Althouse: How bad was "Cash for Clunkers"?

August 8, 2014

How bad was "Cash for Clunkers"?

Really bad.

I've always loathed "Cash for Clunkers." The destruction really bothered me — especially watching this video of wrecking a Corvette.

39 comments:

Rob said...: I believe "Cash for Clunkers" is the theme of the Democrats' fundraising.; 8/8/14, 8:33 PM
Michael said...: It is not a good idea to have innumerate people running the show, not a good idea at all. The lefties always ignore the environmental cost of constructing a new fuel efficient car when comparing the new car with an older less fuel efficient model. The best thing for the environment is likely to drive the old cars until they fall to pieces, fully amortized.

The clunker program, of course, ravaged the underclass's ability to buy used cars cheaply. But they are only there for the votes.; 8/8/14, 8:35 PM
pm317 said...: why no "Obama Stumbles" tag?; 8/8/14, 8:36 PM
Anonymous said...: Pretty indicative of where this administration has been headed:

Green sentiment over economic sense.
Activism accruing power through Statism.
Top-down planning at its finest.
Destroying things in order to save them.
Pricing poorer people out of the market and basic misunderstanding of supply and demand.
Bad incentives.

Why this guy get elected twice is not beyond me, but simply sad.; 8/8/14, 8:41 PM
John Cunningham said...: Cash for Clunkers was really bad, but not as heinous as FDR's destruction of crops in the field and mass killing of piglets, young calves, etc. there is some deep impulse in Lefties to destroy.; 8/8/14, 8:44 PM
Patrick said...: They meant well.; 8/8/14, 8:56 PM
Kelly said...: I've been looking for a used car for my sixteen year old. The policy was very bad going by the prices of used cars now. As usual, obama's policies hurt poor people the most but was a boon to the used car dealers.; 8/8/14, 9:01 PM
Humperdink said...: As a member of the Corvette forum, I can tell you the members erupted in anger when that video surfaced showing that Vette dying by lethal injection. Some young gear head could have learned a lot by acquiring that car.

Of course, the Corvette crowd is not one Ozero's constituencies.; 8/8/14, 9:04 PM
Birkel said...: Let's not forget Nixon's price controls as we rightly blame FDR for deepening, lengthening and worsening the Great Depression. Nixon's attempt at overturning the Laws of Economics gave us two severe recessions and stagflation.

This should get an Obama is like Nixon tag, LOL. (And I am not telling our hostess to create or use a tag. I hate when readers do that. Now I must buy something from Amazon...); 8/8/14, 9:11 PM
Sorun said...: There should be a tag: "Obama is like Nixon and Carter"; 8/8/14, 9:15 PM
jimbino said...: The Cash for Clunkers program cost me a good Honda Accord that blew its motor when no used motor was any longer available. It's like something the Russians did when retreating from the Nazi advance and what the Nazis did when retreating from the Russian advance. Why should my gummint be practicing a "scorched-earth policy" against me?; 8/8/14, 9:17 PM
Sorun said...: It was once "Hope and Change"
Now in hindsight: Stuck on Stupid; 8/8/14, 9:18 PM
Humperdink said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/8/14, 9:34 PM
traditionalguy said...: That is what the high speed train clunkerss are destined for too. All Illusions all of the time is the way we are governed these days.

I blame it on generations of fraud science pushed by deliberately lying pols and their chicken brained media stooges.

But the super smile of Dear Leader remains to lie to us again tomorrow.; 8/8/14, 9:35 PM
Big Mike said...: Is there anything in Mantell's article that couldn't have been predicted by a halfway competent economist? The logical conclusion is that there is no one in this administration who is even halfway competent at economics.; 8/8/14, 9:56 PM
Mary Beth said...: There should be a tag: "Obama is like Nixon and Carter"

Or maybe just "deja vu".

If I had ever been here before on another time around the wheel
I would probably know just how to deal
With all of you
And I feel
Like I've been here before.; 8/8/14, 9:59 PM
Jay Vogt said...: Was intended to help GM during the period that the Treasury Department owned it . . circa 2009.

The plan was to borrow more money that we didn't have from the Chinese, to give to people to destroy perfectly good automobiles so they could use more money that they didn't have to buy new cars from the Japanese and from the US government's auto company which they purchased with still more money borrowed from the Chinese so as to save the pension plan that would have had to move to the back of the creditor line in an orderly BK proceeding so that US government could sell out their position to Warren Buffet and Hedge Funds at a multi-billion dollar loss to the US taxpayer (unless we default in which case the Chinese take the hit - unless they themselves are bailed out by us).

It's hard to see why it didn't work.

