Where Did the Money Go for Clunkers?

[StageLeft]

690000 were sold with the program, not 125000. and it certainly does matter when things happen.

Sure, so if car sales fall apart this fall because of the front-loading this did to them we can certainly blame the stimulus on crashing revenue in the fall, right?

This is not a complex issue or statistic to understand. Assuming that in fact Edmunds' analysis is correct (and it's more plausible than any others I've seen), it becomes very difficult to defend the cash for clunkers as anything more than throwing money at people.

You should be banned as a propaganda tool. Since the auto industry pumps 3 times the cash to the GOP as they do the Dims it's only fitting that "" ...the Edmunds.com team of PhDs and statisticians... "" would lie to suit their clients needs.

1) There were 690,000 cars that received an allowance under the program. A fancy team of 'PhDs and statisticians' manipulated the data to promote an agenda;

2) Light vehicle sales have declined significantly this decade from over 22 million sold to less than 10 million sold with a huge drop occuring from Jan-08 (16 million) to date; and

3) The level of vehicles sold this year (if we are lucky) will be the lowest since the late 1970s and early 1980s.

All on topic points but in no way refute the findings of Edmunds.

Let's just please stop with the idea that with a car sale that was going to happen anyway and received some C4C benefit is thus a success of the C4C. That is terrible awful logic. Please.

---

Simply: C4C induced 125,000 more sales and brought forward the sale--did not create, but brought forward--of 565,000 vehicles. At at cost of $3B. Do with that finding what you want or refute it with actual data, not maybe this maybe that, could of, probably, etc.

 

[Hacp]

So a family that would have purchased a 15000 family car instead buys a 20,000 car. How is that not wasteful? That's taking money from people who can't afford cars and giving it to people that can.

 

[CPA]

Quoted from the Edmunds article, not taken out of context like 'the blog':

Nearly 690,000 vehicles were sold during the Cash for Clunkers program, officially known as CARS, but Edmunds.com analysts calculated that only 125,000 of the sales were incremental. The rest of the sales would have happened anyway, regardless of the existence of the program.


Splitting hairs anyone? They are claiming that those people would have bought cars anyhow, so they don't count in a stimulus sense. What does it matter, the program got them to spend the money now instead of later. Those people most likely spent a little more than they would have under regular circumstances. Regardless $19,000 was not wasted per car.

Yes it was. The whole program was a sham and a waste of taxpayer dollars for what? A temporary increase in car sales?

 

[BoberFett]

Couldn't that be said for all incentives/sales?

Absolutely. But for most companies, sales pull their demand forward on their dime. This one pulled it forward on MY dime. Big fucking difference.

 

[piasabird]

This has nothing to do with anything public. The Govt payed the money out and kept $19,000 for every $5,000 that was paid out to car buyers. It is the Government that wasted the money, not some company. Under Bush the money was mailed out to taxpayers, and under O'Bammah all the extra money went to his cronies. This is worse than Madoff's Ponzie Scheme!

 

[BoberFett]

This has nothing to do with anything public. The Govt payed the money out and kept $19,000 for every $5,000 that was paid out to car buyers. It is the Government that wasted the money, not some company. Under Bush the money was mailed out to taxpayers, and under O'Bammah all the extra money went to his cronies. This is worse than Madoff's Ponzie Scheme!

That's not what this is saying at all. What it's saying is that most of those sales would have happened with or without C4C. Given their analysis that indicates we only increased auto sales by 125,000, it allocates the cost of the promotion only to those additional units and comes out to $24K per additional automobile sold. It's a standard way to evaluate the effectiveness of marketing. You look at your baseline and measure the cost of the promotion against that number.

 

[JTsyo]

This has nothing to do with anything public. The Govt payed the money out and kept $19,000 for every $5,000 that was paid out to car buyers. It is the Government that wasted the money, not some company. Under Bush the money was mailed out to taxpayers, and under O'Bammah all the extra money went to his cronies. This is worse than Madoff's Ponzie Scheme!

Read the thread. The money was paid out in full. The OP's question was answered. The 3billion went to over 600K cars sold not just 125K. The question now is that if it was worth $3billion to sell an extra 125K cars.

