I just bought a new truck. My 2013 Ford Focus (with requisite 5 speed Millennial Anti-Theft Device) couldn’t keep up with the rigors of my 3/4 mile trek to pavement multiple times a day.
It was time to get something out of it before it began costing me real money, as much as I loved that car.
No matter what I did I was going to buy as little car as I could because vehicle prices are scandalous, a by-product of the Fed’s insane policies creating cost-push inflation for everything people actually need while denying it’s having any ‘real’ effects.
That ‘real’ thing is important and I’ll keep coming back to it.
I live back a dirt road that gets ugly in the wet Florida summer. I have a small farm and a teenage daughter. Goats, Ducks, Dogs and a wife earning a Bachelor’s in food foresting and permaculture.
I need a pickup truck and one that hauled three people in reasonable comfort. I have a farm truck I no longer want, a true 2005 piece of hot garbage made by Chevy called a Colorado that has negative value. Plates and insurance alone are more than the truck is worth to me.
Cheap paid-for vehicles that cost you time are not an asset, they are a liability that only compounds as they age. Getting rid of both the Focus and the Colorado and combining them into one vehicle was a good value proposition.
And at these financing rates and the state of my business I could more than afford to treat myself after years of fiscal discipline.
So, what did I buy?
I bought the Honda Ridgeline pictured above. All the truck I needed, none of the truck I didn’t.
Did I want something more manly or more aspirational? Sure.
Did I lust over the $56,000 RAM Rebel (in blue!) with the Hemi at the local Church of Mopar? Absolutely.
But I don’t buy cars that way. Never have. For me it’s all about the value proposition because I know myself well enough to know that I’m hard on my cars. My trade-ins are never good. Where I live they just can’t be.
That said, since I generally just love cars I can cross shop everything from a Mini to a muscle truck. So, when the right value deal presents itself, I buy that car not feeling a moment of buyer’s remorse knowing I pre-paid and didn’t finance part of that accelerated depreciation curve.
Needless to say, I’m a nightmare for car salesmen.
But here’s the thing about the Honda Ridgeline. It’s not a ‘real truck. ‘
It looks like a truck, performs most tasks like a truck, but it’s not a full box ladder frame, sold axle spine breaker with a foot of ground clearance. It’s a mid-sized light duty truck, built like a car underneath. It will haul me and 500 lbs of hay and feed home from town and take my daughter to school regardless of how sloppy the road is. And it’s more agile than the Colorado or any other mid-sized truck other than the Ford Ranger on the market (2021 model) and that’s important to me.
Did I mention my wife and the permaculture? The yard and parking areas are tight. The RAM simply wouldn’t fit.
This isn’t meant to be an advertisement for the Ridgeline. It’s meant to remind everyone that to all things there is a purpose and consumers make choices not based on others’ perceptions.
Because no matter what you say to ‘real truck’ guys. The Ridgeline isn’t a ‘real truck.’
Scroll through the comments on any YouTube video comparing the Ridgeline to a ‘real truck’ like the aging and over-priced Toyota Tacoma and you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about.
And fair enough. But, you know what?
More people are finally coming to the realization that they don’t need a ‘real truck.’ They need something that does the work they need it to do and still do everything else well enough. And mostly that’s haul ourselves around and navigate parking lots and traffic.
That’s why Hyundai’s new Santa Cruz is going to sell like mad, FYI.
The Ridgeline is almost too much truck for me. Almost.
Even my wife gave me a little grief for buying the Ridgeline, since she drives a 2015 Xterra, what she calls her “Animus Chariot.”
So what does this have to do with Bitcoin?
A lot. Because the market doesn’t care about the wishes of those who can’t update their definitions. The definitions of a ‘real truck’ have changed a lot over the years. No one today would say a Ram 1500 with coil springs isn’t a ‘real truck’ because it doesn’t have leaf springs.
The mini-pickups of the 80’s and 90’s — the early Rangers and precursors to today’s Tacomas, one of which I built my house with — weren’t considered ‘real trucks’ back then either because they had 4-bangers. I get it. But the market decides what works and what doesn’t.
And if Honda can make a unibody truck platform work well enough for 85% of truck operations in the real world is it any different than what Subaru did with the Outback and Forester for SUVs? Up until their introduction SUVs were just ‘trucks with trunks,’
And it means that calling the Ridgeline ‘minivan with a bed’ is exactly what it looks like (aside from being funny), people disparaging what someone else chose to validate their own choices.
Jungian’s call that ‘projection,’ by the way.
So, as I navigate the hate for the Ridgeline I’m getting the same vibe there as I do from the gold community about bitcoin.
It’s not ‘real money,’ they say. “Good luck having money when the lights go out.”
“It can’t climb over rocks or tow a big load.” Well, of course not, it wasn’t designed for that.
And, last I checked, when the lights go out, doesn’t the definition of money change again? You know to lead, copper, a primer and some smokeless powder, but I digress.
I don’t think at this point those protests about bitcoin are about their lack of understanding it. It’s something much deeper, much darker. It is that sinking feeling that the image they have of the world they thought they knew isn’t valid anymore.
