The ONLY way for any government to escape their massive debt is inflation. The US is no different from other countries that used the pandemic as an excuse to prop all kind of businesses.
This is no different that real estate. If you have bought property at a fixed rate, then high inflation (= higher salaries) will make your loan look smaller year after year.
Of course the collateral damage is a weaker US$. But what is the alternative to the US$? Crypto? Yuan (see the recent move of the oil producing countries to accept non US $ payments).
The US knows that there is NO alternative to the US $, hence their reckless borrowing strategy (= issue more Treasuries).
But wait! Isn't what the HN is used to hear? "There is no alternative to the dominant position of Microsoft Explorer, Blackberry or anything else. Until THERE IS a replacement and a newcomer replaces the incumbant.
I am really worried over the long term about the so-called invicible US $ as a store of value.
Problem is that all central banks acted in coordination to print massively. So even if USD loses value in absolute terms, it doesn't in relative term.
You're right though, modern age monetary policy has been about inflating assets and monetizing fiscal deficit spending.
It's basically a big transfer of wealth from the younger generation to the older one (if you look at how lower interest rates pull forward valuations). When people talk about cheap housing or college in the 70s/80s, it was because the interest rate was over 10%. In modern society the best "mathematical" move tends to be to finance every purchase and pay them off as slowly as possible. I'd rather be debt free for peace of mind, personally, even if the math proves it to be the worse option.
Facenook, Meta, Google and others will slowly but surely get the squeeze in any way possible. They did EVERYTHING they could to get away from privacy laws. Their sleazy attitude, they contempt for regulators "we have more money than your own country and we will litigate until you run out of money" has worked. Arrogance paid off. Until now.
The Feds did not catch the mob bosses killing or stealing but they eventually caught them and indicted them on tax evasion.
You see the same thing here. Countries will use any tool they can, and there are plenty: store the data on servers located in our country, etc...
It will never end. On the top of the Apple squeeze...
correct me if im wrong but this is not about privacy laws, this is about the US govt being able to force US based companies to share data on non US-citizens.
yes, that's the main point why the US doesn't count as safe harbor and any "contractual agreements" are not worth much as US companies can't "opt. out" of US law.
its because of their national security interest though, which I respect in principle, and the parent post was talking about the companies themselves tracking the users virtually without consent. to me those aspects are very different
So far they haven't solved something that resolves the problem of having US ownership as far as I can tell.
The issue isn't where the servers are. The issue is what parties can compell them to hand over information. As far as I've read on it at least. And if there is US ownership you have US courts that can demand information they aren't legally allowed to hand over according to EU law.
I am way way older than you are. I went through episodes like that multiple times. There was always a trigger, work related or personal.
This is depression. Seek medical help. Find a good therapist to talk you. Get 10-15 sessions. Find the root of the problems. But the most important thing to do is talk. Don't go to social media, HN, or whatever. Bars, concerts are to be avoided. When you are there you'll get the feeling that you don't belong.
Medication can also help on a temporary basis until you find that you can get back feelings you had in your 20's.
The worst thing you can do is nothing. It will not go away. If it does, it will come back.
I guarantee that after you seek medical help and handle that with a therapist you will gradually feel more excited about life, there are so many wonderful things to do, experience and good people to meet.
I disagree with your assessment that Bitcoin is worthless:
1. Can't get any better for money laundering, just add a sprinkle of Tornado Cash or whatever your favorite tumbler is today.
2. Great speculation token on a par with gambling. Gambling is not illegal as far as I know in the US. It started in Indian reservation but became legit quickly when they cut a deal with each single state (so they can collect taxes)
3. Greatest Ponzi scheme ever. Same with other currencies. Get in early, make a fortune. Get in late, get screwed.
4. Very aspirational. Millions of suckers hate their government and were ripe to gobble up anything that would get them out of their not so exciting future.
5. Unleashed a massive amount of creativity. Just sign up to the top Crypto "thought leaders" on Twitter. Unlimited entertaining.
6. Petty crime and gangs move over, we are in a whole other league here. Rug pulls, scams,...It is just a matter of time before Crypto Bros will face a handgun in the mouth. Hand me the magic keys or we'll cut your kids fingers.
7. Plenty more to come.
(edited spelling)
I was indirectly involved in such a discovery in the 80s. A Spanish Galleon had been found in the Atlantic, off the SouthEast coast of the US, by a private, commercial, diving expedition. Gold was found (it may have been the main reason for that expedition).
Congratulations were in order. But the question was: who owns that gold? Without getting into a lot of details, if you find a ship floating away or something at the bottom of the ocean, it is yours to keep. Sometimes the owners and passengers are rescued from small sailboats as the sinking is imminent and the craft is sunk as she would present a hazard to navigation. Or that boat is left floating away. I recall such a case in 1994 a sailboat had been abandoned off the coast of North Carolina, the crew had been rescued with a Coast Guard helicopter. That sailboat was found a year later off Cape Hatteras. Bottom line the boat was rescued, her owners were found, and the insurance company had to negotiate a return (they paid the owners for a total loss).
