decisive battle debate

Baloney, how much demand was there for the model T when Ford invented it, people have to be able to afford a car to want it.

 

One can not say that the production of a car (of something else) is depending on the possibility of the potential purchasers to afford such a car (or something else) ,otherwise,one should arrive at absurd conclusions.

Exemple : in 1953,Holland had some 90000 trucks (with a population that was bigger than that of Belgium),while Belgium had 150000 trucks. The absurd conclusion would be that the average Belgian was much richer than the average Dutch .

For personal cars,the situation was that the US had 290 cars per 1000 inhabitants,Canada 170,Britain 55,France 47,South Africa 40,Belgium 37,Germany 20 ,Holland 18 and Austria 10.

No one will say that the average Canadian was 3 times richer than the average inhabitant of the UK,that the average Belgian was 2 times richer than the average Dutch,that the average German was 2 times richer than the average Austrian .

 

Even if people can afford to buy a car.,that will not say that they will buy a car.there were 2 tractor for 100 farms in Germany before the war,that will not say that 98 % of the farmers could not afford a tractor. If there were before the war 20 million families in Germany and 1.5 million cars,that does not mean that 18.5 million could not afford a car .

For the T model,the only thing we can say is that those who bought such a car could afford this car .Other conclusins are purely speculative .If 1 million T models were sold, the only conclusion is that there were a minimum1 million people who could afford a T model ,probably there were much more such people,but the majority of them decided,for a lot of reasons,not to buy the T model .

 

As usual your logic is badly flawed. The key in this case is that there are multiple factors that affect such things. Considering only one factor is absurd and leads to very questionable conclusions.

 

It has been claimed (not by me) that the reason that there were only X personal cars and Y trucks in Germany,was that they were to expensive (implying that if they were less expensive,there would be more trucks/cars):this claim is wrong because
a) the fact that Holland had only 90000 trucks in 1953 does not mean that only 90000 people could afford a truck :the number of people that could afford a truck was much bigger,but most of them chose not to buy a truck

b) if the price of a truck was going down,this does not mean that more people would buy a truck : in last resort,the reason for buying a truck (or something else) was : do I need a truck (or something else).,it is not :is a truck better than a horse,or the price is going down .

A lot of things are better than what one is having,and the price of these things is going down,but that's not a reason for buying these things .

A chain-saw is better than a simple saw to saw a tree,but that's no reason to buy a chain-saw.In last resort,the reason to buy a chain-saw is if one has a lot of trees,who must be sawed .

It is the same for cars and trucks /tractors

 

You clearly do not understand business principals, There is no guarantee that lowering a price will create demand, but there is a correlation. Ford created the Model T with the express idea of making it available to the masses, there was little demand for cars until the Model T because they were way above the price range of the average citizen. Do you know why the volkswagon was started, Hitler understood what Ford was doing and wanted to make a car the average citizen could afford. People told Ford he was crazy, first he makes a car people can afford and then he pays them enough to be able to buy it.

 

The Demand existed. The Need was there. Previously, it just wasn't affordable.

The fact that 336,000 (your inability to correctly round numbers off is noted) people signed up for a volkswagen in spite of the weekly cost of 5 RM, and the delayed gratification entailed, shows the demand and need existed, despite the cost. That Porsche's assumption of 900 RM in 1933, was based off a sales figure of a mere 50,000, and you want to turn that into a failure. For godness' sake, they had presold the car to the tune of 336,000 units before the factory that was going to build them was finished.

The fact by 1938 that there was under construction a massive automobile factory in Kdf-Stadt, that was planned to produce the first 150,000 cars already in 1940.

A demand for 336,000 affordable cars is not the same as no need.


"No need" = oop:

 

The correlation is imaginary eople are not buying something because the price is lowered,but because they need it :if tomorrow a new flat TV is produced which costs 10 % less than the existing one,there is a real risk that the whole thing will result in a disaster :if last year I bought a flat TV for 1000 $,why would I buy another one for 900 $?

336000 people had ordered a Volkswagen,not because he was cheap (he wasn't),not because they could afford (the 336000 were only a small % of those who could afford a Volkswagen),but,because they needed a car and still had no car (no one before WWII was that stupid to have 2 cars).

Who was buying the Ford T ? Those who had no car and, had the means to buy one , and needed one (the most important reason).