That technology has altered the structure of the market for both trucks and money in a way that isn’t coming back to their way of thinking.
Their projection is not based on rational analysis of the situation but an inability to cope with what amounts to a sub-optimal series of choices made out of stubbornness and loyalty to a worldview which is no longer valid.
Now for those gold guys who, unlike me, are unconvinced of bitcoin’s future but used it to buy more gold, all I have to say to them is, “Huzzah! You are smarter than even the above average bear.”
The gold investment community is still stuck in 2008 (to protect their businesses), using the canard that if just 1% of retail investors put 5% of their wealth into gold they could break the central banks and the COMEX/LBMA and gold could finally get properly priced.
But here we are after 20 years and we have the Fed expanding its balance sheet at a furious rate trying to keep up with asset deflation and retail investors continue to not do this very simple thing. Why?
Because gold can’t do all that needs to be done. There are tasks bitcoin does better. Gold’s network is tiny. Bitcoin’s is growing exponentially. Which one, in a world where people reject the central banks, is going to outcompete the other for marketshare?
Gold has its place in this but it isn’t the only place.
Just like the Ridgeline does some things better than a Tacoma. And to deny that simple truth is insecurity becoming projection. And hating the Ridgeline is hating your own choices for having overspent on the compromises of owning a ‘real truck.’
Over time our perceptions of what is and is not real change. They change with age and experience. So too, do gold guys have to get on board with crypto to help all of us navigate a very uncertain future, become part of the powerful network effect of Bitcoin. At the same time the ‘have fun being poor’ crypto guys have to get out there, take some profit off the table, get ‘real’ and buy some gold.
During my car buying process we went out for a quick dinner while waiting for my Mopar salesman to come back to the office. We stopped at a local Chinese buffet. Not my first choice but it was a bit of nostalgia from my Type-2 diabetes days.
Now, I have three rules when I go to the Chinese buffet. Never go between lunch and dinner when the food is old, never get seafood and always chase dinner with ice cream. Like I said, Type-2 diabetes.
That day we had 30 minutes. We ate at 4:30, I had shrimp and didn’t have any ice cream. And nothing bad happened.
When I went back to the dealership, I was still considering a ‘real’ man’s car, a Jeep Wrangler. I could have compromised and made my utility trailer my truck bed for all farm tasks.
Now I also have three rules about Jeeps. Only two doors, only manual transmissions, just enough options to make them livable. I owned a 1993 Wrangler. I’m 53 now.
And after driving one with the current stick I knew if I bought a Jeep it would be the mild hybrid one with a slush box, because it was just better.
But was it worth $40,000? Remember, my other rule, find the value proposition. Because to make it livable that would have been the price tag. I could compromise on the first two rules but not the third. I really was at a crossroads.
The next day, a Sunday, only two dealerships were open, Honda and the Church of Mopar. I stopped into Honda, drove the Ridgeline and all of my dithering vanished.
It fit my needs for today perfectly. Bitcoin (really all cryptos) is the right tool today to call bullshit on the central banks.
Because as I said in a recent article, they control the gold, so they control its price. We control bitcoin, so we control its price.
That’s today. Today I drive a Ridgeline. When my daughter graduates high school, however, you can bet there’ll an F-150 or RAM 1500 with two seats and a V-8 in my driveway after getting shrimp at the Chinese restaurant.
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I have a dually 96 Cummins 12 valve 3500 Dodge Ram. The only caution I’d have about the Ridgeline is don’t overload it. It’s really easy to put too much heavy stuff in pickup trucks that overstress the frame and drivetrain, which I’ve done on occasion to my Dodge. Good bitcoin analogy.
Congratulations on your new “truck”. I hope it serves you well. I remember all the utube videos at the start of the lockdown madness proclaiming “carmageddon”. They forecasted that the perfect storm for a major automotive industry recession/depression were in play and that seas of unsold new vehicles would severely depress prices for as long as the eye could see. Boy did they ever get that one wrong!
I recently gave up my hope of cash-for-clunkers–II getting me $5k in credits for my old car worth a tenth of that and broke down and bought a new SUV–and paid too much for it because demand is through the roof and supply scanty.
So Tom, you are saying you looked at the Tesla Cybertruck and decided you were not woke enough?
Elon will be disappointed. You can’t really virtue-signal in that thing you bought.
I couldn’t pay the down payment for a CyberTruck with Dogecoin so I said, “Fuck it, I’ll buy a Honda!”
*grin*
I like your thinking Tom. Being practical is being real. I don’t like the idea of bitcoin but, right now, its working better than the heavenly gold and silver. Go for what works for you now.
I never said you had to love bitcoin or marry it.
But I’ve been through this with normies over gold. They hem and haw and make excuse after excuse until you drop a coin in their hand and then the lightbulb goes off and they want more.
Make the first buy, demystify it, get over your own issues and then tell me what you believe in.
The subversiveness of Bitcoin is what appeals to me, not to overlook its investment value.
Lol
The Florida Permaculture Community is awesome. Check out:
-Sustainable Kashi’s online class today at 11:00. Matt Reece and agroforestry systems.