That part is important, so let’s go back to that galleon full of gold coins (unlike bitcoins they had appreciated in value over three hundred years). That load was insured by the oldest insurance company at the time, the Insurance Company of North America (INA). INA became CIGNA, then ACE and is now Chubb. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insurance_Company_of_North_Ame...
Yes you can mock insurance companies for their archaic systems, flat files and old windows machines. But paper files were kept. They had paid for that loss. Recovering that gold was just a matter of filing legal documents. Negotiations ensued with the underwater gold diggers. A deal was reached.
It’s a great story, but I don’t understand how the insurance company is relevant to the finders. They found it, it’s theirs (you just said) so the insurance company… wants to pay above market value for nostalgic reasons?
Incidentally there’s a miniseries about this topic I just started watching, the overacting on the Spanish side of the production is cringeworthy but it’s a fun premise, you might like it. And if you already know it, you might comment on its veracity!
The insurance company paid the claim to the owner of the shipb, or whomever bought the insurance contract. This is how Lloyds of London got started.
The insurers are entitled to recovery. It happens in the case of mink fur theft, bank robbery, of ships salvaged and sold for scrap metal. Whomever bought the insurance contract got their money.
Even with a fire where everything is destroyed, there is always potential for recovery (I am not talking about a private house). In a plant or a warehouse storing computers, electronics, the insurance company will reimburse for the loss at a given valuation agreed upon in the contract: replacement value, market value. Then the insurance company will contract with a cleanup company and will sell the equipment (sometimes just smoke damage) to the wholesaler. That wholesaler will clean up the equipment and sell that on Amazon or ebay. More often they forget to mention the circumstances.
Here the insurance company has paid for those gold bullions, the owner was happy and is dead by now. The insurance company claims that they have title to that gold, hence a deal with the salvage company.
I think point #1 is wrong. According to the International Convention on Salvage, the salvor has a right to a reward. See https://www.jus.uio.no/lm/imo.salvage.convention.1989 Negotiations, arbitration, and legal disputes likely have to do with establishing the amount of the award; that and all the other potential ancillary issues, like time bars, establishing rightful owner (e.g. not abandoned), subrogation rights, etc.
> The insurance company claims that they have title to that gold, hence a deal with the salvage company.
Sure, but were the original owners alive today and the gold savaged, it would be considered the property of the salvage team. Why does this precedent change when an insurance company is involved?
I'm with you. I'm not following how reimbursing the original owner years and years ago gives the insurance company a stronger claim to ownership of a wreck than being the original owner (if un-reimbursed by insurance so that's not a factor, one supposes)
This. It makes no sense, and insurance contract is merely a transfer of risk, and potentially ownership of any claims. It does not in itself create any claims
As mentioned above, as part of the insurance company settling claims they often get ownership rights to the now damaged/destroyed/lost goods. That way they can recover some of their loss, and can quite explicitly stop (from a legal perspective) certain types of insurance fraud. Stuff like ‘losing’ jewelry and then conveniently finding it again later becomes theft AND insurance fraud, for instance.
So they became the new owner, AND had actually kept the paperwork.
What tripped me up was the seemingly-conflicting notion in the post that, typically, salvage belongs to the salvager, not the owner. It seems like the opposite is true? How it read to me was that there must be some kind of exception for insurers once they take ownership of something, but if the default is actually that the owner still owns it (minus reasonable salvage fees, and if they can prove it) and the point was that it was impressive they could still prove it after all that time, then it all makes sense.
That’s not what is happening, or what salvage means?
if there is no identifiable owner, then the salvor (the one who salvages) is generally entitled to the property as a reward for salvage, but not always. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_salvage]
If there IS an identifiable owner, the salvor is entitled to a reward that takes into account the difficulty in salvaging and the value of the salvaged property, assuming there was no contract that was more specific.
As i read it the insurance company reimbursed the crew that found the gold, and the insurance company owned the gold as well as they paid the original owners of the ship for their loss(but you can't own something that you don't have), they had to reimburse the crew that found it for their work/expenses etc. I might be wrong but that's what i got from the OP's story.
I read it the same way you did, but I'm confused that paying out insurance gives the insurer a stronger claim to property than buying something. Is a wreck at the bottom of the sea only still someone's property if that someone is an insurer?
My very lose understanding is that finding a wreck doesn't confer ownership. It confers salvage rights, and if the owner doesn't compensate for salvage (or the assumed costs of salvage), you get to keep what you salvage in payment.
So when there's no-one who can make a legal claim, and is willing and able to cover your costs - it starts to look a whole lot like "finders keepers". But if there's a clearly defined owner, and they're able to meet your costs, you have no right to keep it.
