Everyone has heard about the unprecedented skyrocketing prices of used vehicles – especially trucks – over the past couple of years. The "media" says this is happening because of shortages of new vehicles. The "media" also says that wearing "masks" – and getting Jabbed – "stops the spread." If you still believe either, then go ahead and believe that used vehicle prices are up by 30-plus percent because of inventory shortages of new ones . . .

The truth is that the value of used vehicles – especially used trucks – waxes because interest in new ones wanes. While some people are stupid, not everyone is – and the ones who aren't are smart enough to understand that we've already passed a kind of event horizon as regards the desirability of new vehicles vs. their undesirability.

For decades – since the very beginning of the Age of the Car – it was the reverse. New vehicles generally were better, not just newer.

They came with more desirable features; they tended to be better-built and more reliable with each successive model year. You got more for your money – which was an incentive to part with your money.

What do you get today?

Undesirable features such as "advanced driver assistance technology," which both insults your intelligence and aggravates your senses – every time you try to drive the car and have to fight the car's attempts to countermand your driving. These "technologies" are all-but-impossible to avoid in new vehicles, having been virtue-signaled into the standard equipment package by car companies that are less interested in selling cars than selling "technology."