Let me preface this post with my own car-owning history. My mother bought a brand newDodge Omni in 1985; this is the only new car I ever remember our family owning. When I started driving in 1992, it passed to me, and was my first car. It was followed by an 87 toyota corolla (bought in 94), and a 95 corolla (bought in 97.) This year, I reluctantly parted with the 95, replacing it with a 2000 Mazda MPV (which lived less than a month) and finally, my current car... I've gone oldschool; she's a 92 Toyota Corolla, with 25000 less miles on her than my old 95. The point to this is: I buy used cars. I am the used-car market, and until this year, I bought cars that were slightly used- a couple of years old when they came to me. New enough to be reliable, and used enough to be affordable.
I'm the market that will be adversely affected by Cash for Clunkers, a program which rightly should be called Handouts for Rich People; as it helps buy cars for the wealthy, at the expense of the poor. Poor people don't buy new cars, they don't get new cars every couple of years. No, my fellow struggling students, single mamas, etc; we buy a car for cash, and we drive it until pieces start falling off in traffic. Or even after; the 95 hadn't had left windshield wiper in a year when I said my goodbyes.
So I'm more than a little put out over this. Have a look-see at what becomes of the "clunker" after Obama buys it. I must say, I was a little sick looking at such colossal waste. If he HAD to buy these things in order to prop up the new car market, why not at least make the clunker available to the used car market? or if it can't be sold as a driveable car, why not part it out to keep other cars running? Why this need to destroy perfectly good, drivable cars?
These are not "clunkers" in any sense of the traditional understanding of the word. Every one of these cars has to have had insurance on it for the previous year; clearly, that means most of them were driving until they went in to be killed. Let's make this very clear: public tax money, spent to destroy saleable merchandise, during an economic recession/depression. Who on EARTH thought this was a good idea?
The brilliant minds who thought up this swindle are right now hard at work overhauling our healthcare. Feeling under the weather yet?
4 comments:
ITA. Stupid, stupid, stupid plan. So much for being all about "green" this and "green" that, if he thinks smashing up so-called "clunkers" is the best thing to do with the cars people are trading in.
Never realized how conservative I was until the election. Then I started listening to him and realizing exactly how much I did NOT agree with him!
Obama does seem to be all about destroying things that don't fit his aesthetic sensibilities. If I remember right, his administration was talking about knocking down and plowing under entire swaths of inner-city Detroit as well. And as you've pointed out in another article, the CPSIA is all about disallowing the sale and use of items that government has determined we shouldn't be allowed to purchase.
Anybody still think that Republicans are the party of heinous restrictions on the individual?
Erm, he's going to do what to Detroit? I have to google that; it makes no damn sense. I mean, yeah, Detroit's been hit hard, no question. I've seen photos of some sections that look like a ghost town. But there is opportunity there; when the dirt gets that cheap, it starts looking like a bargain. Why would the govt need to intervene; surely someone out there will want those one-dollar houses, if only for the land. Then if the BUYER wants to knock down and plow under, it's on his dime, not ours.
As for Cpsia- at first, I thought "law of unintended consequences." I'm way over that now. It's looking like intentional elimination of competition for the big businesses, and deliberate destruction of culturally transmittable history. He who controls the past, controls the future, and the loss of so many children's books that hearkened back to traditional morals and values (i.e. everything Pre the PC movement) no longer seems accidental to me, not at all.
Saw your post on homeschool on a website today. Well done.
If you don't like birds, don't visit my website at www.gregscott.com.
(I has some of what might be, to you, the most terrifying hummingbird photos ever.)
Post a Comment