Saw this pretty and skittish little palm warbler during my travels this past weekend:
A few minutes ago, my dog was barking her head off. I didn’t pay any attention to it at first. She’s the classic “boxer who cried woof” — she barks at molecules, squirrels, falling leaves, UPS delivery people, etc.
But this time, she had good reason: A marauding rottweiler had chased someone’s cat into my yard and cornered it. Luckily, before I was required to risk being maimed to save the cat, the rottweiler’s owners arrived with a leash and hauled it off. Whew!
I know we’ve got some gear-heads here, so, a question: My daughter’s roommate blew up her (my daughter’s) car by driving it overheated. The car is fairly recent vintage (2014) and was reliable until this incident (bad thermostat that was ignored until knucklehead blew the head gasket by driving it hot).
Is it worth rebuilding the engine, which would cost about $3K? Or would she be better off buying a crappy old beater for $3K? Those are the only choices at the moment. Any expert input would be greatly appreciated!
RP
Spend 3K to repair a 2015 car vs $3K to buy a 2005 car? Easy. Take door #1.
Elizabelle
I think we should have a bird mid-day thread from here on out. Anything to escape current events, for a spell.
mvr
If she otherwise liked the car I would rebuild it, or see if you can get a used engine from a wreck or some other source.
Spanky
What kind of car? Need some details.
And as it’s an open thread: If you’re coming to DC for the march this weekend the Post has an article of Things You Should Know.
Mnemosyne
Hopefully your daughter has now learned the hard lesson of why you don’t loan your car to idiots.
ETA: Don’t get me wrong, we all did it when we were young and stupid. But it sucks for it to be an expensive mistake. Mine was just a minor but annoying dent that hadn’t been there before.
Amir Khalid
@mvr:
I concur. Who knows what kind of grief the kid could be in for with the US$3K beater.
Betty Cracker
@Spanky: It’s a 2014 Chevy Sonic LTZ.
The Moar You Know
Yikes. Like others, I’m going with the rebuild, although that would not be my normal course of action. But that car is too new.
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne: You betcha!
ETA: I learned that lesson as catastrophically as the kiddo did — stupid boyfriend totaled the car I got for graduation within two months.
Droppy
Fix the car that is basically ok and much, much newer than any car you could get for the same money – all of course depending on if you have a mechanic you like and trust (which, if you have one of those, is also worth a lot of money!)
Butch
If you get the rebuilt engine from PowerSource it will cost about that much (installed) and come with a 3-year warranty.
Roger Moore
@RP:
This. Outstanding way of summarizing the problem.
boatboy_srq
@Elizabelle: Ditto on the Midbirdday post.
Betty Cracker
@Butch: Good to know — thanks!
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@RP: Agreed. Buying used cars ain’t what it used to be and $3000 doesn’t go as far as it used to. If everything else is in good shape then get the engine rebuilt.
FlyingToaster
Alas, rebuild. There’s no way a 3K beater will be as safe as a repaired 2014 vehicle.
Major Major Major Major
Sucks about the car, but at least the cat is okay!
TenguPhule
Get a new engine. If it blew from overheating, there’s a risk that the block may have cracks. Which will lead to a continuing series of repairs in your car’s future.
And prepare to spend more then $3K on it. And make the roommate help pay for it.
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
I remember years ago (early 80s) when my boss’s wife similarly destroyed the engine in his beloved sports car. Cracked the engine block, couldn’t be repaired. Haven’t seen/heard from them in forever, but he’s probably still living off of her karmic debt from that.
On almost any 2014-vintage vehicle, a $3K repair (that’s actually a great price for an engine re-build) would be well worth it, especially compared with spending that $3K instead on some beater (almost nothing you could buy at that price would favorably compare with a decent shape — I assume — 2014 with a rebuilt engine).