It was the same for the tractors : before the war some 2000 tractors were sold yearly in Germany. There were 3 million farms : that means that 99.99 % of the farmers were not buying a tractor,not because they could not afford one,but because they did not need one .

 

The Ford T was not cheap: 825 $ of 1908 = 21650 of 2015

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The influence of the price on the sales figures is mostly illusory : price of the Ford T in 1916 :345 $;production :501462;price in 1917 was higher :500 $;thus one could expect that the sales figures would go down,but what happened ? production :735020.

 

336000 candidates for a Volkswagen are 336000 candidates for a Volkswagen,there was no guarantee that the number of candidates would continue or increase .

 

As usual, you have gotten it facts folded, spindled and mutilated...Your prices are from the same year(1917), but for different models(Runabout & Coupelet). In reality...The prices from 1916 to 1917 dropped.

In 1916, the chassis cost $360, the Runabout variant cost $390, Touring variant cost $440, the Coupelet cost $590, the Town Car variant cost $640, and the Sedan cost $740.

In 1917, the chassis cost $325, the Runabout variant cost $345, Touring variant cost $360, the Coupelet cost $505, the Town Car variant cost $595, and the Sedan cost $645.

 

New Fords were available for around $500 in 1935, The Model T had sold new for as little as $260 in 1927 though it jumped up quite a bit in its last model year of 1927. Most of the cars sold in 1935 though were used and I suspect the Model T's weren't going for more than their original prices. See:
http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/30scars.html
and
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/1923-1927-ford-model-t5.htm
At that point in time more than half the wage earners were making more than $2,000 / year and almost a third over $3,000 a year.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/35soireppt1ar.pdf
From what I recall of Wages of Destruction US workers had quite a bit more disposeable income than European workers in the same income groups. So looks to me like it was pretty cheap.

I keep hopeing one of these days you will learn a little about how to construct a logically valid argument but you certainly have shown no sign of it todate.

 

Adolf Hitler February 15, 1936.

 

Prices ranged from $825 for the Runabout to $1000 for the Town Car. And, of course, Ford did not sell all that many...10,660.

 

That is completely besides the point. The point was, you can't claim "no need" when 336,000 have signed up and are willing to get their pay docked to the tune of 5 RM per week, prior to the factory being built, never mind the car being in production. Those putting their money on the line, are far more than "candidates". They are actual buyers.

Try telling to any person with real business acumen, that there isn't a need for an affordable car under those circumstances, and that the number of "potential buyers" (which is what I assume you mean, when you write "candidates"), is not guaranteed to increase, and said person will laugh at your face and call you a risk-averse simpleton. There are no guarantees in business. As risks go, however, it seldomly gets much better. They had already sold in excess of 2 year's worth of production, 6½ times in excess of what Porsche believed was needed to make the project feasible.

 

If we are talking about decisive battles of the "ostfront" (which I assume we are) then the obvious examples are Stalingrad and Kursk. As far as the former is concerned, it was simply unacceptable for the German military (which was already engaged in Africa and other places) to suffer such catastrophic casualties. For me, Stalingrad represents the point at which the Germans allowed themselves to become embroiled in a war of attrition, which, all things considered, they could not realistically hope to win.

Personally I don't buy into the myth that the Germans could never have destroyed the Soviet Union - an opinion apparently shared by Stalin himself - since it is clear that by the spring of 1942, Russia was in full crisis and sitting on the edge of annihilation. War does not always require that you have the greater resources (both in terms of manpower and materials) but rather that you adhere to your own strengths and play to your the weaknesses of your enemy. This tends to be the hallmark for most successful military nations - the British and their navy being perhaps the most classic example I can give.

In any event, even as a Westerner, I am immensely proud of the courage, determination and sacrifice of the Soviet people. To suggest that the great pains that nation suffered at the hands of fascism were simply a formality, is not only incorrect in my opinion, but it is also disrespectful.

 

We are, but is has morphed into a debate about trucks and horses. which can still be relevant.

 

So tell me what the demand was for the Model T was before Ford invented it. By the way it was mass production that enabled people to buy car.

 

And mass production was only possible because there were a lot of people wanting to buy a car.


There are 2 questions :

1) Why were millions of Americans wanting to buy a car ?


2)Why were a big part of them buying the Ford T ?