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Looks like a majority in the most leftist state in the union agreed with me on Jan 19th. If the socialist in chief doesn't start charging towards the middle, the Republicans will be taking back the reins in short order. (Not that they did much better, but at least our existence as a sovereign nation wasn't in jeopardy).
The problem we have as a society is that we have a government that creates some problems inadvertently while trying to help each and every person, in each and every type of issue. If this were a poker-game, we'd be saying that the dealer (government) wasn't simply making sure that there were fair rules to the game and that they were enforcing them; but we'd be saying that the dealer was providing "help" to certain players. I want our government to be like a neutral dealer - provide the rules, enforce them, and provide the infrastructure for the game. I don't want the dealer slipping various players chips and cards. The Dems and Reps simply differ slightly in who they favor.
If we don't believe foreign competitors play fairly, then we ban them from playing here regardless of the consequences. The U.S. can usually provide the technology and manufacturing that we need, whereas some other countries can't.
Interesting fact, for example: Did you know that Iran can't stop exporting oil without cutting it's own throat? It doesn't have any refineries for all that oil, and thus they're society would come to a standstill if they couldn't reimport refined oil-products.
"If we don't believe foreign competitors play fairly, then we ban them from playing here regardless of the consequences"
The globalists would never allow that. It would virtually eliminate Chinese products from first world markets, and the socio-economic consequences therein.
Or should we retire this thread?
Why not give some $15K cars away right? the government is giving some homebuyers $8K. What's the big deal - just add the $ to the national debt; we'll get all those jobs and trickle down effect.
My washer was dizzy the other day; it wouldn't spin. Anyone have a link to a government C4C appliance program? I couldn't remember if that got approved.
http://www.applianceclunkerrebates.com/Default.aspx
At first, I was po'ed that I didn't have a CFC qualifying vehicle to buy the new car that I wanted. But when I compare what the Program price was vs. what I paid a few months later, I was glad I was shut out.
Yes, and yes.
I still have an eligible vehicle for example.
2009 Vehicle Sales in Europe Remarkably Stable (thinks to their Cash for Clunkers). (Inside Line)
It doesn't seem to have helped Fiat all that much (or maybe it did and they would have really been in the tank):
Govt calls Fiat temporary plant shutdown 'inopportune' as it moves on scrapping incentives (Canadian Press)
How much is that hurting current sales? Did the short term "fix" create long term problems?
http://money.cnn.com/2010/01/31/news/companies/tarp_report/index.htm?hpt=Sbin
I saw this auto-related quote on another site: "Stated another way, even if TARP saved our financial system from driving off a cliff back in 2008, absent meaningful reform, we are still driving on the same winding mountain road, but this time in a faster car," said the report.
You could insert C4C in there instead of TARP, as it was nothing more than an artificial boost from the natural supply-demand of the current economic equilibrium.
Heck if they give me $1B to loan out, I promise them a better return of 0.9B!
Stephen987 - but you're learning so much else about the incompetents and crooks in our government, from my links.
You're right, they don't! Like I've said before, a lot of those jobs that went away are just never going to come back. People that held those jobs are SOL, no matter how much the economy picks up.
I mean, how many administrative assistants/office managers do we need? To do what, order pencils and papers?
Here's another example. I was watching the news the other morning, and on comes one of those how-to-get-your-life-in-order segments. The special guest gave herself the title of (no, I'm not making this up) "Gardening Expert and Life Style Coach". I mean, come on now :P :shades: . No amount of government spending is going to make me hire a "...Life Style Coach".
Jay Leno did a joke on what a Life Style Coach is, he called them friends.
Actually the polls I saw showed a majority of Americans were against C4C and for good reasons.
Whoa, that's a great question. Unintended consequences beyond simply pulling sales forward perhaps?
If you want a good deal on a 2009 model, buy it now and trade that clunker for the $500 it's really worth...
And I want a 2010 or newer - I'm done with the aughts.
but the union did, and end of the day that's watter matters in Washington.
It is only a matter of time before we get Buicks made in China. I would imagine most of the electronics are already coming from China or India.
