Then why can't people on minimum wage get a small house?
People can't get a small house because there is more money to be made in building large houses. So large houses hog up all the available land where poor people need to live.
One thing to remember is that cars are legally subject to ever increasing regulation for build quality, safety, and emissions. When you get a new car (in the US) it's legally required to have seat belts, air bags, crumple zones, catalytic converters, tire pressure monitoring systems, anti-lock brakes, traction control systems, etc. etc. etc. All these additional features cost money, in direct cost, cost to develop, and cost to validate and certify.
As a result of these features hundreds of thousands of people have not died.
And this added expense is probably the primary reason why Republicans rail against regulations meant to increase fuel efficiency and to a lesser extent, safety systems in cars. It doesn't matter to them if a reduction in smog saves X thousands of lives a year if it means profits might go down some fraction for the manufacturers.
You guys didn't read Bamspeedy's post.
How much do you think a Model T would cost in today's world if factories were set up to mass produce them?
Obviously it would be expensive for you to build one yourself by getting specialty parts, but a factory that produces all those parts themselves (and would be producing millions of them).
$850 in 1909 dollars is $22,000 in 2012. I'm sure factories set up for it could produce Model Ts for alot less than $22,000, perhaps more like $2,200. But of course it wouldn't have the safety features required for today's world.
But I don't think anyone ever claimed that even the poorest of the poor could have Model T's 50-100 years later.
Think that one through: I recently bought a 2016 Subaru new. I paid about $22,000 (sticker price $24k and change). My car has a very high safety rating, meets all new safety and environmental regulations, is faster, more comfortable, more durable, more reliable, more capable, essentially better in every possible respect than the designers of the Model T even imagined would some day be possible.
And I paid for it essentially the same as a person buying a Model T in 1909 would have paid.
All of those regulations, all of those improvements, cost me nothing. All those governmental interferences in the marketplace, cost me nothing. In inflation adjusted dollars, I got an inconceivably better machine for the same money.
As long it isn't something major (engine, transmission, etc.) depreciation of a new car usually costs more than repairs on an older car. Of course if the repairs end up affecting your job, then that can change things.....
The poor will get rid of their 20 year old car for a 10 year old car and enjoy the technological progress cars have made in that 10 year period, even if they are still 10 years behind the rich people.
"Depreciation" of a new car is essentially just the price of putting it back on the market against new cars. Doesn't matter if you aren't trading regularly. But an old car can easily cost more to repair than it can fetch as a sale price.
I keep hearing stuff like
this from libertarians. It's obviously false, but I don't know how to explain why.
That article is referring to the improving of technology. Which is ongoing, although most of the time incremental and not dramatically visible. And from that perspective he is right. But that article also leaves out a great many things. And a pure 'free market' as he seems to be advocating, has a lot of downsides that the technical changes in consumer goods doesn't account for.
I was under the impression that the Austrian school of Economics was largely discredited and no longer used because it doesn't really work.
That would perhaps explain why things it predicts aren't happening?
The Austrian School hasn't added anything to the discussion and understanding of economics at any point within the careers of any living Austrian economist. Keep that in mind: No Austrian economist alive today has made a contribution to the discipline of economics. Not a one. Hayek was the last useful Austrian, and he left that for the Chicago School over 70 years ago. No one who is worth anything in economics now is an Austrian. And no one who is an Austrian is worth anything in economics. Today it's just a branch of hard conservative/authoritarian politics.