Did you recently take on (or consider) a loan of 84 months or longer on a car purchase?
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You don't think that getting tuition- loan is a big deal? I disagree.
I know I am in it now,but how did Edmunds become a political discussion site? I was under the impression it was all about cars.
There you go being logical. That is not allowed in this regime. There are a lot of ways the C4C could have benefited more people. Starting with getting the rules all worked out before offering the giveaway. It was kind of like a drunk sailor with a handful of $100 bills giving them to anyone that passed by. With no regard for need or ultimate impact. That impact will be, going back on a campaign promise to give a tax break to 95% of workers in this country.
The Cash for Clunkers is a political football so politics is a part of it from the beginning. It's going to be like other things, the politicians will try to take credit for anything they can make look positive about the program. If the perception of the public turns out to be more than 50% negative, they will blame the program on someone else than themselves, the politicians. Since the US automakers were involved in writing the program script and the lawmakers just put that proposal into their bill, opponents will be told to blame the US automakers, e.g.
Depends on how the media and political hacks can make the program sound now that it's ending. E.g., the media: I saw a CBS report with video of a couple cars with the whole sides painted with words thanking the current administration top guy for letting them use OPM to buy a new car; usually cars just have CARS or Clunker written on the windshield. But congress or the US automakers should be the ones thanked. Just an example of how media can try to influence perception.
If he has no job, he doesn't pay taxes unless he has a large endowment from which he gets income. The other aspect is that he could live closer to school and not have a large transportation cost.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Okay, I'll vote against any more C4C but I insist the government take your neighbor's son's student loans away from him. Fair is fair.
Do you see where this kind of thinking leads?
I think it did its job if the average increase in gas mileage is really almost 10 mpg combined.
Think that most of the old cars getting traded in weren't getting their original combined mileage anymore and the new EPA test is so dumb that anyone should get a mile or two better then the combined mileage rating.
Lastly yes a subsidized student loan is a big big deal My FEDERALLY SUBSIDIZED student loans have an interest rate of about 2 percent. If I had been forced to go to the private loan market for that I would have had to pay at least triple that perhaps even higher.
They refused to honor the internet quote. This is not the only Nissan dealer to be doing this. Coinicelli Nissan in PA and Jenkintown Nissan in PA told me the same thing. Cash for Clunkers only works if you buy the car at full price.
Dealers are trying to make up 6 months of terrible car sales on the backs of you and the government.
What about the 2,500 per year tuition tax credit?
Our system is stacked with breaks and incentives to compell us to comply with what the government wants us to do.
The pre-C4C articles I read said the law was written with input from NADA. I don't think the manufacturers, especially Mr. Lutz, had a lot of input or the minimum mpg standards wouldn't have been the same for trucks as for cars. There were very few type 1 trucks (or in my case SUVs) eligible. Most missed eligibility by 1 mpg, 17 v 18. It has been my experience when vehicle shopping that the people in the sales end of the car business are pretty ignorant of the technical capabilities of what they are trying to sell. One Nissan dealer I went to insisted that a 4WD Pathfinder was eligible under CARS. I told him I would help him look it up on the CARS site but he said he didn't have a computer (?).
A final comment; I'm not rich but I pay federal income tax well into five figures even though I'm retired and don't make nearly as much as I used to. I don't think the CARS program is worse than subsidies to millionaire farmers not to grow crops or milk cows; or for the Interior to build roads at taxpayer expense for logging companies and oil and gas drillers on government land. Student loans paid for my undergraduate degree and the Government paid for my MBA in full (I made good grades). I'll take a wild guess that most of the whining here about taxpayers paying for new cars is sour grapes and not real concern over the transfer of tax revunue from rich to poor.
But back to the topic, anyone in a mad rush to try to get a deal done this weekend?
And - what are the odds of another clunker program getting passed this fall?
Everything goes in cycles. Wait a few years and people will be grumbling that there's more government sticks than carrots out there. People seem to like this one because it was a more of a middle class carrot than many subsidies.