My opinion, after more than 45 years of having shiny new cars to rusted-out beaters and everything in between, with many repairs great and small along the way, this isn’t even close.
raven
I’d price an engine from a junk yard.
dexwood
Agree with all the rebuild suggestions. And, Butch’s mention of a warranty makes it a sweeter deal.
trollhattan
I would not rebuild because there could well be unseen damage not fixed in the process. I would, however, drop in a low-mileage reclaimed engine from a wrecked model as opposed to buying a hgin-mileage beater.
boatboy_srq
Re: car: I’m with Butch here. Replace (witj rebuilt), don’t rebuild yourself (and especially don’t have the dealer do it), and get some warranty coverage in the process. $3K cars in FL aren’t $3K cars in other places (had a friend in TPA who got stuck with a 10yo Mitsu Mirage that sucked gas and repairs; here in NoVA that sum would get a much better decently driveable beater), so unless you look out of state (ha!), chances of finding anything worth owning longer than the drive off the lot are slim.
Cephalus Max
Agreed with @Spanky… need some details. Big difference e.g. if it is a Toyota Corolla vs. say… a Chevrolet Sonic. Also, do you know if the blown gasket was the end of the problem, or did the cylinder head get fragged, etc.
Cermet
@Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot: Agreed; almost too good – as long as the block didn’t crack, it is just a series of parts that must be replaced. I agree with most here – if the mechanic is honest then you are far away better repairing such a new car.
Betty Cracker
@TenguPhule: Alas, the roommate is broke as the 10 Commandments.
JDM
@Betty Cracker: bought a ’57 Biscayne and put it in a ditch?
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker:
Blood from donors can earn about $150 per donation.
Just saying.
Cephalus Max
And agreed with the various replace vs. rebuild comments. At $3K (which is not an unreasonable price for a complete rebuild), you can get a replacement engine dropped in from a late model wrecked vehicle.
catclub
@Betty Cracker:
was the thermostat actually bad? What exactly was ignored? Why do I think the high temps it was registering were the precursors of the overheat?
Doesn’t overheat only happen when all the coolant has leaked out? When did that take place?
catclub
@TenguPhule: well, the blood might, but there are various rules for NOT paying donors. ONly those with extra special blood types are likely to be paid. Plasma might be different. I am at 9 or so gallons with my present blood bank and have not seen any of that $150 per.
{did not expect to, either.}
raven
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kindness
You are too nice Betty. I would have been told to ride my bike until I could afford to fix the car myself. Yea my parents were big on personal responsibility. I wasn’t thrilled with their advice a lot of times but I learned I had to get my ass in gear and do it myself. That actually helped me over the course of my life.
catclub
@Major Major Major Major: Priorities!
Humdog
My dog was Barker when she was the only dog. I’d thought the two of them would goad each other into barking more, it, no, the lone dog was skeered of everything while she was our sole “protector”. Now, with her new little buddy, they only bark when the neighbor wants to use his yard or when the squirrels come to laugh at them. Or when a bird chirps. Or…..
TenguPhule
DOW drop now at 700 points.
Wheeeee!!! //
smintheus
@trollhattan: I agree with that. Rebuilding should be out of the question. It should be possible to get a decent second-hand engine installed for half of the 3K price.
Will also point out that it’s possible to get a pretty decent high mileage car for $3K, esp. if you concentrate on the right model – either cars that lose their resale value for no good reason (e.g. they’re known as rental cars), or cars that are owned by the elderly that nobody buys used, or cars that are bulletproof as long as they’re maintained (e.g. top of the line Toyotas, where 250K trouble-free miles is nothing exceptional).
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@Betty Cracker: Many of us experienced similar lessons. In the Long Ago (’74) a close friend destroyed my beautiful ’68 Pontiac LeMans (maybe the best car I’ve ever had; certainly the one I remember most fondly). Fortunately, no one was hurt, and no other person or vehicle involved. He bought all my weed for some time after that, but it never came close, you know?