(For a clearer example - if someone gives your boat a tow, they can't refuse your payment and keep your boat, that'd be absurd. But if you refuse to pay they can recover those costs. Adding a few hundred years in doesn't change this, it only makes proving ownership more complex.)
So as I understand it - when the insurer compensates the owner, they assume ownership of the property. You can't lose something, claim insurance, then find it, and keep both property & payment. So when it comes to salvage - if the insurer can prove ownership and cover costs, it's their property.
Shipwrecks are governed by maritime salvage law, an international set of legal conventions governing the recovery of vessels and properties aboard them.
In a nutshell, the putative owner of the vessel or the properties recovered from it has two years from the end of salvage operations to lay claim to the vessel/goods recovered. If the salvage was not performed under contract, then they must pay fair value for the salvage services, but the sources I found are all over the board on what "fair value" is in that context.
I am sorry about my semi sarcastic comment on bitcoin. I apologize.
But bitcoin is portrayed "as a storage of value" and I wanted to show a REAL case where in fact GOLD was a real storage of value 200 years laters.
They do research but also higher education with 60 PhDs at any given time. Compared to US standards they are very small. Our National Labs have probably a budget 1,000 times bigger.
It is not a think tank like the ones we have in Washington DC where you just "buy opinions" augmented with political endorsements (= lobbyists ready to "fund the political campaign" of any politician, Republican or Democrat).
That shows that good research teams with limited budgets can produce great output. Unfortunately everything is in French, so their audience is limited.
As for the culprits we know WHO they are and WHERE they are. But like the war on illegal drugs against Mexican and Colombian cartels we should not forget that they would not exist without consumers. Consumers who are mostly in the US.
We can target the polluters in Kazakhstan or anywhere else. The White House will issue a press release "condemning those irresponsible operators" and providing reassurance that "we will do everything we can to bring that activity to a complete stop".
But we are consumers, and the US more specifically is a voracious consumer. We have built cities out of nowhere in places where the temperature is so high that you can’t live without A/C. We have golf courses in the middle of the desert and ice hockey teams in places that have seen ice. Our gigantic houses, our culture around freedom (=individual cars and pathetic public transportation systems)
Sure we drive a Bolt, a Tesla or a Prius in San Francisco. But it is our second, third or fourth car. The others are pickups or large SUVs to go skiing on weekends. Uber instead of public transportation, private jets for work or extended weekends, vacations with the family on the other side of the world at least 2-4 times/year. Ask our beloved Senator in California, Nancy Pelosi, who commands a military jet when she heads back home from DC for the weekend.
I don’t know what the solutions are. Shame the largest consumers? Shame and uncover politicians who condemn the pratices? Heavy taxes on gas (very impopular)? Honestly I don’t think I will witness any significant change in my lifetime.
I remember when Mercedes Benz bought Freightliner, the major US truck manufacturer,in the 80s.
The Mercedes Benz engineeers were astonished to see how UN-sophisticated the engineering of Freightliner trucks was.
Example: no assisted steering!!! That choice was justified as more macho.
I was told that assisted steering was not manly enough...
If it's when they are slowing down it's likely the jake-brakes j-brakes you are hearing especially if they have straight pipes. Diesel engines don't have engine braking by design so a mechanism was added to the heads to create artificial engine braking that can be toggled on per head.
[ Edit for clarification: ] I have created some confusion with this statement. For clarification diesel engines never had engine braking due to the lack of a throttle plate but this has been worked around with add-ons using different techniques. On a big-rig this is jake-brakes. On smaller modern vehicles this is usually a small turbo or an exhaust baffle. The operator of a modern diesel vehicle will effectively experience engine braking when they let off the throttle. On older diesel pickups and cars there was no engine braking.
>>Diesel engines don't have engine braking by design
First time I hear about this. I've driven and owned plenty of diesel vehicles in my life and diesel engines definitely do have engine braking(unless it's different in semis? but I don't see why it would be - just leave it in gear and let it slow down?)
Technically diesel engines do not strictly "engine brake" because of lack of throttle plate, and thus lack of pumping losses. However that doesn't mean that it won't slow down: friction losses, heat loss to cylinder walls, etc. still occur. Surely diesel passenger car will decelerate stronger when left in gear than in neutral. Given how many pages and pages of discussions you can find people arguing whether petrol or diesel engines brake stronger, it seems pumping loss doesn't make that much difference.
The engine itself has no braking due to the lack of the variable air-intake that gasoline engines have that would otherwise starve the engine for air especially when downshifting and closing the throttle.
Specifically on non-big-rigs, modern diesel cars and pickups create engine braking using a small turbo and tighten the spline or in some cases have an exhaust feedback baffle or flap, varies with year/model. Big rigs still use jake-brakes.
Interesting. I was only taught engine breaking from the practical perspective of down-shifting, but not the details of why it works. I understood the implicit effects of shifting down - maintaining the same high RPM with the same high resistance as a vehicle slows... but never gave much thought to what exactly those resistances were, I just assumed it was a combination of friction, compression, driving an alternator, other arbitrary mechanical losses etc.
