patrick.net

Killing off Washington, D.C. with a rogue nuke would not decapitate the country. We might be leaderless for a short period, but the federal government has thousands of offices across hundreds of cities. The bureaucracy would not cease to function. Not to mention that the state governments would not let the country fall into utter chaos.

If decapitating a country could be accomplished with a nuclear bomb, it would have been done decades ago by a Cold War faction. The very possibility of such an event during the Cold War means that measures are already in place to keep the bureaucracy shuffling along even in the face of an unthinkable catastrophe involving the (figure)heads of state.

Brand, I agree with everything you said.

Don'tcha think our enemies thought of that too?

I think just one of the giant nukes would take out a whole metroplex. If they couldn't manage that, it'd probably be multiple smaller ones all in the same "event", not too much unlike 9/11.

For good measure, the act would probably be carried out in some other major cities too. Not every major city in every state, but just enough to cause chaos.

I don't think Joe bureaucrat will be reporting in to his desk job at the federal building that day. More likely there will be chaos. Order will hafta be maintained by local authorities. LIke in lower Manhattan on 9/11, like in New Orleans after Katrina.

People, and the states, will realize that the federal government did not really help them sort out anything, but made matters more difficult by dispersing much of our militias in overseas adventures (jeez, they didn't even do that in the Vietnam War).

Restoring order and commerce will hafta happen at the local and state level, and whatever the states decide will facilitate this will be what happens. A constitutional convention, which could make for some radical changes, would follow (after all, we've only ever had just one of those).

Even if the president emerged from his bunker and tried to impose authoritarian rule, it will not be practical and the states will quickly recognize that situation.

Decapitation was a strategy during the cold war. It resulted in the dead-man's-switch (or automated launch protocol, in civilized terms). Decapitation was a strategy that involved not just one surgical nuclear strike, but literally hundreds of massive, h-bombs targeted at disabling the governing infrastructure. It included state government systems in strategic states, which was all states with significant populations.

A single single, a-bomb going off in DC would not come anywhere close to decapitating the US Government. For one, many of the leaders in DC itself would survive the type of suitcase nuke you're referring to. Suitcase nukes aren't that big. A suitcase nuke going off in a US city would forever alter the entire geopolitical structure of the world. But it would be because of the way the country would react, and the way the economy would react. But it would still be the US as a functioning federal system, not some odd constitutional convention of the states.

I'm pretty sure that the chain of command protocol still holds that at least one member of the primary succession is always out of position at any given time. The entire government can be run from Colorado, also. Last I checked the installations there aren't decapitatable by anyone other than Russia.

As for general order breaking down, if 9/11 is any example then order is automatic in non-affected areas following a catastrophic attack, not the opposite. After 9/11 there was almost no crime anywhere in the US for days -- something which hadn't happened since the attacks on Pearl Harbor. During that silence the federal systems outside of DC would activate and assure everyone the US still existed as a functional federal entity.

Randy,

I agree with everything you wrote. But it is not imaginative. Neither were we before 9/11.

The idea that our enemies will have is a contagion of fear. I agree that I doubt every big city will be hit. How many do you think will be, more or less on consecutive days, before people start to panic? Dismiss assurances from the federal government?

When that happens, a lot of un-hit places will look like New Orleans. But All the reassurances in the world from Washington did not ameliorate the situation. So it is a sort of a precedent.After a major terrorist attack the federal government won't have the resources to restore order.

There's really no telling how many mini nukes or whatever WMD might already be in our country. Considering I see scores of poor illegals standing on the curb when I drive past Home Depot on my way to work every morning, I don't have any confidence at all that the federal government has been effective at keeping them WMD out of our country.

This discussion was a tangent I went off on when thought that our military's weapons would maintain order here to prevent the Road Warrior scenario. I suppose they could, but I don't think they would if there's no paymaster.

sybrib, what exactly do you think people in the unhit cities would do? They might be upset, but the first thing on their minds would NOT be overthrowing the U.S. government. On 9/11, I never once thought, "Well screw this, let's just go back to every state for itself!"

Americans are an extremely resilient bunch. Our country is so huge that you couldn't bomb it into extinction without ending the entire world. In a nuclear attack of massive scale, people would follow the instructions of the government and the military. Even in the absence of direct instructions, the citizens would organize into groups and make the right things happen.

