there wouldn’t be anybody to fight forest fires either….
But from my understanding, most of our oxygen comes from plant life in the sea. But if the ocean were given a chance to heal..
“There is a lot of area of land that cannot support vegetation that would be sequestering CO2 if humans were not here.”
—
How so? It is primarily vegetation that sequesters CO2.
No doubt that emissions standards have improved air quality in many areas. Regulations have reduced emissions by something like 99% from the belchy 70’s muscle car baseline.
However, it would be better if there were a cost / benefit analysis for future emissions improvements. How much do we want to add to the price of a typical car in order to reduce the remaining 1% of emissions by 80%? That’s the rational debate that’s missing from most journo-saur “reporting” on this issue.
The money would be better spent building towns that required less driving to get where you need to be, and provided options that did not require driving like walking and biking.
A trip saved is worth more than a vehicle that is 99.8% emission free vs one that is 99% emissions free.
If you think that getting people to accept the need to regulate emissions is hard, try getting them to accept sane urban planning.
psar,
Darn those pesky humans. They’re always trying to do what they want to do, not what you want them to. It’s too bad that they don’t listen to their moral superiors, eh?
Psar, your sane urban planning leads to abominations like Kelo. Anytime you have the urge to urban plan, just remember that you are working with people. Not everyone is as well intentioned as you, greed and a lust for power ruin urban planning.
greed and a lust for power ruin urban planning.
I presume from that statement that you must not be fond of freeways. (Surely you know that highway construction is also a component of urban planning.)
PCH, come on that’s a cheap shot. One word shoudl have been enough for you to back off that: Kelo. I’m pretty sure you know what I’m talking about. The interstate highway system was started in the 1950s. In that time pretty much everyone involved were decent, honorable people who for the most part were trying to do the right thing. Modern urban planning is different. Or at least the people involved are different. Personal power, corruption, greed and all those nice things are rampant today, not nearly as much back then.
I recently finished Kevin Starr’s history of California, the volume dealing with the post-WWII era of state history and it told of a government completely different from what we have now. The giant public works projects weren’t perfect but they were admirable in their intent and the men who planned and excuted them were a far cry from the petty bureaucrats in charge of the state now.
Again look up Kelo as an example of modern urban planning.
come on that’s a cheap shot.
It’s not a cheap shot to highlight the inconsistency in your logic.
You don’t seem to get that building an eight-lane interstate straight through the middle of a minority neighborhood, leading out to empty land that will be subdivided as a result, is also an act of planning.
You like roads. You don’t have a problem with all urban planning, just the type of urban planning that doesn’t build the roads that you prefer. Don’t pretend that you dislike all of it — if there hadn’t been any of it, you wouldn’t have the driving alternatives that you do.
PCH, there’s a difference between urban planning and road planning and building. Urban planning includes stuff like Cabrini Green and all the other abuses of minority neighborhoods. It includes eminent domaining perfectly good residential neighborhoods for the benefit of developers. Urban planning doesn’t have a very good reputation anymore if you ahven’t noticed, except among the power and control crowd.
Darn those pesky humans. They’re always trying to do what they want to do, not what you want them to. It’s too bad that they don’t listen to their moral superiors, eh?
When you consider that their financial superiors are driving the construction of low-density commercial and residential lots that are cheap to build and return lots of tax revenue then, yeah, it is unfortunate.
I’ll never understand why it’s okay to be duped, lied to and manipulated by people who have money and their own interests at heart, but it’s wrong and evil to be lead by people who have society’s interest at heart. Of course, I have trouble understanding why government feeding, healing and clothing people is a tragedy, but government murdering people is a-ok!.
your sane urban planning leads to abominations like Kelo
There’s no grey area with you, is there? It’s either “everyone gets their own hundred-acre ranch”, or “urban megalopolis coffin motel”.
Here’s an example: have you ever seen the downtown of any smaller city that was developed at or around the 1800-1930? Have you noticed that neighbourhoods are walkable, less space is wasted, and the mix of commercial and residential creates a space that works for people and for small business?** Even new communities developed this way have a good success record.
Did I say “I want people to live in 800sq.ft apartments in eighty-storey high rises?”? No, I didn’t, because that’s not sane urban planning, either. But there’s a balance between Tha Projeks and Agrestic that totally eludes people. The difference is that people on my “side” are simply stupid and careless about it, much like they’re stupid about public transit, whereas people on yours are stupid, careless with a shot of resentful added in.
** until the municipality gets greedy and sells out to developers who build big-boxes and unwalkable suburbs, at which point the downtown is hollowed out.
PCH, there’s a difference between urban planning and road planning and building.