Still, GM was the second largest beneficiary behind Toyota.; 8/8/14, 10:06 PM
Original Mike said...: Duhhhhh.; 8/8/14, 10:13 PM
Original Mike said...: Let's destroy assets. It will stimulate the economy.

Idiots.; 8/8/14, 10:15 PM
Jay Vogt said...: Oh, and those energy efficient cars that the "CARS " program was supposed to stimulate demand for - such as the Chevy Cobalt.

Well they were such shitty cars and GM's government sponsored executive team was so shitty that it probably cost about 70 lives and forced GM to take a pending liability charge for almost $900M. Which, oddly they do have and don't have to borrow from the Chinese. So, there is that.; 8/8/14, 10:21 PM
Revenant said...: Needs a "duh" tag.; 8/8/14, 10:42 PM
Michael K said...: Bastiat could have told them but they are illiterate.; 8/8/14, 11:13 PM
Jason said...: Cash for clunkers was a colossal act of economic vandalism and wealth destruction that could only be conceived by a fucking Maoist.

And then Obama's team even botched that, because they were two inept to run the system to process payments and credits.

And then Democrats said "LET THEM RUN HEALTHCARE!"

Bastards.; 8/8/14, 11:53 PM
David said...: Should have sent them all to Cuba.

(The legislators and the bureaucrats, not the cars.); 8/8/14, 11:53 PM
MathMom said...: 50% of the environmental cost of a car is in its construction. So, they killed a bunch of cars well before their useful life was up, and as others have noted, made it more difficult for poor people to buy used cars. The cost of fuel is not a big deal, compared to the cost of making the car in the first place.

I saw a video of a fairly new Volvo on which they were trying to wreck the engine, and it began to feel like a snuff film. I felt myself tearing up because the engine started screaming but kept going. It looked like torture. I finally had to just shut it off.

But this administration has shown they can tolerate torture. There have been thousands of beheadings in Iraq in the last two months, and today(!) O'Bummer finally decided to fling a spit-wad at these barbaric murderers? Already?; 8/9/14, 12:10 AM
rcommal said...: How un-shocked am I?

Utterly.; 8/9/14, 12:41 AM
exhelodrvr1 said...: But it was so cool to vote for him!!; 8/9/14, 1:07 AM
Tank said...: Unexpectedly.; 8/9/14, 6:44 AM
tim maguire said...: Even the name was BS. The program applied to specific types of cars, the condition was irrelevant.

Just another dishonest Democratic program that wasted large amounts of money while betraying every interest group it purported to help.; 8/9/14, 7:33 AM
Michael The Magnificent said...: Hey, I've got a great idea to stimulate the economy. All we have to do is break a bunch of perfectly good windows!; 8/9/14, 8:45 AM
TomHynes said...: If cash for clunkers is a program to support the auto industry and have people upgrade to better autos, what are gun buyback programs?; 8/9/14, 9:17 AM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: The cars involved weren't "clunkers"; they had bad gas mileage.

I remember an earlier version of this plan, which noted that 20% of cars on the road made for 80% of the pollution, and that it might be cost-effective to make it possible to trade them in for a subsidized upgrade.

But that isn't what happened. It was gas mileage that counted, not pollutants, and so lots of fairly new cars with substandard mileage ratings were junked.

Idiotic. And government policy; but I repeat myself.; 8/9/14, 1:33 PM
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...: I cannot be the only person here who's observed that comment moderation is off. What gives?; 8/9/14, 1:34 PM
Birches said...: I'll add my opinion to the others that the used car market has been awful since cash for clunkers. Prices have definitely gone up.; 8/9/14, 2:06 PM
avwh said...: Is there anything Obama has touched that hasn't turned to complete crapola??; 8/9/14, 4:15 PM
HoodlumDoodlum said...: Was it bad for women, though? Did racial minorities or members of the LGBTQ community object? If not how do you expect this to get any play in the Media?; 8/9/14, 4:49 PM
Joe said...: Cash for clunkers all but destroyed the low end used car market which still hasn't recovered and won't for several more years. This has really affected my older kids.; 8/9/14, 7:56 PM
Rusty said...: crickets from the left; 8/9/14, 8:54 PM
stlcdr said...: This was obvious to a lot of people. Yet the regime went ahead and did it anyway.

Was this a political thing? We're those who consider themselves on the Right against it and those who consider themselves on the Left for it? If so, then we certainly have a problem. Rather, those on the left are not capable of running a free country.

If it wasn't a left vs right thing, why did it happen? Was there anyone who thought this was a good idea that stood on its own merit?; 8/10/14, 6:27 AM