-American Bamboo Society Meeting in Champion’s Gate on May 15th
-Orlando Permaculture’s potluck on Tuesday May 11th.
Carry ladders/600 lbs tools/materials in an ‘07 E-250 SWB(electrician). No dodge product after the seventies, too many problems. My ‘98 tacoma lives in the backyard, between want-to-buy notes on the windshield and catalytic conv thieving. Used to hear that automatic transmission was unmanly. Response, best automotive product this country built for a long time was the auto trans, the early seventies Mercedes Benz auto transmission was technologically level in design but not quite in function to a ‘57 Impala. manual gearbox in passenger vehicles foreigners have always been the SOTA.
Is it only humans who freeze when threatened, be it by wild animals, market conditions, or innovative value equivalents? cats run instinctively, dogs need a consult. Neither ignores what is. Or recharacterizes it to match the mythos. Preparing is complex and counterintuitive.
I know people with hundreds of guns and ammunition who have nothing to eat at home. Or medical supplies, likely to be needed with inexperienced gun newbies. Intellectual flexibility will save lives sooner than later, and the youngsters believe even if you don’t. Just get a little crypto, put it away and forget about it, same as precious and strategic metals. Intellectualizing about an unknowable future can stop you from taking action if you’re not aware.
“…Bitcoin (really all cryptos) is the right tool today to call bullshit on the central banks.”
Until governments around the world outlaw it and/or seize it. And you can be rest assured that’s going to happen at some point in the not-so-distant future.
And if you think they can just snap their fingers and do that in a country as big and armed as the U.S. you have a warped view of their ability to project power and a poor understanding of how the internet actually works.
What if the US gov’t also bans and/or seizes it?
Would this type of behavior surprise you in light of the events of the past 14 months or so?
How will they do that?
How will they enforce that?
Why would they do that when they can use it to get insane cap. gains taxes from this?
Hi Tom,
What if BTC was actually created and run by Ai ?
Just another Algo for humans to project their fiction into.
Like, a human created it, but nobody knows them. Smells memey and a lot like a narrative. Humans love to be mind controlled into both, have you noticed?
There are only 4 humans alive with the programming skills needed to code the mining algo, alone. They did not code it. Sorry, no invisible Japonese guy exists and if he did he was/is not smart enough to even code the Gossip that eliminates double ledger transactions that made it all possible. (digital ledgers are not new)
So, then what you are watching is the Ai become the richest “entity” in the world. Since nobody will ever meet Mr. Bitcoin, I guess staring at a screen will have to suffice. And then kick in the “faith”, that invisible human pyschology uses to fill the void of ignorance so everyone can get through the day….
What will the “richest entity” in the world do with all the “currency” that humans worship without understanding? Only the coders know.
That is the real question. The Banksters are just dumb stooges and speed bumps along the way.
That is why transacting with something physical is the only way to stay human. Assuming that is what you want. You already have to find a way to ditch being a Cyborg. Good luck if you choose biology over technocracy. The Ai can out think you 10,000/1.
Just a message from the Ether to ponder.
To get to the point: If you don’t code, then you ARE the program.
Pretty sure “when the lights go out” your Bitcoin will be inaccessible and worthless.
I’m pretty sure I won’t care at that point. I’m diversified like I suggested in the article. Please try harder to not suck at this.
And here in WIsc when the lights go out, I’ll still be driving the 05 Accord (manual of course) that I had at UCT, eating venison and veggies out of the garden (maybe I’m looking forward to this?) I’m kinda jealous you got a Ridgeline, which I would consider if it had a stick. Maybe in another 100k miles or so. Good comparison in the article. Hope all is well Tom
Jim. I really hated buying a car for myself without a stick. But the choices out there today are just not great. It pained me to drive that jeep and hate the manual.
Pained me.
What currency did you use to purchase your truck?
Dollars. They are for spending. Cryptos and gold are for saving.
Gresham’s law. And welcome to the Not a Truck Club. On my 2nd one.
Exactly! And I love my Ridgeline.. I only hope the biden Administration will allow me to pay for gas to put in it.
We control BTC, LOL, like we control the Internet, right? “In 2030 you’ll own nothing, and be happy (unless you HODL BTC, b/c we love how smart you are…)!” Kind regards, K. Schwab, WEF
I will show you how to make 40% on every Bitcoin you invested.
Follow my blog ❤️😁
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thought you were a discerning individual from most of what i have read.
Not sure what critical thinking lapsed when you acquired a lemon Ford Focus. Don’t know why people ignore owner reviews when buying a vehicle.
Most vehicle are poorly built these days, lots of gimmicks and little reliability.
But on top of the heap for failures are the Fords and Korean cars. No shortage of Ford recall issues, and GM Bolts, Ford engines and Hyundais engines and batteries bursting into flames or accessory batteries dying, and yet the foolish still buy them.
Only thing i heard about Hondas with their direct injections washing and wiping out cylinders. Near new BMWs blowing blue out of their tailpipes all too often. Toyota had their share of engine problems and Teslas have no shortage of post purchase failures.