I'd riff on how nice more urban cores would be if the carrot of suburban home ownership wasn't out there, but that's a bit far off-topic, even for a weekend.
IMO it's not right for government to encourage spending in one sector over another. Especially currently, when practically all businesses are hurting.
I probably should've waited until this year to do my heat pump. But I made the decision last year, when home heating oil hit $5.62 per gallon. I averaged 450 gallons per year, so that could add up pretty quickly.
Unfortunately, I dunno if putting a heat pump in a 93 year old house was really a good idea. They had to run all-new ductwork, and 93-year old walls aren't as easy to go through as modern ones. Plus I also had to get some major electrical upgrades. In the end, it came out to around $12,600 total.
But, I'm also sitting here in a nice, cooled house right now. In the past, we had two window units downstairs and one upstairs, so we only had like 3 rooms that were really comfy in hot weather. Now the whole house is nice and cool. So, in the long run I guess it'll pay off.
Andre, my AC was totally dead, so I would have gotten the new heat pump system with or without the tax credit. I tend to defer a lot of purchases, but when you need something you spend the money. If I had clunked my car, I'd still pay my utility bills and hit the Thai buffet just as often.
I have to replace the furnace before winter kicks in. In a week i have to start getting quotes.
I'm open to ideas.
Someone may be lurking over in Home Remodeling and Repair with advice.
York and Carrier had rebates back at the start of the summer; maybe some others.
Not all of us are as independently wealthy as Steve to buy something big like a car without cutting back on something else. :shades:
I read something recently where someone was claiming that C4C should "only pay people to buy American cars that get at least 30 mpg combined."
The money would've lasted a very long time with those restrictions. . .
But I get your point although $4,500 off a car in our case would likely put us in a higher end model instead of shifting money to the carpet mill.
One big proponent has stopped clunking a bit early:
AutoNation stops offering Cash for Clunkers early
"We're going to leave some deals on the table, we know that," Cannon said. "We just thought it was a smart thing to do."
I refer you to the "Broken Window Falacy" illuminated in the book.
1. Have we simply moved sales that would have occured in the future to the present, at what cost?
2, Those consumers who chose to take advantage of C4C simply did not use their money for other purchases such as a new washing machine, home improvements, etc. What about other manufacturers who lost sales because of C4C?
3. Regarding those so called clunkers that are destroyed, how does that impact the ability of lower income individuals to buy a used car???
etc., etc., etc.,
The question I pose to all of you is do you want the freedom to make your own economic decisions or do your prefer a Washinton functionary to engage in central planning?
What has been the end game whereever central planning followed its logical conclusions?
every sales person said many of the sales in the beginning were cash deals, no loan involved.
lots of people have money sitting in the bank making vey little interest.
i think there is spillover effect of people seeing other in their new cars.
it makes them want one too.
Moon landing?
it works all different ways. No one system of economics can be frozen in time and judged superior. Long views suggest that some central planning is good but not too much, and too much "free market" is disastrous.
As for C4C robbing future sales to make current sales---maybe that's true---but if it saves the D3 long enough for them to restructure and get back on their feet, it would have been worth it IMO.
The complete and sudden collapse of the D3 is just a totally unacceptable scenario. It would be akin to capitulation to European and Asian economic powers.
You always assume it will be all 3 of the domestics. I firmly believe if one or two die the other will prosper and become profitable. I have history on my side with many cases of weak companies crashing and others becoming stronger. The government sticking their nose in generally prolongs the problems and makes recovery take longer.
The chances of this C4C giveaway increasing total yearly sales is just pie in the sky dreaming. Sure a few smart buyers dumped some junk and bought sooner than they may have without the program. That means they won't buy for several more years. We need to get our mindset to the reality the 11 million cars per year is good. Let the poor automakers die and the good ones survive. The way it is now they are all scrambling to survive. With the Feds screwing up the works by subsidizing GM and C and letting the others compete against a seeming bottomless pit of Federal funds.
Gagrice name an industry that the government doesn't support with tariffs, subsidies and or trade agreements ? Farming ? Retail ? Banking? Energy? Steel? Housing? Healthcare? No
In fact, most economic systems in the world today are partially planned economies, or partial command economies. Even ours.
