My whole impression is that the whole "green savings" was just BS to put the program thru w/o being called another bailout to get the auto companies and the parts suppliers going. I don't think Obama even believed that.

In some sense it worked as huge numbers of inventory was moved, auto companies will get some cash flow and will order new cars to restock, meaning the (US-based) parts suppliers will have work again. Lots and lots of people and small businesses tied to this. Logistical Cluster-F to be sure tho.

I do see some sense of having some req to junk the engine, as you want to have some easy way to be sure dealers/whoever don't scam the system by pocketing the cash and reselling the "clunker." But they should be able to part out the car or ship it to some foriegn country for sale (Europe does this with tons of used cars.) The gov't should sell the clunkers for parts or exprt and at least get some of the money back and still remove the cars from US gasoline consumption. Hell, you could have reduced the cost (or expanded the program w/ that.)

What also sucks is you only qualified if you were a dipshit and bought some crappy fuel hog. My comuter car is an 02 Mazda w/ 160K and gets 30mpg. The mpg req of the CfC was a chitty 22mpg or so. Not that I would have sold off my car, it still runs well and I plan to fix and run it until it dies. However, its irritating knowing you don't even qualify as you bought a responsible car in the 1st place, and many cars getting bought get less than my 8yo car.

Lastly tho, I think the gov't (Bernake, Paulson, Geitner, Obama and even that fvkwit Bush who got us in many of the current messes) does deserve a great deal of credit so far. The fact that we are not talking about a depression, and are on track to see GDP growth possibly in the Q3 is huge from where we were even 6-8mos ago, when it looked like there was no bottom to the cliff we were tettering on.
Cutting back on all the spending, bailouts and stimulus would have been a replay of the '30s, and a 10% unemployment, 15% in house prices and modest GDP growth would have looked like candyland had we done what McCain and the Congressional GOP wanted to do and let the whole financial system collapse like Lehman.
So far the only dumber ideas than I've heard from the Dummicrats are the ideas from the Retardicons.

That's what I don't understand about the whole deal.. the seller only got $4500 (max) for that trade in right? The dealer can't resell it, so it has no other trade in value. Why the F would you take $4500 when you could sell it for far more?
Not only that, I know around here the car inventories got so low they were basically selling whatever POS they had that qualified for the program. The dealers were not cutting the deals they were a few months ago, as they knew there was some other idiot-asshole waiting to pay $25K for a purple & pink pokadot civic so they could get $4500 for their $10K SUV. WTF man.

Stupid asses should have bought back in the winter/spring when the dealers had no customers and were willing to sell at near cost just do free up some cash flow. I bought another car in Dec and absolutely raped the dealer on the sell.

It's even worse than many think. I talked to an IRS agent today and she confirmed what I heard. That is the $4500 rebate is considered income in some states and come April 15th you may have to pay tax on it. Surprise!http://www.businessinsider.com/whoop...t-taxed-2009-8

I didn't really consider all the almost-new vehicles that would be put in the grinder.... what's an '08 SD worth, at least 30-35K?

You've seen it firsthand, I can imagine it's traumatic to see such stupidity live...

Just imagine this whole scenario if it was applied to the housing market!!

Would it have gotten past page one?

>_<

Oh how I wish I had a camera in the office of some of the tax preparers when they explain that.

Ok, gotta take offense to that comment. Lotta other reasons for people to have vehicles that qualified other than "being a dipshit".

IMHO, the reality of it is that the intent of the whole program was to get gas guzzlers off the road, period. A by product of it was that it helped the auto manufactures somewhat.
I have a hard time believing someone was dumb enough to dump any vehicle worth 30K for the 4500. Consider me an internet skeptic on this one.

Let me qualify that statement a bit, then I'm going to drop it as I don't want to start a political argument.

I am referring to those who bought some huge car they didn't need/could not afford primarily to drive themselves to work, and then started complaining when it cost $100 last year to fill w. gas, and now dumped it at a big loss to trade into a more efficient car. I do think the overall structure of this program rewarded irresponsibility. Why can't I trade my car in for $4500 to get a new commuter car? Because I bought a reasonable car to begin with. It would be more fair to open the prog for everybody and not limit it based on silly reasons, of which it will have negligible carbon impact due to the wastefulness.

As said, I bought a new (barely used really) xover SUV in Dec for a steal as I have 2 kids now, and really needed a bigger car for trips as our current cars just don't fit all the kid junk (let alone our dogs) you end up hauling around to go anywhere. I did keep my current beater to drive to work and rack most of the miles up on as the other is too expensive and wasteful just to drive one person off to work. There are times you need a bigger car or truck, but its hard to feel sympathy for those that didn't plan well, but got rewarded for bad decisions and hardship.

