another problem with the program(that's been pointed out before) is that
They destroy the engine and tranny, and
No parts from the 'clunker' are allowed to be used; all have to be crushed.
Which means that what is in many cases a running vehicle that could have been sold to someone who can't afford a new car is trashed; cost of used cars will go up. AND by destroying it all, a source of parts is gone; which means someone who needs a part, or a running engine or transmission will have a harder time getting them.
Here's a more, ah, 'stylish' way of putting it from Velociman:
You poor people who voted for Obama? He just fucked you again. Poor people can't afford $500 car payments even with a $4500 taxpayer bailout. All those "clunkers"? They were traditionally immediately auctioned into the bottom rungs of the used car market. High school and college kids looking for a first car? Poor folk who can only afford a $500 to $1500 car, where the dealer carries the paper and you pay him weekly because your credit resembles that of the Weimar Republic circa 1922? You're boned, Patsy.
...
A government that purposefully destroys perfectly serviceable consumer goods, inexpensive goods that most benefit the poorest and most desperate members of society, is a government gone so fucking mad it makes the ravings of tertiary syphilis look wholesome in comparison.
This singular act belies any affectation of good faith, compassion, or humanity this craven and diabolical regime presumes. Barack Obama would rather have poor people beggar a damn ride to work, or walk holes in their shoes, than drive an affordable vehicle that does not meet his arbitrary and capricious definition of environmental friendliness.
I work in a county full of poor country sods, black and white. Almost to a person they drive "clunkers". And there is a reason they drive pickup trucks from the sixties, seventies, eighties. And it's not for ironic reasons, or because they enjoy driving a "classic". It's because they bought that truck when they were 25 years old, and have babied it their entire lives and they never want to buy another vehicle, unless it's to buy mama a Buick when she's 65 to drive to the Publix and the hairdresser once a week. These poor bastards just had a goodly amount of the affordable vehicle market yanked out from under their feet by a megalomaniacal prick.
I suppose King Barack I wants them to ride public transportation. Well, they don't have fucking buses in the country, or the small towns. That's an urban construct designed to help enslave the city proles. Hamlet proles need a cheap car, you miserable wretches.
4 comments:
He's right. I've got an old '86 Chevy 4x4 that I've been thinking of getting rid of. It needs a lot of work, although it still hauls lumber and gravel when I need to . . . I'm sure it qualifies, but I'm not buying a new car. Forget that.
I ought to advertise it for $1000 and see if someone will buy it just to flip it for an easy $3500 on their trade-in. That's probably a federal felony, though.
And they don't like to mention that along with the new car payments, you also have to have new car insurance; and that ain't cheap.
Actually, the car has to be destroyed within six months, not immediately. The engine is the only part required to be destroyed immediately. This is to be done at the dealership once the paperwork is finalized: Drain the oil out of the engine, add a gallon of sodium silicate solution (an abrasive solution called "Liquid glass"), then run the motor at speed until it seizes. The dealership may only recover $75 of the scrap value of what's left to cover "Administrative costs"; the rest of the scrap value goes to the customer as a bonus over the $3500/$4500 for the CARS allowance- however pretty much every junkyard is capping their bid at $75 per CARS clunker because they are a PITA for paperwork.
The car MAY be parted out by the junkyard that buys it, however the complete drivetrain is not allowed to be sold intact; any part (except the engine) may be sold before crushing, with the exception that the chassis/VIN & title are destroyed and removed from service. You could not buy a CARS vehicle and retitle it, or buy it for a parts car to sit behind your house, or anyhting- it must be shredded within 6 months.
Originally as written the legislation would have required the entire car to be destroyed immediately with no salvage of anything, however there was a lot of objection to this from two sources usually at odds- One, the environmentalists, who objected because certain components ought to be salvaged and recovered (namely, the lead in the battery, the mercury in the microswitches, the oils in the mechanical parts, gasoline in the tank, the refrigerant in the A/C system, the tires, etc) and Two, the junkyard and dismantlers associations, who objected to the fact that they would be required to EPA process the cars to remove those items and not be allowed to recover anything to offset the costs involved with performing that service.
The scrap value of a car is based on its value as a recycled metal- and metal prices are down to under $100 a ton right now from $300 a ton last year. The labor and towing charges to process a car to conform to EPA standards would exceed the value of the scrap, and the Auto Dismantlers trade groups basically said that if they would be required to foot the bill, the US .gov could KEEP the clunkers, they wanted no part of the program.
This led to relaxing of the rules to allow the clunkers to be parted out normally. This made the junkyard people happy- they could pull and sell high-value parts like front end body parts, transmissions, mag wheels, computers, etc. but it made the extreme clunkers people mad because THEY wanted the cars destroyed utterly.
Basically, you can buy any part except the engine, and any engine-oil wetted parts would be unuseable anyway due to the liquid glass in the moving parts (Distributors, cylinder heads, etc).
The "Complete drivetrain" can't be sold (the chassis, transmission, axle, driveshaft, etc as a unit) however you can sell the transmission to Bob, the rear axle to Nancy, and the driveshaft to Fred.
Don, the CARS bill says to be eligible, you had to own the clunker for over a year prior to trading it in, and it had to be currently licensed and insured for that entire year. They did that specifically to prevent people from scooping up junk and trading it in.
What's really sad- and I have a lot of junkyard and dealership contacts to back this up- is that the cars going for CARS are only about 50% junk. By that I mean, half of them are high-mileage, rusted out, beaten-up, what I would call a "clunker". We're talking 15-20 year old S10 Blazers, beater pickups, Ford Explorers & Aerostars, Ford Crown Vics, Caprices, stuff with lots of rust and dents and 200K on the clock.
The other half is decent cars that are a crying shame to execute. Cherokees, Durangos, full-size Ford, Dodge, GM pickup trucks, Toyota 4Runners, stuff with 120-150K on the odometer and a nice body and interior. Stuff that would be worth about $3000-$4000 on the street, but trade-in value is under $2000.
I'm a mechanic and an engineer, and I enjoy buying cars to fix and tinker with, and it basically hurts to watch good serviceable vehicles with nothing wrong with them destroyed and scrapped, and knowing *I* am paying for this, so someone else can get a deal on a new car.
Edmund's (home of the car value guide used by many) tracks car sales through the years and has estimated based on the numbers of cars traded in historically, that an average of 200,000 cars are traded in every month normally.
The $1 Billion for the CARS program (assume that the entire amount is used for cars, and not 50% going to "administrative costs") will result in about 222,000 new car sales ($1 billion divided by $4500 assuming everyone gets the maximum).
That means for about a 10% increase in new car sales for ONE MONTH, we, the taxpayers, shelled out a billion dollars. That's roughly a 0.8% increase in new car sales annually.
What is not tracked right now is how many of the people who are taking the CARS allowance who would have bought new cars anyway without the stimulus! Since 200,000 cars are traded monthly anyway, we see only a 22,000 car increase in total sales. That means that each of those "over and above" sales costs the US Taxpayers $45,000!
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