$$$$$ for clunkers passes

What worries me about $5 gasoline is that it has a broad effect on the economy as a whole. I can see folks thinking that it will curb driving and fuel consumption. And to a degree, that's probably true. But when $4 hit last summer, IMHO, that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Your food prices went up, utilities went up, business went down(less travel less spending $$$) hell, ski boots went up due to the cost of plastics! Again, I see the thinking behind it, but it ends up having a great ripple effect.

Another thing I don't like about this law: Destroying the vehicles. I like vehicles and I consider myself a fairly practical guy. I have a problem "throwing out" (crushing) a vehicle that's in decent shape. To me, it just seems wasteful. It goes back to my 1st post in this thread about tearing down your house. Sure, a bunch of shitbox rust buckets will be taken off the road. But I have a feeling a lot of solid, decent cars will be scraped for the sake of saving some $ on a new car.

mondeo said:

Way I read it was dealers just had to show cars less than 25 years old ended up shredded. So a 1990 MY car is eligible, just has to be destroyed with proof.

Click to expand...

Could be, haven't read the entire bill (nor will I)....I thought it was MY 1984 and older

Marc said:

Kinda like how Social Security, enacted in our grandfather's age, is going so well....

/Sorry, DHS, that was low hanging fruit, nothing personal
//Really not that political, can't bring enough change on that front to be bigger than the other fish I've got frying

Click to expand...

I don't think that even Social Security is exactly a great example. In fact it's the perfect example of what I'm talking about.

Google 'Social Security Bankrupt' and in the titles of the the first 6 responses you see 2041, 2017, 2010 and 2042. Major differences of opinion.

I just think that people have far less accurate crystal balls than they think they do. 20 years ago no one (except for maybe Al Gore ) knew that the internet would be so dominant for commerce and information sharing.

Even in our own sport no one was predicting 20 years ago that our skis would be twice as wide.

The ONLY thing we know with CERTAINTY about the future is best summarized by one of the premier futurists of our time namely YOGI BERRA , who when queried about the subject uttered this enlighteningly clear pronouncement ; "The Future Ain't What it used to Be"

Gotta luv the Yogster !!

IMHO, if it gets some older less efficient more polluting cars off the road, then it's good.
If it gets some people to buy a new car, and some of those are Ford, Chrysler, or GM, then it's good (we all own a piece of Chrysler and GM, after all. Be nice to get some return on that investment).
If it loosens up some consumer lending, then it's good.

Long and short of it is, it'll only cost as much as it's used, and the end result of anyone getting and using the voucher is good. Saying the program is baad because it doesn't apply to your particular situation, or because it's complicated, or because you can't tell if it's MY 1984 or MY 1990 isn't very convincing.

I think the program addresses two problems directly. How effectively is up to some debate, but I think the cost to taxpayers is acceptable. The efficiency of the car fleet increases, and Detroit manages to sell a couple more cars. I don't see either of those things being bad, and $4500 for increasing the efficiency of one driver by 10 mpg isn't, I think, a bad deal.

Paul said:

JMHO, but I don't think the government getting directly involved in private business is the best solution.

See: USSR

Click to expand...

this kind of attitude just drives me bonkers (not picking on you, studman, just the attitude). we have a crisis of unprecedented levels not seen in 75 years and something had to be done. what was the alternative? let fannie, citi, chrysler, gm, etc., fail? lose all the jobs? lose all the tax revenue? more people on welfare? etc. etc. and just to remind everyone, the decisions to intervene with public money were primarily made in washington in late 2008.

as much as it feels good to think "F them, they screwed up their business, so F them", it's just not that simple.

something had to be done.

drjeff said:

The SCARY thing about the universal healthcare plan conceptually for me atleast is, if the gov't can't successfully run the VA healthcare system, how the heck will it be able to tackle this much more massive proposed system??? Atleast if they're going to do it, figure it out 1st with the VA and then scale it up nationally

Click to expand...

i don't think anyone is proposing a VA-type system for the country. at least i hope not.

as per my other post, something has to be done. it seems like the "free market" in the healthcare industry is broken. just my opinion.

ctenidae said:

IMHO, if it gets some older less efficient more polluting cars off the road, then it's good.
If it gets some people to buy a new car, and some of those are Ford, Chrysler, or GM, then it's good (we all own a piece of Chrysler and GM, after all. Be nice to get some return on that investment).
If it loosens up some consumer lending, then it's good.

Long and short of it is, it'll only cost as much as it's used, and the end result of anyone getting and using the voucher is good. Saying the program is baad because it doesn't apply to your particular situation, or because it's complicated, or because you can't tell if it's MY 1984 or MY 1990 isn't very convincing.

I think the program addresses two problems directly. How effectively is up to some debate, but I think the cost to taxpayers is acceptable. The efficiency of the car fleet increases, and Detroit manages to sell a couple more cars. I don't see either of those things being bad, and $4500 for increasing the efficiency of one driver by 10 mpg isn't, I think, a bad deal.

Click to expand...

+1!

eatskisleep said:

I don't think this is a good thing at all. People are already in debt and spending another $20K+ on a new car isn't going to help; it just sinks Americans further into debt.

Click to expand...

Clearly, you know nothing about the economy, because all economists know that we have to spend ourselves out of this mess. Buy buy buy! Buy as much crap as you can, because it helps our economy. It doesn't even have to be anything you need, or even want.

I had a 6 month nest egg saved up -- living expenses for my family if I were to lose my job. But then I realized how selfish this was and I spent it all. That money just sitting there, it doesn't do anyone any good -- how are the credit card companies supposed to make money if I don't owe them a bunch of money at 17% APR?