A couple decades after that, my newly-licensed teenage son totalled our family camping vehicle (a nice Ford Explorer) by rolling it over on the side of the road (again, no one hurt — seatbelts! — and no other damage). The crazy thing afterward were all the people (including his HS French teacher) telling him about “rolling their vehicle” at some point in their youth. Like it was a right of passage or something that everyone goes through.
catclub
@RP:
I agree, but the 2006 we have is utterly reliable, OTOH, we will never sell it for $3k.
TenguPhule
@Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot:
Never happened to me.
What were all these people doing? Trying to take a hair pin turn at three times the posted speed limit?
MisterForkbeard
Completely OT, but just ran into a fellow balloon Juicer at a local restaurant. Small world indeed. :)
On-topic: repair the car. It’s better use of 3k than buying an unknown quality 13 year old car.
Gin & Tonic
@TenguPhule: That trade war with China is looking brilliant.
Mnemosyne
@Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot:
My sister-in-Law (G’s sister) rolled her Le Car. Fortunately, both she and her baby (our nephew, now 25) were buckled in.
I had a RAV-4 for 15 years and never rolled it, fortunately. But I’m smarter than my SIL and I also don’t have to drive in snow.
Lee
I’ll jump on the replace with a rebuilt engine.
I’ve had a couple good friends go this route with their kid’s cars and were very pleased with the results.
Betty Cracker
@catclub: Good questions, but I don’t know all the answers. Kid lives nearby but not at home.
@raven: Wow, good to know! Thanks!
Another Scott
@Cephalus Max: This.
Overheating is very hard on cars – especially these days (tighter tolerances, lots of aluminum and very little (more forgiving) cast iron). You don’t want to have to deal with warped heads or a warped block. Swap in a rebuilt one (or a low-mileage used one with a good warranty) and don’t try to rebuild this particular motor.
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
(“Who spent close to $7000 on “routine” maintenance on his VW at 90,000 miles…”)
Gelfling 545
@Betty Cracker: It can be instructive, though. A family member got some real need-to- know info when his (now ex)wife’s boyfriend totaled his car.
catclub
@Another Scott:
ouch. I was horrified they wanted $700 for the 90k and/or 120k mile checkup on mine – did not bother – may regret.
TenguPhule
@Gin & Tonic:
Our soybean and corn farmers are going to be cobbed good and hard.
Gravenstone
@Betty Cracker: Current BlueBook on that model is $7700-10600. So you’re looking at half to one third the value to getting it running again. Odds of getting a reliable “beater” for $3k that doesn’t quickly require another thousand (or five) outlay to keep running likewise is poor. So rebuild away…
catclub
@Gelfling 545:
excellent understatement.
smintheus
@catclub: Do you have a timing belt to replace? If so, I’d advise getting it done.
raven
@catclub: Proly timing belt. It’s also probably an “interference engine” which means $$$$$ if the belt breaks/.
scott alloway
@RP: Drop in another engine. You know how the car feels and runs. Did this with a 2007 Honda last November. $2900 with a warranty.
patroclus
Dow down 724 (2.93% in one day). Thanks for the trade war Trump!
catclub
@smintheus: pretty sure it is a chain. Off to check.
ETA: Engines: The 2007-2011 Versa comes with a 1.6L (HR16DE) or 1.8L (MR18DE) engine. Both are double-overhead cam (DOHC) motors with a timing chain. Unlike a timing belt, a timing chain doesn’t need to be replaced in regular intervals.
Betty Cracker
@TenguPhule: I won’t feel a bit sorry for the ones who voted for Trump!
rikyrah
Dow down over 700 points.
MAGA, don’t ya know.
Another Scott
@catclub: A lot of it was the clutch and “dual-mass flywheel”. It’s my first car with a manual tranny and I wasn’t as easy on it as I thought. :-/
Cars are expensive these days. :-(
Cheers,
Scott.
(“Whose first car cost $75, and while it was nothing to look at (’65 Olds F-85) it was always reliable.”)