Would there really be no significant braking effect without that "high manifold vacuum"? I suppose the engine does have a lot of mass so I could believe the effect could be too slow to be useful.
Gasoline engines have a throttle plate that, when you let off the throttle, prevents intake air from reaching the cylinders. The pistons try to draw air into the cylinders and create a pretty decent vacuum. (Respect to the throttle plate. :-))
Diesel engines don't; the throttle controls fuel flow into the cylinders. Let off the throttle and air flows through the intake, cylinders, and exhaust just without producing any power.
The effects of friction are roughly the same on both engines, and they are what engine designers and builders want to minimize to maximize fuel efficiency and power.
I've done what feels like engine braking in "consumer" diesel trucks. Since I never had to flip switches or anything, how does the engine know how to enter into this "engine braking" mode?
Never even crossed my mind that diesels don't natively engine brake. Then again how diesels work is a bit of a mystery to me... mostly because I never bothered to look into it much.
Newer diesel engines use a turbo or baffle. Most commonly a turbo to create effective braking. This is operationally superior to jake-brakes in that the mechanism is tied into the ECM and transmission allowing for things like cruise control to function as expected. Jake-brakes on the other hand require a bit of technique by the driver to use correctly and avoid jack-knifing the vehicle with its trailer, especially on ice. Some modern pickups can even be put into "towing mode" to make better use of the add-on braking mechanism and allow cruise control to work downhill.
I suppose this the right time for an important PSA. If anyone tows something heavy in an older diesel pickup be aware the only braking you have is what your brake pedal provides. Glaze those brakes and you are going on an exciting adventure.
You can test the petrol-car-vacuum braking theory if you have an older manual petrol car with a cable from the accelerator to the butterfly valve of the throttle. While driving at 50kph, put into neutral, turn off the ignition, engage a lower gear, release clutch. Test pressing and releasing the accelerator pedal while using engine braking and feel for a difference.
SAFETY: 1. Don’t turn off the ignition all the way and lock the steering (although I admit that is very exciting to have steering locked into one direction, I don’t recommend trying it). 2. Be mentally prepared to lose power steering and power brakes. 3. Only on wide straight roads with no other traffic and safe ways to stop. 4. Probably other warnings specific to your vehicle, and situation. 5. I recommend against trying it on an automatic trans.
If your diesel has turbo vanes controlling the braking, you could probably test it out the same way (presuming electronics are disabled when ignition is off).
Another way to test things is to remove relevant fuses.
Disclaimer: there are lots of ways to screw up even being careful - I do not recommend learning by failure in deadly situations.
Diesel engines do not have engine breaking? Are you sure? For me, engine breaking is just the fact that the engine, without power, have moving pieces which, by inertia, is going to slow down the vehicle. Diesel engine being heavier than "regular" engine, the engine brake effect is more important.
At least that's my experience with the cars I used to own.
Edit: For the record, my experience is for 4-strokes diesel engines. Apparently, 2-strokes are still in use in the US.
Diesel engines have no throttle plate that controls the airflow into the engine.
The closed throttle plate in a gasoline engine is what creates a gasoline engine's brake effect, by pulling a vacuum in the intake below the closed throttle plate, which produces the brake effect.
With no throttle plate, the remaining mechanical components in a diesel engine provide minimal friction, certainly not enough to produce any brake effect.
The jake brake (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jake_brake) converts the diesel engine into a huge air compressor when activated, which provides an engine brake effect. Unfortunately it also often creates a very distinctive, and often loud, sound from the exhaust as well.
> With no throttle plate, the remaining mechanical components in a diesel engine provide minimal friction, certainly not enough to produce any brake effect.
I'm not sure if maybe we have different definitions of "braking", but a diesel engine definitely slows down a car when one throttles down. The vehicle slows down faster than when on neutral, and the braking power depends on which gear is engaged, which seems to indicate very much that there is engine braking going on.
Posters point wasn't that the vehicles you drive didn't effectively have engine breaking, but that in diesel designs this is something that had to be added intentionally - with [edit gas engines] you get it whether you want it or not.
Fun fact - the effect can be strong enough on a high compression motorcycle engine to break your rear tire free (obviously lots of other parameters there).
But what do you mean by 4 cycles. The diesel engines I know all have 4 cycles. I though 2 cycles engines were found on old tractors from the 50s no?
Edit: Looking at [0], assuming this is true, I understand the confusion now. It seems, in the US, heavy duty diesel engines are 2 strokes which, apparently, do not have engine braking.
Me being sloppy, of course you can have 2-stroke or 4-stroke diesels. Edited to improve.
The main thing going on here isn't the cycles, it's the lack of a throttle plate. With these designs the amount of air entering cylinder doesn't relate to your throttle position.
