The People's Car

[KNOdom]

Snell also tells
>the juicy conspiratorial tale of how GM, Standard Oil, and one of the
>rubber companies formed a holding company that operated in the 1910s and
>1920s to buy up healthy streetcar companies in about a dozen cities
>throughout the US, close them down, replace them with fleets of GM buses
>burning Esso gas and riding on ______ rubber tires, and then sell them back
>to local owners at a profit.  End of clean electrified American mass
>transit.
>
>Jeff Meikle
Having worked for "the Sign of the Double Cross" for a couple of decades, I
can at least verify that there is more truth than myth in this particular
recounting of the demise of the streetcar in urban America.
Another fable of economics is that higher crude oil prices make it tougher
for the seven sisters to make a profit. The opposite is true: 8% profit
margin on US$20/barrel crude is more than the same profit margin on $10/b
crude. One of the spoor of a monopolistic industry is the ability to
maintain profit margin irregardless of market forces. Just watch the price
of light sweet crude, which is now hanging around $19-20/b, and the
corelation with oil co's stock price.

"It's a magical world, Hobbes, ol' buddy... Let's go exploring!"
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