Why don't you use your brain before posting next time?! Or at the very least watch some programs to educate yourself on the state of the economy. Jim Cramer is a good start.

deadheadskier said:

You're missing the point. I mentioned at least twice that I'm not saying people shouldn't be engaged and ignore their right to vote.. I just think politics / decisions backed up with claims of how the sky is going to fall 20 years from now are proven time and time again to be arrogant sensationalist bullshit. Obama's universal health care plan and it's costs is going to be forgotten like opposing colored chuck taylor sneakers in fifteen years.

Click to expand...

No, I just expanded on it.

I agree that the sky is constantly falling, yet we still seem to be ok. Nuclear war never happened, the next ice age never happened, etc.

But acknowledging limited foresight goes hand in hand with acknowledging limited impact. 99.9999% of individuals won't scratch the surface of having a national impact. So we should focus our efforts on what we can do. Focus on your job, family, and local community. That's where you can actually make a difference.

As long as people keep dying...it's all good for me..

mondeo said:

No, I just expanded on it.

I agree that the sky is constantly falling, yet we still seem to be ok. Nuclear war never happened, the next ice age never happened, etc.

But acknowledging limited foresight goes hand in hand with acknowledging limited impact. 99.9999% of individuals won't scratch the surface of having a national impact. So we should focus our efforts on what we can do. Focus on your job, family, and local community. That's where you can actually make a difference.

Click to expand...

Could it be that nuclear war didn't happen because of all the actions that didn't "scratch the surface"?
Could it be that the entire financial system didn't collapse because of initiatives that didn't "scratch the surface"?

Maybe 99.9999% won't have an individual impact, but 0.0001% 999,999 times can.

So far, I think we've done a good job at keeping everything civil.



Well, except for that beligerent guy from Georgia, but what the hell does he know about anything anyway, except maybe how to grow peaches.

Marc said:

So far, I think we've done a good job at keeping everything civil.
.

Click to expand...

Can't this turn into a Flame war..I'll pay someone $500 to kick AndyZee in the Pumpkin Patch..

ComeBackMudPuddles said:

this kind of attitude just drives me bonkers (not picking on you, studman, just the attitude). we have a crisis of unprecedented levels not seen in 75 years and something had to be done. what was the alternative? let fannie, citi, chrysler, gm, etc., fail? lose all the jobs? lose all the tax revenue? more people on welfare? etc. etc. and just to remind everyone, the decisions to intervene with public money were primarily made in washington in late 2008.

as much as it feels good to think "F them, they screwed up their business, so F them", it's just not that simple.

something had to be done.

Click to expand...

Yes, it is. The real problem is the goverment has demonstrated over the last many decades that the policy is to prop up companies that have failed, which encourages risk taking because, hey, it doesn't matter if you fail. Everyone pointing fingers at deregulation failed to take into account the reason that free markets work well is that companies learn to account for risk in their decision making. There was no actual risk to the companies, so they did what they could, like spoiled children.

The downfall was severely overstated. Like the trillions in CDSs. No one took into account that most of those would probably cancel - Citi has a CDS with BOA in case AIG fails, BOA has one with AIG for Citi, AIG has one with Citi for BOA. They all fail, those CDSs all cancel. And the companies wouldn't have failed, per se, they just would've entered bankruptcy. Some chapter 7, some chapter 11. Assets sold off, some of the companies would cease to exist, but most of the commercial and retail banking arms would continue to exist in some form. There would be some chaos for a while, but insted of entering a long period of inflation (like we're in now, though nobody's recognized it,) we'd get over it as a crisis and actually have real sustainable growth afterwards. Welcome to Japan.

As far as your thinly veiled political statements, the decisions were primarily made in Washington in late 2008, partly in deference to the incoming president, partly due to the urging of the Fed, in particular the president of the Fed Reserve Bank of New York - starting off with Bear Stearns and AIG.

koreshot said:

Jim Cramer is a good start.

Click to expand...

If you were really listening to Jim Cramer you would have lost that nest egg already.

QUOTE=GrilledSteezeSandwich;432277]Can't this turn into a Flame war..I'll pay someone $500 to kick AndyZee in the Pumpkin Patch..[/QUOTE]

GrilledSteezeSandwich said:

Can't this turn into a Flame war..I'll pay someone $500 to kick AndyZee in the Pumpkin Patch..

Click to expand...

Yo! Hell, I'll do it for free. That old geezer has been asking for a beatdown for some time now.

Marc said:

Yo! Hell, I'll do it for free. That old geezer has been asking for a beatdown for some time now.

Click to expand...

No! I wanna do it!

I'll roshambo you for it -- but only if I get to go first.

koreshot said:

Clearly, you know nothing about the economy, because all economists know that we have to spend ourselves out of this mess. Buy buy buy! Buy as much crap as you can, because it helps our economy. It doesn't even have to be anything you need, or even want.

I had a 6 month nest egg saved up -- living expenses for my family if I were to lose my job. But then I realized how selfish this was and I spent it all. That money just sitting there, it doesn't do anyone any good -- how are the credit card companies supposed to make money if I don't owe them a bunch of money at 17% APR?

Why don't you use your brain before posting next time?! Or at the very least watch some programs to educate yourself on the state of the economy. Jim Cramer is a good start.

Click to expand...

The fact is spending drives the economy, more spending equals more products bought equals more jobs equal more income. Whether that's good for you or not is up to you to decide. It's also very smart to have a cash reserve and savings for when times get tough. Gotta find the right balance, because over spending leveraged with easy credit is what got us to where we are now.

Should you go out and take out a big loan to buy a car just because there's some kind of tax credit/refund available? NO. But if you do need a car and are maybe just short of the cash you need to get one and this tax credit is enough to put a new car in your budget. GREAT! You get a new car, some dude at GM (or toyota) gets to keep his job and its gets a less efficient vehicle off the road.