Why are antiques now so cheap? - Marginal REVOLUTION Because the Boomer generation was so nostalgic, this is the only reason that "classic" cars ever had any value. It is also why "classic" cars will soon lose most of their value. The last half of the Silent, the full Boomer and the first half of GenX generations were the generations most affected by the spiritual awakening (the previous spiritual awakening was 1966-1986). In the great historical wheel, these people are always emotive/nostalgic. It is they who seek to regain a past which they believe significant. Antiques are but one manifestation of this nostalgia. More below. Another manifestation is the current Boomer love for all things train, streetcar, and light rail. These mass transit modes were outdated by the early 20th century. They continued into the 1950s for streetcars, and the 1970s for rail transportation but were long outmoded by those dates.
After the Boomers spent a summer in Europe, they just had to see the nostalgic return of rail. They believed antiquated Europe was the future. Sigh! The result has been the shockingly expensive and wasteful light rail, streetcar, commuter rail, and rail boom of the last 40 years. Within a decade the Silent generation will be mostly gone, and the Boomers will be significantly reduced as they reach their mid-80s. This will give us the ability to see the destruction we wrought by allowing the Boomers to control the public purse strings. Antiques are out of favor, "classic" cars will soon follow suit, this is just waiting for GenX to reach the mid-60s. The rail "revolution" will slowly follow suit, most likely being eliminated as each rail project reaches its 35th year after construction. From that point on the rail project needs to be recapitalized entirely and reconstructed from rail bed to track to electrical components and on. The cost is nearly always the same as the initial construction costs, and the local governments do not have anywhere near the money to rebuild these systems. If they are not entirely recapitalized, they become deadly, so the transit agencies will try to eek these antiques along with minor capital repairs, but the death toll will rise until in the end they must be shut down. The other problem these now century out of date transit mode have is newer and better transit modes have sprung up to replace them. So, as the most destructive generation (the Boomers) dies off, we will finally be freed to allow progress to move us again into the future.
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