If you come off the throttle every compression cycle a "full" cylinder of new air gets compressed, then decompresses and pushes against the piston. In normal operation the energy is re-transferred to the crank (with some loss). It sort of "bounces". But with a compression brake, you force the engine to do the work of compressing that air, but then full open the exhaust valve to let the pressure escape... much more energy lost each cycle, which transfers through drive train and slows you down.
In comparison to typical ICE: in that case when you come off the throttle, the intake is sealed off, so the cylinder on intake stroke is "sucking" against a closed path, which loses energy. Similar effect, different cause.
In a 4-stroke engine, throttle or not, intake valves are shut down when in compression so cylinders are sealed off, compression happens anyway, diesel or gas. Indeed, in 2-cycles engines there are not intake valve so LinuxBender's point is valid.
I think you misread; I should have been clearer. This is how I understand/remember it although to be fair it's been a while since I've worked on either so might mess it up a bit.
Anyway it has nothing to do with compression or the intake valve in either case. Compression happens in both cases, and doesn't affect anything.
In diesel, Jake type breaks steal energy by opening the exhaust valve right after TDC, e.g. what would be the power stroke. The energy stored in compressed air escapes out the exhaust valve rather than being (mostly) reclaimed by the crank on expansion - this slows down the crank and hence (if not in neutral) the vehicle slows. NB this is not when the exhaust valve would normally open, but rather a cycle earlier.
In gas, on the intake stroke the intake is blocked (not by the valve, further up by throttle) so the intake motion creates vaccuum - this takes energy, which slows down the crank, and hence etc. etc. The exhaust valve doesn't change timing.
The latter approach only works if you have something blocking the intake "above" the intake valve. In a diesel engine the airflow is kept the same and the fuel adjusted (unlike gas) so there is no natural mechanism to do this with the throttle.
Most of the energy stored in the cylinder charge during the compression stroke is returned (as if an air spring) on the (what would be the) power stroke. The difference between a gas and diesel engine shows up in the higher pumping losses on the intake stroke (if you're pulling air past a closed throttle plate or not).
> With no throttle plate, the remaining mechanical components in a diesel engine provide minimal friction, certainly not enough to produce any brake effect.
I don't understand. I've driven multiple diesel engine cars throughout the years, and they most definitely have a brake effect. I'm not even sure they brake less than the gasoline cars I've driven. Easily enough to slow down for taking an exit from the freeway, for example, when shifting down appropriately. To the point that there regularly are situations when I lightly press the brake pedal not to brake but to simply light the brake lights, if there are cars behind me.
It does sound plausible that the lack of a throttle leads to less or no brake effect, but it simply doesn't fit my observations.
I'm talking about regular cars here, both recent and less recent (the oldest one was built in 1989).
Maybe there are different diesel engine types with different brake capabilities? Or do some gasoline engines brake much more than what I'm used to, and my reference for what is and isn't significant braking is all wrong?
Diesel engines might not have throttle plate but they use injection which certainly do not inject air when acceleration is released, so the cylinders will act exactly the same way. Reading the web I see conflicting account on this subject. Strange...
Also, I though that modern petrol engines did not have throttle plates anymore and use the same injection system than diesel engines (no more carburetors).
I'm not sure what you mean, both Otto and Diesel cycles are four-stroke.
In petrol engines power is usually controlled by throttle plate which limits volume of air going into cylinder, and enough fuel is added during the intake stroke (either by injection or carburetor) to have combustion close to stoichiometric.
In diesel engines there's no throttle plate and engine always runs on lean mixture, and power is controlled only by amount of injected fuel, which is done after air is already compressed and hot.
I think we cross-edited, remaining confusion I think was about 2 vs 4 stroke but it's not really relevant so I had adjusted with a nod to when diesel injection occurs in 4.
The fuel system doesn't provide restriction on the air going through the engine.
A diesel engine that's not dumping in fuel (because your foot isn't on the pedal) has about as much engine braking as a gas engine that's run out of fuel but the operator has floored the pedal.
A gas engine has a throttle that can restrict airflow. A diesel can either be equipped with an exhaust brake or compression brake. The latter is tons more effective but louder.
Diesel engines themselves have no engine braking. Each personal vehicle implementation of diesel engines have worked around this using different techniques. The most common outside of big-rigs is a turbo that tightens a spline or closes a feedback baffle.
To the operator of the vehicle it will appear there is engine braking on modern diesel engines. Older pickups and cars have no engine braking.
They would drive slowly and carefully and take alternate routes when possible.
Just ride the brakes?
No that will overheat and glaze the brakes. That is why long steep hills initially had run-away ramps created. The run-away ramps are still used but not nearly as much as they used to be. In many places alternate routes were created for people towing heavy things. A good example of this is the grapevine on I-5 in southern California. There is a truck route and the main route. That also has many run-away ramps.
> In many places alternate routes were created for people towing heavy things.
That, uh, sounds pretty inconvenient!
So without engine brakes if you downshift in an older diesel does the engine just rev right up and the car doesn't even bother to act like it is slowing down? That has to be pretty weird....