TenguPhule
@Betty Cracker: “I didn’t think the cheetah would eat my face!” Complained the supporter of the Cheetah eating face party.
raven
@smintheus: sorry, yas beat me too it.
HeleninEire
Put my niece Colleen on the bus this morning and I CRIED. But she landed an hour ago and she’s now back in her dorm.
If he shows up, tell Baud I’m not in jail! But Colleen and I did visit Kilmainham Gaol (that’s Irish for jail) yesterday where all the Irish rebellion boys were executed. AWESOME.
TenguPhule
@Another Scott:
Did you manage to get the original Ford’s autograph? //
catclub
@rikyrah: as I noted in other thread, never get attached to the last 20% up – unless you have sold there.
smintheus
@raven: It’s the obvious question with any car at 100K. Except if someone owns a Subaru, in which the obvious question is “WHY?!”
patroclus
And I’d throw Wilmer in there too. The 2016 campaign saw the most protectionist trade policies proposed since 1928. And now we’re getting them – just like Smoot-Hawley. Why did we un-learn all the lessons we learned in the 20th century??!!
HeleninEire
@HeleninEire: Oh wait. We’re talking about cars? My bad. I got nothing.
Gravenstone
@Gravenstone: After catching up with the rest of the thread, replacing the engine rather than rebuilding is likely the safer course of action. Still better than playing beater roullette.
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@TenguPhule: Never happened to me, either, and I calculate I’ve driven around 1 million miles or so in my driving “career”. Hell, I’ve never even run into anyone/anything while driving to cause so much as a fender dent. But yeah, friends, family, and acquaintances came out of the woodwork to commiserate and talk about the first time they rolled their car (the way it sounded to me, anyway, like it was a commonplace occurrence and no big whoop!). I still shake my head over it.
Another Scott
@TenguPhule: Hehe. A mechanic friend found it. The owner couldn’t get it started and just wanted it gone. It just needed a battery.
Lucky timing.
Cheers,
Scott.
schrodingers_cat
@patroclus: How I miss the days when BJ FPers were railing against dronez and TPP.
patroclus
The history of trade wars is that they lead to worldwide economic decline, higher prices for virtually everything, and then country defaults, which then leads to real wars.
TenguPhule
@smintheus:
Well played.
TenguPhule
@patroclus:
Everything old is new again.
smintheus
@TenguPhule: I do speak from experience, sadly.
TenguPhule
@patroclus:
Most of the people who lived through it are dead and the rest have forgotten or don’t believe it actually happened that way.
Jack the Second
I’m of two minds.
My 2012 Chevy Cruze is down to a blue book value of ~$3.5k and is fine.
On the other hand, I bought a 2003 F-150 in 2013 for $8k, and had to put probably $3k into it before it started passing its yearly inspection without finding something else wrong.
So I know a $3k car can be perfectly fine and not even that old, but if your goal is to spend under $3k I’d probably budget at least $500 for repairs and try to find a $2k – $2.5k beater and fix its most outstanding problems for less than $1k.
TenguPhule
@Jack the Second:
6 years is old in car terms, just saying.
patroclus
@schrodingers_cat: Yeah, and even Hillary got cowed, refusing to stand by her beliefs (and good policies) and disavowing TPP, which could have been used as a wedge to attract Republican votes. And I also remember everyone bowing down to Elizabeth Warren and her lies about TPP being “secret.” We are reaping what we sowed. But mainly I blame Trump because he just actually implemented the idiotic policies. China is sure to retaliate if we actually follow through. Hopefully, saner voices will prevail upon him to “exempt” everyone but I have my doubts.
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@Another Scott: My first car cost $50. A ’60 Chevy Impala (bought in ’71) that was so rusted out I could see the road through the holes in the floorboard at my feet. Of course, almost any 10+ year old car in Cleveland at the time was like that. I remember coming out to California for the first time and being amazed by all the non-rusty vehicles everywhere. I spent 2-3X that $50 on repair parts — doing the amateur shade tree mechanic thing myself — and that Chevy lasted about 6 months before I junked it (got something for it, don’t remember how much). Well worth it, though I always hated working on cars (something I had to do if I wanted a running vehicle for the next dozen years or so).