Do you remember the FEMA train wreck during Katrina? Bad, huh. So I have just one question: how many people starved to death in the aftermath of Katrina? I'm betting it was close to zero. Federal agencies are slow and klunky, but individual citizens will fill the gaps until order is fully restored. Americans might be apathetic and greedy lately, but the public is still amazingly level-headed in a crisis.

Brand,

I hope you're right.

Everyone knows when a hurricane is coming, and everyone knows that the hurricane is not set off deliberately by enemies who want to kill us.

Everyone knows that their city won't be next, unless its in the path of the hurricane, that everyone knows about.

In a nationwide event, the federal government will not be able to respond everywhere all at once. As you said, the help will be more local, and people (and governments) will have an awareness of that (on that topic- of people helping each other, - while we were watching the preparation of the hurricane on TV- how many relatively well off whites did you see pack their belongings and pets into SUVs, congesting the roads out of the path of the predictable hurricane? And how many of those SUVs belonging to relatively well off whites did you see where the belongings and pets were forgoed to make room for blacks who didn't have personal transportation?
Why wasn't the cops or deputies or whomever was directing the evacuation for the regional government turning them back, making them offload their stuff or pets to make room for poor blacks who got left behind in New Orleans?)

Do you remember how many cops abandoned their posts? Do you blame them? - they had families, too.

This is what happened in a relatively localized natural event that was predictable, was not caused by a fiendish enemy for maximum effect, and did not decapitate the federal government.

I'm not talking about a rebellion or backlash or rejection of the federal government, which is what you seem to think I'm talking about. I'm talking about, an irrelevancy.

And if that happens, I don't think the military's weapons will help maintain order. But they might be for sale to thugs.

And how is any of that different than the Cold War? We know that we have enemies armed with powerful weapons that cannot be stopped. For the last fifty years that has always been the case. The country got a preview of its enemies on 9/11; if anything, that simply hardened the resolve of your average citizen.

There is no such thing as decapitation of the federal government. It's a myth, the stuff of tin foil hats and cheesy horror movies. This country could be run from NORAD or dozens of other hardened locations, including battleships and hidden bunkers. If fanatic terrorists managed to blast a couple major U.S. cities, I think they would get in a couple weeks of celebration. That's how long it would take for the American citizens to take stock of the damage, call up their military reserves and get a few key infrastructure components working again. The federal government would be damaged, but it would not be ineffective.

As a matter of fact, I think the terrorists would be extremely disappointed at what happened next. When you get nuked, you don't abandon your status as the most powerful country in the world. Your citizens don't rush out, join militias and gangs and then turn on each other, fighting over scraps of food. Your citizens get angry and start a witch hunt for the bad guys, and at that point they're probably willing to accept scapegoats. I expect our nation would be so irrationally angry that our 2002 retaliation in Afghanistan and Iraq would look like kindergarteners with foam bats. We lost 3000 innocent people on September 11th, 2001. Our response was to topple two Islamic countries and inflict 100x that number in casualties. That's our idea of "fair".

If we got nuked, that attack would kill hundreds of thousands, possibly even low millions. There would be no retaliation off the table. The United States of America would probably turn half of the Middle East into a sheet of radioactive glass. The Crusades would seem tame by comparison.

sybrib

I think people overestimate the likelihood of real a-bomb attacks via suitcase/smuggled portable weapons. It could happen, but it's not a very efficient or low-risk path to their goal. There is a tremendous chance they'd get caught in the process...maybe they already have and we don't know it.

The sad thing is I can think of at least three major disruptions that could be caused to this country which wouldn't require much more than small, semi-organized groups of people with readily available everyday tools. I won't describe them here for the futile hope that somehow those who would consider such atrocities haven't thought of them yet. But I will tell you it doesn't require complicated disruptions of power grids, elaborate poisoning of transit systems or water systems. No biological weapons or dirty bombs needed. No aircraft, no trains, no truck bombs. I'm thinking of things many orders of magnitude simpler, impossible to disrupt entirely, and which would profoundly disrupt the daily life we take for granted nearly everywhere in this country.

Those are the things which keep me awake at night. But none of those events I'm fearing would result in the collapse of the US government. Instead, I imagine that Brand's notion of a response would be an underestimation of what the US would do. I know I would be hard pressed to not commit to an overwhelmingly indiscriminate and disproportionate response myself.