I know, I’ve already identified it: You like urban planning when it is centered around road building, you dislike it when it centers around something else.
If you don’t think that roads are planned, then you are just fooling yourself. If you don’t think that they impact the path of development and the quality of life of the built-up areas where they are constructed, then you are fooling yourself.
Urban planning includes stuff like Cabrini Green
You probably haven’t been to Chicago for quite awhile. After one bad bout of planning, Cabrini Green has been planned yet again. Now you’ll find New Urbanism, and yuppies, and BMW’s, and Starbucks, and banks and supermarkets, and brand-name retail. Both versions were planned. One was planned better than the other, but neither version of them just spontaneously created themselves.
I know that Cabrini Green has been demolished and that particular bright idea of urban planners haas been discredited for now. But just think of the misery those planners caused across the country, yet not one of them was ever called out on it by taxpayers or the people they doomed to live in those projects. They failed miserably but they are either retired with generous pensions or are still working in their cities. There was no accountibility and no punishment for failure. The new urbanism fad is hot now but we’ll see how it works out, I’m hopeful but not optimistic. The guys who do the planning would be right at home doing 5 year plans in the lattter days of the Soviet Union. By the way, I love Chicago, it’s disorganized enough to be a lot of fun.
I know that Cabrini Green has been demolished and that particular bright idea of urban planners haas been discredited for now.
It was urban planners who brought the new and improved Cabrini Green. Both versions were planned. If you like the new version, with its condos and lattes and brightly lit supermarkets and good shopping, then send a thank you note to the urban planners.
But just think of the misery those planners caused across the country
You mean like the new Cabrini Green, with its shiny Starbucks and well-lit shops?
The guys who do the planning would be right at home doing 5 year plans in the lattter days of the Soviet Union
Yeah, the Stalinists were known for their love of Frappuccinos (or is that Frappuccini?).
And as noted, give the Marxist cliches a rest. You bitch a lot, but you provide absolutely no ideas of your own, aside from your love of asphalt. Do you have anything to suggest, or do you just want to whine all day about everything and everyone that isn’t exactly like you and yours?
Yeah, the Stalinists were known for their love of Frappuccinos (or is that Frappuccini?).
This is likely true. Most Marxists and Marxist/Leninists I’ve met (haven’t seen any Stalinists in well over decade) are gourmet-coffee people.
Most Marxists and Marxist/Leninists I’ve met (haven’t seen any Stalinists in well over decade) are gourmet-coffee people.
Perhaps. But a Frappuccino is not so much a coffee as it is a milkshake. A lot more Baskin-Robbins than it is Marxist-Leninist.
Pch, don’t be a smart ass, it doesn’t look good on you. Little snide replies aren’t worthy of you. You never addressed anything I said about the planners who were responsible for the first Cabrini Green, you never admitted that they screwed up, that they suffered no consequences of their failures and that they just moved on to bigger and better screw ups. And yeah, genious, the new development there ought to be better than the old Cabrini Green.
And also, history major, I said late Soviet Union. There weren’t a lot of Stalinists left. He died in 1953 not 1993. the 5 year planners then weren’t the Kulak killers of Stalin, they were just a bunch of bureaucrats going through the motions towards the end. You disappoint me, you’re usually mich better at specious arguements.
“Perhaps. But a Frappuccino is not so much a coffee as it is a milkshake. A lot more Baskin-Robbins than it is Marxist-Leninist.”
That’s rich!
You never addressed anything I said about the planners who were responsible for the first Cabrini Green
I did, you just weren’t looking.
Let me make this simple for you:
1. Some urban planning is done well.
2. Some urban planning is done badly.
3. Plowing a freeway through the middle of a town, decimating the neighborhood that was there, and building it into the hinterlands where it will become a suburban gas-sucking smog generator is just as much of an example of urban planning as is building a high-rise ghetto that warehouses poor people like cordwood. And both of those can be bad.
4. Moral of the story. Good planning is better than bad planning. If you want to plan, make sure it’s good. The bad stuff is bad, so try not to do it. Good is better than bad.
Clear enough, I hope.
But Pch,
You forgot to reference Stalin and Hitler on this Automotive website!
You forgot to reference Stalin and Hitler on this Automotive website!
You’re right.
Hitler liked freeways. Therefore, freeways are bad. Really, really bad.
My wife tells me that Stalin liked all forms of modernization, especially railways and bridges, so they must be equally bad, especially bridges.
My wife tells me that Stalin liked all forms of modernization, especially railways and bridges, so they must be equally bad, especially bridges.
Without a doubt, trains are really, really bad. Hitler had a bunch of those, too, so you know that they must be super bad.