Amen!

Just wait for october auto sales, no one will buy crap and the auto sales will be down 50% until the end of the year. Just when they roll out the 2010 cars. 2010 you will be able to get a brand new 2009 for nothing because of this bright idea. Save your pennys for 3 months and you can get a new 2009 mustang for $5g I'd wager.

yea you could turn around and sell a 08 superduty to a contracting company that needs a beater for 15k an yea u could sell it for alot more but if you needed to unload it 15k is alot better than 4500.

a dealer took a 2002 s10 v6 4wd zr5 package in for the cash for clunkers it had 200k miles on it. i went and offered the dealer up to 2000 bucks for it. they told me no. i said go ahead blow the motor i dont need it i got a 98 that i would be more than happy to take the motor out of and put in it.... they said theyd sell it to me for 6k... with no motor


i told them there nuts and left

I haven't been on the forum for the last few days, missed this great thread. I would like to add my two cents, but it has been pretty much summed up by Linc. The whole F@$%#%$ thing is complete INSANITY!

All the presidents of the US are all the same people, with dirt on each other, but since Obama has come to office, your national debt has increased more than all the other presidents COMBINED. WTF!

i like to keep my piece to myself becasue i truly hate/disagree/ and disgusted by whats happening to the country, and im a very negitive person, and dont get me wrong i didn't vote for obama and i wont in 2012 but you you have to give him credit for the whole national debt item. Its his way of letting the the population know how royaly Fcked we are he didnt do any thing out of the ordinary as far as spending goes, Bush Jr spent just as much if not more on the wars, but thats the catch obama is the first president to put the outragous amount of money that is spent on the war on the "budget"....

ive also wondered why we trade with some coutries that were former enimies yet we wont trade with cuba and they never went to WAR agianist us....

im gonna be done before i start, btw LINC i love your way of thinking not far from mine....

Well be thankful you're Canadian (or at least live there) regarding stuff like this...

While I am thankful (which is not necessarily synonymous with proud) to be American, I do know the game. Before anyone gets offended, let me put it this way- none of us have any choice which country we're born in. If I was born in Latvia, I'd probably be proud to be Latvian. But I wasn't. So I'm not. Not to get too philosophical (it is an RC forum after all), but we all come into the world playing for a certain team, so to speak.

I never was much of a sports fan, other than racing, I find all of it very trite. So it should be no surprise that I'm not a rabid flag waver. And although I appreciate being able to speak beyond TRX forum-type stuff, I don't want to abuse it. I understand many people don't want to see threads like these, or like these seem to turn into. But there is a lot of underlying frustration, and it just comes out. Sometimes quite randomly in fact..

As much as I'd like to see certain people wake up, I know it's a 1 in a million shot, in other words, not worth it. But Obama is just the newest model.. made me remember a quote from either Z or Z Addendum, "politicians are not put in power to change things, they are put in power to keep things the way they are", keep that in mind next time you find yourself in a voting booth. That's the truth, as I see it. But it also happens to be a strong recipe for more apathy. So not really a good thing to pound into people's heads. People do, to some extent, need to believe in falsehoods to keep them sane. I'm not an exception. I just am careful about which ones I choose...

The issue here in part is that almost nobody bothers to read the fine print, be it asking your loan rep. if you'd be taxed on that $4500, or something way more substantial. I know the program is a windfall to many people, but it is going to bite them back, and the ones who really didn't need it as well. Just more wondrous marketing, with delayed repercussions. I don't know what scares me more, gov't that moves too slow, or one that moves waytoodamnfast. I am feeling a little nostialgic for some old, slow, WELL THOUGHT OUT... solutions.

I'm mostly holding out for how we are going to unwind from all this. Terrible things have been done to get the bleeding to stop, but where it goes from there is the real wonder imo. That's what I'm going to judge Obama on.

What measures are made to ensure this doesn't happen again, how we can restore some fiscal sanity, get some of our money back, and what measures are taken against the banks that made deals with the devil to save their sorry lives. If everything just goes back to business as usual after the billions we had to pump in to save our collective asses, there won't be enough pitchforks to go around.
I worry the blase attitude is already coming back, and nobody wants to really pick the fight.

I have a feeling that if we can just keeps our heads up until the Twilight sequel comes out everything will be ok...