Posted on 09/12/2010 4:07:16 AM PDT by Scanian
Looking back with pride, the British are commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, when Churchill said of the pilots fighting the Luftwaffe: Never “was so much owed by so many to so few.” Looking ahead with trepidation, Americas are thinking: Never have so many of us owed so much.
Actually, they owed slightly more when the recession began, when household consumer debt was $2.6 trillion. The painful but necessary process of deleveraging is proceeding slowly: Such debt has been reduced only to $2.4 trillion. Add to that the facts that the recession has reduced household wealth by $10 trillion, and that only 25 percent of Americans expect their incomes to improve next year. So they are not spending, and companies, having given the economy a temporary boost last year by rebuilding inventories, are worried. Hence, rather than hiring, companies are sitting on cash reserves much larger than the size of last year’s $862 billion stimulus.
Democrats who say another stimulus is necessary for job creation, but who dare not utter the word “stimulus,” are sending three depressing messages: The $862 billion stimulus did not work; the public so loathes the word that another stimulus will not happen; therefore prosperity is not “just around the corner,” as Herbert Hoover supposedly said (but did not). Consumers and businesses are responding to those messages by heeding Polonius’ advice in “Hamlet”: “Neither a borrower nor a lender be.”
Hoover — against whom Democrats, those fountains of fresh ideas, have been campaigning for 78 years — is again being invoked as a terrible warning about the wages of sin. Sin is understood by liberals as government austerity, which is understood as existing levels of government spending, whatever they are, whenever.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
No matter what did or didn’t happen to USED car sales, Cash for Clunkers was a dismal failure at “stimulating” NEW car sales, which was its intended purpose. It failed just like the tax incentive for buying a house failed to stimulate the housing market. Everything the Obama/Pelosi/Reid Cartel has tried has failed miserably to stimulate anything other than GOP voters.
In all sincerity, with no insult intended, 20 minutes learning about basic supply and demand will open up a new world for you in understanding how the world works. Demand “curves” and supply “curves” have different slopes. So a small increase or decrease in supply can have drastic effects on demand and price, or vice versa depending on the slope. You can move along the curve or the curve itself can move! So you can have situations where a change in price will end all demand, a small change in price can skyrocket demand, etc.
It’s really useful, fun, and logical stuff.
I agree.
Everything the Obama/Pelosi/Reid Cartel has tried has failed miserably to stimulate anything other than GOP voters.
Kind of sad isn't it? It took the very near destruction of the U.S. to "wake up" the GOP voters. Speaks very sadly of the GOP leadership and its ideas.
Right. I tried to get good figures for this discussion but so many used car sales are off the books that everything is guesstemites. With fewer new cars bought, that means fewer used cars for sale because people are holding onto their used cars and driving them. Then destroy hundreds of thousands of the used cars of people that did buy, change credit policies to make used car purchases in lots harder to do for most people, and you have a mess.
Sorry, I looked up the curves and I don't see that at all. What you are describing more closely looks like chaos theory - anything can happen at any time.
Really, I don't see the supply as having fallen enough, through clash for clunkers, to have give this supposed rise in used car prices. There are many other factors involved.
It remains to be seen just how awake the voters are. I have little faith that any politicians of either party will be willing to enforce the austerity that will be required to turn us around. A total “refutiation” of incumbents might do the trick, but I don’t see this electorate doing that yet. Oh well; what can you do? Vote GOP and pray God will grant them wisdom and courage.
No actually spend some time learning it. You’ll see what I mean. It’s worth the time. I can’t chart here but you can have a sharp angle on a demand curve meaning there are drastic changes in demand based upon price as you move down the supply curve etc. etc., it’s not like a 5% increase in supply leads to a 5% decrease in price. You need to understand it to discuss it and it is worth learning.
There are a few essays out there that looked decent. Try this one:
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_69.htm
You might want a basic economics text as well, filled with libcrap as they might be.
I'd have to give you the nod on this. Destroying cars when supply was going down, wasn't helpful.
I think the word "clunker" does not mean what you think. Cars like late model Rolls Royce's were clunkers if they had low enough MPG values. I have a beater which was in the right year range. I checked and it did not qualify for CFC because the MPG was too high.
Primarily vehicles classified as trucks. If you take a look at the list of clunkers traded in, there were quite a few late 90 and early 2000.
Primarily vehicles classified as trucks. If you take a look at the list of clunkers traded in, there were quite a few late 90 and early 2000.
I have a Mazda truck, and it was not even on the list, but I think you are right.
Good article by George Will.
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