Stalin was very bad, of course. They built cars in both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, so cars must also be really, really bad. We should ban them, otherwise the communists will win.
“The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act only repealed the second provision, thus allowing banks and securities firms to be affiliated under the same holing compnany. Banks are still prohibited from underwriting or dealing in securities.”
Good God, what a parsing. So, in geeber’s mind, Bank of America and Banc of America Securities are two separate entities that will never collude as long as they are owned by a holding company. Pretty naive. Gramm-Leach is a failure. 75 years pass WITHOUT a banking crisis between the passage of Glass-Steagall and the 2008 financial calamity. That’s no coincidence. Phil Gramm’s law allowed previously conservative banks to get into the business of taking deposits and playing casino. Gramm has been pretty quiet over the last few years — probably out of embarrassment.
Hreardon is right — the financial industry (and politics for that matter) are full of psychopaths, people who feel no remorse. The anti-regulation crowd doesn’t understand this and doesn’t understand basic human nature. Too bad Ron Paul was unsuccessful in bringing Glass-Steagall back. I guess we’ll have to wait for the next financial crisis (which will happen again soon because the problems were never fixed from the last one).
And you think that government, the source of most power in this society, doesn’t attract any power hungry sociopaths intent on exercising their au-thor-it-tay?
Government the source of most power in this society? Hardly. Government is merely a shadow cast over society by big business. By legal requirement corporations are profit hungry sociopaths. At least with government the public has “some” control.
Uber, that’s a little harsh don’t you think? Do you work for a private company? Is it as a company a sociopath? By definition you would be a sociopath because you are a part of that corporation. I could maybe believe that of you but you surely don’t consider yourself one do you?
Look at it another way, take the 20th century as an example and try and imagine the total deaths caused by sociopathic corporations. Then compare the number of deaths caused by sociopathic dictators in governments. It’s not that close a number, business is way behind. Ronnie is right, the reflexive anti-business position just doesn’t work anymore.
“By definition you would be a sociopath because you are a part of that corporation.”
Sorry Mike, but that doesn’t follow, at least not logically or ‘by definition’ as you put it. If a Corporation is rich it doesn’t follow that each of its workers is rich.
I beg to differ, to invoke Godwin’s Law, the Nazi Party was a sociopathic organization that attracted sociopaths and turned ordinary Germans into sociopaths. By the same standard if a corporation is defined as sociopathic then the employees would have to be sociopaths to succeed and survive in the corporation.
Sorry, the old business and businessmen as evil mantra just isn’t true. You’ve read too much Marx (Krugman?) and watched too much tv and movies.
Sorry, the old business and businessmen as evil mantra just isn’t true. You’ve read too much Marx (Krugman?) and watched too much tv and movies.
One, have you been watching what’s been happening in Britain vis a via News Corporation? If that doesn’t define gestalt sociopathy, I don’t know what does.
Two, weren’t you the guy talking about how pre-judging Fox News because it shows a lack of understanding? And you’re calling Paul Krugman a Marxist?
I don’t think you know what “Marxism” is, because Krugman isn’t one. A Keynesian, yes, but a Marxist? No.
You’ve read too much Marx (Krugman?)
If you believe that Krugman is a Marxist, then you don’t know squat about either Krugman or Marx.
I know that you like to have opinions. But try basing them on something factual every once in awhile. If you want to critique Krugman and can do so intelligently, then go ahead.
But associating him with Marxism makes you look intellectually weak, and it leads intelligent people to conclude that you make these comparisons because you don’t have anything credible to say. Raise your game and try a bit harder.
Actually you’re right, Krugman is a Keynesian. They’re much worse and less honest about their motives. Remember at one time Krugman was a rabid free trader back in the days of CLinton’s NAFTA. Now that free trade is the bete noire of the left he has changed his mind. Admit that Krugman has become a caricature of himself, a once respected economist turned into an op-ed commentator forced to take ever more extreme positions in order to get and keep his page views up.
Psar, I didn’t see your post at first, and I do know the difference. As far as Newscorp in the UK, I am familiar with it and the situation was handled properly, the offending people are out of jobs and their paper is shut down as they deserved. Just remember there are bad people in every organization, in this case they got caught and punished.
No one has addressed my main point though and I really wish someone would. Compare the body counts of government and business in the 20th century and tell me who are the biggest sociopaths. You can nitpick along the edges all you like but that’s the important thing.
It may be true ‘by definition’ that a triangle is a three sided figure with three internal angles (usually adding up to 180 deg.), but it is not true ‘by definition’ that every employee of a corporation must be psychopathic.
