Posted on 08/14/2009 8:52:14 PM PDT by The Magical Mischief Tour
RICHMOND, Va. -- One man's clunker is another man's meal ticket. Mom and Pop used-car dealers are feeling the crunch as the old Caravans and Cherokees that provide their livelihood get traded in and banished to junkyards under Cash for Clunkers. By some estimates, three of every five of the used cars turned in for government rebates would have ended up on used car lots or resold for parts. While the Clunkers program helped push sales of new cars in July to the highest level in nearly a year, sales of used cars have taken a beating. "We're struggling and a lot of us small guys are going out of business," said James Dameron, sales and finance manager at Chase Motors in suburban Richmond, where sales are down about 30 percent.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsmv.com ...
In these times of economic uncertainty how many people would much rather buy a $1500 car and pay cash for it as opposed to financing a $15,000 car?
At least if they lose their job they can still keep the $1500 car they bought.
Liberals don’t get the “unintended consequence” concept...
What proportion of the typical used car lot’s inventory was “clunkers” before the CARS program, anyhow? Locally, the bulk of what I see on used car lots wouldn’t qualify.
Sorry, since poverty is to be eliminated, the working poor must register for end-of-life counseling at once.
The "unintended consequences" may well not be so "unintended" as you might think. Don't forget that the radical greenies are working hand in hand with Oh-Bummer. Their goal is to end private motor vehicle ownership in this country, with everyone but the "elites" using strictly mass-transit. Getting rid of low-cost used cars would figure into this scheme, to be sure...
the infowarrior
Hey Congress, your central planning skills suck.
Let them eat cake
Last year I was telling some boneheaded teenager that he didn’t need to save “at least” $4,000 for a used car, when there were so many old beaters selling on CraigsList for $500 a pop.
So much for that advice, these days. Now his $4,000 figure is just about right for what’s selling there now. The only $500 car on the front page is a ‘95 Ford Escort wagon which “needs work to pass inspection,” and a 20-year-old rust-bucket diesel pickup that doesn’t start.
Cheap deals and everyone rides, payments on a new car lower than on a new one, until they get repoed, but it sucks the life out of the used car sells. I pointed that out to a poster the other-day. In the short term, value of used cars will take a beating, except for the 1,000 jobs.
That's what J.D. Byrider is for. Gives those poor folks with bad credit the pleasure of driving a '99 Saturn with 180K miles for a low, low $279/month.
Yup, creating a car shortage so the poor need mass transit, or we have to get loans from the gov’t for our Govt Motors cars, and they make it look like they saved the auto industry.
Cash for Clunkers can do nothing about a “clunker” owned by somebody who wishes to sell it outright without buying anything new. How can it be vacuuming up anywhere close to all the “clunkers”?
More unintended consequences to follow...
1) Non-automobile retail sales were unexpectedly down 0.6% in July. It seems people are foregoing food and clothing to get in on the government cash give away.
2) Most clunkers are paid for; most new cars come with loan payments. The loan payments will further stress already stressed household budgets. Look for continued weak retail sales and more whining about not being able to pay the mortgage.
It’s scary to think that this is government’s idea of a highly successful program.
I wonder why, if they're interested in helping the environment, do they take cars that aren't running? A car that's not running is doing a lot of harm to the environment. Seems to me they would have required a car to be on the road so as to be one that would be taken off the road to benefit the air.
I would like to thank all you working people today for paying my unemployement and for my retraining as I go to school and get retrained for another career.
That’s the major irony here. Libs pretend to be the friend of the poor man but they stab him time and time again. In this case the primary beneficiaries are middle/upper income folks who bought explorers in the 90s (#1 clunker traded) and can easily afford to finance a new $20k car. Add some overpaid UAW workers who will squeak out a few more months of high wage benefits before the factory closes, though to be fair the foreign companies hold 6 of the top 10 replacement cars.
The major losers are used car repair and service, and the working poor who can’t afford or have credit to finance $20k new cars, and now will have to pay more for basic transport a/k/a clunkers. And of course the taxpayers.
BINGO
Leftist liberals are experts at preserving life in some ways while destroying it elsewhere. Enviromentalism vs. abortion and now cash for so-called clunkers-destroying a functioning automobile for a govt. subsidized new one.
Conservatives cut taxes and let people and business decide how to manage their own funds.
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