America: Still the Winner of the Auto Derby

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Tyler Cowen points us to the chart on the right, from the Economist, and says he was surprised to learn that Germany has more passenger cars per capita than the United States. But there’s no real surprise here. It’s mostly a matter of whether a Ford Explorer counts as a “passenger car.”

You see, in the non-commercial/non-truck world, the federal government distinguishes between “passenger cars” and “other 2-axle 4-tire vehicles.” In 2008, there were 137 million passenger cars, which works out to about 446 cars per thousand people. However, there were also 101 million “other 2-axle 4-tire vehicles,” primarily in the fast-growing category of SUVs and pickup trucks. Add that up and you get 238 million of the things that we’d ordinarily call cars, which comes to about 775 vehicles per thousand people.

In Germany, apparently, they don’t make this distinction. In the non-commercial/non-truck world they put everything into one bucket and just count 44 million “cars.” That comes to about 544 vehicles per thousand people.

Unsurprisingly, then, it turns out that we have more cars per capita than Germany. You just have to be careful about comparing national statistics across borders.

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“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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