Originally posted by: Lothar
Originally posted by: UberNeuman
Originally posted by: Lothar
I watched ABC news tonight as they described the program.
1.) Get clunker from a new car buyer in return for recieving $4,500 from the government.
2.) Dealer pours a chemical substance into the engine or oil.
3.) Let it run for a few minutes till it becomes inoperable.
4.) Dealer checks to see if there are any coins left in the ash tray and pockets them.
5.) Tow the car to a junkyard without stripping any part.
6.) Crush the whole car into a cube or make corn flakes out of them.
Instead of crushing perfectly fine cars that have no problems whatsoever, why not donate them to 3rd world countries?
I'm sure some people in Mexico, Africa, Asia, and South America would apreaciate any car they can get...even if it only gets less than 18 miles per gallon.
WTF is the point of this useless program again?
There's this thing - it's called the internet where you search and you find more details of the program...
:roll::roll::roll:
"The program is designed to energize the economy; boost auto sales and put safer, cleaner and more fuel-efficient vehicles on the nation's roadways."
You can do all that without scrapping the car. Why do you have to turn the cars into ice cubes when you can donate them to 3rd world countries?
What you discovered from Google is obviously not the accurate purpose of the CARS program. The truth is it's nothing but stimulating the Auto Industry at the taxpayers' expense. Sure they mention all the collateral purposes like getting rid of low MPG autos, keeping the environment clean and safer autos but the truth it all comes down to supporting the Auto Industry.
In fact, in the future when the Feds decide to support the glass industry, we will all come out busting all window glasses to have them replaced with double pane, fully insulated and green glass windows. And guess at whose expense it'll be?
Originally posted by: Lothar
Originally posted by: TruePaige
2 and 3 are the most ridiculous attempts at a point I have ever seen you make, Lothar.
Those are private charities. They can do whatever the want!
This is government money, it is from the citizens and should be for the citizens.
If we can't even give our own people health care or decent public schools I sure as hell don't want us building cities and waging wars for other nations.
Damn man, I'm not going to be rude to you but don't try to steer the discussion elsewhere.
Your statement was "Why give freebies to other nations when we are suffering? Make them handle their own business."...A blanket statement at that.
I wasn't trying to steer the discussion anywhere. You were the one that brought it up first, not me.
I don't see how turning a perfectly operable car into an ice cube will help this country on health care and public schools issues.
Well we were already referencing the governments action, so my statement was also automatically referencing government actions as I saw it.
It doesn't help on those issues, but it would cost money to ship these cars there and administer the program, causing us to lose money. At least as a nation we make a little in scrap money.
Well like I said it isn't ideal that people can do that, but it is still of benefit to society.
If it were up to me I would of set a uniform 10MPG increase over your old vehicle for 3500 and somewhere between 12-15MPG for the 4500, but it might not of had the same economy stimulating effects that others wanted it to have.
I'm not going to sit here and blindly say the program is perfect, but it isn't that bad.
In fact the only cash for clunkers point that really makes a meaningful difference on is pollution, as they still make a LOT less pollution that older vehicles.
Besides, the average MPG increase of the program is ~10MPG.
You act like a lot of people are doing that.
Only idiots would buy one of those in this day and age.
I've shipped a car to Nigeria before.
It doesn't cost as much as you're thinking it does.
If one is so concerned about costs, why not reduce the rebate to $2,500 and $3,500? That will pay for the shipping and any administrative costs...or you can keep the rebate the same and give the cars to international charities and let them bear the shipping and administrative costs.
sportage
Lifer
- Feb 1, 2008
- 11,492
- 3,163
- 136
All I know is if it gets even one of those fume clouds machines off the road, and you all know what Im talking about. Those wrecks you get behind and have to roll up your windows so you won't pass out. If it takes even one of those heaps off the road, and turns them into smashed metal, then its well worth it.
And some in the press ask if the program would help the environment... Is the press really THAT dense?
And there you go doom sayers... The gov takes over a car company, and you get a great trade-in deal while cleaning up the air in one swoop.
