For days, as though reading from the same script, talkng heads have effused about what a roaring success the Cash for Clunkers program has been. No one said how many cars have been sold, how many traded in, nor how much "economic stimulus" has resulted, only that the program needs more money. Shocker.
NPR reported some specifics this morning: 80% of the cars traded in have been trucks and SUVs, most have been models from the Big Three (GM, Ford and Chyrsler, presumably) and the highest selling car is the Ford Focus.
My question remains "Where's the rest of the money coming from?" (Not the additonal money the program needs, silly; clearly the Obama Administration's money printing press runs nonstop!) The cash offered thanks to the Feds for the clunkers is $4500-applicable to the purchase of a new car. Where's the other 20k or so coming from? Are banks lending again? Is there really enough left over after all the bonuses and other Executive palm-greasing with their bailout funds, that the banks are offering financing? If so, why is this not news? If not' if, in fact, despite the millions of forelosures past, pending and projected, AND the hundreds of thousands of jobs lost and many more anticipated AND savings ravaged by stock market plunges, people are coming out of their mattresses with this money, that's news too! (One would think.)
Could it be foreign nationals on tour, buying cars for cheap to send back home, like they were buying clothes and houses here before the economic crisis went global?
And what's going to happen to the all the cars traded in? Will they be retrofitted somehow, resulting in a Green Job? Will they be financed by predatory lenders and sold under a Guzzlers for Suckers program?
I suffer from allergies, but still, I'm thinking that's a whiff of rat I'm smelling.
3 comments:
I expect those cars will end up polluting the third world. Why are we giving the auto industry billions more dollars? How about the state governments that are going broke and which account for a hello of a lot more jobs?
Was listening to NPR yesterday and there was a heated discussion about how the CARS program was forcing traded vehicles to be destroyed, and thus limiting the amount of older (thus cheaper) cars available to lower income Americans. Very interesting conversation. Apparently only 250,000 'cash for clunkers' deals had been completed by the weekend.
I just find it interesting that now, Ford is increasing the sales price on cars. Would this have happened without the stimulus? I just can't help but feel screwed by all this 'stimulus' talk. I'm still waiting for my own personal 2009 stimulus for my family and I.
Hope all is well
Yeah, Windroot, that was my first thought as well, given the way WE typically get rid of stuff deemed unfit for Americans.
Solomonsydelle-You're still waiting too?! I heard someone on the radio say this is really a bailout to folks who bought SUVs, at the expense of those who were doing right by the environment in the first place! I hadn't thought of that, but you know, that is a good point. What about those of us with clunkers that are not gas-guzzling?!
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