Further, assuming that Corporations do indeed display psychopathic traits, one can construct numerous scenarios where an engineer, scientist, secretary, security guard, janitor, and so on could very well “succeed and survive” in a corporation without themselves being psychopathic.
As for the inevitable Nazi comparison, I think it’s safe to say that there were members of the Nazi Party who did experience empathy and a ‘bad conscience’ about some of the things that were done (at least that’s what the evidence would suggest). If so, then while such persons may indeed have been complicit in and hence guilty of some terrible things, their complicity does not entail that they were also psychopathic.
Finally, as for your last point, I thought the main claim being made here was that government ought to function to keep the actions of corporations in check. I don’t think anyone denied that there should also be checks and balances to protect us against bad government as well. Isn’t that one of the virtues of a democratic system, where democratic processes and mechanisms help serve as a needed check against bad government?
@Ronnie:
“And you think that government, the source of most power in this society, doesn’t attract any power hungry sociopaths intent on exercising their au-thor-it-tay?”
Of course it does, but the difference is that the people have at least some say in getting rid of the worst offenders; unless corporations are flagrantly breaking laws, citizens have little recourse.
Krugman is a Keynesian. They’re much worse and less honest about their motives
Again, this is just lame name calling. Instead of saying something that supports your view of the world, you devote all of your effort to questioning everybody else’s motives. It’s tedious, and just makes me think that you’re too intellectually lazy to construct a decent argument for whatever it is that you believe.
Remember at one time Krugman was a rabid free trader back in the days of CLinton’s NAFTA. Now that free trade is the bete noire of the left he has changed his mind.
I don’t read Krugman that often, but based upon what I know of his views, I seriously doubt that this is accurate. I know that he would like to increase US exports, which doesn’t sound particularly Marxist, given that Marxists don’t believe in trade. He also believes that the Chinese are deliberately devaluing the yuan, a position that no one who pays attention would argue with. (I happen to disagree with him that a stronger yuan would necessarily result in a substantial increase in US exports, but that’s a different matter.)
One, have you been watching what’s been happening in Britain vis a via News Corporation? If that doesn’t define gestalt sociopathy, I don’t know what does.
Hmmmm. When was the last time the US or Canadian governments shuttered a government program that was full of bad actors?
This scandal actually demonstrates the power and self correcting nature of the market. Advertisers were abandoning the News Of The World left and right, so Rupert Murdoch did the smart thing and shut it down to protect his other business holdings.
Right now a friend of mine is facing a jail sentence for growing tomatoes on her own property. When the city loses, and they will lose because the law in question is unconstitutionally vague and the city is implementing it in a capricious and arbitrary manner, will anyone at Code Enforcement or in the city planning office suffer any consequences? Of course not, they’re on the other side of the thin grey line.
I’ve interviewed scores of businessmen and women and not a few politicians too. As a journalist I have never been treated disrespectfully by a business executive. I cannot say the same about elected officials and public employees. I’ve never had a business leader blow off a question rudely, but I have been treated rudely by politicians and government workers. Those government workers do not have the accountability that exists in the market. In the real world, a business will try to mollify a customer who has been treated badly by one of their employees. In the public sector, management does everything they can to protect bad acting employees.
Pch, the Krugman was a free trader while a Democrat was pushing the concept but with the change in administrations for some reason his views changed. I can’t say why, but I can guess.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122394373157731081.html
Also, as far as defending my position. I do, I give you and other readers credit enough to think that you know what Keynes wrote, there is no need to rehash all the arguements for and against. We are starting from pretty much the same place, I was taught by a Keynesian in every one of my econ classes and for my grades, I was a staunch Keynesian during that time. But it has not worked in real life.
the Krugman was a free trader while a Democrat was pushing the concept but with the change in administrations for some reason his views changed.
Of course, Krugman supported free trade. Keynesians do that sort of thing.
But you claimed that he no longer did. I see no evidence that you are correct, and I see other evidence that suggests that you are wrong.
If you want to make that claim about Krugman, then back it up with evidence of something current that shows that he now opposes or has changed his position on free trade. As noted, I have seen him argue in favor of increases in the yuan’s valuation, but not against free trade.
@getacargetacheck:
“Hreardon is right — the financial industry (and politics for that matter) are full of psychopaths, people who feel no remorse.”
I work in the financial industry, and I think you’d have a hard time proving me to be a psychopath. Clearly there are bad actors in every industry, but you’re painting with too broad a brush, which doesn’t solve the problem.
What WILL solve the problem is proper oversight and some damn common sense. As in: dear Countrywide, and WaMu, and World Savings, and Wachovia, and New Century – if you let people with lousy credit take out loans without proving their income, they’re gonna default. When you let these lousy borrowers take out loans where they can pay less than they have to so they can afford their houses, you’re going to have more defaults. And when you repeat this mistake millions of times, and then package the loans to Wall Street, you’re going to torpedo the whole damn economy.