And even if Ford survived as the "only one", that's bad because it puts Ford to compete alone against the Japanese, and Koreans. Aside from Euro operations, that should be just about a massacre, don't you think?
In W. Ohio, the supplier plants and GM plants closing have really hurt this area as well. I don't think some people living in other parts of the country have empathy about what closing plants with high paying jobs like those does to a region.
Actually, those plants and jobs aren't coming back to this area in the form of the past even if the BIG three increase production.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
If you are talking corporate welfare for the mega ag companies like ADM, the banks and insurance bailouts, I would agree with you wholeheartedly. This government is doing their best to destroy small business. The jury is still out on whether this C4C will help or hurt the small auto dealers. Ask any small contractor what the government has done to help them.
I don't think so. Why would loosing American competition hurt Ford? Every consumer that wanted to buy American, would then buy a Ford. I think the patriotic car buyers would rally behind the last remaining American car company. I don't think there are enough "American" buyers out there, to support all three American car companies. We could be keeping them all alive, temporarily, just to see them all fail later.
I know you are well aware that Michigan is bleeding jobs that will never return. The bailouts have only been life support that could make things worse when the reality sets in. The only automakers that survive will be in states the UAW cannot intimidate the workers.
PS
Most of our food here in SD is from Chile and Mexico. They can ship avocados to San Diego cheaper than we can grow them. Our water prices are killing us here. I am planning to pull out about half my fruit trees this winter. We get fined if we do not cut back on our water usage. My neighbor has a beautiful lawn. His last bill to keep it beautiful was $490 for two months. He is digging it up and just putting gravel out there.
The day of "product loyalty" are just about long gone anyway for the American consumer. We buy whatever is the best value for us. People jump car brands like TV channels these days. Any consumer researcher will tell us this.
If Ford relies on patriotism, it's going down, because its one strong suit, pickup trucks, will never bring the profits it used to in the world of 2009.
Besides all that, "country of origin" and 'domestic content' is all blurred in our minds now.
Ask Ford CEO Allen Mullaly. He told Congress that Ford did not need government bailout money, but that he supported GM and Chrysler's request for it. A failure of one of those companies, he said, would lead to the collapse of critical supply networks.
What he didn't say, but should have, is that throwing that many people out of work would leave a large number of Americans unable to buy any cars.
Well you still continue to use an incorrect analogy of the relationship between the D3. The D3 are not 3 independent examples, meaning that if one dies it does not affect the others. Their market-demand links them, so what happens to one affects the others, either positively or negatively. Since there are fewer customers these days the failure of 1 of the D3 makes the others remaining stronger. The remaining D2 would get former customers of the dead-3rd company. Those extra customers would probably be enough (at least if GM had been the one going under), to allow enough customers to make the other 2 profitable.
Start thinking of having enough food, water, and medicine for 2 patients to "recover", instead of trying to keep 3 alive when you only have enough to keep 2 going, and then you have a correct analogy.
As I said before and will say here another 1,000X's probably, you're very gullible if you're going to believe anyone 100% or 50% of the time, who has a $$$ interest in the auto industry.
If you want to see blatant examples - go see the same-day quotes from Wagoner and GM during late 2008, which were like 2 sides of a coin.
Mullaly as the head of Ford has a job which includes - saying Whatever is BEST FOR FORD at any given time. I'm not saying he lies, but he sure might promote some possible future scenario that is unlikely.
Now why would Mullaly want loans for GM and Chrysler in late 2008? Maybe 10 people in the world could answer that correctly today - maybe it was because he didn't want short-term disruption to suppliers, which was at a busy time that Ford would have trouble redirecting its resources? but it surely wasn't because he wants GM and Chrysler to still exist, and take 2/3 of the domestic buyers. Ford would be very, very happy to see GM lose its pickup market which would support Ford very nicely.
Instead of your position of more government involvement in more things, why not stop expanding and vote in people who support less government taxes, spending, and handouts? Make it fair by having no handouts.