They’re not making anymore land.

No one needs more land. There is plenty of vacant land and buildings ...
Just look at the new high rise condos in SF not to mention all the other developments in the city and down south to gilroy.

LOL .. they are converting the SJ Flea market to condos and THs..
not to mention what will they do with Moffet field.>>>

sybrib said:
I think just one of the giant nukes would take out a whole metroplex.

Metro-busting weapons pose serious logistical challenges for delivery - ICBM or long-range bomber.

Al-qaeda has to rely on smaller, low-yield weapons - possibly purchased from ex-soviet stock, if reports (Lebed) of those are true. Even so, it would have to be at least 10 years old - and these things are sensitive mo-fo's, so the lack of maintenance would have degraded their reliability over time. And a device of 25 kg would yield about 20 tons of explosive force. The very best case (sophisticated core design, linear implosion, beryllium reflectors, etc.) would get you into the kiloton range, but this requires serious technology and adds weight.

The point is that a suitcase bomb of the kind available on the black-market to AlQ would flatten a few blocks, and cause nasty radiation (~500rems) in a 1km radius, but aside from the psychological hit I doubt it would have any kind of revolutionary impact on US governance. It would certainly trigger a huge blowback against the perpetrator/scapegoat, but that is not what you were worrying about.

Smuggling such a beast is not an easy task. And they cannot smuggle pieces and assemble it on the spot. The weapon by its very nature is susceptible to detection by radiation scanners. So, let us not get carried away too much by our imaginations.

SP

I don't think AlQ have the ability to do much with nukes, hence their very low-tech methods. Assuming it wasn't a false flag operation or that they weren't assisted by insiders without knowledge of the source of assistance.

You have to ask why they're so p*ssed off all the time, given 100 years of political interference in their own region, pretty much since industrialisation and the invention of the internal combustion engine. The West invading, instating puppet govts and selecting pliant leaders just leads to a cycle of overthrow and instatement of more and more radical alternative governments.

According to Gore Vidal, the US was well advanced in its plans to invade Afghanistan in October 2001 anyhow, after talks between Unocal and the Taliban broke down, thus denying a pipeline through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Gulf and away. Join the dots, follow the trail of money, look at PNAC pronouncements of hegemony and 'global supremacy' and the Republican demands of the Clinton govt to invade Iraq going all the way back into the 1990s, etc etc to see why you might invade the wrong countries on a pretext. The propaganda onslaught, conflation of naming guilty parties and obfuscation of motives in itself should be enough to tell you something. The Oz Defence Minister recently said it was all about oil, and how regional stability was important in oil-producing countries, only to get promptly choked by the PM and a govt denial that it was ever about oil the same day.

Gold

Gold is a very good conductor of electricity. Gold's great virtues of malleability, ductility, reflectivity, resistance to corrosion and unparalleled ability as a thermal and electrical conductor mean it is used in a wide variety of industrial applications consuming close to 300 tonnes annually.

The prime use is in electronics. High technology finds it indispensable in everything from pocket calculators to computers, washing machines to television and missiles to spacecraft. The rocket engines of American space shuttles are lined with gold-brazing alloys to reflect heat, and the lunar modules of the Apollo programme that put men on the moon were shrouded with gold foil acting as a radiation shield. More commonly, the humble touch telephone in your home typically contains 33 gold-plated contacts. The production of plating salts accounts for 70% of the more than 150 tonnes of gold used annually in electronics.

Gold's malleability and resistance to corrosion render it eminently suitable for dental use, although its softness means that it must be alloyed to retard wear. The most common companion metals are platinum, silver and copper.

Gold's ability to reflect heat in summer and help retain it in winter has also led to the use of glass coated with a thin film of gold in several modern buildings, especially in North America; one ounce of gold covers typically one thousand square feet of glass. This reflective glass can cut cooling and heating costs by 40%.

World Gold Council - Industrial Uses of Gold

Silver

Demand for silver is built on three main pillars; industrial and decorative uses, photography and jewelry & silverware. Together, these three categories represent more than 95 percent of annual silver consumption. In 2006, 430.3 million ounces of silver were used for industrial applications, while over 145.8 million ounces of silver were committed to the photographic sector, 165.8 million ounces were consumed in the jewelry market, and 59.1 million ounces were consumed in the silverware market.