TAKE THAT RONALD REAGAN...!!!
And some in the press ask if the program would help the environment... Is the press really THAT dense?
And there you go doom sayers... The gov takes over a car company, and you get a great trade-in deal while cleaning up the air in one swoop.
TAKE THAT RONALD REAGAN...!!!
One nasty consequence of this program is that it encourages people to go take on more debt. What's the cheapest new car you can get today, like $10 grand? In the middle of a recession, they're telling people to get rid of cars they OWN, and get a new one which most will pay the difference for with a loan.
You shipped a car to Nigeria?
Honestly, I think the reason they get scrapped is two fold.
1) The flood of old cars in such a short span would immediately tank the value of used cars, making them cheap and a good option for many people, further harming new auto sales (of course this method will create a dip in the used car market in 5-10 years)
2) If they gave them to other nations (other than the costs of shipping them, starting a program to do so, and making sure that crooked people don't put them back in America), it would STILL be putting pollution in the air and would totally negate tha selling point of the program.
PJABBER
Diamond Member
- Feb 8, 2001
- 4,822
- 0
- 0
What a mess of an idea. It is is anti-environmental, does nothing to stimulate the economy, may actually be deleterious to economic vitality and it increases the national debt.
We can do better.
August 5, 2009
Little Bitty Bang Bang
By David Harsanyi
The Denver Post
Here's an idea: Let's give $50,000 to anyone looking to upgrade to a brand-spanking-new, environmentally friendly home. All we ask in return is that you burn your previous residence into a heap of smoldering cinder.
That's the concept behind the bizarre "cash for clunkers" program so many people are deeming a success. It's so successful, in fact, that Congress will increase funding for it by 200 percent.
Then again, in Washington, a place where elected officials are astonished -- astonished! -- when a program doling out free cash is popular, success often translates into higher costs and fewer results.
Now, some of you radicals may have an ideological dilemma with a government handing out thousands of dollars to citizens making an average of $57,000 a year so they can upgrade their perfectly serviceable vehicles.
Turns out, though, that by nearly any criterion, including the ones offered up by President Barack Obama, this populist experiment is an unmitigated fiasco.
To begin with, building a new car consumes energy. It is estimated that 6.7 tons of carbon are emitted in the process. So a driver who participates in the "cash for clunkers" program would need to make up for that wickedness. There are about 250 million registered vehicles in the United States. Only a micro-slither of those cars will be traded in -- and a slither of that number could be deemed "clunkers" outside the Beltway.
A survey of car dealerships found a relatively small differential in fuel efficiency between cars traded in and those replacing them. A Reuters analysis concluded -- even with the extended program in place -- "cash for clunkers" would trim U.S. oil consumption by only a quarter of 1 percent.
As an economic stimulus, the plan is equally impotent. As James Pethokoukis, a columnist at Reuters, succinctly explained, "The program gets much of its juice via stealing car sales from the near future rather than generating additional demand."
The point of a stimulus should be to create new demand, not to move existing demand around to score political points. Then again, for this administration, economic recovery always takes a back seat to moral recovery.
If the nation weren't in the midst of a six-month agenda of national redistribution, this kind of blatantly inefficient program -- even if it were ostensibly about the environment -- would be allotted a measure of substantive debate in Congress. No such luck. We need to pass something quickly -- quickly, always quickly. And that kind of pressure typically manifests in some creative accounting.
This week, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood claimed that "cash for clunkers" had benefited domestic car companies, particularly Ford. When The Associated Press requested data to verify this contention, the most transparent administration ever to grace God's soon-to-be-unblemished Earth refused to release the data.
The AP reported that "the limited information released so far shows most buyers are not picking Ford, Chrysler or General Motors vehicles, and six of the top 10 vehicles purchased are Honda, Toyota and Hyundai."
If those numbers are correct, take it as a positive sign that companies that avoided the orgy of corporate welfare are exceeding expectations.
But unless your idea of success is transferring wealth from one citizen to another for no tangible economic or environmental benefit, "cash for clunkers," like much of what passes as stimulus these days, is a major dud.
