It's a vicious circle. The marketing departments at Ford and Chevy and GM ran ads telling American men that they weren't "real men" unless they had a pickup or SUV capable of climbing (or hauling) Mt. Everest.

And the insecure suckers bought into it.

But what happens, the marketing whispers, when everyone's truck is the same size and yours is no longer the biggest?

You need a bigger one!

The cycle continued, year after year, until the average super-crew-cab-super-bed-super-truck got to be so large that most of them no longer even fit inside the typical American garage. In my neighborhood they now line the streets and driveways, a magnet for midnight thieves.

But that didn't matter. The suckers kept buying and the automakers just pocketed the extra money and laughed all of the way to the bank.

That said, it looks as if the trend is topping out. Apparently the number of rubes who can afford an $100,000+ truck is declining rapidly, leaving tens of thousands of them stacking up on dealer lots.