Pollution controls on passenger cars were a necessity, one which has received general acceptance from the population as a whole, especially the residents of cities like Los Angeles. Most European and Japanese companies were able to adapt to this successfully and profitably though technical innovation and massive investment, even though the add-on pollution control devices mandated put small engines at a great disadvantage while favoring big American cars. But US motor companies, wishing to preserve the profits inherent in big cars like the V8s that were rapidly becoming untenable, promoted the SUV concept by taking advantages of exemptions in the law for light trucks.

In spite of an inevitable and obvious trend towards fuel scarcity and higher prices in the 70s, the public was encouraged (or let's be charitable and say persuaded) that they could continue migrating to distant suburbs far from their homes because of the cheaper property values, and they purchased fuel-inefficient machines to ferry them around from these suburban archipelagoes in comfort and luxury. Simultaneously, mass transit alternatives were allowed to wither by neglect or were actively opposed and dismantled while enormous amounts of public funds were endlessly poured into the automotive infrastructure, especially highways, which somehow never seemed to be able to keep up with the demands on it. Oh yeah, it's a wonderful lifestyle, but it has a major engineering flaw, something which someone in your business will certainly recognize the jargon for: it has a single point of failure.

That this situation could not continue indefinitely has been known since the 70s or earlier, but no one listened, and those that tried to give the warning were shouted down and ridiculed. Well, it is catching up to us now, in spades, and the solutions which might have been mildly inconvenient 30 or 40 years ago now are going to become a colossal headache, to put it mildly. It was bad business decisions that brought us here, bad decisions from the consumer for buying into this lunacy, from the motor companies because they thought only of the short term profit, and from our political leadership that is incapable of taking a stand on anything that's uncomfortable for the public and unprofitable for the private sector. The only ones that made out were the oil companies, because it doesn't matter to them how much fuel costs overseas, they just pass their costs on to the consumer.

I'm not saying that those who are now making payments on brand new gas-guzzlers they can't afford to operate (or sell!) are greedy and wasteful, but they have made very bad business decisions because they listened to very bad advice. Still, it's not like they had no warning this was coming. Is there any way possible anyone didn't see this building up 20 years ago? My God, how could anyone not see this coming?

This did not sneak up on us, it's been lurking our way since the 60s. But nobody listened. And believe me, I'm not getting any pleasure out of the I-told-you-sos, because when it hits the fan, I'm standing right there in front of it just like the rest of us.

No doubt you'll have all sorts of evidence ready to prove how mistaken I am wrong on every point, so go right ahead. But that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Everyone else here will read it, so go ahead and convince them.