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Electric and Hybrid Cars (Two Minutes to Read)

4/11/2014

 
The purpose of this article is to provide some insight into the cons of owning an electric or hybrid vehicle. I’m not saying these fuel saving vehicles aren’t good they just aren’t ready for a mass market; let’s face it electric cars will never be huge sellers in places like the Dakotas, Montana, Texas, and certainly not in the southeast. Sales of these vehicles have increased every year so eventually they will become profitable on their own (the federal government gives car manufactures and purchasers subsidies for hybrid and electric cars), but it will take addressing the areas below to increase demand and stop using tax dollars to subsidize the trade.  
 
One major issue is their range is limited to around 230 miles or less before they need to be charged which can take five or more hours. The Nissan Leaf takes 16 hours to get a full charge and its range is around 130 miles. The Ford Fusion hybrid travels 80 miles on its electric charge. The bottom line is a lot of people don’t leave their homes with a whole charge so they can’t travel the vehicles maximum distances. 
 
Most people can’t afford to have such a low  range of distance as they generally travel more than four hours on recreational trips so they’d have to stop and charge before continuing their journey. Anyone who travels a good amount wouldn’t opt for an electric car. Hybrids are a better option for these people although the car has to kick in the use of fuel on highways so they might get around 50 miles per gallon which isn’t stellar performance. 

Based on the average amount of miles most people drive each year the annual fuel savings to drive a hybrid would be around $790 dollars and the savings in having an all-electric vehicle would be $1,584 annually. Most people hang on to their car for six years which means a hybrid would save someone $4,740 during this period unless it costs more than this to purchase one. In other words if a Toyota Prius cost $8,000 more than an equivalent car then the purchase wouldn’t be good as the buyer would have lost $3,260 during the six year period.      

Next is the price…Telsa vehicles costs anywhere from $62,000 up to $83,000. Let’s face it most people in the middle-class can’t afford them; even hybrids costs around 20% more than an average vehicle. Our current economy is certainly detracting from sales of these types of cars. 

A huge deterrent to sales of electric cars are the costs of replacement batteries. The batteries need to be replaced in eight years at a cost of around $12,000. If you drove your car for six years and tried to sell it why in the world would someone want to buy it when they’d incur this huge cost? This is the proverbial deal breaker. 
 
The democrat party touts the successes of electric cars and hybrids when it has actually been a challenge with the federal government having to keep some companies afloat like Telsa. The major car manufactures have lost a significant amount of money producing these vehicles but my guess is it will eventually turn around with increased volume but it won’t be anytime soon; it also won’t be a win until our tax dollars no longer subsidize the industry. What the democrats are doing is comparable to bragging
on Telsa for their increased sales when they’re giving Telsa money to stay in
business. One of many reasons I’d never join their party. 
 
I’ve listed some serious cons to electric and hybrid vehicles that I’m sure will be
addressed in years to come. For a majority of car buyers these vehicles don’t
currently meet their needs but for a small minority of buyers it’s a good fit
for their driving habits which would normally be in larger cities and in places
with a “green” culture like Ashville, NC. By the way I can never talk or write
about the green topic without thinking of Kermit the Frog.
  


Gender Pay Gaps (Three Minutes to Read)

4/11/2014

 
First of all I think it’s funny that Obama  has been going around attacking businesses for pay gaps when it has been shown his White House pays women at least 12% less than men; Jay Carney stumbled all over the place to explain this one. When you read this you can decide whether you think there’s a real issue but I’d like for you to think about something very important…if there’s a problem what can be done about it? 
 
Can the federal government force companies to pay women more? How would they know who is and who isn’t following any guidelines they create? The only thing I’ve heard from democrats is that republicans are holding women back but I’ve not heard what democrats are going to do to correct the income gap. Another thing to really think about…why haven’t democrats fixed the problem? They had control over the House and Senate for a year and a half and did nothing. 
 
What they did was so misleading and so disgusting. During this period they could’ve passed legislation to address gender pay gaps (although the legislation wouldn’t work), in the Senate and forced a vote in the republican led Congress. In my opinion   the constant division democrats are creating is dangerous to our country just like Edward Snowden.     

I’d like for you to think about something, how does the federal government know what men and women make across the country and in the same positions? I heard one member of Obama’s Administration say they got it from a census survey but he didn’t know anything about how this particular census worked. I looked into it and all it said was that it was a census survey but they didn’t provide any information on how many were surveyed or what the questions were. Think about all the information that would need to be collected to make their claims legitimate. 
 
The fact is they don’t have adequate information on gender pay gaps and it’s disgusting that they act like they do. I’m not saying that other companies are like us but we pay everyone equitably based on their positions in the company. For example if we had six marketing analysts they were paid the same unless the responsibilities were different (or more due to time in position), it makes absolutely no sense to pay men more.

Another problem is the federal government doesn’t know the specifics of each position. You could have a man and a woman working in the same department but the man could be paid more only because he does something in the job that requires more expertise. How would they know this in their census survey?       
 
Do women make less on average than what men make? I’m sure that on average it’s true but the thing is men have had higher paid positions in their companies but it’s changed dramatically over the last ten years. Democrats are using the
Mad
Men
mentality and projecting it to the 21st century.  All about division.
 
We have a lot of women working in customer service and it pays well but certainly not as much as a male account executive. At the end of the day if you averaged what a female made in our company and the average pay of males, there would be a discrepancy because a lot of the administrative positions and customer service positions have lower salaries; but women who are account executives make just as much as the men and sometimes more because of the major accounts they manage and tenure with the company.   

This is what I believe the Obama Administration is doing, they’re taking average salaries without insight into each department and each person’s responsibility. This makes what they’re doing and saying not statistically viable…not even close. Do you think they know the real story or are they trolling for votes again through dividing our country? They certainly are pushing the gender wage gap on the House and Senate floors and out on Obama’s stump speech tour which makes sense as there’s a lot of
topics they want to stay away from.  

On a positive note (but not for men), women are closing the income gaps in leaps and bounds and they’ll have higher salaries not too far down the road. The bottom line is they’re becoming a lot more valuable than men due to the education gaps between men and women…high school and college graduation rates for women are much higher than men and they’re getting most of the advanced degrees making them biologists, doctors, engineers, scientists, etc., and this is why they’ll begin to have higher salaries…the Federal Government doesn’t need to do a thing. I just don’t get with their
horrendous track records in DC that they’d think they can fix something in the
private sector…it’s the last thing we need. 

Obama’s saying he’s going to fix things because according to him republicans want to keep things like they were in the 50’s and 60’s. He doesn’t even know what needs fixing, all his party wants to do is strike a nerve with women voters regardless of whether there’s a real issue or if so, a real solution…which there isn’t.  

So pay gaps do exists but there’s a logical reason for it but the natural progression (without government interference), is moving like it always does and corrects itself. I don’t know when but I promise you women will more than make-up for the current pay gaps and they’ll deserve it because they will have made themselves more valuable to the marketplace than men; this is how it’s supposed to work. 
 
I think bringing up this issue should be more of an issue about men than women.  It should be a wake-up call for men to get more aggressive in competing with women through better educations because that will be the only way they will remain marketable and prevent their own wage gap . By the way, the government can't fix that either.
        

    Author: John Mann

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