Did you recently take on (or consider) a loan of 84 months or longer on a car purchase?
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A reporter would like to speak with you about your experience; please reach out to PR@Edmunds.com by 7/22 for details.
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Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and his boyfriend at Fannie Mae, Maxine Waters, Pelosi, etc., all who didn't want to tighten down on lending requirements when that was pointed out to them. Instead they wanted to loosen the reins for lending to people who had no hope of repaying and for homes that were grossly over valued by the appraisals from the crooked mortgage folk. And see the reaction tapes when Bush suggested tightening down.
>Maybe you haven't noticed ,but the economy is better than it was in 2008.
Where? Unemployment is 15% per the Merrill Lynch presentation I saw today on investing.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
I'm a Hoosier also. I downgraded to being a Buckeye. Please be kind.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
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If we wanted to be really safe we'd only allow the safest design car on the road, ban motorcycles, get bicycles on the sidewalk, set the speed limit for 20 mph, and have a cop and ambulance standing by every mile, no matter what the cost. We'd also pass legislation that only necessary driving was allowed, as the more we drive the higher chance of having an accident any given day is. Thank god we don't care about safety too much. :P
>In some parts of the country that is just not feasible or practical.
Better transit is nice but it must be in areas with a population density to support it.
In the Dayton area the public bus system gets sales tax as well as government monies and I believe they also get a millage on property. Over the decades they spent heavily. They even contributed to building the local baseball field near downtown! along with the state government. The buses are empty much of the day in many areas. The bus system paid an administrator a couple hundred thou a year and she retired and returned to work the next day without the controlling board knowing. Collected retirement at a high rate and her full salary. The manure really hit the fan.
Currently public transit just raised their fares to $1.50 because they're not going to get more sales tax rate and the sales tax has dropped because of deceased spending. The new manager gets a couple hundred and works much better. But the news came out that the union bus people have several making over $100,000 for driving a bus (overtime).
They cut back on service.
The public transportation systems require a density of population to be successful. Otherwise, they are just an expensive waste.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Hopefully the people buying these vehicles would then be able to acquire jobs that would allow them to earn enough to pay for gas, etc. In North Texas I had insurance that was $28 a month...I do qualify for State Farm but was pretty broke at the time and we could afford this. There are areas such as North Texas where the jobs are have no public transit...the city of Arlington has no bus service for example.
Hey, NUMMI plant is closing in Fremont California.
That's a good example in microcosm of a D3 collapse. The local news featured all the businesses that will be devastated by this closing, including suppliers, local restaurants, and local manufacturers who have contracts.
they figure 35,000 jobs ultimately are on the line here.
Also,the city of Fremont loses 1.9 million in taxes.
You trust Merrill Lynch???
Also,the city of Fremont loses 1.9 million in taxes.
Welcome to the job loss club. We in the Midwest have been going through this for years in auto arena. Although I'm sure this is small tot he economy of California, the ripple effect of losing the well-paying manufacturing jobs hurts the region. :sick:
And despite what the Guru says, just replacing them with "green" jobs and windmill making isn't going to work. :mad:
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Nope. But I do trust the two independent presenters in re economy currently and investing. They are very accurate in their discussion for the audience. They are within a Merrill group, but give the presentations for a large group of which I am one element. They are not there pimping Merrill products. They are there giving advice to us members of the set and we can do where and as we choose.
I attended a presentation about 10 months ago by them and they were spot on then and spot on yesterday.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
http://www.daveramsey.com/etc/newsletters/company/082809.cfm?ectid=cnl0909.1_06#- 1
"If one considers the people who would like a job but have stopped looking -- so-called discouraged workers -- and those who are working fewer hours than they want, the unemployment rate would move from the official 9.4 percent to 16 percent, said Atlanta Fed chief Dennis Lockhart.
The way unemployment is figured is somewhat shady. Been that way for a very long time.
