Dig this tidbit about
the cash for clunkers program.
What Mr. Mueller discovered is that sodium silicate is the designated agent of death for cars surrendered under the federal cash-for-clunkers program. To receive government reimbursement, auto dealers who offer rebates on new cars in exchange for so-called clunkers must agree to "kill" the old models, using a method the government outlines in great detail in its 136-page manual for dealers: Drain the engine of oil and replace it with two quarts of a sodium-silicate solution.
"The heat of the operating engine then dehydrates the solution leaving solid sodium silicate distributed throughout the engine's oiled surfaces and moving parts," says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration publication. "These solids quickly abrade the bearings causing the engine to seize while damaging the moving parts of the engine and coating all of the oil passages."
This is insane. It's not green, it doesn't help the poor and the stimulus it provides is temporary at best. It just seems fundamentally evil to me. Consider these facts:
- Building a new car consumes resources of all kinds. Buying a used one is the ultimate in recycling.
- New cars are typically financed, loading consumers with more debt at a time when debt is a bigger millstone than usual. If you have savings and no debt, you can weather a layoff better than if you have no savings and a car loan.
- Finally, as B-Daddy commented on this post, this doesn't increase demand for new cars, it just sucks up future demand and leaves us with a decrease later on.
In the comments on this WSJ article, there are more great points. Here are a few of them.
So tell me how much did it costs the taxpayers to have these government employed pea brains to come up with this stupidity.
I am seeing pictures of cars that are in better shape than a lot of cars parked in the community college parking lot.
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Hummmmm. Pay two to four times the value for an item, and then destroy it. Or take an item MORE valuable than you pay for it ... and destroy it.
Thank you, Government. You've applied your principles on foreign aid, education, and health care to our garages...
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Every December, the newspaper has a few stories of local people's struggles and needs. A Christmas wish. There is always a person in need of a car.
This clunkers program is such a waste.
If this is a good idea, then why not firebomb the urban centers of the Midwest to help the building and real estate industries recover?
The Obama economic recovery team springs into action, bringing 800,000 pounds of stimulus to Dayton, OH! Take that, recession!
This program is a temporary economy stimulus program. That's it. It's going to get rid of a bunch of middle age cars (apparently in about the least green way possible), not touching any real clunkers.
ReplyDeleteAnd it balances all of it on our grand children's wallets.
It isn't helping the working poor.
It's just another bad policy from this administration. Can this country survive 4 years of this?
I did see something about the administration is already starting to not trust dear Nancy.
Exactly right on the bombing metaphor! The basic reason the Great Depression ended was that the world collectively decided to create huge amounts of stuff and then blow it up, or send it to the bottom of the ocean (aka WW2).
ReplyDeleteWhy not do the same now, except without the war? A scheme to detonate houses and rebuild and refurnish them would be a good start. Followed by blowing up roads, bridges, factories etc and rebuilding them too. Sink half the worlds ships and order new ones. Build loads of random stuff and destroy it on prime time TV. Detonate an EMF bomb in every town - think of the orders for electronic goods! You'd soon see an end to the economic downturn then. Easy. Can't possibly fail. When do we start?
Jim, you missed one key ingredient. Death. We need to kill tens of millions of employable men. That will act to keep salaraies high.
ReplyDeleteGood jobs for good wages!
Automotive Euthanasia. ObamaCare for the car industry.
ReplyDeleteWhat's the best way to recycle?
ReplyDeleteWell, do like my family has been doing for ages-- reuse. Zero processing costs.
So the cars have bad MPG? They could go somewhere like this. It's a car-bone-yard I'm familiar with-- I got a rim that the dealer wanted $300 for at $75 bucks; an engine can be repaired at a fraction of the cost of a new one....
Of course, if they were ACTUALLY worried about cutting down consumption, that stupid "all used kid clothes, books and toys have to be tested for lead, even if there's zero evidence that anyone can possibly be hurt" (AKA the Destroy Children's Used Items act) wouldn't be around... oh, and there wouldn't be a law to require that we use quite seriously poisonous light bulbs... etc, etc, etc.
KT, the opening couple of paragraphs of your post reminded me of another process where we inject a solution to kill something and which is also funded by the government.
ReplyDeleteOff topic: You are in big trouble, fella.
Actually, I think the stupidest, most obviously dumb, thing is that destroying these "clunkers" eliminates any possibility that they can then be used to replace even more clunkerish cars.
ReplyDeleteSee, I'd bet that most of the folks taking advantage of this are not really driving "clunkers", they are driving not so good cars. Those not so good cars could then (due to the large inventory) be sold relatively cheaply to those that are even more fiscally challenged and are REALLY driving clunkers.
If they really cared about improving the environment you'd want to do this two step trade and get rid of the clunkiest cars.