Comments on: Another lesson for ObamaCare in Cash for Clunkers

By: Merovign

Merovign — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 04:06:32 +0000

Thetruly ironic thing is that this program uses taxpayer money, filtered through a bureaucracy, to destroy real goods in aid of convincing people to run up debt in a recession.

Even if the program itself were 100% efficient, the project would still be almost 100% waste.

It’s kind of mind-boggling how stupid people in large groups can be. That this insanity ever got off the ground…

By: njpat

njpat — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 03:05:42 +0000

The only thing that will be worse than them spending more on administrative costs (aka money laundering) is when the Acorn buyers default on their auto loans creating another credit crisis.

By: 29Victor

29Victor — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 01:48:29 +0000

Profit isn’t “overhead,” it’s profit.

He doesn’t have a clue how businesses actually work, does he?

By: trollkiller

trollkiller — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:53:54 +0000

I’ve been thinking about the actual cost of the program. It is something to the tune of $10,000 per car for a discount of $3500 to $4500 per car.

First they had to pay out 2.88 billion. They will finance that in perpetuity at, say, 5% interest. That essentially doubles the cost.

Then you add in the cost of the loss of the actual value of the clunkers traded in and disposed.

In the end the govt. contracted the size of the economy well 3 trillion over time due to this program and cost the tax payers over double that. In the present the NPV of the program would still have to be negative as well.

By: Oleta

Oleta — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 21:00:08 +0000

Their problem is they called in a bunch of GS-15 types, not realizing they needed a bunch of minimum wage clericals. The GS-15′s couldn’t do the job.

By: Hot Air » Blog Archive » Another lesson for ObamaCare in Cash for … | Goodwill Car Donation

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:47:16 +0000

[...] Read the rest of this great post here [...]

By: About Those Lower Federal Administrative Costs… | Stephen Kruiser

About Those Lower Federal Administrative Costs… | Stephen Kruiser — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:09:48 +0000

[...] The beauty of this is that you don’t have to take my word for it. Just look at the most recent “efficiently run” federal bit of “help”, Cash For Clunkers. [...]

By: angryed

angryed — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:03:18 +0000

Has anyone visited a car dealer since the end of c4c? I’m curous to know if it’s a ghost town these days as all the people who were going to buy in Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec all bought in August instead.

By: Franklyn

Franklyn — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:57:14 +0000

In case someone missed it, many dealers who gave the rebate are not going to get it because they did not fill out the paperwork precisely right. The numbers need to show how many of those 690,000 were or will be rejected and not paid out. Of course we should already know this answer since the efficent goverment run program was suppose to take ten days to get the rebates back to the dealers. The cost of processing the paperwork for the rebates is a business expense that was agreed or realized when the dealers took the deal, but dealers work in a system of borrowing money to buy the cars to sell, which is repaid after sale. The cars have been sold but either the profit is not gained or there remains an outstanding balance, either of which constitutes lost revenue paid out as interest, or loss because it could not be reinvested, or required borrowed money to replace it.

By: ElRonaldo

ElRonaldo — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:56:14 +0000

Obama demonstrates perfectly his lack of understanding around business by classifying ‘profits’ as overhead.

By: RegularJoe

RegularJoe — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:35:57 +0000

My alternate car got one, ONE, mile per gallon too good of gas mileage to qualify me to take advantage of this oh-so-sweet scam. Damnit. I would have liked to have received far more for it from C4C than it is worth and climbed into a brand spanking new car.

Now I have to help the ones that did get to take a bite out of this apple pay for it.

Sucks :(

SilverStar830 on September 10, 2009 at 1:46 PM

That’s what you get for being responsible! You probably pay your mortgage, too. Sucker.

By: Limerick

Limerick — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:31:55 +0000

Efficient government. A critter right next to the jack-a-lope on the ESL.

By: BigMike252

BigMike252 — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:02:22 +0000

So I guess we will need a Bailout for the Cash for Clunkers program.

I appears that when some people become politicians, they seem to forget how everything else works. If something sounds too good to be true, than it more than likely is!

Per my remedial calculations, Govt. Administrative cost would range between 10 – 12% of the average $3500.00 Rebate. This is only admin cost! What about the expenses of the dealers: Storage, disposal, and administrative expenses. Who pays this?

Another good program brought to us by Hussein and his Posse of Clowns!

