Rewarding The Stupid - Another Government Idea
1,325 ViewsSent in by Vaughn, this is an unbelievably ridiculous idea — Our idiotic government wants to “stimulate” the car companies by rewarding the stupid among us with vouchers towards a new car.
Congress passed the “cash for clunkers” measure late Thursday night as part of the $106 billion war spending bill. It’s not clear exactly when the program will be available to consumers, but President Barack Obama plans to sign the bill into law.
Here’s how the plan works: Car owners could get a voucher worth $3,500 if they traded in a vehicle getting 18 miles per gallon or less for one getting at least 22 mpg (What a joke. A whopping FOUR MPG better saves you $3500 on a new car?!). The voucher would grow to $4,500 if the new car’s mileage was 10 mpg higher than the old vehicle.
Connedsumers to get $4500 towards a new car (and more debt)
The reasons why this idea is so blatantly ridiculous is many: The energy requirements to build new cars requires more consumption of oil, not less. The actual “savings” in terms of oil consumption are non-existent.
Asking and expecting U.S. “connedsumers” to go into debt so that they can achieve as little as 4 mpg but owe thousands of dollars is stupid beyond belief. Who’s really being “served” here? If you said the auto companies that just ripped of the US citizen for billions upon billions of dollars, you’d be right.
Who exactly is going to pay for this giveaway? Not your government — it will all come from you. I realize our asinine government just keeps writing checks willy nilly to anything that moves, but it’s really your bank account being debited.
How about we just start offering money to people like me who refuse all debt? Or choose to stay home instead of consuming more energy resources and polluting the atmosphere? Or raise their own food?
Perhaps there should be an alternate program to offer money to get those who haven’t yet maxed out their credit cards and used their home as an ATM to do just that in order to buy a new vehicle. That program would be as absurd as this one.
Alas, Americans will now be paying for their neighbours’ new car. This isn’t socialism. Then what the hell is it? There seems to be no end to the way the US government will spend taxpayer’s money. This is a bailout in disguise.
Canada’s cash-for-clunkers plan: Do nothing at all (June 19, 2009). I like this one better, Rewarding the Stupid.
Nobody should be “bailing out” what is destined to soon fail anyway. If the world cannot afford more cars, start looking at the reasons why you idiots. And stop throwing (my) money at problems that can NEVER be fixed by money.
Hey, here’s an idea!! Go out and buy a SUV gas hog for a thousand bucks or less and trade this sucker in for a shiny NEW gas hog and “save” $3500!! Then, wait long enough for another connedsumer bailout from Uncle Sam that’ll be sure to show up on the horizon before the repo man shows up first!!
All you Obamaphiles wake the hell up, this idiot is going to sign this into law. If you’re still unwilling admit where his bread is buttered, then this should do the trick.
June 19th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
1. $3500 is MORE than I paid for my truck (with mounted HD plow that cost $3k at the time, unmounted in the showroom)
I couldn’t replace this truck for $45,000 (after ‘rebate’), probably not even for $60,000 with ‘accessories’ (plow, tanks, racks, winch, etc)
- ntm that I wouldn’t be able to service/maintain MOST of it either - except fluid/filter changes.
2. I could NOT buy another/new 1-ton 4WD truck that gets 10 mpg more than I currently get (+4 mpg ‘maybe’) even if I did want to.
3. Just the (so-called) ‘insurance’ (NTM FKN payments w/ interest) on a ‘new’ vehicle would be more every year than the total lifetime fuel ’savings’ regardless of how ‘high’ gas/diesel becomes (at a given (some) ‘value’ (price) fuel won’t be available at all (effectively if not physically) so I’d not be purchasing (’saving’) any anyway- and you won’t be either.)
4. FAR more energy ‘invested’ (ntm pollution) in a new vehicle than my entire remaining lifetime of fuel usage for transport. I’ve read several times/places that many Americans buy new vehicles so frequently that there is more energy ‘represented’ in the manufacturing than in the usage.
SERIOUSLY
‘Take away message’ (for me) ’surrounding’ (in) this and similar BAU/fascist shenanigans and mastications is that TPTB are becoming increasingly desperate )aznd ineffective) in their vain/heinous efforts to prop up the illusion (mass delusion, craven greed) variously referred to as ‘civilization’, prosperity, growth, ’standard of living’, et al. AKA for (their) “personal profit” on/off our greed and distraction of/from Reality.
slobber slobber gnash gnash twitch twitch
June 20th, 2009 at 5:15 am
The vehicles that are piling up in inventory are probably the low mileage ones…
I live in Canada so I’m used to the crap described in the article you linked to… everything is a token. Money is announced five times and then may or may not be actually delivered.
In the Toronto area, they have spent more than 15 years trying to form a regional transit strategy and the best they’ve come up with is minor fare integration so that you can buy one ticket for two adjoining systems.
They are happy about having saved some GM plants in Ontario, but then you look at what these plants are producing: a crossover vehicle, an SUV, and the Camaro! We will never get our bailout money back if that’s the future of GM in Canada.
June 20th, 2009 at 5:22 am
Regarding the debt angle, it seems to be becoming a growing practice now to establish a financial arm as the main money-making operation and then build stores just to sell some kind of crap for people to buy in order to feed the financial arm with consumer debt. There are at least a few companies that seem to be doing that here now — where the retail operation is simply a feeder for the financial operation.
I guess it’s just an extension of the World Bank loan idea… Offer to sell them things in order to generate debt. Control the country by controlling their debt.
June 20th, 2009 at 9:20 am
The movie, the “International” made this point very well. If the banks can control the debt, they can control everything.
June 20th, 2009 at 11:17 am
And they do control the debt. But whether they control everything is open to question. I can’t quite make up my mind. Just how much does the DOD control relative to other sectors of our society. My thinking is that it is calling the shots. Ultimately, anyone disagreeing with the Pentagon will be taken out or put out of business. And this will incresingly be the case in the future, as energy and mineral depletion force the government, not only to rely on its military for foreign exploitation, but to control its own populace.
Said in thick German accent:
“You vill sign the papers old man!”
June 21st, 2009 at 7:43 pm
In late 1990 I bought my first and probably last brand new vehicle, a 1991 S-10 and I had payments on it for 5 years . It still runs good and looks pretty good and has no major issues and gets me from A to B @ 20mpg and the insurance is about $300/year so why would I want to change? The only reason I can think of is vanity and that is lacking here in the dark forest.
If I spent all my money and went in the hole for millions and then pulled a gun on you and demanded you pay for my debt would you feel obligated to pay my debts?
Thats the way I am about gov’t expenditures, I ain’t paying for it unless I absolutely have to and that means through things I can’t avoid like license plate fees, drivers license, sales tax, etc.
I do not pay income tax and neither should you. By willingly paying the income tax you give tacit approval to theft on a grand scale. If its alright for the gov’t to steal then its alright for everybody to steal, right?
Wrong, and you know it. Examine your premise.
This isn’t rocket surgery, figure it out.
I figured it out when I was in my late 20’s and that was almost half my lifetime ago.
It ain’t how much you make, but rather how much you get to keep.
Why work for $50k per year and have $10k stolen by the gov’t in income tax, netting you $40k?
Simply work for yourself for $40k and keep all of it.
Cut out the thieving middle man.
Yes, you have to be careful, very careful cause thieves and snitches are everywhere.
But do you want to live as a free man or as a poser?
If you like your cowardly poser status skip over this post and watch over your shoulder for you are the enemy of free men everywhere.
It starts with you.
Onward.