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In case you were concerned for the .1% during our planet’s continued economic woes, fear not. For the third year in a row, Rolls Royce motorcar sales have set a high record.
And, even more sweetly, the United States has recaptured sales leadership from the upstart Chinese!
Adding to its record-setting years in 2010 and 2011, the Goodwood-based carmaker moved 3,575 units, an increase of 38 over the year before.
The US retook its crown as the greatest consumers of Rolls-Royces, snagging it back from China. Other market movers were the Middle East, where sales rose 26 percent, Mainland Europe – the same place where mass-market makers are drowning in woe and inventory – that rose by 21 percent, and the Asia Pacific region and its 18-percent rise. Rolls-Royce is probably making more money on its cars, too, with bespoke uptake reaching 95 percent on the 10-year-old Phantom line and 73 percent for the Ghost line.
Nothing measures the ease and certainty felt by the world’s upper economic status individuals better than the purchase of almost totally optional, completely excessive consumer goods. Sure, measuring their wealth is one way to see how much richer they’ve gotten in our madcap economy. But seeing bauble purchases rise gives a much better of their comfort level.
Aren’t you happy for these new Rolls Royce owners? I know their need for their next purchase makes me hungry for cat food.
29 Comments
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimgorzelany/2012/09/24/august-chevrolet-volt-sales-redefine-failure/
While the 1% like Dodo’s work toward making themselves and their money extinct faster as Teddy points out and this raises the very interesting question of are the 1% really better managers of capital than we are.
The rest of America seems to know what to do when gas prices rise.
How many of those proud Rolls Royce buyers got bailed out by the Obombya/TurboTaxTimmie/BerBanke regime?
Nothing says I am desperate and in a mid life crisis than a middle age guy buying a sports car. Unless of course your the 1% then it seems the Rolls is the car of choice.
Vehicle Specs
Weight 2,640 lb. (curb weight)
Propulsion Vision Electric Drive
Fuel / Storage 13 KW Battery
Range 30 – 50 miles on battery
Horsepower 425 hp
Torque 1,350 lbs. – ft.
Performance 0-60 mph – 3.4 seconds est.
Benefits ZERO emissions
Presentation Q4 2010 – Los Angeles
Status Prototype vehicle, custom-built – production 2011
http://visionmotorcorp.com/cheetah.asp
My bold Cheetah from Vision fuel cell power or you can buy an all electric Tesla both cars smoke pretty much anything on the road. A Rolls is just well BIG it says I have a bunch of cash but don’t care about the planet or like driving fast.
Cheetah and Tesla owners should make it a point to smoke Rolls owners at the light. Driving long distance on interstate highways I’ve noticed the only cars passing my old toyota Echo were hybrids. I never saw a Rolls but I did pass lots of big SUVs on the road why buy a big car if it costs to much to speed on a road trip do 1%ers like going slow?
Anyone remember the Bush tax cut for Humvee’s? Any bets with gas prices at record high’s the 1% will demand another tax cut for big luxury cars?
47,525,329 SNAP participants in October, 2012.
Paul Krugman calls our Food Stamps program our version of the 1930s soup kitchens. Because we have Food Stamps our suffering is invisible or less visible. Krugman was speaking in an interview w/ Bill Moyers.
When I think about all of the corporate tax breaks which made all of those pre cliff bonuses possible, and all of those Rolls-Royce’s affordable, it makes me disgusted. These are the same people who say we cannot afford to create jobs for the jobless and provide homes and food for those without any.
Do we know whether the SUV-over-$100,000 tax break ever actually went away? The people I know (insurance person in my former building in SF, for instance of one) still buy Range Rovers. So either the tax break is still there, or it didn’t matter to her purchasing decisions one whit.
I think you have to use the term “one whit” when talking about (formerly) British cars, don’t you agree?
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Hybrid/story?id=97505&page=1
Why can’t we get a similar tax cut for no gas vehicles? Do the 1% like wars for oil?
http://costofwar.com/
Rather than pay for a war we could have bought just how many hybrids and no gas cars for that kind of money?
Figuring out how much money we could have saved on gas and how much that would have boosted our economy plus deprived Ossama of cash from his oil rich Arab friends would make a great post (hint).
I’m pretty sure the tax break is over since GM sold its humvee division because it was not making enough money.
Hmmm just why did Bush give a tax break to foreign cars at all is my question.
I read somewhere that Porsche smashed its all time high sales figures for North America last year as well. These are just the sort of leading indicators that show the ironclad inevitable need for this society to commit to slashing its Social Security system and to start making Medicare legal but rare, like an abortion!
Link to Krugman-Moyers interview.
If the Rolls is such a great car, how come 007 drives an Auston Marten or Lotis ?
I mean even John Steed drove a Bentley.
Book Salon up with Trevor Aaronson’s The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism hosted by Marcy Wheeler (emptywheel)
hence proving once again that our nouveau riche economic “betters” in the 1% remain crass, boring, unimaginative, tawdry, show-off dullards seeking only to grasp after some kind of kewlness that they’ll never “get.”
pffft!