The point of the bill was not just to sell more cars but give people incentive to buy more fuel efficient cars. The numbers that also matters is the increase in gas mileage for the 600K cars sold. Was it worth 3billion to improve mileage by say 3mpg?

 

[Jhhnn]

You're so full of it...if Bush didn't infuse money into the financial system at the time...total collapse was imminent...spinning this as 'free enterprise' hypocrisy is total bullshit.

Hit a nerve, huh? One of those implacable walls of denial, I'm sure.

I didn't deny that total collapse was imminent at the time, I merely pointed out how we came to that.

Remember how Greenspan and the Whitehouse waxed ecstatic over the Ownership Society and Self-Regulated banking? How W's regulatory appointees decided that not regulating was what they were supposed to do, given their instructions from on high, so they cut red tape and looked the other way while the housing market went nuts and prices in many areas soared to absolutely unsustainable heights? How did mortgage bonds suddenly become unsaleable, even at a dime on the dollar?

I have news for you- major recessions happen as a consequence of major speculation and over extension beforehand, of banks not keeping sufficient reserves and basing lending on the inflated value of so-called "assets". They're a consequence of what's come before, not something that just happens on its own...

WTF do you think caused this economic collapse, anyway- teh ebil libruhls? Get Real.

 

[sandorski]

[dons Lab Coat and awkward Nerdy stance]You can see here on this chart[points to easel with a Chart on it], not only did C4C not Sell any Vehicles, but it actually reduced Sales by as much as 1 million!

The Proof is in the Mathematical Formula we have produced in the Math Lab:

TotalVehiclesSold/AvgC4CPayout*OurNaturallSalesEst/Big3Assumption*0-1000000

Travesty, travesty!!!!

 

[OrByte]

690,000 were sold, but if you read the actual analysis, 565,000 would have been sold regardless of the cash for clunkers program. In other words, the cash for clunkers resulted in a net addition of 125,000 vehicles sold. We paid $3,000,000,000 to sell an additional 125,000 vehicles, we paid $24,000 for each additional vehicle sold. Typical government program, a complete waste. When they do so well with something so simple as a car-buying credit, it's obvious we're going to save sooooo much money when they run healthcare!

so in other words..... you are applying the same logic as the gubbermint when the gubbermint says it "saved" jobs with the stimulus money.

Its the same leap of logic to assume that the net addition of cars sold is only 125K

you simply do not know....

 

[Zstream]

Everybody's trying to fluff up the state of the economy, paint a rosy picture, particularly the Right, the perps of the current imbroglio.

Why can't you discuss something without it being left or right? The program was a massive fail in my eyes. We "The People of the United States of America" paid more for each car then what was thrown at us. So on average, we pay what 19,000$ dollars for each clunker sold?

How can you, with a clear mind, say that it is ok... wasting money like that? The Government has no idea on how to cut cost or keep prices down. They have no oversight and no income at all, it is all given to them.

 

[Zstream]

you simply do not know....

That is a fact but also stating that no cars would have been purchased without the package is just as bad.

The only real fact we have is that the Government waste OUR money.

 

[sandorski]

Why can't you discuss something without it being left or right? The program was a massive fail in my eyes. We "The People of the United States of America" paid more for each car then what was thrown at us. So on average, we pay what 19,000$ dollars for each clunker sold?

How can you, with a clear mind, say that it is ok... wasting money like that? The Government has no idea on how to cut cost or keep prices down. They have no oversight and no income at all, it is all given to them.

fail

 

[PokerGuy]

Quote:
Originally Posted by PokerGuy
690,000 were sold, but if you read the actual analysis, 565,000 would have been sold regardless of the cash for clunkers program. In other words, the cash for clunkers resulted in a net addition of 125,000 vehicles sold. We paid $3,000,000,000 to sell an additional 125,000 vehicles, we paid $24,000 for each additional vehicle sold. Typical government program, a complete waste. When they do so well with something so simple as a car-buying credit, it's obvious we're going to save sooooo much money when they run healthcare!

so in other words..... you are applying the same logic as the gubbermint when the gubbermint says it "saved" jobs with the stimulus money.