Why is this indispensable metal in such demand? The reasons are simple. Silver has a number of unique properties including its strength, malleability and ductility, its electrical and thermal conductivity, its sensitivity to and high reflectance of light and the ability to endure extreme temperature ranges. Silver’s unique properties restrict its substitution in most applications.

Batteries | Bearings | Brazing and Soldering | Catalysts | Coins | Electrical | Electronics | Electroplating | Photography | Medical Applications | Jewelry and Silverware | Mirrors and Coatings | Solar Energy | Water Purification

The Silver Institute - Industrial Uses of Silver

Randy and Brand,

I hope you guys are right.

And, I agree with you about the response to other countries (wouldn't help with the suffering here, though).

You folks are discussing Al Queda. Well Al Greenspan can do more damage:

AP
NABE: Bad Credit Biggest Risk to Economy
Monday August 27, 7:54 am ET
By Dan Seymour, AP Business Writer
Bad Credit Tops Terrorism As Biggest Immediate Risk to Economy, Group Reports

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/070827/nabe_bad_credit.html?.v=3

NEW YORK (AP) -- Bad credit has supplanted terrorism as the gravest immediate risk threatening the economy, a key national research group reported Monday.
Borrowers' withering ability to pay their bills and the subsequent fallout in the credit markets this summer topped the list of short-term risks on peoples' minds, according to a survey of 258 members conducted by the National Association of Business Economics.

NABE, a Washington-based association, said 32 percent of its surveyed members cited loan defaults and excessive debt as their biggest near-term concern.

Only 20 percent of members cited defense and terrorism as their biggest immediate worry, down from 35 percent when the survey was last conducted in March. Credit risk also topped gas prices, inflation and government spending.

"Financial market turmoil has shifted the focus away from terrorism and toward subprime and other credit problems as the most important near-term threats to the U.S. economy," said Carl Tannenbaum, president of NABE and the chief economist at LaSalle Bank/ABN Amro.

===========

Please remember that Al Greenspan advised consumers to take ARM ...

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/fed/2004-02-23-greenspan-debt_x.htm

Posted 2/23/2004 11:39 AM Updated 2/24/2004 2:13 AM

Greenspan says ARMs might be better deal

By Sue Kirchhoff and Barbara Hagenbaugh, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Monday that Americans' preference for long-term, fixed-rate mortgages means many are paying more than necessary for their homes and suggested consumers would benefit if lenders offered more alternatives.
In a standing-room-only speech to the Credit Union National Association meeting here, Greenspan also said U.S. household finances appeared generally sound, despite rising debt levels and bankruptcy filings. Low interest rates and surging home prices have given consumers flexibility to manage debt, he said.

I received this email notification from New York FED today morning:

Temporary OMO: Fed adds $9.50 billion with 10 day RP

Can sombody take my comment out of moderation, please?

Euro Bulls Bloodied, Unbowed as Subprime Lifts Dollar (Update5)

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ap7HwAh2wUxY&refer=home

By Aaron Pan and Kim-Mai Cutler

Aug. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The euro, battered by the dollar since reaching a record a month ago, may climb to new highs this year as U.S. central bankers lower the cost of credit and European policy makers signal that interest rates will rise.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the world's most profitable investment bank, and Merrill Lynch & Co., the biggest brokerage firm, increased their year-end forecasts for the currency as much as 6 percent last week as concerns about the rout in subprime mortgages abated. Citigroup Inc., the largest U.S. financial services company, says the euro may rise to $1.42 by the end of the year from $1.3675 on Aug. 24.

While the euro tumbled as much as 3.5 percent since rising to $1.3852 on July 24, currency strategists now say faster economic growth in the region will prompt a recovery. The European Central Bank suggested last week that it's preparing to boost borrowing costs, five days after the Federal Reserve reduced the rate it charges banks for loans to keep money markets from seizing up.

The sheep on Long Island have discovered patrick.net

Denial, denial, denial!!!!

Allah, thanks!

Of course it won't affect LI. Do you suppose DH is "dear hubby"?

Allah, thanks!

Of course it won’t affect LI. Do you suppose DH is “dear hubby”?

Yes.

DH = "Dear Husband" or "Dear Hubby"
BIL = "Brother in law"
SIL = ""
FIL = "Father in law"
MIL = ""

Hasnt seemed to affect long island, houses are still selling and people are still buying.

