Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Watch Perfectly Good Assets Being Destroyed



From Brad Smith at Division of Labour:

Thanks to the glories of YouTube, we can watch as the government mandates the destruction of perfectly good automobiles to "help the economy." Here is a very nice 1990s Dodge Dakota 4X4 being destroyed. It is a much better vehicle than my pick up truck.

This is a Corvette that looks to be in pretty good condition. Black, pretty sharp car. I'm sure there are a lot of young men crammed into 2001 Malibus who would have liked this car.

In this video, a '98 Cadillac DeVille with less than 80,000 miles meets its end. Just 68,000 miles on this Chevy Caprice wagon.

A nice looking 2001 Mazda light truck with 75,000 miles bites the dust here. Here's a good looking Volvo prematurely destroyed. This SUV would look at home in any tony U.S. suburb.

Really, you ought to look at at least a couple of these videos, and the hundreds more like them on YouTube. Are these "clunkers?" Can it really help the economy to destroy perfectly good assets? Are the people running the government the most economically illiterate bunch since FDR ruled the roost? Or are they dumber?

Originally posted at Carpe Diem.


30 Comments:

At 8/25/2009 9:02 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

People still think there is a free lunch. But the taxpayers are paying...

 
At 8/25/2009 9:19 AM, Anonymous John said...

A nation cannot become wealthy by, as you put it, destroying perfectly good assets.

I'm not happy that money I earned was given away to people who wanted to buy a newer car.

 
At 8/25/2009 9:25 AM, Blogger threecollie said...

This is sickening. We are driving tired old trucks or getting by without. No way to turn them in on the program due to being unable to afford even a cheap new one. So they are killing trucks that are better than any we own and perfectly good cars at our expense. Sickening

 
At 8/25/2009 9:39 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This pisses me off. If I were running for office, I'd use some of this footage and some of the headlines about how horribly the program was run in my campaign ads...

Amazing how you can get a bunch of overconfident geniuses in a room in Washington DC (who think that they can steer a $14 trillion economy), and their brilliant idea is "cash for clunkers."

 
At 8/25/2009 9:46 AM, Blogger Ken Braun said...

That corvette video is five minutes of pure torture to watch: Deliberately burning out a perfectly good high performance engine in a car that every 14 year old American kid dreams of driving.

And we say the Taliban blowing up Buddha statues was evidence of THEIR barbarism.

Ugly stuff.

 
At 8/25/2009 10:02 AM, Anonymous Junkyard_hawg1985 said...

"Are the people running the government the most economically illiterate bunch since FDR ruled the roost? Or are they dumber?"

That is two tough questions. The C4C policy is certainly awful, but it is also consistent with other actions in the stimulus. Locally, we have repaved perfectly good highways. We have destroyed a useable economic asset (asphalt) in the name of stimulus.

FDR did equally dumb things. Two that come to mind are plowing under perfectly good cotton, and pouring out great quantities of milk for price supports. This was at a time people were struggling to feed and clothe themselves.

At this point, I will have to conclude that the answer to question #1 is "Yes." They are more economically illeterate than any administration since FDR. I think I'll answer question #2 as "to be determined." Obama still has plenty of time to screw up more stuff in the economy.

 
At 8/25/2009 11:30 AM, Anonymous Benny The True Man said...

Let's see, we have spent about $1 trillion in Iraq, and we are spending about $1 billion a day in Afghanie, Pakistan and Iraq. The waste and destruction dwarfs the auto clunker program by a factor of several hundred to one.
The right-wing is walking monkey-step these days, ignoring huge realities to focus on toothpick-sized problems here and there.
The clunker program was not the best idea. At the bottom of a recession, given current context, it was not the worst idea--and about 1/1000th as bad an idea as our ongoing follies in the Iraq and the 'stans.

 
At 8/25/2009 12:36 PM, Blogger SBVOR said...

"Are the people running the government the most economically illiterate bunch since FDR ruled the roost? Or are they dumber?"

Dumber, by FAR!

The inmates are running the asylum.

 
At 8/25/2009 12:43 PM, Blogger SBVOR said...

A fella who once described himself as a Communist is supposedly the “brains” behind Cash For Clunkers. He is now Obama’s Green Jobs Czar. His name is Van Jones.

Click here for the video clip.

