Cash For Clunkers Costs Taxpayers $24,000 Per Vehicle
PHOTO -- A 1987 Excalibur Autos Phaeton that was 'junked' for $4,500.
There are several different ways of analyzing the $3 billion Cash For Clunkers rebate program so popular this Summer. To date, no analysis has looked at the economic cost of junking perfectly functioning vehicles before their expiration date. Let's face it, this was an SUV and truck trade-in program for the most part, considering the 18 mpg requirement (or less). There were a lot of 2003 Yukons being scrapped for 2009 models with just slightly higher average gas mileage numbers. Considering all the energy that goes into the creation of one of these mega-ton beasts, I suspect there might be some inefficiency there.
Automotive website Edmunds.com issued a report Thursday that lit up headlines everywhere and drew an angry response from the White House. We also have a link to a Jalopnik slideshow of the 10 most exotic cars destroyed by Clunkers. Plus a few words from Angry Bob.
From CNN
- A total of 690,000 new vehicles were sold under the Cash for Clunkers program last summer, but only 125,000 of those were vehicles that would not have been sold anyway.
- The Cash for Clunkers program gave car buyers rebates of up to $4,500 if they traded in less fuel-efficient vehicles for new vehicles that met certain fuel economy requirements. A total of $3 billion was allotted for those rebates.
- The average rebate was $4,000. But the overwhelming majority of sales would have taken place anyway at some time in the last half of 2009. That means the government ended up spending about $24,000 each for those 125,000 additional vehicle sales.
Read the original report from Edmunds
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Update
- Late Thursday the White House fought back with strong words but a weak argument.
- And even later Thursday, Edmunds issued a rebuttal to the White House.
Finally, you might want to check out this slideshow on the Clunkers program. It is a collection of the 10 most exotic cars handed over as part of the program. A Bentley and Excalibur are among the ten. No joke. For $4,500.
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Video: Cash For Clunkers (Angry Bob)
See also:
Dylan Ratigan And Nassim Taleb On The Mistakes Of Cash For Clunkers
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Oct 30, 2009 at 7:39 AM
Reader Comments (26)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124934376942503053.html
The Killer App for Clunkers Breathes Fresh Life Into 'Liquid Glass'
Rebate Program Prescribes Chemical to Stop Car Engines -- for Good; Mechanics 'Can't Wait'
http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/07/autos/cash_for_clunkers_sales/?postversion=2009080704
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/09/hidary.cash.clunkers/index.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/cash-for-clunkers-made-cars-expensive-2009-9
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/08/business/08clunker.html?_r=1&scp=16&sq=cash%20for%20clunkers&st=cse
http://jalopnik.com/5365954/ten-most-exotic-cars-destroyed-by-cash-for-clunkers/gallery/?selectedImage=9
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5872
http://dailybail.com/home/ratigan-nassim-taleb-on-the-idiocy-of-cash-for-clunkers-and.html
OUTSTANDING short video...
Just how do you suggest "we" go about it?
This is how:
Close your accounts in Big Banks and open @credit unions or community banks
Shred all credit cards and buy Cash only
Stop buying imported electronic shit
Boycott companies which outsource jobs
By USA manufactured only
Dump All Mutual funds and by foreign treasury bonds or US short term treasury.
That is great start to take on Banker and Corporate terrorists folks
It is non violent weapon....
Paul Craig Roberts
Tuesday, 27 October 2009 08:28
Look out for Obama,s "Chains".
Yes. Great comment Gobias. Most productive comment I have seen from you yet. It really adds to the discussion.
I can't find the C-Span2 clip you referenced above, but this is a pretty interesting clip from Senator Dorgan in 1999 on the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (aka the Financial Modernization Act of 1999): http://www.youtube.com/senatordorgan#p/a/f/0/w2nZbo8SKbg
See the House votes here: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1999/roll276.xml
See Senate votes here: http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=106&session=1&vote=00105#top
It is clear that you can thank the Republicans for this doozie.
See House vote here: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2000/roll540.xml (an overwhelming 377 to 4)
Despite the House passing H.R.4541, Senator Phil Gramm allegedly blocked Senate action on S.2697 “unless it contains provisions he thinks are necessary to exclude banking products from the act and to keep certain types of swaps out of the hand of certain regulators.”
At the considerate and measured direction of the honorable Senator Phil Gramm and Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, a “lame duck” congressional session was scheduled to include “compromise language” in the House as H.R.5660 and in the Senate as S.3283. The “compromise language” from H.R.5660 was reconciled into H.R.4577, entitled “Making Appropriations for Labor, Health and Human Services for Fiscal Year 2001”. That is correct - of all things, Credit Default Swaps & Other OTC Derivative Unsavory Delights were deregulated in an APPROPRIATIONS BILL!