By: marinetbryant

marinetbryant — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:40:54 +0000

More C4C heartache?

The state Department of Revenue said some customers left dealers’ parking lots without the paperwork needed to register and title their new vehicles. The Springfield News-Leader reported that if they don’t register the vehicles within 30 days, they could be fined $25 per month, or up to $200.

The four-week federal program ended in late August.

Dealers in many cases held on to customers’ paperwork, waiting to be reimbursed by the government for the $3,500 to $4,500 rebates given to consumers toward the purchase of more fuel-efficient vehicles. Some dealers said they’ve received only 10 percent of what they’re owed.

http://www.nbcactionnews.com/content/news/missouri/story/Cash-for-Clunkers-Car-Buyers-May-Be-Fined-in-Mo/gQv1nciPSEmokdBNGOaQDw.cspx

Tom

By: larvcom

larvcom — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:32:38 +0000

Do even liberals believe this?
Monkeytoe on September 10, 2009 at 2:05 PM

Liberals believe what they’re told to believe, didn’t you know that?

By: Badger40

Badger40 — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:32:05 +0000

“fundamentally transform” it, right?
Yep…crazy.

SKYFOX on September 10, 2009 at 2:30 PM

Heh. Of course that goes with the same tier of thought as the “Constitution is a living, breathing document”.

By: Badger40

Badger40 — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:30:54 +0000

what will happen with healthcare?

Margee on September 10, 2009 at 2:18 PM

OH but that will certainly go much faster & better, don’t you know.
And of course there will be no ‘death panels’.
They of course will have some other fancy name so as which to disguise their true evil purposes.
My head is spinning…..

By: SKYFOX

SKYFOX — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:30:34 +0000

I am absolutely convinced that Obama can not be this incompetent. He has too much help to screw up this badly and consistently.

He’s trying to kill this country and he has lots of help.

Guardian on September 10, 2009

The lefty’s will say this is crazy talk. What American president would want to harm this country? Why, you would have to hate America as it was founded to want to want to tear it down or “fundamentally transform” it, right?
Yep…crazy.

By: JiangxiDad

JiangxiDad — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:28:29 +0000

The once great American automobile company, GM, (now a shell of it’s former self, but curiously called, GM) to lay-off 1000 workers. Good work Obama. Now he has saved or created 1 million minus 1000 jobs.

http://detroitnews.com/article/20090910/AUTO01/909100356/GM-to-lay-off-about-1-000

By: highhopes

highhopes — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:25:17 +0000

That seems like a lot of processing cost on the government end (for a worker earning $60K/year with benefits, about 5 hours for each claim), and it doesn’t count the cost of the dealer in filing and tracking the claims, either. Still, the AP article made it sound much, much worse.

Any program that takes 5 hours to process a claim that essentially certifies a car deal qualified for the program is at least 4 hours too long.

By: NoDonkey

NoDonkey — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:18:46 +0000

Is there any study being done on how this idiotic program is going to affect the charitable car donation programs?

The federal government already had a program that would give a tax break in exchange for a car donation to the Salvation Army, etc.

The cars were then given to low-income individuals so they could get to work.

So I’m sure that took a hit. Which would be mentioned if this were a Republican idea to bail out a multi-billion dollar corporation, wouldn’t it?

But it was a Democrat idea that left the poor without transport, so hard cheese.

By: Margee

Margee — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:18:22 +0000

Efficiency (or lack thereof) is the story from Cash for Clunkers. If this is as fast as the government can process 4 page claims, what will happen with healthcare?

By: MayorDaley

MayorDaley — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:18:17 +0000

Nice work, LaHood. Let me guess, Bill Cellini was the brains behind this cash cow, right? Hey Ray, I don’t see William Cellini around no more. He hangin’ out in D.C. these days, Ray? Or has be been hangin’ with the Feds? Just sayin’ …….

By: venividivici

venividivici — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:18:15 +0000

You keep talking about “lessons” as though Obama and Co. actually care.

Think of the “lessons” as “torpedoes” and Obama yelling “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” because that’s what appears to be happening.

By: seven

seven — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 18:16:16 +0000

Obama inherited these clunkers built under the exploited labor during the first Bush Administration.

Looks like Obama had to step in and ration reimbursement to greedy filthy rich big car dealers.