Buying a new vehicle is a long-term purchase for most owners and requires quite a lot of money if you want a good vehicle. And there are two ways you can do it. The first one is simple and fast: you go to the local car seller and get the car you have the money for. It saves you a lot of time but in turn you can get a car that costs more than it is on the market and can have inconvenient conditions. The second way requires more of your time: decide which car make and model you want to buy and research the market for a real price. Yes, it’s not as fast as the first method but when use it you go to the dealership with plain facts and figures and not just a general conception of what you want that the dealers can use to sell you an expensive vehicle. When you have all things sorted inside your head it will be much easier for you to get a good car at a good price.
The most important decision you have to make is the type of car you want to buy. Different car types cater to different needs and will also have different maintenance and insurance costs. Once you have determined whether you need a truck, a SUV, a sedan or a fast muscle car, you will have to look deeper into sub-classes. Having 2 or 4 doors, different engine power and other features will contribute to the final price and subsequent costs. It’s better to have all of the options you want with your car on a list, and compare different cars according to the criteria you have, rather than shop only by car make and model. Why buying things you don’t need just for a name? Continue reading →
In the good old days, people were trapped in their employment. The lyrics of the classic song, “Sixteen Tons” say it all: “Another day older and deeper in debt… I owe my soul to the company store.” The company paid, but the only place to buy food and the other necessities of life was the company store. With the prices set unaffordably high, people had to go into debt to put food on their tables. In accounting terms, they never ever paid off that debt. It’s a strange reflection on those times – that employers felt their labor would never willingly stay loyal. Today, people are more free to sell their labor and, if the job is not good for some reason, they can move on to try somewhere else. To that extent, employers have to build up a relationship with their employees. Trust and loyalty must be encouraged on both sides. It’s the same with those who sell goods and services. There are vast numbers of potential customers “out there”. How do you convert “potential” into “actual” and then keep those customers loyal? Well, Toyota seemed to have the answer to the question and then, as it slowly forgot about the need to maintain their customers’ good opinions, lost their brand image for safety and reliability. What price loyalty from Toyota customers?
Moving to the insurance industry, we find the same “for profit” attitude that has just driven Toyota into a wall. Insurers should be looking after their customers, ensuring they always have a good experience, particularly when making a claim. Instead, the insurers have this remarkable reputation for trying to weasel out of paying the full value of every claim made. It seems the words, “small print”, were invented just to let them off the hook. Why, then, has the free market not operated to drive them out of business? Ah, the wonders of capitalism do not apply to the insurance industry. We get caught in so many different ways. First off, all but three US states make it mandatory for us to have auto insurance. That forces us to look for the product. Then we run into the insurers’ exemption from the antitrust laws. Sadly, in 1944, the federal government thought it would be a good idea if the insurers did not have to compete with each other and no administration has had the political will to repeal that law. So we get prosecuted if we drive uninsured, but have to pay whatever premiums the insurance companies feel like asking. Life is just not fair. Continue reading →