Chief conspiracy theorist here; step back and look at the big picture. Those with all the gold they get by selling their immortal souls (Soros, et alia) are pulling and always have pulled the strings, and aside from a few homicidal maniacal dictators occasionally muddying the water, the planned march toward socialism continues, but not for the "humanitarian" reasons the Leftists want to believe.
We see at every level of government, social institutions and the like, the chipping away at the standards and foundations the country was founded on which get in the way of the above mentioned agenda. Tear down the foundation and the institutions and strengths of the nation and watch it fall. The US has had its' run I'm afraid to admit, and wish it were not so. We came close in WWII but the control of the media and many of the major institutions were not yet then in control of these forces. That is no longer true. The advent of modern communication and surveillance technology has been a dictator's boon and precipitates the downfall. The will of the people, their independence and reliance on self and a Power higher than themselves must be broken, shattered, and ground into a state where these current 'men behind the curtain' offer what seems to be the only hope to the stubborn ignorance of the "common" man these days. Bread and circuses, major distractions . . . "watch what this hand is doing (while the other slits your throat)" . . . .
Apostasy, abandonment of principles, political corruption and the like are running the show; social unrest, rampant inflation and war are just part of the program. As far as the original premise of this thread, the cost of a car, the first time the US auto makers began pricing themselves out of the market the world was a different place and the Japanese and others stepped in to fill a need with products priced to be affordable (with mixed results, admittedly). They gave the US healthy competition and forced them to be more innovative and produce products at a price that could compete. The powers that be have more control now and won't allow that to happen again.
The ever hopeful hold out that, necessity being the mother of invention, that someone will soon discover a way to put Mr. Fusion modules in our cars or the aliens will reveal themselves and bequeath a miraculous new power technology that will solve all our problems. Guess I'm the cynic in that discussion . . . .
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