Eastbound on Interstate-40 on the eastern slope of the Appalachians the truck speed limit at the top of the pass is 35mph and there are very, very many warning signs including radar-activated lights. There are also three or four runaway-truck ramps (filled with loose gravel) that are somewhat frequently used, and often trucks pulled over to the side to let their brakes cool.
(The Rockies have even more of this sort of thing, but I haven't been out there in quite a while. :-( )
It very much slows down. Just not quite as much as a gas engine. You still have friction losses (especially as you get higher rpm), losses from alternator, water pump, engine fans, oil pump, etc.
One of my vehicles is a VW Jetta TDI (diesel, ALH engine).
It's not the inertia that does the job (that keeps things going, actually) but the compression and shedding the compressed air that will slow things down. But for a big rig doing that idling it won't be enough, especially not on a descent with 25 tons pushing you downhill.
A Jake brake is for long descents, it essentially uses the engine to slow down instead of the brakes to avoid overheating them.
Normal diesels do engine braking just fine, but not aggressive enough to shed speed on a long descent without over-revving, and you really don't want to do that with a diesel engine.
Exactly. The irony of Mercedes-Benz engineers marveling at how unsophisticated a simply-engineered vehicle is brought a smile to my face. Most owner-operator truck drivers want to be able to fix and maintain their trucks on their own, not bring the truck into the dealer every 3 months like some temperamental S-class.
Although I guess Mercedes was still pretty reliable back in the 80's.
Actually, I think the irony is the other way around. I've read that worldwide, MB vehicles dominate many markets (e.g. African taxi and trucking) precisely because they are so easy to do local non-dealer maintainance on. Most of the world thinks of many MB vehicles as workhorses, not luxury or sophisticated vehicles.
I've often wondered about this. Here in North America we only get the Mercedes models that need their disc rotors replaced every 30k, and we see nothing of the indestructible and serviceable models that seem to wind up in places without posh MB dealerships.
I've always thought that this was because NA has air pollution laws that are strictly and honestly enforced and that that would make diesel cars difficult to offer.
>I've always thought that this was because NA has air pollution laws that are strictly and honestly enforced and that that would make diesel cars difficult to offer.
Yes, the US regulates NOx emissions much more than Europe. This makes it very hard to offer passenger diesel engines in the US. On the other hand, the EU regulates/taxes CO2 emissions, which the US does only indirectly through CAFE (fuel efficiency) regulations.
Much worse than that. There may be a few non-hybrid models that can get that high, but they're very uncommon. You have to remember the best selling "car" in the US is a Ford F-150. They're also exempt from CAFE as I understand it, as they're classified as light trucks rather than cars.
This almost certainly has more to do with how low our gas tax is compared to almost every other developed country though, than any direct regulation.
Yes, MB deliberately cultivated a "luxury" brand image in the US and did not import very many of the "workhorse" models (the ones with smaller engines, manual transmissions, and few options) that the rest world knows.
In the US their Sprinters compare to the competition about the same way an S-class compares to a Camry. In both cases it's generally considered ill-advised to own it into old age.
If the Sprinter took a comparable amount of maintenance to deliver the same service it would not have the reputation it does. It's not like people are jumping to conclusions based on brand either. It was initially branded as a Dodge or Freighter/Sterling. The only operators who like it are high end passenger fleets that depreciate them and then get new ones. Now, in its defense, people do generally hate the FWD Fiat van more...
I've seen some of this. People were bitching about their MBs not lasting long enough: turns out they were skimping on the oil, using regular oil rather than the synthetic oil those engines need. Synthetic oil is a lot more expensive but it lasts much longer. But America likes its oil changes, every ridiculously low number of miles because they believe that is what will make their cars last, rather than to use quality oil to begin with.
MB engines are indestructible if treated properly, they routinely outlast the body of the vehicles, they have oversized oil pumps, use chains rather than timing belts (a common failure point) and in general are designed to last.
There is plenty wrong with MB, their electronics absolutely suck and don't get me started on their software or their over priced parts. But their engines are solid.
You really think that owner operators repair their own trucks? That doesn't make any economic sense. This is not a hobby, they need to drive to make money not to play truck repairman.
I'm always astonished how US Americans try to justify poor engineering with "advantage of simplicity". It's like arguing that you want to program using punch cards because that makes you feel closer to the machine and you have a "physical" copy of your programs.
This is a side note, does this bother anybody else? I'm at least a teensy bit bothered by it. I know the point is to reduce ambiguity between the U.S.A and Latin/North/Central/South America, but it still feels a bit condescending, like we're not even allowed to have a unique name anymore or even have a say in we should call ourselves/be called in our native language (and it doesn't help that the only time I hear "US Americans" is when someone is talking shit about us). There's only one country on the continent with the word America in its name. I'm curious if I'm the only one who feels this way or if I'm overthinking it.
