I'm not a KTD, but that's the way it is for me. A car is what I have to use when better modes of transportation aren't available, or more enjoyably on a road trip.But never to the mall. Oh no, not the mall. (Okay, we went to a mall once, on a road trip somewhere in New England, to get Eva a sweatshirt because she was freezing to death.)

They have different money priorities, bet the value of their phones, tablets, notebooks, etc. exceed the value of the car they drive.....

Mike

This.I know the value of my record collection far exceeds the value of my car.

Nick

Exactly. They all need the latest greatest everything else.

I don't have a tablet. Or a notebook. Or a smartphone. Or a camera that also makes me coffee in the morning, while connecting me to facebook and updating my twitter account to tell everyone that my coffee will be ready in 2 minutes.

What I do have is a phone that was free. It makes calls. Remember those kind of phones?

Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I think a good car is more important than a fancy phone.

Different strokes for different folks. A car is an appliance, with no more intrinsic importance than a phone or a hair dryer.

My most important appliance, that I'd miss in a day and can't easily use one at work? Probably my toothbrush, followed by my washer/dryer.

Again- more broad generalizations... What about all the middle aged men I see around here who just gotta' have a fully loaded, $70,000 Bimmer? What about the retirees who spend 1000's of dollars on golf clubs and thousands of dollars running around in little golf carts hitting little balls? What about the newlyweds in Cali who decide to spend $500k on a starter home?

Gadgets in general have been around forever. If it wasn't iPhones it was a tape player. If not that it was a transistor radio and before that a radio that played FM and so on. Also- how are we any different- myself included? We're all nuts about old radios and a lot of these things cost a lot of money- ad in many cases a whole heck of a lot more than a phone, and on top of that, for radios that are basically obsolete? If people want to buy stuff... then let em'. Its good for the economy anyway.

Exactly.

Allow me to share a different perspective. I was in high school and college in the 60's, and I can assure you there were plenty of kids driving beat-to-crap junkers, full of trash and leaving a fog of oil smoke wherever they drove. Otoh, right now I know many kids who are driving clean, shiny cars that they wash and wax themselves.

Broad generalizations are always worthless.

Yep. If you sit in Philly traffic and stare for awhile you won't be able to make ANY generalizations. You can see a guy with a dirty beater, a shiny piece of junk, a trashed new Bimmer or some Cadillac that looks like it just rolled out of the factory.

If you want to have some fun, tell some 20-somethings that there are computer games which are like books. No visuals - you have to imagine in your head. Adventure (Colossal Cave) is an excellent example, and available for modern computers.

Hmmm; ever try it on a Bakelite radio cabinet?

The cars and trucks that have given me the most enjoyment have been as old as a lot of our radios. There I go showing my age.
Sandy

Vehicles are appliances to me too, no more and no less. My first car in 1981 (1976 Honda Civic station wagon with an engine problem that I got fixed) cost less than the stereo I put in it (Clarion PE-956 with add-on equalizer and Sony amplifier and XS-211S speakers).