 
At 8/25/2009 12:52 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"it was not the worst idea--and about 1/1000th as bad an idea as our ongoing follies in the Iraq and the 'stans"...

Its nice to know that Benny The pseudo marketing Man still hasn't figured out how to read and understand the Constitution...LMAO!

Do some homework will ya!

 
At 8/25/2009 2:34 PM, Blogger QT said...

Benny,

Cash for clunkers is just a poster child for one of the worst administrations to come along in decades.

GWB is old news. Take a look at some of the present news:

Obama caves in to Russia on the European missile defence sheild

White House Raises Long-Term Deficit Forecast

CBO projects that the U.S. national debt will nearly double over the next 10 years

Obama's plans to reform the financial system

Is it time to get out the crap pants?

 
At 8/25/2009 2:35 PM, Blogger SBVOR said...

1,

I just added your link to my post titled:

Iraq War Media Deceptions 101

Thanks,
SBVOR

 
At 8/25/2009 2:50 PM, Blogger juandos said...

Hey SBVOR, I have to give props to the dude that runs the Wiz blog for his hard work...

If you got the time cruise on over to Hayes - Saddam and al Qaeda...

Some of the links may no longer be functional...

 
At 8/25/2009 2:54 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"Is it time to get out the crap pants?"...

Well QT considering my own experiences in Chicago and what I knew of Barry Sotero it was time for the 'crap pants' as soon as the Dems bought into his line of crap...

 
At 8/25/2009 3:24 PM, Blogger SBVOR said...

1,

Thanks, I added your most recent link as well.

SBVOR

 
At 8/25/2009 3:58 PM, Blogger QT said...

1,

You have to wonder about the priorities when Obama cuts missile defence by 1.4 Billion but funds Cash for Clunkers and Acorn. Apparently, Obama was willing to cancel the European missile defence shield in return for cooperation from Russia on Iran.

One wonders what was given up for this? Dictators don't just want photo ops with Bill Clinton or Micky Mouse.

 
At 8/25/2009 4:19 PM, Blogger SBVOR said...

1,

We both knew before he was elected that this country would be lucky to survive the one term Obama administration.

The Dims will lose the Congress in 2010. They know that as well as anybody. And, that is one of many reasons they are signing as many 1,000+ page sets of tyrannical legislation as fast as they can without even reading them.

I now wonder if the country will survive 2 years of a Dim supermajority.

I documented in this post the structural damage done by previous Dim supermajorities. This one is shaping up to be far, FAR worse.

But, we both knew it would.

 
At 8/25/2009 5:15 PM, Blogger pkd said...

Perfectly Good Assets? Nonsense. These gas guzzlers had outlived their usefulness and deserved to be destroyed. Now let's think about what (& whom) we should get rid of next...

 
At 8/25/2009 9:14 PM, Blogger KO said...

Only the government can pay $4,500 several hundred thousand times, get nothing back and have people call it a success.

At least with $600 toilet seats, the government got a toilet seat.

But just to keep someone else from benefiting further from the program, no one can resell an operating car. What would have been wrong with selling them on consignment with some cut for the government? CO2 reduction is a BS explanation since new car manufacturing releases boatloads of CO2.

 
At 8/25/2009 9:28 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Those 'nonsense' assets, pkd, are worth three times as much as spare parts. If you understood that the CO2 produced with those vehicles is a sunk cost and the vehicles replacing them are NEW CO2 emissions, you'd understand those 'clunkers' were the environmentally friendly choice.

When you consider that all these sales did was move future purchases to the present, you'll realize we got almost no additional cars out of it in the long run either. It was a massive waste of resources and a transfer of our tax dollars to auto makers.

If forced to achieve Obama's objectives, in a day I could have designed a system which would have sold more cars, reduced more CO2, and wasted fewer valuable resources. Too bad Obama and his team know nothing about economics or the environment.

You're entitled to uninformed opinions. You're not entitled to false facts.

