Well, how do they account for the MG3, which is available in Australia, Mexico, Britain and other countries for about $13k?

It isn't an electric golf cart (like the Topolino) for openers.

Under the hood of this small sedan – which has four doors rather than two openings and two pieces of rope, like the Topolino –  there's a 109 horsepower four cylinder engine paired with a CVT automatic. It's capable of reaching and holding highway speeds, too. It does take about 12 seconds to get to 60, which is about as long as it took for the typical economy car Americans used to be able to buy until the early 2000s to get to 60. It's nice to get to 60 more quickly. But it's also nice to  not have to pay a minimum of about $22k – which is what the least expensive new car Americans are allowed to buy (the Hyundai Venue) costs – to have that capability.

Some say Americans would never buy a car that takes 12 seconds to get to 60, even if it does only cost $13k. How would these solons know, since Americans aren't allowed to buy cars like the $13k MG3? How about we open up the market and let's see?

Of course, it isn't up to we. It is up to them – people like Duffy and Trump, who could at least make the case for setting aside the regulations that prevent cars like the MG3 (and many others) from being legal to sell here.

But why did they disappear from here to begin with? Go back to the early 2000s and American were able to select from among a plethora of small, inexpensive cars very much  like the MG3. One after another, they vanished from the market.

They're all gone now. From the U.S. market, that is.

This happened for a number of reasons, two of them related. Inexpensive cars are not high-profit-margin cars. Put another way, the car companies wanted to make more money on each sale and so they had an incentive to replace the low-profit-margin cars in their lineups with more expensive models that have higher profit margins. That worked for awhile, because there were lots of buyers who were willing and able to assume the financial burden of higher (and longer) monthly payments.

Americans were able to afford this, is another way to put it.

It isn't working anymore – because more and more Americans can no longer afford a six-year indenture at $757 per month (the current average monthly payment on a six-year car loan) on top of everything else.