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A not-so-endearing aspect of the human body is that it loses flexibility. If you are of a certain age, 50 or so, you learn to stretch a little, loosen things up, before attempting even a modest effort. It feels a bit like machinery that

corrodes slightly between uses, and needs a drop of oil (call it 'ibuprofen'). And having aged thus far, you lived through 'the sixties'. A friend sent a

forward including this link; enjoy: TakeMeBackToTheSixties The intent is no doubt to invoke nostalgia for a more innocent era. But the

Almanack is reminded of the 'stuff' we made do with in the sixties, and before. It's hard to remember how quickly stuff rusted. Everything, toys, cars, tools, instruments, buildings, bridges, pipes, went back to nature at an astonishing

speed, beginning the moment it was neglected. We spent endless hours washing, wiping, painting, oiling, wrapping and storing stuff so that it would be protected and ready for use. Caring for stuff was considered a great virtue. A

neighbor who took good care of his stuff was trustworthy: if he borrowed your stuff, it came back in good shape, not dirty or rusted, and his stuff was always worth borrowing.

You could tell if a person was trustworthy by looking at the car in the driveway. It took more care than anything else. If it was two years old and

didn't show any rust, its owner was undoubtedly a very solid citizen. Post-war car makers learned that it was good business to build 'bio-degradeable'

cars, and change the styles every year. That worked on lots of levels: social competition, boredom, and laziness. It was the most egalitarian society in history, and new cars projected status; after two years of chauffering the kids

and soaking up cigarette smoke, the old jalopy was smelly and borrrring; and most people just didn't care enough to keep the poorly-protected sheet metal from rusting.

Lest the Almanack succumb to pure cynicism, a seldom-remarked side effect of the rapid turnover of cars was that entry-level consumers with a little sweat equity

could have a quite workable machine for $100, when a new car was going for $3000. Engine Charlie Wilson didn't really say, 'What's good for General Motors is good for the U.S.A.', but close enough. And it was true.

Cars are much in the news lately because of their central role in middle-class employment, and the car companies are taking a lambasting for building obsolete,

oversized junk that nobody wants to buy. Maybe that's fair. Technology has changed the business model, beginning with 'space age' materials, plastics and metals mostly, that don't fade, peel, crack or most of all, rust. According to

the conventional wisdom, planned obsolescence doesn't have much leverage, so INNOVATION is the only thing prodding the consumer to buy, and that's bad news for American car companies.

Gimme a large freakin' break. There hasn't been any innovation in cars since 1903, when a Model T got 25 miles to a gallon of gas. Better materials, sure,

and some very marginal safety features, and we'll stipulate that a new Mazda is more fun to drive than a '64 Fairlane, but it's basically the same old 4-up gas buggy. We love the new materials that make cars light and sturdy and

comfortable, but they're available to all car companies. People being people, there are good designers on both sides of every ocean, and the labor that builds Chevys lives in the same country as the labor that builds Hondas. And all car

companies for the last 3 decades have built only the cars that expensive market research told them people want to buy. Have you weighed a Toyota Tundra?

Asian car companies came of age in the eighties, and they're just hitting prime: no sclerotic, self-interested hierarchies, no burdensome pension funds, no ridiculous finance arms.

American car companies, like the rest of us who grew up in the sixties, are getting old and profoundly rusty. It may not be possible to scour and lubricate

all the critical parts of a machine as big as Detroit. Doesn't work too well on arthritic human bodies, either. But we grew up knowing how to take care of stuff. We just have to remember, and care.

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