 
At 8/25/2009 10:05 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

This program was a joke. First this program was so poorly constructed not even 5% of dealers have been paid as of today. Second there should have been restrictions stating you only could buy an AMERICAN car. If you look at the link below it shows Toyota and Honda selling more cars than American companies. Third, instead of destroying the older cars why not give them to charity. Give them to a person that needs to take their kids to school. Lastly, why take a car that is worth something and crush it nor nothing? Sell it for parts. Sell it for scrap medal. The government should not try and lose all $3500-$4500. If the government runs out of money in one month for a so called simple program how do you expect them to run our Healthcare.
http://www.cashforclunkersfacts.com/20090628-toyota-cars-lead-cash-for-clunkers-stats/

 
At 8/26/2009 4:19 AM, Blogger juandos said...

"Those 'nonsense' assets, pkd, are worth three times as much as spare parts. If you understood that the CO2 produced with those vehicles is a sunk cost and the vehicles replacing them are NEW CO2 emissions, you'd understand those 'clunkers' were the environmentally friendly choice"...

Oh dear! Yet another clueless 'save the earth' types...

CO2 is good for you... Its only because of CO2 you have something to eat...

What's next? Railing against water vapor?

 
At 8/26/2009 4:30 AM, Blogger juandos said...

Hey QT, personally I have a hard time thinking that Barry Sotero really cared about two alledged reporters who were employed by one of Al Gore's enterprises...

Maybe I'm being excessivly cynical about Sotero but something as simple as school choice had no political upsides for him which leads me to believe that unless there was something about those two supposed reporters that had a political upside he would've cared less...

Do you think Obama really wanted to give slick willie some more lime light?

I don't know but I'm guessing not...

 
At 8/26/2009 7:18 AM, Anonymous Ian Random said...

Yo, Benny the true man.

Why don't you also point out we spend $600 billion on K-12 education? I think we are almost getting to the point where we spend more on Defense than Education.

 
At 8/26/2009 9:38 AM, Blogger QT said...

1,

Agree that it is difficult to imagine Obama caring about 2 reporters. The issue seems to be more about optics. ie. a hostile regime holding American citizens (think Iran hostage crisis) reflects poorly on the sitting president.

Although Obama did not seem to be smiling too broadly when Clinton scooped him, allowing the situation to drag on was politically too dangerous. Unfortunately, he has let the world know that a paper tiger inhabits the white house although from the apologies and concessions to Russia & the far left, most casual observers would likely have concluded the same.

 
At 8/26/2009 10:01 AM, Blogger QT said...

1,

Not sure if you are still on this thread. Thought you might enjoy this:

Obama's Summer of Discontent

 
At 8/26/2009 4:55 PM, Blogger juandos said...

Hey QT, no arguments here: "The issue seems to be more about optics. ie. a hostile regime holding American citizens (think Iran hostage crisis) reflects poorly on the sitting president"...

I can almost see Jimmy Carter sitting in one of his 'hovels for humanoids' chuckling over that whole fiasco...

Regarding Fouad Ajami's commentary this morning and it both humerous and telling...

Especially this part: 'The failure of the Carter years was, in Reagan's view, the failure of the man at the helm and the policies he had pursued at home and abroad. At no time had Ronald Reagan believed that the American covenant had failed, that America should apologize for itself in the world beyond its shores'...

Well Obama has more problems, problems that will cost most everyone more money either now or sometime in the near future...

From Mark Tapscott at the Examiner: Obama's 09 deficit exceeds all eight years of Bush red ink

 
At 8/26/2009 8:52 PM, Blogger QT said...

1,

Say it ain't so. Those numbers are frightening.

9 Trillion would however appear optimistic particularly given the assumption by the Obama administration of a trend-stationary processs for GDP.

I think we are pretty much on the same page here. It's tea time.

 
At 8/27/2009 4:15 AM, Blogger juandos said...

"I think we are pretty much on the same page here"...

Yeah, I guess so... Bummer, eh?

Thank you Brian Riedl: Bigger Government and Higher Taxes

 
At 8/31/2009 10:45 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I watched the 2001 Mazda B3000 get toasted in less than 10 seconds after startup. My old car has the same engine with 250,000 miles.
I could have traded my engine for this, and gotten better mileage because the Mazda is so much newer.
This is stupidity on steroids.
The Mazda would NOT have qualified under the original EPA mileage sticker. It was rated at 19mpg, but dropped to 17 with the new ratings.
Anyone owning a 1985 F150 would have taken the Mazda in a swap, and gotten 20% better gas mileage, but not with the drooling dimwits we have in DC who wouldn't know a camshaft from a cucumber.
IDIOCY!
tomw

 

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