Cash for Clunkers...

[brett636]

I must say, this program is crap no matter how you look at it. Economically its a failure, environmentally its a failure, and from a pure fiscal responsibility standpoint its definitely a failure. I am a carguy at heart, and perusing all the car forums I frequent its almost painful to see some of these cars get destroyed for absolutely no benefit. Case in point:

Here is a GMC Syclone that was traded in under C4C's. This truck may look like an ordinary early 90s S10, but in fact it has a turbo V6 with AWD and the bluebook value is north of $8k. Now its headed for the scrap heap. Sad for such a rare vehicle. Just goes to show that some people do not truly know what they own.



This was a good 1994 Chevy Caprice with the LT1 V8 engine. Sure its not pretty, but it would have been a cheap car for a poor family to get around with, or something large and safe for a new driver to tool around in. (Language Warning) For those of you who want to claim this will have no impact in used car prices, there was a car just like this one for sale in my local craigslist and they were asking $4500 for it due to the C4C program. Normally it would only pull something in the neighborhood of $1.5k-$2k.



There was a good video of a nice early 2000ish Jeep Grand Cherokee that was nicer than anything I drive being destroyed for this BS program, but that video is unavailable now.

I know not everything being traded in was worthy of being resold, but a lot of good used cars are meeting an unnecessary early demise. Perhaps even some future collectors like the Syclone I posted about are going to be destroyed making parts harder to come by and or completely unavailable. I just cannot understand how anybody can support or defend this pointless program when in reality it has accomplished nothing other than blowing through a crapload of taxpayer dollars in a couple weeks. Sad really.

[scratch]

Its a typical program that liberals dream up. It will waste a lot of tax dollars and not make any difference. I have never seen the government run any kind of program well. It makes me mad as a taxpayer to watch my money being wasted like this. This was originally designed to help the domestic car industry, but 60% of the new cars purchased are from foreign manufacturers.

[over9five]

Its a typical program that liberals dream up. It will waste a lot of tax dollars and not make any difference. I have never seen the government run any kind of program well. It makes me mad as a taxpayer to watch my money being wasted like this. This was originally designed to help the domestic car industry, but 60% of the new cars purchased are from foreign manufacturers.

Careful, Scratch. The Libs will now label you a Nazi and anti-American. You will probably be reported to the White House snitch line, and go on Obamas enemy list.

[wkmac]

I thought "cash for clunkers" is what you get anytime you pay a tax to gov't!

[big_arrow_up]

Didn't Congress recently ask for, and get, additional funding for this program? If they can't even manage this right then how the hell are they going to manage a universal health care system?

[wkmac]

Didn't Congress recently ask for, and get, additional funding for this program? If they can't even manage this right then how the hell are they going to manage a universal health care system?

Just like with the clunker program, just go back to Congress and appropiate more of our money, oppps sorry, I mean the Federal Reserve's magic money and throw that at the whole thing!



Good point BTW!

[1989]

Good or bad program. it is the first stimulus that is well defined (cars) It reduces the inventories on both new and old cars. Reducing inventory helps the bottom line and keeps Obama motors running.

[brett636]

Good or bad program. it is the first stimulus that is well defined (cars) It reduces the inventories on both new and old cars. Reducing inventory helps the bottom line and keeps Obama motors running.

What is interesting about that is most of the cars being purchased are foreign, and the Obama Motors car companies who just got out of bankruptcy had reduced inventories to begin with because their production halted while they were in bankruptcy. So now they are playing catchup while Ford, Toyota, Honda, and the rest of their competition eat their lunch.

[UpstateNYUPSer]

C4C has actually hurt other areas of the economy, such as retail sales. WalMart reported their first quarterly loss. Combine this with the debt created by purchasing the new vehicles and it will take that much longer for the economy to recover.

[big_arrow_up]

Another issues I have with it is that it encourages people to go take out another loan (more debt!) on a brand new car which is stupid also. As soon as you drive the car off the lot it loses value. Why not save and pay cash for a reliable used car. It's broken in and doesn't require a monthly payment for five years. I guess every since I discovered Dave Ramsey's get out of debt plans (and completed them) I just look at finances with a little more logic.