In Romance languages, the continent is known as the supercontinent "America", but in Germanic languages (like English) and other languages that borrow from it call them the "Americas" as two continents "North" and "South" America. So, for people to bring it over as 'America' can sometimes be seen as pedantry instead of insightfulness.
Well, yes, in theory you could use 'Amerikas' in German, but nowadays that's mostly because of a bad translation. It actually is correct German to speak of 'both America' - 'beide Amerika' (in singular).
South Africa? I would call it South Africa if that's what they want to be called. I definitely wouldn't call citizens of South Africa "RS Africans" or something unless they preferred that for some reason.
The grandparent might just be German using a literal translation. In German, it is pretty common to call Americans "US-Amerikaner", even when we are not talking shit about you.
The shit-talking is by the way something you should not take too serious. I have seen it directed at Germany from smaller European countries as well. It is just natural to target the bigger, more powerful neighbour, especially when he behaves a bit too full of himself.
Just think of Don Draper answering to "I feeld bad for you!" with "I don't think about you at all."
>There's only one country on the continent with the word America in its name.
Not just the continent(s). The United States of America is the only country in the world with the word "America" in its name.
>I know the point is to reduce ambiguity between the U.S.A and Latin/North/Central/South America
This is only a thing in Spanish. In Portuguese, Americans (that is, those from and of the USA) are often called americanos. In French, américain is much more commonly used than États-Unien.
The Spanish meaning of americano that does not include Americans in this way is very unusual among major Western languages (<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_%28word%29#Other_lang...>). I don't mean to say that the equivalent of "American" in those languages is the only way to refer to those of the USA, or that equivalents to "USA" and such don't exist. In Portuguese, Italian, and German, however, saying Americano/Americano/Amerikanisch would generally be understood as referring to that of the USA without additional context, as opposed to a Brazilian or Argentinean, in a way that Americano wouldn't in Spanish.
Further, in Spanish the ambiguity is worse. "Los Estados Unidos" is another term for the US, despite the existence of Mexico (AKA United Mexican States / Estados Unidos Mexicanos). Norteamericano for "American" is also used, despite that term literally including those living in Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean.
(Yes, I know that in practice, Spanish speakers understand that "Los Estados Unidos | EE. UU" and "Norteamericano" refers to the US and its residents. That's my point; shouldn't "Americans" also be understood in context that way?)
>but it still feels a bit condescending, like we're not even allowed to have a unique name anymore or even have a say in we should call ourselves/be called in our native language (and it doesn't help that the only time I hear "US Americans" is when someone is talking shit about us)
Correct; those who use it think that they are making a sly subtle dig against the warmongering imperialistic USAmericans.
You really think that owner operators repair their own trucks? That doesn't make any economic sense. This is not a hobby, they need to drive to make money not to play truck repairman.
I've known several owner-operators, friends of family mostly, and yes, they routinely strip and repair their own kit. It's a lot cheaper and very often faster than taking it into a shop.
I'm always astonished how US Americans try to justify poor engineering with...
Simplicity also means less time in the shop when needed too, they usually charge by the hour. Also in the 80s I could totally see that. On the side of the road, hood up fix it right there. Remember they probably had CB radio which is limited range, no phone and the closest town is 50 miles behind you.
Also depending on the job it can make very good economic sense to DIY. My brother in law just had to fix something on his car. They quoted him 2500. He fixed it himself for about the cost of some used parts (80 bucks) and a half day of his time. Trucks are no different.
I don't think your argument and analogy makes sense. Simplicity is not only valuable when an owner himself needs to repair the truck.
It's valuable when your truck breaks down in a middle of nowhere, and the closest official repair shop is hundreds of miles away, whereas there might be an "okay" level independent mechanic every 20 miles or less (the actual distance is not the point, the point is that an "okay" mechanic will be probably 10-50x more common).
Simplicity is also valuable with missing parts. Sure, the sophisticated solution is better in terms of performance, electronics, and whatnot, but it might take weeks to receive a part (even before COVID), because the shop doesn't have it and have to be ordered from China. Compare this with simple parts that you can again find in many old trucks and even smaller towns, making it much easier to replace.
Just to put it in coding analogy: if my business needs a website, or a landing page, I'm not going to hire a team of former Googlers and ask them to write a performant backend framework in Rust and invent a new frontend framework. I'm going to ask my uncle who is a hobby designer and can set me up a static site/WordPress in a day. I'm not trying to "justify poor engineering", I just prefer simplicity and the "poor engineering" approach gets my problem solved in one tenth of the time. Who is doing poor engineering now?
Also, coming back to the trucks. There don't need to be poor engineering from either side. Maybe the different requirements just caused trucks evolve in different directions?
> You really think that owner operators repair their own trucks? That doesn't make any economic sense. This is not a hobby, they need to drive to make money not to play truck repairman.