I guess buying a used car, versus new, is almost always the way to go no matter how rich you are. Still, somebody has to buy the things new, otherwise they never become USED cars! :P
C4C for those with a beater was smart, if you got the price right before the gift from the tax payers was used.
Them some of the self employed who are actually working get thrown into that raw number too. How do you count people that are underemployed do they get counted as 3/4 of a person if they are only working 30 hours a week? The raw data isn't adjusted seasonally either.
Like lots of statistics you can't just look at the raw data there has to be some adjustment or it makes a lot less sense.
Also sometimes buying new is a better deal when the incentives are very good and the supply of used cars is tight. Edmunds published a list of cars that were better off buying new then used back a month or so ago.
If someone buys new and keeps it for a long time, they are fine. Personally, I've always bought new until a couple years ago and never kept a car long enough to wear it out. I seemed to be swayed too easy to want something else. I need to find something less expensive to be passionate about.
"That means they need their title, their damage disclosure, their bill of sale and the dealers have 30 days to get that to them," Minnehaha County Treasurer Pam Nelson said.
But many of those cashing in on the clunkers program are surprised when they get to the treasurer's office windows. That's because the government's rebate of up to $4500 dollars for every clunker is taxable.
http://www.keloland.com/NewsDetail6162.cfm?Id=0,89084
http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1918853,00.html
The article is interesting to me on a number of levels:
1. GM is backtracking and now wants to keep European operations so as to "overtake Toyota worldwide" (well, nothing wrong with dreamin' big I guess)
2. Obama once again disappoints the American Socialist Party by refusing to interfere with GM/Opel wrangle in any way whatsoever. He says it's GMs business to restructure as they see fit in Europe.
3. American taxpayer money cannot be used to fix Opel in Europe---didn't know that but now I do.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=apZ8D8YQ1ZM0
Looks like they are doing well in the emerging markets.
Talk about stating the obvious.
Georgia was I think an exception.
Thank you.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Generally it is better not to finance, but there are always exceptions to the rule.
Selling cars does not have to be either immoral or non Christian. Not everything is black or white. How about starting a used car business and having your business model be helping people get into cars that they can really afford rather than how much of a loan they can get? I think after that reputation is established, business would flourish.
I wonder if they did a similar investigation of how much the D3 and its cohorts donated to politicians, who then turned around and voted for bailout money for the D3, what they would find. And if you included the thousands of auto dealers and NADA donations, what would you find? I bet you'd find 1 behind washing the other!
My household rule is no more than one car payment and all cars go to 100k miles....unless we hate the car (2001 Chevy Malibu).
Does this suck? raise the base price at start of C4C by $650 (cobalt), try to apply sales tax to the rebate (7% of 4500), charge a fee to file paperwork, and now 25% to 31% of the 4500 is due on your federal income tax. I hope the clunker wasn't worth $3800 in trade in without C4C. That would mean 400 more sales tax, 650 more price and 1125 more income tax meaning if it was worth 2225 trade-in B4 C4C you'd have done just as well when inventories were high and selection was much better.
Then to top it off, Toyota lands most C4C sales and gets biggest chunk of $3 Billion in sales and then decides to close the only UAW plant it had, citing a 1981 plant as too aged. reverse payback?
You can look it up at the CARS site:
"Is the credit subject to being taxed as income to the consumers that participate in the program?
NO. The CARS Act expressly provides that the credit is not income for the consumer."
link
State taxes are handled differently depending on what state your are in.
Regarding "going into debt" for new cars, unless I am losing my memory here---didn't someone post some data about the demographics of those who bought new cars under C4C, and weren't these buyers in a pretty high income bracket?
http://www.keloland.com/NewsDetail6162.cfm?Id=0,89084
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
That is according to NHTSA. Not the IRS. There could be a battle brewing within the different agencies. My guess is someone will have to pay the tax on that gift. It may be the dealers, manufacturers or the consumers. We will know more when the 2009 tax code comes out. There were several errors on the CARS website. Was this an interpretation by a low level Civil Servant.