Edmunds: Cash For Clunkers Cost $24k Per Car
October 29th, 2009 10:58 AM
Share
Edmunds‘ analysis shows that only 125k of the nearly 690k vehicles sold during Cash For Clunkers were incremental. Divide the three billion the government spent by that number, and you’re left with a $24k per-vehicle subsidy of additional sales. Which Edmunds admits were largely pull-forward anyway. Edmunds’ research also shows that fewer consumers would have traded in gas guzzlers had the stimulus not existed. As a result, “that may give some credence to the environmental claims, but unfortunately the economic claims have been rendered quite weak,” according to Edmunds analysts. All hail the Potemkin Economy!
Comments
Join the conversation
Goodness sake, there's no cognitive dissonance in the Potemkin Village sentence, and it doesn't conflict at all with the "Housekeeping" article. It's about policy, not personality. It's fine to have an opinion, just be respectful in expressing it. Acceptable: "C4C was a big waste of money." Unacceptable: "C4C is typical of president Zero" or "C4C would have been worse under Bushitler".
I don't suppose it would help to point out to Edmunds that C4C was macro- rather than micro- economics?
Oh stop it! What we have here is a highly reputable auto reviewer publically stating that this government program was a utter waste. So, regardless of your political views, this is a disaster. Stop trying to kill the messenger here. Stop trying to put a happy spin on it. C4C looked like a good thing. When it was happening, folks were pretty thrilled. A lot of our public servants heralded it as the best thing that came out of the Trillion Dollar Stimulus, and it only cost a few Billions. Now we can see it didn't do what we had hoped. It cost $24,000.00 per car - paid by you, your kids, and your grandkids, (even if they are not yet born.) Just be glad you didn't discover when you turned 16, that you owed thousands in taxes because your grandfather wanted a new Studebaker, because that is what we just did to our grandkids. Yeah - when Grandpa wanted to help his neighbors, he actually reached into his own wallet to help out. He didn't reach into your parent's wallets, and your and your brother's and sister's wallets. You see, back then, it was considered unethical to rob from the unborn. We no longer think that way. See how "progressive" we've become! We play Robin Hood and get to pretend to be doing our Christian charity of helping the needy, by stealing from our kids! Biblical Moneychangers at the Temples - You've just met your match with this US Congress!