“Those who are outraged about the clunker program should go find something important to worry about.

Miles T. Barnett”

You are correct on this point Miles. This administration and the libtards in congress are trying to destroy our health care system. The cost of the damage they will do to the medical industry and the lives lost to the government trying to run healthcare FAR outweigh the Cash for Clunkers program.

Great, those of us who were responsible enough to have bought efficient cars get nothing while the gas hogs get $4500 for a new car. The only thing I’m worried about is can they afford to pay the car loans they got? It may lead to a crash as bad as the forclosed house fiasco as each car may not cost as much as a house, but there are many times more. How long before there is a reposessed cars website?

KW=Kilowatts;
((clunker * miles left * KW/mile)+(scrap processing & KW))
>
((Jap-car * miles * KW/mile)+(production * KW)+(shipping * KW)+($US printing * KW)+($US 1-way transport to Asia * KW))

Hum, I doubt it.

Drew from Dover

Your worry about the cash for clunkers buyers causing a crash in the car market is unfounded. First of all the banks are being more responsible on their loans, some say after having been burnt they have gone to far in the other direction.

However, the best reason comes from back in July from Paul Krugman, Nobel winning economist. I am currently reading his book “Return of Depression Economics”. Back in July he said the car market would pick up. Back then at the rate that the US was replacing all of its cars it would take 13 years to replace all the cars currently being driven. Plain logic said that most of the cars cannot last 13 years not to mention most were already several years old.

With the relatively few cars actually being sold, though it is a large jump from what had been sold for the year, the need to replace many cars simply because of age and the diminished reserves because factories closed during reorganization the chances of the market being flooded with cars is highly unlikely. The current reserve of cars on dealer lots are at the lowest level since 1992.

Compare that to the housing bust. The cars have few reserves, relatively speaking, and the demand must go up because of aging while just before the housing bust the market was saturated and they were still building.

Our government is giving people who can apparently afford to buy a new car $4500 for their old car. Where is this $4500 coming from? It’s coming from the people who can’t afford to buy a new car. Does this make any sense? This isn’t creating any new jobs, this is just allowing the car companies to sell off their existing stock.

Why not take these billions of dollars and create some NEW jobs? Why not invest in new and expanding small business? They are the true job creators in this country.

Miles - If you take into account the so called “carbon emissions” produced when a new car is manufactured and transported to a dealership, I’d be willing to bet that it would take more than 50 years for the average “clunker” to produce the amount of carbon emissions as compared to building and transporting a new car. Especially if it’s coming from China, Japan or Europe.

This whole “clunker” program is nothing more than a giant taxpayer subsidy for the auto industry…some of which aren’t even American companies. So, basically, our tax dollars are funding Honda, Toyota, VW, Nissan, and all other foreign car makers to make a profit off the tax money you and I pay out of our income.

As of today, the top selling “clunker” trade off is the Toyota Corolla, followed by the Ford Focus. Five of the top ten cars being purchased with this program are foreign. How nice! All of you liberal UAW workers should be giddy about this program sending jobs overseas. All Hail Obama…Viva le Revolution. Sig Heil! Sig Heil! Sig Heil!

James R.

While you are correct that small business creates more jobs the large corporations you fail to understand that they do so because of the large corporation. In essence small business exist primarily because they leech off of large corporations.

The small business either exists because they provide a service to the large corporation or sub-contract to another that provides the service or they exist because they provide services to the people that corporations concentrate in a relatively small area in the form of employee’s.

At one time a large corporation provided its own security, transportation of goods, printing of advertisements, IT support, etc. Now these corporations contract out these functions to small companies so that the can concentrate on their prime function. Heck, look at the problem with lead paint in toys from last year. The Toy makers were not even making their own toys, they contracted that work out.

I am sorry that I do not remember the names of the advertising companies. At one time Anhueser-Busch used a advertisement company in STL as its main advertiser. They switched that to a company in Chicago and the STL company had to layoff something like 60% of its staff. This was a good example of a small business leeching off of the larger corporation.

The small businesses around ENRON HQ were devastated when the company went out of business.

Once the small business has a secure cash flow, that covers their expenses, they then can expand and provide services to other companies which often are small businesses themselves. Using the advertisement as an example the advertisement company does not need to print the advertisement or at least the examples, they can sub-contract it to a printer. So even if the small business is doing work for another small business they both are benefiting from the large company.

Large corporations allow concentration of communication and transportation centers. They also bring enough people into a small area so that restaurants can be profitable.

I am not saying that small business is not important, but I do believe that you fail to understand that many if not most exist because of the large corporations.

— egoist
“Hum, I doubt it.”
.
Based on what, pray tell?
Fill in the blanks in your equation, else it’s just void algebra
.
We get 3W’s from Clunkers
o Better gas mileage - W
o Better environmental impact - W
o Stimulus for auto sales - W
.
Win, Win, Win

FOOLS!!!

Any uptick in demand will be temporary. I will bet anyone 100 bucks that the car sales fall off the table for the 4th quarter of this year and probably extend into next year.

Very few people are paying cash for these vehicles so folks are piling on debt again. Refresh my memory, what led to the most recent economic meltdown? Overextended debt maybe?

It’s a great program when Americans are buying Japanese autos with money borrowed from China.

FOOLS!

Amazed…

Talk about FOOLISH is your reply.

To much savings will also create a recession. If spending does not return to the economy then companies will continue to layoff. If companies continue to layoff the country sinks into a recession because people are not spending.

There is a fine line between saving enough and saving to much. When Japan went into its decade long recession they had the worlds highest rate of savings.

Yes there will be a spike but a spike can kick start an industry. As stated before the country was replacing its cars at to low of a rate for it to continue, unless we all start driving 13 year old cars. So a kick start can continue a steady turn over.

The problem with the housing industry was we were taking on debt for assets that were grossly over priced. When sanity returned the housing market collapsed, first to the correct value and later below the correct value as people panicked.

The banks have ha a lesson and it taught them to be more reasonable with their loans. Also they were passing the housing loans onto other institutions so they felt that they did not have to worry about the long term effect of the loan. I do not know about others who have taken out car loans but my car loans always stay with the same institution from the first payment to the last. As a result those institutions are a bit more careful about the loans since they will carry them the entire term.

Finally, I do not know what numbers you have seen but about two-thirds of the cars bought under this plan have been from one of the big three with Ford being the leader.

So talk about FOOLISH you sure was.