Another thing to recall about the “Cash for Clunkers” program is how it hurts the poor. The program will take these “clunkers” off the street and give them to the government to destroy. But these are precisely the kinds of cars that poor or fixed-income people tend to purchase. Most of these “clunkers” are of course in fine shape, but they are not “green” enough according to government determinations. So poor people who cannot afford to purchase new, government-approved (and thus artificially expensive) automobiles will be told to “go take a hike” – literally!
The government having melted down these “clunkers,” the market in low priced used cars will dry up, thus driving up cost and further hurting poor and working people as well as seniors and others on fixed income. Grandma who just needs a cheap old car to get down to the pharmacy for her prescriptions will thus be forced to walk or hire a cab, as the finance companies will take a look at her social security income and say “next!”
Cash for clunkers is an attack on the poor for the benefit of government-connected Big Auto big-wigs and GMAC-style bankster/moneylenders. As with most government programs, the poor get the short end of the stick.
IMO-C4C is a scam to move remaining inventory form the car lots.
Has anyone really looked at the economics or even the enviromental impact of the program. Let's say the typical participant drives 12000 miles per year and goes from 20 mpg to 25 mpg. That would reduce fuel usage from 600 gallons per year to 480, saving 120 gallons per year or about $300. Saving that energy is good. But how much extra energy production is needed and pollution created by building hundreds of thousands of new cars and destroying thousands of "old" cars to get that 120 gallons of gas per year of savings? Is it a good trade-off. If it is the typical government program, the answer is almost certainly a big NO!After I wrote that I searched a couple sites that gave energy estimates for new car production in the 100 million BTU range. Each gallon of gasoline has around 120,000 BTUs of energy, so the car's production takes the energy equivalent of 833 gallons of gasoline. In the US that energy most likely comes from coal, the eeeeeeeevilest of the greenhouse gas producing fuels. So much for the 120 gallons / year savings.
As well as the repair mechanics.