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  #1  
Old 08-07-2009, 10:19 AM
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Some thoughts on cash for clunkers

You would think that we would have learned the lesson after encouraging people to finance houses that they can't afford that the Government wouldn't encourage people to buy cars that they can't afford.

People are going from having no car payment at all and minimal insurance premiums to a car payment of $200-400 per month and they now have to have full coverage insurance costing them another $100-200 per month. We went from someone paying nothing per month to own their car, to someone paying $300-600 a month. And if the new purcahser can afford that monthly payment, they surely didn't deserve to be included in the benefit of the $3500-$4500 welfare, oops, incentive payment.

Maybe I should start a repo business, in about 6 months it's probably going to be a thriving business.

By the way:
Article 1, Section 8 of the "Constitution for the United States of America" clearly spells out the government's power to lay and collect taxes. It clearly spells out that taxes can be collected to pay for the military, to pay for the postal service, to pay for roadways, etc.

It DOES NOT provide for the Cash for Clunkers program.

And why are the cars being junked? *Some* of the cars are perfectly good vehicles. Between charities and stripping off the good used parts, someone could benefit from them. Don't use car dealers and body shop owners deserve a break? How are they going to make a living without cars to sell and parts to fix the cars that come in?Why not sell them to some developing country? Cuba seems to need vehicles that were made after 1957, how about sell them to them and recoup some of the tax money?

This program actually hurts the lower and lower middle class as it's eliminating/junking the only cars that they can afford to buy and use. Where's the outcry over that? I thought the Democrats were intent on helping those groups of people?

Shall we move on to the environment?

The clunker is already a sunk "cost" to the environment, it already exists, the energy and raw materials needed to produce the car have already been used. The new car must be produced, using more energy and resources, does the better mpg saving over the clunker offset that? Absolutely not. Where are the crushed cars going to reside? That's right, in a landfill. Do you want to discuss how bad that is for the environment?

So tell me again, without mentioning Bush, other than the "feel good" aspects of yet another welfare program, how exactly has cash for clunkers been successfull?

Before you answer, here are some stats for you:

Using 2005 DOT statistics:

Vehicles on the road 238,697,097
New Registrations 16,690,280

Using the $3,500 threshold for the entire one billion dollars would net 285,714 new vehicles and conversely the same amount of clunkers.

That is a whopping .1197% of vehicles on the road in 2005 and a whopping 1.7119% of the new registrations of 2005.

That kind of smacks you in the face huh? $1B, soon to be $3 or $4B to have a less than .2% impact on the road and less than 2% of new registrations.

So tell me again how wasting $1-3B on top of what the government already wastes is in any way a good thing?
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  #2  
Old 08-07-2009, 10:32 AM
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G, I tend to agree with you, from all the crap I've read on this deal...
It seems to be doing the following:
-moving dusty inventory off dlr lots
-giving a slight psychological impetus to the "feel good about yourself &
the econ" factor
-getting some barely/rarely inspected or, suspect operational cars off the road

None of the above, imo, are either really good or really bad...

-For JoeSixPack driving his clunker to work, (if he has a job), that $3500-$4500
"deal" may have been ~ what the car was "worth" to him or someone; I agree
that consumer does not need a $25G car with the connected payments.

It's a short term feel good deal, but like 95% of the stuff the geniuses have
pulled off so far, a helluva piper to pay in the future.

As for the US Constitution, I doubt if few in DC have ever read it through...
The gov't is an enormous juggernaut that is so out of control it will never get
"better"; the Founding Fathers/Mothers would not recognize the current state
of affairs, imo.
BR,mD
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  #3  
Old 08-07-2009, 10:53 AM
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I'm fine with the feel good aspects because fixing the economy is just as much mental as it is fianancial, and I understand the intention of the program to get people to loosen up the purse strings, but it makes me sick every time I read about a Democrat/Obama program that is clearly flawed getting a huge pass despite it having many flaws. The mentality on the left is so hypocritical it's sickening - "We thought of the plan and implemented it, so it must be perfect!", it's an ideal that they railed against for the last 8 years and now are not only jumping on the bandwagon but driving it too.
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Old 08-07-2009, 11:35 AM
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They can't even get the Cash for Clunkers numbers right...

Reality check: Trucks win in Cash for Clunkers game - Aug. 7, 2009
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Old 08-07-2009, 01:50 PM
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Yet one more way to give tax payers money away.
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Old 08-07-2009, 04:53 PM
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My beef is that a lot of the rebates (taxpayer dollars) are going overseas...it appears a car does not need to have a minimum amount of US-originated content. WTF?

Furthermore...won't this have the effect of degrading used-car values downstream?
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Old 08-08-2009, 12:11 AM
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And can anyone say FRAUD? How many of those supposed to be destroyed clunkers actually get destroyed? I have a feeling quite a few are going to end up some corrupt state, you know, like NJ.
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Old 08-08-2009, 07:04 AM
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A C4 Corvette bites the dust.

YouTube - cash for clunkers
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Old 08-08-2009, 09:36 AM
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I think the CFC is a very dangerous program that will have dire consequences in the very near future. We (the taxpayers) are now paying for portions of new car purchases ( so now we own part of the car companies and part of what they sell) that as stated above the new owners may not really be able to afford - remember the housing mortgage crisis? The quick overflow of clunkers will no doubt evolve into a corrupt after market sales underworld with pieces of these cars showing up in the Middle East - or New Jersey! And with the alledged destruction of the clunkers, aftermarket parts prices will sky rocket - if everyone is trading in their old F150's and they are truly being destroyed, how will that affect the price of aftermarket prices? Then consider that car manufacturers are "gearing up" to produce more cars since CFC is so "successful". CFC isn't going to last forever - maybe another couple weeks - so then what happens to the newly "geared up" car plants? CFC is a flash in the pan - another gimmick to portrait Obamanomics as working, but in fact setting our children and grandchildren up for more bill paying. It's still a shit sandwich.

Last edited by Bimmer4125; 08-08-2009 at 09:42 AM.
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Old 08-08-2009, 11:27 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bimmer4125 View Post
It's still a shit sandwich.
We can order another sandwich in 2010.

What is the actual number of cars that have been "sold" due to CFC? Does anyone even know?
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