It is the government’s job to protect its citizens, and so I think some pollution regulation is called for.
As one who typically favors market forces over regulation, this is one area in which market forces will not work properly because each car’s emissions involuntary affects others’ health, but mostly because emissions regulation is for the common good.
However, it seems we are on the asymtote of the emissions curve today. Going much greener will become much more difficult, much more expensive, and yield little fruit.
BTW, that Honda vacuum map was horrifying. I remember those days, and being unable to identify anything under the hood.
I used to do smog tests in Las Vegas in the late 70’s and seeing that Honda hose map made my stomach turn over. I don’t remember if it was a Honda or Toyota or Datsun, but this one car, it had a bad vacuum leak that made it shake and shiver, and it flunked the test big time. I spent hours trying to figure out where the leak was, and using the propane tank and the hose was almost useless, as as soon as I even got near the hoses, the idle would speed up, and the hoses were hard and brittle, so pinching them wasn’t a good idea either. It was about 110 degrees, and with the engine running, I could barely keep my eyes open under the hood. The boss wouldn’t let me do it the right way, just change all the hoses, fix it right, and prevent another issue weeks or months later. I finally got fed up and told him that if he can figure out which ones were bad without replacing them, tell me how! As usual, he bragged about how he would teach us “kids” how to do it right. About a half hour later, he tells me to go to the parts store behind us and buy two rolls of vacuum hose, and “change all the f’in things!” I just looked at him and shook my head in disgust. The worst, most ignorant boss I ever had. You had to love a guy who regularly screwed over his disabled brother, let alone his employees.
Speaking of psychopath businessmen…thanks for the typical example nrd515. The rule, not the exception.
Again, you watch too much tv, the idea that all bisinessmen are evil is ridiculous. I’ll ask you, do you work for a private company? Is it evil, are the people in it evil, sociopaths or psychopaths? Are you?
The guy was a bad boss and a lousy human being or maybe just having a bad day. You ever had one of those? He wasn’t a psychopath, he was just an unpleasant person. Don’t you agree that bad people are found in business, government and everywhere else? Don’t use that as something typical to try and prove a point that isn’t even close to true, that just exists in someone’s fevered imagination.
I don’t recall anyone saying that all business people were evil.
“It would take 500 years at current vehicle CO2 emissions levels to add 1% to the GHG effect! Political agendas obscure this reality…”
Dr. Olds: That is not a reality, it is simply hideously flawed logic. The 1% number you state has nothing whatsoever to do with the GHG EFFECT, just the total quantity of GH gasses in the atmosphere. But the EFFECT of even minute changes in the quantity of GH gasses is in no way explained by your statements, it is merely obfuscated.
While the global climate is extremely complex, it is essentially a balance. How much water does it take to overflow a completely full 100,000 gallon swimming pool? A quart, a gallon? The fact that the swimming pool contains 100,000 gallons is irrelevant if the goal is for it not to overflow.
Your discussion of quantites of GH gasses is simply a flawed, non-scientfic discussion that has been put forth (by others before you) to confuse the issue. Its not about quantity, which remains FAIRLY constant over time, it is about balance (or lack thereof) and the impact of relatively small changes in the total quantity on global climate.
@kingofgix- I understand how difficult it must be for you to understand, given the propaganda that has flooded our world for years now. What I wrote is accurate, certainly in the proportionate effects of the 3 main GH gases and their influence on the GH effect.
The existence of a long term global warming trend is not certain, let alone the proof that humans are making a significant contribution to it.
Thanks for the great topic, Murilee. I guess even you couldn’t resist dropping at least one political bomb, but it actually turned out to be a very good question.
Lots of good replies here and I’ll ad my .02 cents worth, having grown up in the 70’s and became a man in the 80’s is that while the emissions systems for forced into production MUCH too early, the big 3 were also at fault for resisting and then adapting these new technologies to ancient motors that were not designed with these systems in the first place and the results showed with dismal performance and fuel economy.
So the big 3 were largely at fault here for the malaise era but ALL cars built of that era suffered some when affixed with these new systems, even the Euro/Japanese cars when not of the Honda CVCC models, those performed like they should DESPITE they being able to have as clean or cleaner emissions than just abut everyone else while still able to use leaded gas initially.
The newer CVCC II motors had to use the then new unleaded gas and they STILL performed well (with catalytic converters no less) I know as I had a 1983 Civic with the 1500cc CVCC motor and it was quite zippy and a hoot to drive.