Vehicles are so much better built these days than the halcyon days of yore it’s not even funny. I feel the same way about music, also too, though that’s a subjective personal take. Cars and trucks are objectively better, no matter what any geezer thinks.
schrodingers_cat
@patroclus: Didn’t Elizabeth Warren also agree with Donna Brazille on the rigged primary BS?
trollhattan
@patroclus: China already floating the idea of state-targeted tariffs to hurt the ones that voted Trump. Hellooooo, soybeans!
rikyrah
@TenguPhule:
Oh well….elections have consequences.
Elizabelle
Tragic coda: Charles Lazarus, 94-year old founder of Toys R Us, just died. [Link from WaPost; not many details.]
No cause of death released, but I hope it was not a broken heart. I kind of hope he was veiled behind dementia and missed the demise of his life’s work.
TenguPhule
@patroclus: To be fair, there were some legitimate problems with the TPP. And those were not addressed well, which gave credibility to its detractors.
gene108
@patroclus:
The main lesson, we learned from the 20th century, is neo-liberal corporatist shills have undermined our economy, outsourced our good paying* manufacturing jobs, and destroyed our coal mining jobs leaving Real Americans angry.
* Manufacturing jobs only started paying well after decades of labor unrest and the recognition of unions. This historical point is usually left out of Republican references to good paying manufacturing jobs.
les
@TenguPhule:
This. A blown head gasket could also come with a warped head, warped valves, rod and camshaft problems. New engine. If only they’d been around for the early fifties Rambler I overheated in my innocent yout.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
Hmm. Autos use lots of aluminum? Doesn’t this make steel and aluminum tariffs look especially stupid? Good thing we have a president who would never do anything so stupid.
Oh, wait.
So, the story of Betty Cracker’s daughter’s car dovetails nicely with a lesson on economics.
ETA. I don’t know much about automobiles, but the recommendation to rebuild and repair make a lot of sense.
kindness
My first car…My folks had 3 kids all within a 4.5 year span. They didn’t want us driving their nice cars. So my Mom got a new Ford LTD station wagon (it was the 70’s in suburbia) and the 64 Ford station wagon went to my older brother. He wrecked it within a matter of months. Wasn’t his fault. A drunk driver ran a stop sign and t-boned the car totaling it. So Dad went out and bought a ’63 T-bird that was held together by the rust for $300 (1973 dollars but still). We put another $150 into it to fix the brake lines and some other stuff then that was the kids car. When my brother went off to college it was my car and when I went off to college it was my sisters. When she went off to college my folks junked the car. To bad too. It was a wonderful beater of a car we all remember fondly.
Aleta
My experience on 1st car:
If you buy a rebuilt engine, or if you get one for your mechanic to rebuild, get guarantees or warranty in writing. (Expect that the cost may exceed the estimate.) But before you pay and drive away from the reliable mechanic you trust, don’t rely on anything verbal because his/her boss may override or deny it.
Take it back in right away if something seems off. Don’t accept their advice to “put some more oil in for now and keep driving” (until the warranty runs out and engine dies).
Also on a rebuild, ask your d. to check the oil level every (week/month), if that seems easier to remember than miles.
les
@catclub:
But do pay attention to the interval. My very durable ’60’s Toyota pick up announced an aged timing chain by developing enough slack to knock a hole in the cover. On the interstate. At the Missouri-Iowa border. Sweet weekend.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator:
Many of us speak from first hand experience.
cope
Moar dogs.
Our two catahoulas started raising a ruckus the other morning just after 7 AM. They zeroed in on the front door with a laser-like intensity. When I went to look out the window by the front door, there were three bears, one (mama) right on the front porch and two younger ones a bit up the front walkway. Mama had pulled down the bird feeder I had hung up under the eves of the front porch mere minutes before. The bird feeder was in pieces, all the birdseed hoovered up off the porch. This was not the first time but it was the first time it happened in daylight.