Speaking of C4Cs. I would consider trading my Lexus or Ranger if they decide to give away $4500 in trade. Some did make out in that last one. If you let the dealer pull the wool over your eyes you probably got screwed. Happens every day with or without a clunker program. Golden rule start at invoice and work downward. Then when the deal is to your satisfaction deduct the $4500 C4C vehicle. If you are really tight you can go for the scrap rebate of a couple hundred bucks. Get on board early before the selection is gone. On buying or selling anything. We play by my rules or we don't play. There are ALWAYS dealers that are hungry somewhere in the USA.
I think that was key last time. The buyers who jumped tended to get better deals. The dealers who jumped moved more metal.
(and yeah, some "Chinese" posts are missing).
Surprise!!! Cash for Clunkers Didn't Work, Say Economists (minyanville.com)
I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to find some economists who would say it was a smashing success.
Dunno, sounds like a teaser to make $$$.
If I had waited those extra two to three years, not only would I have bought a bigger and more expensive car, but it would probably have been a Ford or Chevy or Buick rather than a Japan-built Honda Fit.
I doubt this was the intended outcome.
When the new car buy rate was 16 million a year, 70% of 16MM or 11.2MM used cars enter the market. But when new car sales fell to under 11MM units due to the bad economy, the used car supply was correspondingly reduced to under 7.7MM units.
C4C took around 700K cars off the market so less than 10% of a single year's supply. And it was a 1-time hit. The tanking of used car supply due to ongoing poor new car sales is a far, far larger contributor.
This is just my opinion, but to me it makes more sense than C4C having such far reaching effects.
The struggling economy was and continues to be a far larger problem for car sales. When the economy tanked, new car sales dropped from around 16.5 million cars/year to around 10.5 million. It still hasn't recovered though sales are slowly climbing. And for almost every new car that isn't sold, a used car doesn't enter the market so the used car market shrank as well.
A smaller used car market leads to higher used car prices. Supply & demand is at work. I'd say there's also a number of people who are simply holding on to their cars for longer because cars are made better.
The problem is made worse by the tightened credit market. People who have good, even excellent, credit ratings are having problems getting approved for car loans as things like debt-to-income ratios are being weighted more heavily. The banks are not willing to assume as much risk as they were a few years back. And frankly, that's a good thing as it helps to keep some consumers from making poor financial decisions by buying cars they can't truly afford (ditto the housing market).
As far as C4C adding to the deficit, that's complicated. For instance, reducing the emissions from the clunkers has health benefits. Those benefits might not manifest in obvious ways but in general there are fewer carcinogens in the air. That may lead to reduced health problems later in life which can lead to lower medicare costs thereby saving government & consumer money. This is unfortunately near impossible to measure.
Likewise, C4C helped keep some auto plants open. Open plants = employed workers = income tax revenue + trickle down income from employee spending. So some C4C costs were quickly recovered simply by having autoworkers stay employed. Along those lines, auto dealers were able to stay in business as were supporting industries and even places like restaurants & small shops benefit from employed people who can continue to afford to eat out & buy goods.
Finally, reducing gas usage positively impacts our trade deficit.
Honestly, other subsidy programs pay billions of dollars every year to companies and no one makes a fuss over it. http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/farmincome/govtpaybyfarmtype.htm shows the government has been paying $12-24 billion every single year in farm subsidies with the majority going to commercial, not family, farms. That's far more of a problem for the deficit than a single, brief $3-4 billion program.
That may be true, but the more relevant ratio is the usable cars removed from service versus the number of cars for sale. That number would be some multiple of 0.3%. Also, the reduction of supply hurt the low income people the most. The fact that there are worse programs than C4C is a weak argument in support of C4C.
700K out of 50 million is almost 1.5%. Bigger but still a far smaller percent of the market than, for instance, we've seen new car sales drop by. If I'm misremembering and the annual sales rate is closer to 40MM then C4C was still under 2% of one year's annual sales.
I don't buy the argument that removing clunkers hurt low income people. Clunkers may have been cheap to buy but they are more expensive to operate. By the program's definition they get relatively poor fuel economy so annual fuel costs will be higher. Also, clunkers in general are older cars which are more prone to breakdowns and potentially costly repairs. IMO the cheap up front cost is balanced or outweighed by the higher operating costs.
