68conv455

Did anyone see the article on the edmunds site about cash for clunkers?
They used historical data to determine the sales relationship between luxury cars and regular cars. Since luxury cars were not included in C for C, they used the sales data of luxury cars during the C for C timeperiod to estimate how many regular cars would have sold during that timeperiod without C for C.
After doing the math, they were able to estimate how many cars were sold exclusively due to C for C program. And, how much those incremental sales cost the taxpayer.
Their conclusion - You guessed it, each sale cost us over 20G's.
What a success

Lady72nRob71

I heard of countless people trading old full size trucks with new full size trucks that got about 1 or 2 more mpgs. One guy was known to trade an old work truck for a Hummer H3!
The whole program was a waste of taxpayer money and resources...
Here's eggs to their faces!

wmachine

No matter how you add it up, we lost big money on this program.
Curt Hessler who runs one of the best newsletters around: Curtis Hesler, Professional Timing Service www.protiming.com <http://www.protiming.com/> Had the following letter. I have to pass on this bit of clunker math sent to me by a subscriber: Think of it this way - A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year. A vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons a year. So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year. They claim 700,000 vehicles so thats 224 million gallons saved per year. That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil. 5 million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption. More importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars. So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million. We spent $8.57 for every dollar saved. I'm pretty sure the Government will do a great job with health care though...

Lady72nRob71

The modern theory is oil is worth SOOOO much more than money... And the above math does not include the high govt salaries wasted in the logiistics of CFC.

I did the math once (out of humor) to trade all my cars in (less Lady) and buy an ugly little hybid. For me to get an extra 10-15 mpg, it would have taken 23 years for me to break even with gas savings, assuming the little car gave NO trouble!
Moral of the story - do well in math class and believe the results.

wmachine

ABSOLUTELY!!!! The government morons are counting on us not knowing how to or not doing the math.

Olds64

Maybe it will all be worth it in the long run because of the savings on green house gases?

Meh... maybe not.

wolfman98

Well you got that right , even if everybody in the U.S traded their car in for one that got 5 mpg better fuel mileage it would make an insignificant difference in the long run.

Lady72nRob71

They certainly have enough victims, for sure...
Like the ones who cannot even add and subtract in their checkbooks, and knowing that negative numbers in there are very BAD...

68conv455

Here is the link (if I did this correctly)

http://www.edmunds.com/help/about/pr...6/article.html

BOOWAH

The purpose wasn't to save the planet but to save the big three! It was just like laundering money. If they gave it directly to the consumer, people would be screaming "Socialism" Instead they funneled it through the car companies. We should be providing jobs to people so that they can buy things, not subsidizing their purchases.

OLD SKL 69

Yeah but unfortunately, four out of the five best sellers in the C for C program were Japanese, made in Japan. So the program helped out the Japanese economy and didn't do much for us.

Once the government forced GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy as there only way out of their mess, their sales plummeted. Even C for C didn't boost their sales much. Ford was the only domestic company that had better sales months compared to last year.

So yes, I agree, another stupid program that we paid for!

jensenracing77

[quote= Government will do a great job with health care though...[/quote]
i like that.

wolfman98

Well most of those japanese cars were made in the U.S so it helped out those American workers , and you can't say that about 90% of what consumers buy. The industry that was not helped by it was used cars and parts which were mostly crushed and sent off to china.

OLD SKL 69

Actually, the top 5:
1. Toyota Corolla (made in Japan)

2. Honda Civic (made in USA and Japan)

3. Toyota Camry (made in USA and Japan)

4. Ford Focus (made in USA)

5. Hyundai Elantra (made in Korea)

They still import a fair amount of Civic's and Camry's into the US so it was not a given that this bill helped out that many American workers. The only one that was definitely made here was the Focus. So we took a Chinese loan and gave a fair amount of the $ to Japan and Korea. Definitely a well thought out bill.

wolfman98

'well thought out'>'government'

agtw31

do you want the alternative?

just look at China

wmachine

I agree. Bad enough if the math was good. but it was money poorly spent (wasted, more accurately) to top off the misappropriation of funds to begin with.

agtw31

this is nothing new.

through tax breaks,abatements,and bankruptcy,corporate welfare has been going on in this country for 130 years

if you want to open a business hiring more than 20 people,go to any suburb,and request a 5 year abatement on taxes.they will say yes,because the employees will subsidize the taxes they lose from the business.

corporations are allowed to renegotiate debt in bankruptcy court,continue doing bad business practices that put them there,and continue to do business with the same debtors.

if the average consumer started doing the same thing that every corporation does when they get in financial trouble,this country would literally stop functioning.

why do you think the bankruptcy laws were made stricter for the average individual,but not corporations?

they knew the economy was going in the toilet 5 years ago,and everybody was going to file chapter 7's.

wolfman98

And there is not a lot the average consumer can do about it. The large corperations and big banks and wall street have all the cards and have all the senators and congressmen in their back pockets.Even if you limited their terms to the same as a president the lobbyists would still find ways of bribing them.look at th tens of millions of dollars the insurance companies have spent lobbying to not include any government program.As you see the banks are back to paying their big bonuses , buisness as usual. This is politics though so no sense going on about it. sufice to say that nothing will change.

Lovin87olds

http://www.edmunds.com/cash-for-clun...vehicles.htmlI don't know if anyone has seen the list of vehicles but if not here is the link, what a long list =P

wmachine

I disagree. It has taken longer than one term for the majority of the corruption structure to be established. If vote-eligible people would get off their butts and vote everyone out every time for a few cycles, it *would* make a difference. By far, the main reason that people act like that is that other people let them get away with it. And that applies to *all* forms of bad behavior on all levels.