We can do better.
August 5, 2009
Little Bitty Bang Bang
By David Harsanyi
The Denver Post
Here's an idea: Let's give $50,000 to anyone looking to upgrade to a brand-spanking-new, environmentally friendly home. All we ask in return is that you burn your previous residence into a heap of smoldering cinder.
That's the concept behind the bizarre "cash for clunkers" program so many people are deeming a success. It's so successful, in fact, that Congress will increase funding for it by 200 percent.
Then again, in Washington, a place where elected officials are astonished -- astonished! -- when a program doling out free cash is popular, success often translates into higher costs and fewer results.
Now, some of you radicals may have an ideological dilemma with a government handing out thousands of dollars to citizens making an average of $57,000 a year so they can upgrade their perfectly serviceable vehicles.
Turns out, though, that by nearly any criterion, including the ones offered up by President Barack Obama, this populist experiment is an unmitigated fiasco.
To begin with, building a new car consumes energy. It is estimated that 6.7 tons of carbon are emitted in the process. So a driver who participates in the "cash for clunkers" program would need to make up for that wickedness. There are about 250 million registered vehicles in the United States. Only a micro-slither of those cars will be traded in -- and a slither of that number could be deemed "clunkers" outside the Beltway.
A survey of car dealerships found a relatively small differential in fuel efficiency between cars traded in and those replacing them. A Reuters analysis concluded -- even with the extended program in place -- "cash for clunkers" would trim U.S. oil consumption by only a quarter of 1 percent.
As an economic stimulus, the plan is equally impotent. As James Pethokoukis, a columnist at Reuters, succinctly explained, "The program gets much of its juice via stealing car sales from the near future rather than generating additional demand."
The point of a stimulus should be to create new demand, not to move existing demand around to score political points. Then again, for this administration, economic recovery always takes a back seat to moral recovery.
If the nation weren't in the midst of a six-month agenda of national redistribution, this kind of blatantly inefficient program -- even if it were ostensibly about the environment -- would be allotted a measure of substantive debate in Congress. No such luck. We need to pass something quickly -- quickly, always quickly. And that kind of pressure typically manifests in some creative accounting.
This week, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood claimed that "cash for clunkers" had benefited domestic car companies, particularly Ford. When The Associated Press requested data to verify this contention, the most transparent administration ever to grace God's soon-to-be-unblemished Earth refused to release the data.
The AP reported that "the limited information released so far shows most buyers are not picking Ford, Chrysler or General Motors vehicles, and six of the top 10 vehicles purchased are Honda, Toyota and Hyundai."
If those numbers are correct, take it as a positive sign that companies that avoided the orgy of corporate welfare are exceeding expectations.
But unless your idea of success is transferring wealth from one citizen to another for no tangible economic or environmental benefit, "cash for clunkers," like much of what passes as stimulus these days, is a major dud.
MovingTarget
Diamond Member
- Jun 22, 2003
- 9,002
- 115
- 106
This was not designed to help the poor other than to simply stimulate the economy. It is pretty successful in getting older cars off the road and getting product moving out of dealer showrooms. Unfortunately it may have a side effect of destroying the sub $3k used car market. Many will never be able to afford a car worth more than that. On that note, you can't call and SUV, pickup, or other gas guzzler a poor vehicle decision when often they are the only ones affordable (often free). Somehow I think that we can achieve the same effect of moving new cars by increasing CAFE requirements and some direct subsidy for those meeting the strict(er) standards.
The environmental benefit of a 9mpg increase in avg fuel economy is hard to deny. It isn't just about global warming and CO2, but also about smog and particulates. This could help quite a bit in that area and who knows, might push cities over the line to avoid the ire of the EPA due to ozone, etc.
However, part of me sees this as wasteful as it takes resources to produce the new vehicles. I just hope that the rest of these 'clunkers' are getting dissassembled so that the rest of us poor folk can repair our clunkers that we can't afford to replace. As a car enthusiast, it makes me pretty upset when I see a perfectly good vehicle go to the crusher. Those are a lot of spare parts I would love to replace on my Caprice, but crunch they go...
