And if it was such a ‘success’ perhaps a similar program directed at homes would be a good idea. How about a program that gives a subsidy to anyone who turns in their old home for a newly constructed, more energy efficient home? The old home would of course have to be destroyed. That would certainly set us in the direction of re-inflating the prices of homes.:-)
Yours in musing,
Issodhos

Within two years or less gasoline will be back in the $4.50-5.00 range and there will be no pullbacks as in the past. Major oil fields worldwide have passed peak production and are dropping off at a rapid rate by the month.

Also this “clunkers” program is indicative as to how our government will continue to plunder the TARP money; ie.., whatever is left to bail out the banking and insurance sectors while Obama’s stimulus money will be slowly but surely misspent too with minimal oversight. So folks can imagine how efficient this new healthcare nightmare that they are soon to launch upon us will function. I guarantee within a few short years of implementation the GAO will be reporting massive fraud and waste within that program too.

Oh well, its only counterfeit, “funnymoney”. Any losses are simply imagined, no differently than our undying faith in a failed currency paradigm, and that cheap gasoline will be here forever. / : |

Carl Nemo **==

Those folks merely used the program according to the rules. Other sources indicate each cash-for-clunker deal cost $24K on average. Not worth griping about? You must have a much bigger income than most of us.

I’ve got some taxes you can pay.

That at the height of the deflation of the largest debt bubble in history tens of thousands of people were encouraged to trade in good working vehicles and take on more debt, at the expense of billions of taxpayer money.

Or perhaps it’s the fact that they traded in low-mileage vehicles for more low-mileage vehicles while their trade-ins were forbidded for resale? Kind of defeats one of the main incentives for the program, which was to get low-mileage vehicles off the streets.

So people that couldn’t afford new cars were blocked from acquiring affordable vehicles. Makes a lot of sense.

I wonder how many of those vehicles will be repossessed in the coming years when these people lose their jobs.

Or maybe it was the artificial bump in car sales by people that were possibly going to wait a while for a new car or people that wouldn’t have made a purchase at all.

And no I wasn’t a beneficiary. I have a problem taking money from the government, particularly because I realize that the government doesn’t actually have any money other than what they take from us. In fact a little more than three years ago I traded my gas-guzzling Hemi Durango for a more efficient Toyota Rav4, in the process losing five thousand dollars.

But I guess you’re right…if I was more positive things would have been different.

Good point. I would have preferred a rebate of some of my tax dollars. I could have used them to stimulate the economy.

Kent Shaw

Yep, Socialist doctrine failure at its best…no?!

Carl Nemo **==