The three cars you name (Aston Martin, Lotus, and Bentley) have always had more sporting pretensions that RR.
The Rolls has something available that’s better than sporting pretensions, Armor and bulletproof glass. The A Kahn version will keep you safe from the occasional RPG attack from those pesky folks who don’t appreciate your conspicuous consumption.
And in other “platinum” news today: Obama White House rules Trillion Dollar Coin idea a non-starter.
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/12/white_house_1_trillion_coin_off_table/
As I said, Obama would never take this “out” -or another such option- if you gave it to him for free. There are two reasons:
A) He actually wants to cut social security and medicare. This would be his Reaganite “bipartisan” triumph. Removing the Republican’s leverage on the budget gives him no excuse to carry out this “reform” of entitlements.
B) Coin seigniorage, on such a scale, conflicts with the fundamental rules of capital-ISM. In Capitalism, money is king. The political system regardless of any democratic pretenses is a creature of -and must obey- the financial system. When the government spends money into the economy (by deficit spending) for whatever its reasons for doing so, good or bad, it is only allowed to do so by borrowing money from large lenders – ie, mostly from banks here and abroad. The banks don’t actually have this money, mind you, but they have a super power. They create money by wishing hard and spitting into their palms. Then in the fullness of time the US Government must pay back the imaginary money with interest. It should be clear to anyone with a grasp of English better than or equal to 5 year old, why Platinum Coin Seigniorage was never going to be deployed by the Obama administration as a “silver bullet-except its made of platinum” to combat the Republican Party’s terrorist style hostage taking. It would upset the very rich, mostly white people whom President Obama has been trying so very hard to impress. Their power is wrapped up in the illusion that they must agree to financing the government’s operations – that they are the indispensable class. Apparently, they don’t care if the Republicans stick up the government now and then, but Obama thinks they would find his taking away of their power to enslave the government and all its citizens to be an act of unforgivable gaucherie.
Wonder how well it works against rocket launchers.
USA! USA! USA! We’re number 1! We’re number 1! We’re number1!
Maybe they are planning to give their Rolls to the next Bhagwan.
A) – yes!
B) – correct!
It’s been remarkable to see the establishment’s antibodies kick in in response to the threat posed by the platinum coin to the permanent, manufactured crisis and scarcity so useful for continuing to wrest the remnants of economic security from the American sub-super-rich.
BTW, how are sales of guillotines doing?
It has more to do with not wanting to give the GOP an out:
I heard production has been outsourced to Bangladesh and the blades are now made with synthetic rubber. I guess it’s a strategy to prevent successful revolution.
Also, those are some ugly-ass cars.
Yes, indeed they are.
Yes, the 1% profits handsomely from foreign wars!
Seeing how this diary has not slid off the bottom will place a comment on it. The RR motorcars shown in image up at the top are the products of BMW AG which has been making and selling the RR brand since late 90′s/early 2000′s.
Two German firms — VW and BMW — mixed it up over the status of Bentley and RR trademarks,icons and logos control in late 1990′s after Vickers put RR/Bentley up for sale. RR had been nationalized due to RR Aero fiscal red ink storms during early 1970′s which led to RR Motors being split from RR Aero. Eventually and by late 1990′s RR and Bentley were owned by German auto makers BMW/VW. There was a legal dust up about/over RR iconic trademarks,logos and naming and who owned what rights. As it now stands in 2012 RR is owned and run by BMW AG.
The RR’s shown in image up top are very modern designs unlike the post 1960′s to mid 90′s RR models which had become dowdy and retro in not good ways on both styling and engineering profiles.
Are these BMW created RRs good cars? Yes. Are they stylish? Yes. Are they nice looking? I think so but you may not. This is a matter of what we like or may not like. I thought/think the Maybachs from Daimler-Benz were boring and uninspired. I guess the One Percent did too as the Maybachs failed to achieve the hoped for success D-B sought.
Americans in early to mid 20th century used to make some truly high end motorcars with names like Packard,Pierce-Arrow,Marmon and Duesenberg. All were gone by 1960. RRs were for a time actually made in USA from 1921 to 1931 at Springfield,MA.
I think the whole “car in every garage” and multi-laned highways and mega car parks filled with millions of cars idea(s) from 20th century concept was a dead end concept. The idea of mass transportation based on making,selling and junking tens of millions of cars every decade since the 1920′s was all about the worse of motives,schemes and get rich schemes.Need I mention the global Oil Issues? Cars should have remained toys for the wealth holding class. Just think how this planet Earth and several billions of humans would have benefited were this how things had went?
As a historical note and correction I once read somewhere Henry Ford did not give his workers more money because Henry Ford wanted to be nice to them. Henry Ford wanted to solve the acute labor supply problems associated with workers gaming the employment openings/move arounds that Detroit made possible. The myth took root that Hery Ford was being generous out of generosity in/by establishing higher daily pay rates for Ford workers. Fact was it cost Henry Ford money when Ford factories were idled by high absentee rates on Ford assembly lines.
So Ford made it too expensive to quit Ford and go work somewhere else. :-)