These three bears have wandered through our front yard several times over the past year or so. The twins will probably each wander off on their own soon. It’s been sorta neat to see them grow from cute little cubs to pretty much adult sized ursines ready to pull down their own bird feeders and make more cute cubbies.
patroclus
@gene108: The main lesson we should have learned is that, from FDR to Obama, we had Presidents and Congresses that pursued policies designed to open worldwide trade flows, to bring down tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers and that, in that system, the U.S. became a global worldwide economic superpower, leading to high standards of living and other countries emulating our policies, which led to widespread economic growth all over the world. Now, suddenly, for utterly inexplicable reasons, we’re turning our back to those kinds of policies and returning to the days of Hoover and Old Guard Republicanism.
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@TenguPhule: Yeah, but to my very limited understanding (perhaps not worth the photons it’s emitted on here) its benefits/good points outweighed the bad. It was a multi-nation set of compromises vigorously negotiated over a long time, of course there were problems, that’s unavoidable.
Detractors on the left made the perfect the enemy of the good, from what i can tell. Rightwingers opposed it cuz Obama/Democrats, full stop. The fascists weren’t going to make it better, that’s for sure (like with Obamacare).
It doesn’t exist, anyway, so now we’ll live with whatever destructive bullshit Trump and Congressional Republicans come up with instead. China taking up the mantle, trade wars, that sort of thing.
Everywhere you look, the fascists and their useful-tool leftist purity ponies are fucking things up good and hard, even if the alternative was less than optimal. This is a prime example.
Central Planning
@Another Scott:
I’ve heard VWs can be expensive like that. What are they made of? Mithril?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
John Heinemann, Mark Halperin’s ex-partner, just waved away the president of the United States bragging about sexual assault is a “long forgotten controversy”. Unremarked by the panel of Lawrence O’Donnell, Jennifer Palmieri and Eddie Glaude
TenguPhule
@Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot: As I recall, the biggest problem and the one I didn’t see addressed meaningfully was a clause that allowed corporations to override local government laws in any trade disputes without meaningful means of recourse available to the government in question short of dropping out of the TPP entirely.
TenguPhule
@Central Planning:
Ethically sourced tin cans. //
patroclus
@Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot: Agreed on your first two paragraphs. But the TPP does exist – the U.S. is just not a part of it. Like the UK will be with the EU, the TPP’s multiple countries will agree on the trading rules for the Asia-Pacific region and the U.S. will be forced to abide by those rules; except that we won’t be part of the decision-making process and will thus have little to say about the prevailing international standards. Trump says that he’s a deal-maker and will negotiate individual trade deals with all of those countries – he hasn’t negotiated a single one as yet and there appears to be no progress whatsoever towards doing so. And he’s on the brink of tanking NAFTA. So the U.S., after Trump, may/will not be in control of international trade policy nor even be in a strong position to influence international standards; except by exacerbating tensions. Instead of win/win, we’ll be in a lose/lose position. It’s nonsensical. And will take years, even decades, to overcome
les
@TenguPhule:
Sorta–my recall, not necessarily better than yours–was that corps couldn’t over rule local law, but they could go to a special (corp staffed) court and force the local jurisdiction to pay damages equal to the profits any law or reg cost them. Which really pissed me off when it let Obama poo poo the problem, saying they could not over rule our laws.
catclub
Eric Holder ( and Obama) and his voting rights thing is not completely dormant!
patroclus
@TenguPhule: That’s hyperbolic b.s. No clause says that. The TPP has now existed for a few years – what corporations have “overridden” local laws? Please specify. What countries have been forced to withdraw? Please be specific.