Owning a vehicle is a TCO issue, not a purchase price issue. You may look at removing a $1500 car from the market as depriving a low income person a vehicle they can afford, but I'd argue that what they can afford to buy isn't necessarily something they can afford to keep on the road. Or, even, keep _safely_ on the road.
As for the subsidy issue, it depends on where your priorities are I suppose. I'm against giving out my tax dollars to companies with no expectation of a return on the expense. Food prices are not lower or more stable due to farm subsidies.
When looking at the budget I would tend to target repeated expenses v. one-time costs. C4C = one-time; farm, foreign aid, & most other subsidies are repeating and cost us billions and billions every single year. In terms of "more evil" or "less evil" C4C is way less evil than many things our government does and I would prefer to concentrate on the more evil things first.
And C4C was not a corporate handout. It was directed at consumers to encourage them to buy, much like we get a mortgage interest deduction to encourage people to buy homes. Another example would be tax credits for doing energy star upgrades to the home.
Anyway, this isn't an argument in favor of C4C, I'm just saying that C4C's impact on the automotive industry & government deficit weren't really all that significant. There are far worse ways that government funds are being used and I'd rather those be addressed. Sadly, few in Washington on either side of the aisle seem to care about much beyond the next election cycle.
True, but to a low-income person who can't qualify for a car loan, or save up a big down payment for a newer, more reliable, fuel efficient car, TCO is irrelevant. They're going to buy whatever they can afford, sink money into it when it breaks, pay the higher fuel bill, and if any repair becomes too cost-prohibitive, junk the car and then repeat the process all over again. In the long run they'll probably pay more for a succession of clunkers than if they had bought one reliable, efficient car to begin with, but unfortunately, that's how the "system" works, and it's unfairly stacked against poor people.
In a similar note, there's a trashy motel along US Route 3 in Maryland, not too far from where I live. Total dive. You can rent a room there for around $750 per month. You could also rent a much nicer room in a private residence for a lot less than that, and even some small apartments wouldn't cost much more. But the sad fact is that if you're poor, you're not going to qualify to live in that apartment, unless you somehow get on Section 8. And nobody's going to rent you a room in their private home if you seem questionable. But at the ol' roach motel, if you can scrape together $750 each month, it gets a roof over your head. Another case of the poor ultimately paying more, for a commodity of lesser value.
Who wants a C4C v2.0?
Considering how badly my '85 Silverado has deteriorated in the past couple years, I'd be tempted! :sick:
I understand your arguments, which represents the pro-C4C point of view, but I'm of the persuasion that individuals are better judges of when useful assets should be retired than the federal government. Individuals can take the factors that you mentioned, and, more often than not, make a more informed decision on what's best for them. Pollution and safety rules and inspections address those particular issues.
I agree with you that there are subsidies that are more harmful than C4C. In terms of one-time versus repeated budget expenses, however, most European countries have had numerous C4C programs. Once the taboo is broken, it's relatively easy for politicians to enact subsequent ones.
I'll go you one further and suggest that the gov should also stop using the tax code as an economic preference tool.
It sparked car sales. C4C did the same thing.
You are not recognizing the psychological aspect of auto sales.
C4C was an informal bailout for auto dealerships. but it worked.
Sure did - dealers got to gouge a bigger profit margin off the consumer thanks to Uncle's intervention. It drove up sales price and dealer profit while it lightened the consumer's wallet bigger than it should have. Another screw over the middle class accomplishment under the guise of economics.
I agree.
Jacques Brinon/Associated Press
The Citroën DS, a landmark design, may not always have Paris because of a proposal to ban vehicles made before 1997 to help reduce the city's air pollution.
By AURELIEN BREEDEN
Published: November 21, 2012
"BY proposing to reduce air pollution by banning vehicles made before 1997, Mayor Bertrand Delanoë has angered vintage car owners and motorist groups and raised concerns among those who say they cannot afford new cars.
