Nah. There was no requirement that the "clunker" actually be old, or low mpg, or have emissions problems. And it was only a few thousand dollars rebate of a rebate off a brand new car. Who is most likely to have disposable income to buy a new car because taxpayers are chipping in a few grand? Anyone who could afford to buy brand new cars anyway, to a nearest approximation.
We took their well maintain, clean, current cars of the rich and upper middle class, and poured epoxy into the engines so rich people could "trade up" to new cars. Meanwhile wiping out a decade worth of stock of clean quality cars that was going to hit the used market, dramatically increasing the price of the entire used car market, forcing the poor and working class who actually drive high polluting vehicles to keep the worst polluters on the road for years longer than they would have otherwise.
Once again, the poor subsidizing the rich. Thanks, Obama.
@nicholas@feld It’s a shame that the rich forced everyone to drive by designing land use in the US to target the car, which is a very expensive thing to own that makes the rich people behind the industries supporting it a lot of money. :blobfoxangry:
Friend, the rich don't pass zoning laws. You're thinking of the government. It's a shame the government forces everyone to drive by designing land use to target the car (and providing especially crappy transit options)....
Up-market pick-up trucks and SUVs were the most common vehicles purchased under the cash for clunkers program. The program subsidized over half a billion dollars in car sales that got worse millage than the cars that were trafed in and destroyed for a paltry few thousand dollars in taxpayer subsidies.
Quit making shit up, [checks notes] AP and USA today
I never said "high" mpg cars were, I said real "clunkers" weren't. I said the program mostly benefitted the wealthy. I said "nah" to "it took TONS of high-polution vehicles off the roads".
I admit I forgot there was an 18mpg cutoff, but that doesn't change any of the claims I did make... Backed up by contemporary, mainstream reporting.
Just admit you swallowed the Obama administration propaganda and never bothered to look into the actual effect of the program.
"Well maintained, clean, current" means poised to enter the used market in good condition with one owner, the kind of cars the working class would love to upgrade their actual clunkers for. It doesn't imply anything about the mpg.
I admitted what I got wrong (not bad for off the dome on a decade and a half old policy) and brought receipts for what I didn't. That doesn't sound like bad faith to anyone not trying to weasel out of a losing argument.
Now how about you drop some stats on all these "TONS" of junkers it took off the roads, and how many working class folks were taking advantage of the program?
You know, I've been thinking about that Cash for clunkers program a lot lately. I have a sneaking suspicion it might be the primary reason why used cars are so unbelievably expensive. I mean, I was looking at some used cars, and for vehicle with almost 400,000 km on it they were asking the same as what you would expect to have paid for a new car not that long ago.
So it's one of those things where the people who make the decisions to have these programs aren't the ones who pay the consequences of having these programs. I can't even imagine what it would be like to be a young person trying to get there first vehicle. Mine was 500 bucks, which admittedly was a very good deal for the time, but I'm just imagining going five figures in debt to buy something that could be scrap any day...
It was a factor, for sure. And it distorted the new car market as well. When a dealer knows how much money the government is giving out to buy new cars, do you honesty think they don’t raise their prices accordingly? Of course they do.
The chip shortage post COVID was another more recent factor. When the chip makers retooled to build stuff for servers, laptops, etc. away from car chips due to demand during COVID (i.e. people working from home rather than driving), that drastically delayed the production of new cars which put pressure on the used car market because people needed cars. Some of that is still being felt today since there was such a pause in new car sales that it will take time for that inventory to enter the used car market.
It didn’t save the car market, it may have saved some car companies but the market was just fine. They basically laundered tax dollars to the car companies who raised their prices accordingly thus the car buyer got screwed by paying more for a car than they would otherwise by taking away cheaper choices. They might as well have just cut them a bigger check and take out the middleman.
I‘m of the belief that cars do not have nationalities. Is a Toyota built in Alabama or a BMW built in South Carolina more foreign than a Ford or GM built in Mexico? Parts are sourced globally for all cars these days so that’s pretty much a wash. All of these cars are sold and serviced domestically. It’s literally a matter of corporate HQ. And the big foreign car company have US subsidiaries which act similar to ”American“ companies and I’m sure the likes of Ford and GM do the same in other countries. The whole idea doesn’t make sense to me other than an excuse to justify putting them on the dole.
They don’t mind personal data being exfiltrated…they just want to be the ones doing the exfiltration. I’m not that worried about what Japan might find out about me…tbh, I trust them more with my data than the US government. They have less of an incentive to mess with me.
Yes, this is a thinly veiled mocking at the whole TikTok stupidity. While ai have never used the platform, I doubt the Chinese will learn anythung about me they they don’t already have thanks to the crappy security at the OPM which allowed the Chinese to get all my personal data anyway.
Yes, unfortunately I think we can all agree that there is a massive amount of State corruption in the US right now, which is one of the reasons why the empire is so badly in decline.
Another way that all of this helps to hurt everyone is by basically forcing the destruction of the accumulated wealth of the nation. You might think that those cars were wasteful because they burned a lot of fuel, or because they were too old, but they were highly complicated devices that already existed that people have the option to use if they wanted to. The cash for clunkers program took cars that were perfectly serviceable and destroyed them. It has resulted in vehicle prices in North America overall being on a completely different level than for example Europe where such a program didn't exist.
Really, it would be better to let the car companies fail and then maybe they would come back with something people actually wanted to buy. On the other hand, as part of that failure maybe they need to start pointing their finger directly at the government for forcing companies make cars that nobody likes.
But you ultimately hurt sales by increasing the prices of vehicles. Those destroyed vehicles will never come back on the market.
Who actually benefits from removing used cars from the market? My best guess is the UAW who just so happen to back the political party that pushed this in the first place.
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