Its the same leap of logic to assume that the net addition of cars sold is only 125K

you simply do not know....

Actually, no the "leap of logic" in this case is not much of a leap at all. Obviously, there were going to be cars sold with or without C4C. This group did some analysis and concluded that the sales without c4c would have been 125,000 less than what they were with C4C. I don't know if their analysis is correct or not, but I haven't seen any evidence yet as to why it's not. The only arguments I've seen against their analaysis are political attacks by those who don't like the conclusion. Show me something that shows their actual analysis is wrong, and why, and then there would be a real argument.

 

[moparacer]

"Yes it was. The whole program was a sham and a waste of taxpayer dollars for what? A temporary increase in car sales? "

"This group did some analysis and concluded that the sales without c4c would have been 125,000 less than what they were with C4C."

Pretty much a waste of bandwidth to say this on here but for all of us who said this is what the program would ultimately be, here is a big phat AHAHAHA WE TOLD YOU SO!"

Now we can anxiously await stimuLESS II and Wasted Cash for Clunkers II.....

Surely this administration has them in the works.....

 

[heyheybooboo]

When someone offers no empirical data, whips out their 'ass-facts' and props up their quackery with the authoritarian 'PHDs and statisticians did this' --- it's NeanderCon pseudo-crap deja vu.

1) The idea put forth that retail car sales were going to increase 18.5% "If no Cash for Clunkers" from the Spring of this year to date is pure fantasy;

2) The idea that 250,000 more cars would have been sold in 2009 WITHOUT cash4clunkers is simply pathetic;

3) Their 'forecast' for October overshot total retail and fleet sales by nearly 600,000 units!;

4) No one --- not JD Power, not Automotive News, not AutoData (the professional organizations that use actual franchise dealer data) --- has numbers that are remotely close to this fecal matter;

5) They ignore simple facts that strike at the heart of their quackery:

a) Sales of compact cars increased nearly 50% during cash4clunkers and fell to norm the following month;

b) After consistent double-digit declines throughout 2009 retail sales increased by 12-13% during cash 4clunkers; and

c) See #4 above;

5) Some of you guys will swallow anything. Maybe you should learn to spit.


And the guy who keeps on saying, "The gub'mint stole $19k per car sold .. "

LOL --- What a maroon.

 

[Slew Foot]

Lets put this in term you idiots can understand.

Microsoft sells 200K Xbox 360s in a month. For the month of June they decide to give away a $50 game with every unit to spur sales. In June they sell 240K units.

In the end, they spent 240,000 (units) X $50 = $12,000,000 to sell an extra 40,000 units or $300/unit.

If they didnt have the promotion they would have sold 200,000 units, and Im willing to bet that many of those extra 40,000 units would have been bought sometime in the next year anyway.

And looky here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091104/ap_on_bi_ge/us_cash_for_clunkers

Looks like many people were able to bilk the system and buy large trucks that got less mileage than the cars they turned in.

 

[sandorski]

Lets put this in term you idiots can understand.

Microsoft sells 200K Xbox 360s in a month. For the month of June they decide to give away a $50 game with every unit to spur sales. In June they sell 240K units.

In the end, they spent 240,000 (units) X $50 = $12,000,000 to sell an extra 40,000 units or $300/unit.

If they didnt have the promotion they would have sold 200,000 units, and Im willing to bet that many of those extra 40,000 units would have been bought sometime in the next year anyway.

And looky here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091104/ap_on_bi_ge/us_cash_for_clunkers

Looks like many people were able to bilk the system and buy large trucks that got less mileage than the cars they turned in.

You're making multiple Assumptions.

 

[Ozoned]

Cash for clunkers.


I traded a f150 for a f150. Thanks! I think that this was one of the top trades.

 

[JKing106]

I couldn't imagine the government pissing away hard earned tax payers money. And I most definately don't see the democrats being the ones to draft such legistation that would allow such waste. How dare you talk bad about this democratic lead government.

Sure it got pissed away, on a bullshit war in the Middle East. Where have you been living?