so we just do Cash for Clunkers once every quarter from now till the end of eternity....problem solved!
Fail.
So that 3rd Quarter increase that ‘proved the economy was turning around’ is just as we knew, a crock.
The billions of taxpayer dollars that funded CFC is gone, and all of those perfectly good assets (the vehicles now crushed into scrap) are gone as well.
The country was made that much poorer in the name of the fraud called "global warming."
Collectively, we're simultaneously going broke and insane.
If you are going to subtract cash for clunkers,
you would also have to subtract other stimulus spending
which would move the growth to negative.
It is simply propaganda to ‘correct numbers’ later.
We have a big problem when the leader has no street cred,
as the next ‘big one’ or crisis will be made much worse
when no one believes the numbers and panic is elevated.
IMHO, the other problem is the relative strengthening of
the dollar. Many companies cooked the books by beating
earnings expectations simply because of the favorable
exchange rate back to dollars. This may not be happening in the next quarterly results. Thus the music may stop in the game of musical chairs that represents the current stock run.
So unemployment is over 10% perhaps as high as 17%, people are losing their houses because they can’t afford the payments, debt is on the rise and credit card companies are raising their rates to take advantage. But, hey, as long as we can avoid the repo man, we can brag to the neighbors about our new cars!!!!
I wonder what the effect on GDP would be if you factored in the wealth destroyed through the cash for clunkers program.
The list, ping
There’s a steady creep in the Misery Index too, Blam:
http://www.miseryindex.us/customindexoneyear.asp
It’s almost up to 12%...a long way to go to TRUE misery, but slow and steady while no one is watching, wins the race. *SPIT*
Got this in my email. Not sure about the accuracy.
A clunker that travels 12,000 miles a year at 15 mpg uses 800 gallons of gas a year.
A vehicle that travels 12,000 miles a year at 25 mpg uses 480 gallons a year.
So, the average Cash for Clunkers transaction will reduce US gasoline
consumption by 320 gallons per year.
They claim 700,000 vehicles so that’s 224 million gallons saved per year.
That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.
5 million barrels is about 5 hours worth of US consumption.
More importantly, 5 million barrels of oil at $70 per barrel costs about $350 million dollars
So, the government paid $3 billion of our tax dollars to save $350 million.
We spent $8.57 for every dollar saved.
I’m pretty sure they will do a great job with health care, though. /s