Mr. Delanoë’s proposal is part of a wider push by local authorities to comply with European regulations and establish a low-emission zone around metropolitan Paris, including many suburbs, by 2014. The plan would extend the mayor’s efforts to make the city more pedestrian-friendly by reducing the number of cars. These efforts include introducing the Vélib’ bicycle rental program, establishing the Autolib’ electric-car rental system and cutting vehicle traffic along the banks of the Seine.
Mr. Delanoë has been mayor since 2001, but will not run again in 2014. 'In Paris, where polluting industries have nearly disappeared, cars are the main source of pollution today,' he said in a statement presenting the antipollution plan to city councilors.
But the ban would include many of the most recognizably French cars, including the Citroën 2CV, known as the Deux Chevaux; the Citroën DS, celebrated for its clean, distinctive design; the Renault 4L, a practical Everyman’s car of the 1960s and ’70s; and many classic Peugeots.
The mayor’s critics say he is doing everything he can, in his last years in office, to discourage driving. Among the disgruntled are collectors, who fear they won’t be able to take their vintage cars for a spin.
'For me the 2CV is part of French heritage, of Parisian heritage,' said Xavier Audran, 44, who lives in the 20th arrondissement and owns a Citroën CX, several 2CVs and a motorbike — all of which would fall under the proposed ban. 'I wouldn’t be able to leave my home with my vehicles.'
The ban would apply to private and commercial vehicles that would be older than 17 years in 2014 and therefore do not comply with existing European standards for the tailpipe emissions that cause smog.
A spokesman for the city estimated that 367,000 cars would be affected. Also targeted are heavy trucks older than 18 years and motorcycles older than 10.
The plan to set up low-emission zones here and in other volunteer cities was initiated by the previous center-right government. But the current French ecology minister, Delphine Batho, said in September that the plan had been rushed through to avoid European sanctions and needed to be overhauled.
A ministerial council in January is to flesh out the legislative details of the low-emission zone and the old-car ban, which the mayor does not have the power to enforce. But Mr. Delanoë, a prominent Socialist, has strong allies in the national government.
Other measures in the antipollution plan include applying new speed limits on the beltway that surrounds the city and in the city itself.
'This measure goes in the right direction, because these vehicles pollute much more than recent vehicles, especially for nitrogen oxide and diesel exhaust particles,' said Karine Léger, assistant director at Airparif, an independent organization that monitors air quality in the Paris region. She said that car traffic had been cut by 25 percent over the last decade and that air quality had improved.
Julien Bargeton, deputy mayor in charge of transportation, said the city needed to move past the car. 'In a dense city, the car can’t be the favored transportation mode,' he said. 'There is room for cars in the city of tomorrow, but they can’t take up all the room, as they do today, with public spaces that are widely reserved to car traffic, even though 60 percent of Parisians don’t own a vehicle.'
But opponents of the proposal argue that it will disproportionately affect poorer suburban households unable to replace the old cars they use to commute to Paris. They say the mayor’s proposal to couple the ban with social support measures — like a free six-month Autolib’ subscription or a cash for clunkers program — isn’t realistic.
Jean-François Legaret, a center-right city councilor and the mayor of the city’s first arrondissement, said a cash for clunkers program wouldn’t fall under the mayor’s control. 'And the 'Autolib’ doesn’t offer the same flexibility of use as a private vehicle,' he added.
Pierre Chasseray, director general of 40 Million Motorists, an auto club with 320,000 members, agreed. 'There has to be an economic incentive,' he said, arguing that any cash for clunkers rebate should apply to used cars as well as new models.
Motorist lobbies say the city authorities are intentionally trying to make it impossible for cars to circulate freely and fluidly here. 'The mayor is betting that one day people will be so disgusted with their car that they won’t use it anymore,' Mr. Chasseray said. 'But he is completely wrong —we will always need vehicles.'
Other cities have age restrictions on cars, including Berlin, where for two years diesel vehicles have been outlawed if they do not meet emission regulations enacted in 2005. In Singapore since 1990, residents have to bid to buy a Certificate of Entitlement, which enables them to own a motor vehicle for 10 years, after which they are forced to scrap the car, export it or pay to extend the certificate."