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Cash for clunkers
Cash for clunkers or just another income redistribution program? What do you think?
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Cash for clunkers
They are looking for more money for the program, another 2 billion. I guess the reasoning is better to fund car buying than just send the checks to GM and Chrysler!
To qualify you need a car with less than 18mpg and need to own it for at least a year, and your car must be shredded so you get zero trade in value.
This would limit the program to low income individuals or people who keep clunkers around. Ironically, the people who have the clunkers probably are the same people who defaulted on home mortgages, and may default on these new car loans!
The program may have its merits but color me skeptical, I also don't like that fact that those of us that have been doing the right thing all along get squat while we get the privilege of funding the cost of a new car via our tax dollars for those that could have "cared less ".
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Cash for clunkers
I just read that the dealers here in NJ are filling the crankcase of the clunkers with sodium silicate, then running them until the engine seizes into a block of steel and glass. Now the salvage yards don't really want them as the engine was the most valuable piece of the salvage.
Interesting, after WWII manufacturers began shortening the design life of consumer products, so things would break and people would buy more. Now we have taken it to the next step euthanize the cars so they can get a new one!
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Cash for clunkers
I just heard that supposedly dealers are allowed to put any cars that they took on trades as of July 1, so part of the run on the program was from dealers dumping their used car inventory.
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Cash for clunkers
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.....Dennis, is your message telling me that dealers may be able to unload excess cars without the cars having been a tradein on the clunker program?
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Yes that is my understanding, of course they would only want to do that if the market value of the cars on the lot were less than the Cash for Clunkers rebate.
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Cash for clunkers
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....What I see is just an extension of the sub-prime mortgage mess. That is, the government tempting insolvent folks to take out yet another loan they would otherwise never be qualified for.//greg//
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That is exactly what I thought, then I watched the video on the NY Times about a dealer here in NJ that I know of. Looked to me like the cars in his lot were not clunkers at all most looked to be worth at least $5000, just out of favor like 9 year old Jeep Grand Cherokees, Mini vans etc.
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Cash for clunkers
The other irony is that many of the cars that are being traded in are cars whose owners drove them very little. College kids, train station cars.. etc. So the effect on gas consumption is next to nothing. The program is more like a lottery as Greg said, we all put in and only some benefit.
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Cash for clunkers
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...is depriving an very large group of low income people of the only vehicles they can afford. There's a difference between taking a "clunker" into a dealer and financing a new car (whether you can afford it or not)- and just going out shopping for something ($3500 to $4500) that you can actually afford.//greg//
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I think you are right, this is really not a low income plan, low income people really cannot afford a new car. It seems to be more of a windfall to families that have plenty of income and have a large fleet of cars, one of which qualifies.
It is sad that our government does not see that the cars that are being scrapped would be a blessing for the lowest income people in the US. It seems very short sighted to me.
How about changing the plan to Cash for Clunkers and instead of crushing them give them to people on welfare so they cna get a job!
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Cash for clunkers
I just remembered this cash for clunker program today and how bizarre it seems that it was ever done....perfectly good cars being bought by the government...dealers having to pay to freeze up the engine blocks and scrap them......
Three years later ....a once in a lifetime nutso occurrence....
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07-31-2009, 15:40 
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