Used Car Prices Rise After "Cash for Clunkers" Program.

Take two:

They fully intended to force poor people into mass transit.

Having the ability to go anywhere you want, any time you want is simply too much personal freedom to allow a mere citizen to have.

Everyone needs to be pushed into government controlled slums, ride government controlled transportation to their government approved jobs, draw their government approved wages, and pay nearly everything they make to the government in taxes, buy only government approved products and services at government set prices with the pittance the government allows them to “keep”, and die in government controlled “longevity centers” when they are too broken to work.

It’s the liberals’ concept of heaven-on-earth...

Another liberal program with unintended consequences that ends up hurting the very people it purported to help.

Cash-for-Clunkers wasn't intended to help the poor. It was intended to help the auto industry. Since the program also expected consumers to finance the rest of their new car purchases by borrowing, it may also have been intended to help the banking sector by enticing consumers back into debt.

There was no net gain from CfC; it merely redistributed money from one part of the economy to the auto industry. The auto industry's financial gain was the rest of the economy's financial loss.

Actually, there was a net loss. While the automakers' dollar-gain equals the rest of the economy's dollar-loss, the loss in the supply of used cars through physical destruction is real. The resulting spike in used car prices will mean one of two things: (i) low income consumers who would have purchased a used car before CfC will no longer do so (that's a loss to the used car market); or (ii) low income consumers will stretch their finances and buy a higher-priced used car, but only by cutting back somewhere else -- perhaps no vacation, or less additional education, or no summer camp for their kids, or fewer home appliances, etc. (losses to those markets, respectively).

These foregone purchases -- opportunity costs in economics jargon -- are real costs to the economy, and represent a real decrease in wealth and standard of living.

Your foresight was correct.

Which do you sell, New or Used? I’ve bought more Used cars than New in my time and usually get lower cost of ownership using that route. Of course, aside from going over it with a fine-toothed comb, myself, I always have a mechanic look at any vehicle before I buy it.

Lose-Lose for everyone except those Dealers and a few people that got a steal on a cheap econobox.

Most dealers are not going to make out on this either. Good used bones on a new dealers used car lot can bring in a good profit. Contrary to popular beleif most new car dealerships do not make money in the new car department. They make it in parts adn service and used cars.

The supply of bones just went down 700,000. There will be fewer good used bones that the dealer will will be able to trade for or buy at auction. Since good bones are now more scarce there will be less to sell at a good profit and less for the poor folks to buy at affordable prices.

Spent thirty+ years in the business and this is precisely what I said was going to happen. This is what happens when people who have never run a lemonade stand think they can run a business or a country.

Yep, and you were right. We currently have three very solid and still nice looking cars that were all purchased used. Their combined mileage is right around 460,000. Don't know if we'll be able to find another when the time comes. Sad state of affairs in the U.S.

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