The environmental benefit of a 9mpg increase in avg fuel economy is hard to deny. It isn't just about global warming and CO2, but also about smog and particulates. This could help quite a bit in that area and who knows, might push cities over the line to avoid the ire of the EPA due to ozone, etc.
However, part of me sees this as wasteful as it takes resources to produce the new vehicles. I just hope that the rest of these 'clunkers' are getting dissassembled so that the rest of us poor folk can repair our clunkers that we can't afford to replace. As a car enthusiast, it makes me pretty upset when I see a perfectly good vehicle go to the crusher. Those are a lot of spare parts I would love to replace on my Caprice, but crunch they go...
skyking
Lifer
- Nov 21, 2001
- 22,764
- 5,927
- 146
It's a free choice. I keep hearing comments out in the public to the effect of "they want to take your perfectly good car away and make you get a loan you can't afford".
That is the lamest crock of crap I've ever heard.
It is an incentive to buy new. If I had an eligible trade in I'd be considering it, but my old truck is way too old. ('68 F250).
Originally posted by: TruePaige
You shipped a car to Nigeria?
Honestly, I think the reason they get scrapped is two fold.
1) The flood of old cars in such a short span would immediately tank the value of used cars, making them cheap and a good option for many people, further harming new auto sales (of course this method will create a dip in the used car market in 5-10 years)
2) If they gave them to other nations (other than the costs of shipping them, starting a program to do so, and making sure that crooked people don't put them back in America), it would STILL be putting pollution in the air and would totally negate tha selling point of the program.
Believe it or not, it's actually cheaper for one to buy a car here and ship it to Nigeria than it is to buy a car there.
1.) The value of the cars shouldn't matter unless they plan on selling it back into the domestic market. The only thing that happened was demand shifted by a year or two. All these companies reporting record increase in car sales will be back to reporting lower sales once everyone has bought the car they wanted to buy.
2.) Negating global pollution isn't one of the reason for implementing the program according to the website. If that's what they wanted to achieve, they should have used that money to build a new nuclear power plant, donate to biodiesel research, while closing some coal power plants. Crooked people? You don't have to worry about that. Why would anyone ship back to America when there's more profit to be made overseas? I know people who "buy cars here, ship them there" for a living. They make more money doing that than any manager at McDonalds does.
The purpose is to score political points, bailout the auto industry, and take money from the poor and give to those who can afford a new car.
Mission accomplished! Now let's throw more money at it!
Mission accomplished! Now let's throw more money at it!
CPA
Elite Member
- Nov 19, 2001
- 30,322
- 4
- 0
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
This program pisses off Republicans
Mission Accomplished :thumbsup:
Wait a gosh darn minute. You were for, then against and now for this program again. Will you make up your cotten-picken mind already.
Also, Dave, I see we are headed to $3/gallon gas. When are you going to revive your "Drive for $5" thread?
blackangst1
Lifer
- Feb 23, 2005
- 22,902
- 2,359
- 126
Originally posted by: CPA
Originally posted by: dmcowen674
This program pisses off Republicans
Mission Accomplished :thumbsup:
Wait a gosh darn minute. You were for, then against and now for this program again. Will you make up your cotten-picken mind already.
Also, Dave, I see we are headed to $3/gallon gas. When are you going to revive your "Drive for $5" thread?
He was quoting $8 just 6 weeks ago
For the potential new car purchaser, I agree, it is a free choice. Nobody is forcing people to go for the deal. But, the government is providing a big incentive in the form of $4500 to do this. That is why I used the word 'encourages' instead of 'forces'.
The program is a waste of money for all the reasons outlined in the article PJABBER posted and more. And in an environment where unemployment has risen to 9.5% and is still climbing, I maintain it is a bad idea to throw away a working vehicle for a new one plus debt. It would seem your criticism, and not my original statement is the lame crock of crap.
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