No, just that inventories have almost tripled on Long Island since 1999.
...and there are over 12000 pre-foreclosures on Long Island
...and asking prices are dropping daily on Long Island
...and Jumbo loans over $417k are now requiring 8% interest
but it hasn't affected LI in any way; LI is immune!

If real estate crashed here, it would turn us sheep into lambchops; therefore it cannot happen here! Next topic please!

Allah,

Funny comments! It was a mixture of denial and total disbelief? Your "Right Now" video said it all! Still I can see how people on LI could get the impression that there is only a finite amount of land? In their world, that's to a certain degree true. However, prices need to be connected to what people can actually afford at some point.

Funny comments! It was a mixture of denial and total disbelief? Your “Right Now” video said it all!

Thanks!

Still I can see how people on LI could get the impression that there is only a finite amount of land? In their world, that’s to a certain degree true.

Well; there is more land available, but NIMBY's don't want it to be developed. The politicians want to build "affordable housing" to keep the younger generation on the Island; but the fact is we already have it [affordable housing], yet the sellers haven't accepted it yet.

Land was more limited in Japan, but that didn't prevent a crash there, did it?

However, prices need to be connected to what people can actually afford at some point.

Exactly. We have so many properties just sitting; many people can't even afford the houses they are living in right now. It's pretty much common sense what is going to happen now! I have been tracking inventory here and just about every day it is going higher. Housing bubble has popped; now we have an inventory bubble!

However, prices need to be connected to what people can actually afford at some point.

Not exactly. Prices only need to be connected to what people think the assets are worth in the future, although such expectations can and do change.

Anything in the universe has a price. Consequently, anything in the universe can become overpriced.

All the terrorists have to do to wreck us is to take out thousands of 100% NINJA home loans and not pay them back. I hope I didnt give them any ideas.

Anything in the universe has a price. Consequently, anything in the universe can become overpriced.

Which it already has.

These sheeple are like a cult; I have seen many people better than me try to go on there and make a post; only to be banned and their posts removed within 24 hours (usually less).

I got a real kick out of someone going on there last april; I knew they would get kicked off and their posts removed, so I saved their posts in a pdf just hours before it was removed.

Notice the "THIS IS A FAKIE ALERT" in the comments! LOL

These people will not allow anyone say anything negative about the market; this is their own isolated world and "we just can't have that!"

All the terrorists have to do to wreck us is to take out thousands of 100% NINJA home loans and not pay them back. I hope I didnt give them any ideas.

They don't have to; we already did it to ourselves!

Peter P,

That is true. However, as you've pointed out, all we ever needed for the bubble to pop was for prices to stop rising! (Or words to that effect?) Now that clearly... prices have ceased their ever upward spiral people are taking a step back and saying "WTF did I just DO!"

Sure, I was more than willing to overpay, as long as the next GF was NTB!

NTB=Nut to Butt (as in very, VERY close behind me!)

Sure, I was more than willing to overpay, as long as the next GF was NTB!

DinOR, I also think it is fine to overpay occasionally. After all, it is life that we live, not some economic process. ;)

Now that clearly… prices have ceased their ever upward spiral people are taking a step back and saying “WTF did I just DO!”

Yup. The shift in expectations has already begun.

Peter P,

I agree, it's just fine to overpay from time to time. Look at all the people you know for a fact, (a) never buy a round (b) never pick up the tab (c) etc. etc? I know "I" try to avoid them! If you have a rep. as a bottom feeding, nut cutting SOB who's going to actually want to do business with you! :)

The article by Mish in today's list of news stories is most interesting. The summary prospectus for my 401(k)'s PIMCO fund bragged about being in "government bonds" for security. Mish pointed out that that really means Ginny Mae's and the ilk. I exchanged out all my funds (not that much really) from the PIMCO "Total Return" fund into something better this morning.

New reality show; I'm writing the script...."Desperate Seller's"
Here's a sample...

Wife: "Damn, the Swansons lowered their price again!"

Husband: "Yeah, I heard the Stevenson's are putting their house up too!"

Wife: "How much equity do we have left?"

Husband: "Well, if the Thompson's get their price, we will have..........well, we will be underwater by $10k."

Wife: "That's all? Gina said she is underwater by at least $60k!"