Oh yes! I have seen this unfold once in front of my own eyes, a real spectacle. Driver working for a driver company servicing a distribution company, tries to start the truck, something wrong with brakes, truck is driveable though, gets off, calls boss (company policy). One hour late boss finally arrives, gets in, unhooks trailer, parks the truck three meters to the side, gives the driver a different truck to take. 1 hour more paperwork to process, the trailer finally leaves the distribution warehouse 2.5 hours late. The driver company is apparently paying both late fees and parking fees to logistics company while this ordeal unfolds..
~4AM (5 hours later) a truck fixing mini-buss from a 3rd party truck fixing company arrives with two technicians. They plug into the truck, their diagnostics software shows nothing wrong, they leave.
Next day a different truck fixing company shows up and finally tows the truck after dancing around it for almost two hours with diagnostics software.
Quite a few thousands of pounds burned in just two days of people following rules and policies...
This is apparently "normal", this makes much "economic sense".
There are many areas of the US where a truck driver might find themself hours away from a mechanic or tow truck. I assume there is some value in fixability, assuming the reliability is not too much less than a less fixable truck.
Yep, owner operators repair their own trucks. Sometimes even fairly major engine work.
However, you can have well-engineered simplicity, too, and that seems to be rare. (As opposed to poorly engineered simplicity or highly engineered complexity.)
Do they want to spend their time doing it? No. Do they have a choice in most of the country? No. Trucks don't conveniently break down at the mechanic's shop.
It's really easy to spin a naive fanboy (of a particular brand, technology or otherwise) narrative like this and when you aim your tropes ("ze backwards yankees") right at audience's bias you're sure to get a bunch of virtue points in response.
The fact of the matter is that there's very, very, few secrets in the automotive and heavy equipment industries. If someone is or isn't doing something it's because they've run the numbers and they don't think it pencils out for what they build and who they sell to.
It's really easy to spin a naive fanboy narrative like this and when you aim your tropes right at audience's bias you're sure to get a bunch of virtue points in response.
That's one of the big problems with internet blogs. They do a bunch of Googling and speculation and that's it. Laughably, they sometimes they even call themselves "journalists."
How hard would it have been to go to a truck stop and sit at the counter and ask some truckers? They know all about trucks. And after being along all day, truckers love to talk.
If you're afraid of people, get a $10 CB radio from Goodwill and talk to them on the radio.
Yeah, but those people are perhaps the worst to get insight on the industry from. For instance, most truck drivers in the US haven't driven a Scania truck (and flipped for the EU). They can't give you comparative information, so everyone's natural tendency to defend their choice will give you a bunch of rationalizations that you can falsely assume to be reasons.
It's the same as how you could ask people why SF doesn't have gigabit fiber Internet for $60 when Bucharest does for $30, and people on the Internet will make up all sorts of reasons. However, SF does have gigabit fiber Internet. Explaining is easy. Truth-seeking is hard.
But also extra effort from the driver = more tired driver, higher chance of accident, more mistakes and issues with every delivery.
I have not driven a truck like that personally, but I know what sort of difference all the modern assistance systems have done on my cross-continental drives. Previously a 12 hour drive would leave me absolutely exhausted, like I'd need a full day to recover after that - in a modern car with lane assist and adaptive cruise and comfortable seats and what not - I arrive relaxed every time. Long dull stretches of road don't take such a mental toll anymore.
I imagine the exact same principle applies to trucks.
Absolutely! We visited family in Italy last summer, and had an all-day drive. Just constant attention and input, compared to cruising along some 2 lane road in the US. Cars coming up behind you, whizzing by you. A slow old car up ahead. Big truck to pass. Tight curve. Road narrows. Road widens. Some dude in a BMW riding your bumper. For like 8 hours... I was so glad to get out of the car. If it hadn't been for the pandemic, I would have much rather taken a train and relaxed.
Yeah....that 12 hour drive I mentioned includes driving across the entire width of Germany and jesus it is stressful. Yes, the unlimited sections are "fun" and it's really cool to be able to drive at 150mph+ for a while when the conditions allow, but it also means you need to be on like 10x the alertness level as normal. Like really really really pay attention a lot at all times. It can be super harsh. But the last few times I'd just set the cruise control to something more sensible and just relax, with the modern systems the car basically drives itself.
The ONLY way for any government to escape their massive debt is inflation. The US is no different from other countries that used the pandemic as an excuse to prop all kind of businesses.
This is no different that real estate. If you have bought property at a fixed rate, then high inflation (= higher salaries) will make your loan look smaller year after year.
Of course the collateral damage is a weaker US$. But what is the alternative to the US$? Crypto? Yuan (see the recent move of the oil producing countries to accept non US $ payments).
The US knows that there is NO alternative to the US $, hence their reckless borrowing strategy (= issue more Treasuries).
But wait! Isn't what the HN is used to hear? "There is no alternative to the dominant position of Microsoft Explorer, Blackberry or anything else. Until THERE IS a replacement and a newcomer replaces the incumbant.
I am really worried over the long term about the so-called invicible US $ as a store of value.