What the critics wanted was a more elaborate dispute resolution mechanism – potentially akin to the GATT/WTO, which has evolved over multiple decades and will surely also do so in the TPP. TPP revisions and amendments will occur over time and, with experience, will be negotiated anew by all the members (just like with GATT). The critics wanted a perfect system right now – like spinoza said. That’ll never happen, but it will surely get better over time after years of experience.
Luigidaman
Fix the car. At that relative new age, it doesn’t matter what kind it is.
Seanly
Not a gear head, but I would say rebuild or replace the engine. We had a car where the engine blew after 65k miles. Had a replacement engine put in for around $4500 and got another 10 years out of the car.
The other issue is that any car worth only $3k would be a huge step down in quality, reliability & safety for your daughter.
Last thought, tell your daughter to not let knucklehead friends drive her car.
KithKanan
@TenguPhule: The average age of cars on the road in the US is ~11.5 years. Just sayin’.
Another Scott
@Central Planning: Sure seems like it. :-/ The flywheel alone was around $1000.
But J’s Corollas haven’t been all that cheap when they needed brakes and struts, either. At ~ $125 an hour for labor, it doesn’t take much for a kilobuck or few to suddenly disappear.
Cheers,
Scott.
KithKanan
@Another Scott: Wow. Meanwhile my 22-year-old Saturn has needed a fair number of repairs over the years, but (aside from bodywork/paint for an accident 3 months into driving it – it was my first car) none of them has run over about $600 or so even in a town where the cheapest independent garages now charge $98/hour. I know my luck will run out sooner or later though, but in the meantime I’m gonna run this sucker into the ground.
TenguPhule
@patroclus:
The Corporate tribunals clause under Chapter 9. It doesn’t state “that allowed corporations to override local government laws in any trade disputes without meaningful means of recourse available to the government in question short of dropping out of the TPP entirely.” specifically, but that was how it was reported in our mass media as at the time and people were freaking the fuck out about it.
J R in WV
@Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot:
Actually, I think the TPP does (or will) exist – just without the US as part of the Partnership. Trump is as bad as the Republicans who founded the Great Depression, all his reflexes point that way, and away from the broad open world economy that FDR, Truman, Kennedy, LBJ, even NIxon left for us in the wake of the Great Depression and the Final chapter of the World War of the 20th century.
Even in Trump doesn’t start a nuclear world war, which is not a sure thing at all, he can ruin the world with his idiotic zero-sum trade beliefs.
We are so fucked with this clown.
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@patroclus: You’re correct, and I was unclear (at best). I meant the TPP doesn’t exist for the US. That’s what I meant by China taking up the mantle (of Pacific trade leadership). We’re still the de facto most-important nation in the world in regards to overall trade, and will likely remain so for some time, but stupid shit like this throwing the global baby out with the bathwater doesn’t bode well for our future, I’d say.
Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot
@TenguPhule: The discussion, such as it was, around TPP was largely simpleminded and disingenuous. This was like the similar line of Brexit attack against the EU and “faceless bureaucrats in Brussels” allegedly overruling British sovereignty. Some kernel of truth to both, I suppose, but blown out of proportion as an actual problem. I mean, there are consequences to breaking treaty rules, but there are supposed to be. Actually losing sovereignty in any meaningful sense, though, is a rightwing fever dream. Paying a fine isn’t loss of sovereignty, nor is the threat of such a dampener on legislating, except in the sense that new rules ought to take into consideration existing rules. Brexit is a net loss for the UK, and the lack of participation in the TPP is a net loss for the US. As I see it, anyway.
Rob
Palm Warblers are the best.
StringOnAStick
Go with a replacement engine. There is likely other damage that occurred when the head gasket blew, like damage to the main bearings that will show up in another 80k miles. Ask me how I know this.
TenguPhule
@StringOnAStick:
Bitter Experience.
Butch
Late to this party – I got called away by work. We replaced the engine in my Ford F-150 with a rebuilt motor from PowerSource; we did have a minor problem about a year later and it was covered under warranty, so it’s worth it.