Husband: "Well, if the Miller's sell their house, we will be down another $30k....Oh, and then there are those 3 foreclosures on the block; that's a wildcard!"

Wife: "Ah! The miller's had their house on the market for almost 2 years....they're no going anywhere....Do you think maybe we should put the Hummer up for sale?"

Husband: "Who is going to buy it? Everyone on the block already has one. The Henson's had two of them before they were repossessed."

Wife: "Well; there's always ebay."

Husband: "Yeah, well, I checked there too; apparently everyone is selling one or two of them."

This is no lie either check it out!

well; that is all I have right now. Could be a hit! Would make a nice replacement for "flip this house."

HelloKitty Says:
All the terrorists have to do to wreck us is to take out thousands of 100% NINJA home loans and not pay them back. I hope I didnt give them any ideas.

Funny you should mention that - they already are on it.

"A man arrested in December at the Kansas City airport with $70,000 in his bulging pockets while trying to board a Southwest Airlines flight claiming the money was actually Muslim prayer books, a San Francisco mortgage company executive who went on the run from the FBI in November, seven people arrested in September in Salt Lake City with ties to al-Qaeda, and a co-defendant in the Sami al-Arian/Palestinian Islamic Jihad trial all have one thing in common -- the growing trend of terrorist associations with mortgage fraud rings in the US. Financial experts say that mortgage fraud has become the fastest growing type of white-collar crime, and terrorist organizations have been quick to jump on the trend. But what concerns federal authorities is how regularly mortgage fraud is showing up in terrorism investigations."

"Tarik Hamdi was charged last year for immigration and mortgage-loan fraud as part of an investigation into the role of an Islamic charity, the International Institute for Islamic Thought of Herndon, Virginia, that Hamdi worked for and was being investigated for ties to terrorist financing."

"Last year a Dearborn, MI man pled guilty to mortgage fraud in a plea deal with federal authorities to prevent being charged additionally with terrorist activities. At the time of his arrest, federal authorities found books, posters and recruitment videos for the Hezbollah terrorist organization inside the home of Nemr Ali Rahal."

"Mohammed Krayem and Mahmoud Youssef Kourani were accused in 2004 of transferring more than $200,000 obtained through real estate fraud and cigarette smuggling to Kourani's brother, Haider Kourani, the Hezbollah chief of military security for southern Lebanon."

And it goes on and on.

SP

SP,

And why... NOT!

Over the last several years what crime has been easier to commit than mortgage fraud!? It's so easy a caveman could do it!

It’s so easy a caveman could do it!

That is politically incorrect! :)

IMO, we should play up the "terror funding" angle of subprime - that will kill any appetite that politicians have for a bailout. "Did you know that by bailing out FB's, you're actually supporting the terrorists?" :-)

The irony is that money from fraudulent RE deals is being generated from the same neighborhoods from which kids are being sent to Afghanistan. How does it feel to know that while you are celebrating the rising comps in your 'hood, some of that money went to buy mortars for the guys who are shooting at your son?

It would make an even more sensationalist story for the MSM than the tear-jerking "HELOC-lovin' grandma is losing her hizzouse" crap.

SP

DinOR Says: It’s so easy a caveman could do it!
Peter P Says: That is politically incorrect! :)

Okay, ya PC-weenie. "It's so easy a cave-person could do it."

Are you happy now?

SP

I think he meant that Osama was living in a cave.

"HELOC lovin' grandma"

Yep. Not a pretty visual now is it?

I spoke with a MB this morning and I was really surprised by the level of candor. She really began to question whether or not she had been helping people? She meant even BEFORE the boom! It's got to be hard to put some poor person/couple into a 40 yr. mort. and feel good about it? In her mind, all most of this added up to was... more debt?

She said she began to get really alarmed at just how comfortable people were becoming about ever increasing levels (and lengths) of debt. Certainly no revelation here but refreshing to hear it from someone in the industry.

Do you think maybe we should put the Hummer up for sale?”
Husband: “Who is going to buy it? Everyone on the block already has one. The Henson’s had two of them before they were repossessed.”
Wife: “Well; there’s always ebay.”
Husband: “Yeah, well, I checked there too; apparently everyone is selling one or two of them.”
This is no lie either check it out!

Those are some really lovely-looking vehicles. 6 litre V8s? wow... we'll be needin' oil from somewhere... how many cup holders does it have?