See House vote here: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2000/roll603.xml (292 to 60)
Senate procedures provide for requesting adoption of legislation by “unanimous consent” agreements without the standard notification process and a recorded roll call vote. It follows, H.R.4577 was passed by Senate on December 15, 2000 by “unanimous consent" with no vote taking place. That is correct - WITH NO VOTE TAKING PLACE! Allegedly, Senators James Inhofe (R-OK) and Paul Wellstone (D-MN) voiced verbal objections, but this did not constitute an “objection” that defeated the “unanimous consent”. Oh those tricky Senate rules.
“We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”
IT’S TIME…THE NEXT THING ON BARRY AND RAHM’S AGENDA…
Obama will start to fill his civilian army with the unemployed in the next few months. He will try to hide this by calling them "shovel-ready project" jobs but the projects and job titles will start to raise eyebrows soon after. As the economy gets worse, he will also use the fear of civil unrest to beef up the police forces and FEMA response troops. He may even start to uniform the new civilian army as border troops or drug war troops. There is no chance he will reduce military troop levels in the short or long run because he will not want our military men and women to return home to join the unemployment lines. I know these predictions are not original, far from it, but after the health care bill fiasco creates bigger tea parties and the like, he will need to use media created military wins to bolster his image. You can keep ignoring the bigger issues of today to follow the trail of the bailouts but that is only part of the engine that is driving Obama's Marxist redistributionist agenda. You should know by now that the majority of your audience couldn't put a bank reconciliation together let alone comprehend the complex fraud and continued collapse of our economy.
See House vote here: http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2000/roll603.xml (292 to 60)
Senate procedures provide for requesting adoption of legislation by “unanimous consent” agreements without the standard notification process and a recorded roll call vote. It follows, H.R.4577 was passed by Senate on December 15, 2000 by “unanimous consent" with no vote taking place. That is correct - WITH NO VOTE TAKING PLACE! Allegedly, Senators James Inhofe (R-OK) and Paul Wellstone (D-MN) voiced verbal objections, but this did not constitute an “objection” that defeated the “unanimous consent”. Oh those tricky Senate rules.
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Spidey's comment repeated for emphasis...Larry Summers, Bob Rubin and Phil Gramm
Actually, this was likely the usual suspects that fought Brooksley Born on CFTC regulation of OTC Derivatives, Alan Greenspan, Bob Rubin, Larry Summers, and Arthur Levitt.
Gramm is an interesting player in deregulation of the "Financial Services" Industry and an accessory to corporate fraud and his career is worth close examination. In typical WWE fashion (maybe they were fans) Gramm's wife Wendy also had a very interesting career in deregulation of the "Energy" Industry and as an accessory to corporate fraud. In fact, Wendy Gramm served as head of the very same CFTC as the public hero Brooksley Born (before our very own Sheila Bair and Mary Schapiro), but from 1988 to 1993 under Reagan, where she exempted Enron from energy derivatives trading regulation, immediately resigned and for a seat on the Enron Board of Directors and served on its, of all things, "Audit Committee" - the same "Audit Committee" that was subsequently implicated together with Arthur Anderson with the greatest accounting fraud in United States history after Enron's bankruptcy in late 2001. Enron's accounting fraud, under Wendy's deft expertise, was so egregious that it directly precipitated the creation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Determined to return to a life of "public service" in repentance of her questionable moral character, Wendy went on to serve the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA ) to assist in reducing the US Federal Government's very own paper trail. Hey, you can't blame them, they know talent when they see it. :P
As a side note, an exhaustive list of previous CFTC Chair names are conspicuously absent from the CFTC "Former Commissioners" current main page here: http://www.cftc.gov/aboutthecftc/commissioners/formercommissioners.html
but are available here: http://www.cftc.gov/anr/anrabout99.htm. C'mon, Sheila Bair and Mary Schapiro deserve credit for their expertise in turning a blind eye.
And to think the "Mineshaft Gap" would be our doom (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuPh6TfK4iY). They had no idea of the "Derivative Regulatory Gap" our leaders were planning from within.
Happy Halloween
I remember Wendy Gramm quite well...she was a media darling for awhile...
Your last link is busted...was it going to s Dr. Strangeleove clip by chance?
They took our money under Reagan as well, and it changed nothing.
The HTML generator for this site always includes the last parenthesis in the URL. Just remove it and it should work. Yes, it was a Dr. Strangelove clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuPh6TfK4iY
It is interesting who the MSM selects to be a "media darling", no? Those are usually the ones who are the most suspect, or at least the ones the public should be the most cautious in listening to. Occasionally they get it right, but time is the final arbiter of all. In this case, those who promoted Wendy have a bit of egg on their faces.