…and now extending the idiocy to cars:
Turn in old cars. It’s long been a talking point of liberals and environmentalists that cars older than a given age should be removed from the highways. The usual mantra goes “The government should buy all cars older than X and pay the owner $750. Then the owner could go out and buy a newer, cleaner, more efficient car.” The advocates for this position either fail or refuse to understand that the owners will not be able to find a car to buy with their $750. Basic economics.
At least the gun buybacks, stupid as they are, offer a reasonable amount of money for the hardware, particularly given that many of those turned in are non functional. I suspect that if the government implements such a program for cars, they’ll get a lot of undriveable clunkers, but very few useful automobiles.
Unless, of course, they make us an offer we can’t refuse. That would, after all, be the Chicago way.
Hmm, turn in the classic Mustang I’ve spent countless hours restoring for $750 towards a Government Motors matchbox car? Sure, where do I sign up?
/sarc
What about the thrifty who choose to buy older, but well maintained vehicles? Next to housing costs, transportation is usually the second largest budget item in a household. So the government wants to force me into even more debt? No thanks!
I know this is happening to some degree. Last November, I was looking for a car at a Honda dealership. I wanted just a used car at a low price. I saw an older CRV model that I liked (in a back lot area), but was told it was in a buyback program by the state to get older models out of the fleet. I didn’t get to drive it, so I don’t know what condition the motor was in, but the car looked like it was well maintained.
Otherwise, I find the claim made by Paxety a bit over-reaching. I know Obama reads teleprompters, and teleprompters don’t just use words unwisely. However, turn in sounds like a simple substitute for trade in.
Certainly though, it seems there is an effort to encourage trade ins. And that should be a concern. After all, the housing mess was started with a desire to get more people in to new homes and first homes. People, who had no financial business buying a home, and should have been encouraged to learn to save rather than take on larger debt. Convincing people who have affordable used cars to trade them in for a new car with better milesage, but not necessarily cheaper operating costs, is a recipe for another bust.
Was the turn-in value really cited as $750?
If so, the only cars that will get turned in will be barely drivable clunkers. Do these politicians really think people will go for this? I am aware of all of the jokes about the cluelessness of the political class, but this is really over the top.
The ’87 Ford Aerostar that some years back had stranded my parents in Canada with a transmission breakdown, which has only 40,000 miles on it but leaks 1) radiator fluid, 2) transmission fluid, 3) brake fluid, and 4) gasoline just got its registration renewed for another year and its insurance for another 6 months. A knew that thing would come in handy some day.
Seriously folks, what the buy back or the cash-for-clunkers misses is that the only people who buy new cars and keep them until the wheels fall off are Engineering professors. A fellow at the U drove his Honda for 20 years until a rusted tie rod broke off and, you guessed it, a wheel fell off on Midvale Blvd.
In the “real world” you have a vehicle food chain. There are people who like the new car smell and purchase or lease and then trade in their new cars, there are people who settle for the first-owner used cars, working one’s way down the chain to the people who drive junkers.
Are there really a lot of new car people out there who keep a car 8 or 9 years?
“Are there really a lot of new car people out there who keep a car 8 or 9 years?”
Actually, yes. My spouse and I kept our new cars until they began to not just “nickel & dime” us, but actual “50s and 100s” us. Mine was over 10 years old when I gave it to a family that desperately needed another vehicle, and the husband does his own maintenance. Its still running strong.
Are there really a lot of new car people out there who keep a car 8 or 9 years?
Hell, yes. I’ve never bought a used car, and I only buy new ones every 10 years, on average, and after 130,000 miles. A new car that you maintain yourself gives you its best value between 5 and 10 years, when it’s yours free and clear, the depreciation curve has flattened out, and it’s stll mechanically sound. Sell before 5 years and you’re paying through the nose for the “new car smell.” Keep it much longer than 10 years and the upkeep costs and the costs of being way behind the technology start to kill you.
Next to housing costs, transportation is usually the second largest budget item in a household.
No, actually taxes are the biggest budget item. Interesting that you forget that, isn’t it? That’s what clever social engineering — e.g. a “withholding” tax on income — can do, make you spend close to half your waking life laboring for shitheads in Washington, so they can pay off their favorite interest groups, and still think your biggest burden is your rent, car payment, and gasoline.
Let’s see .. I currently have two vehicles:
– 1995 BMW R1100RT motorcycle, bought new, 120,000 km. 45 mpg city, 60 mpg highway.
– 1995 Subaru Legacy 250T wagon, bought used from Japan with 98,000 km in 2001, now 225,000. 25 mpg city, 32 mpg highway.
They’re both 14 years old, have both required only minor maintenance (other than a faulty head gasket on the Subaru in 2006), and I can’t see any reason why I’d want to replace either one in the next five years. And I suspect if you ask me in five years I’ll still say the same thing 🙂 I’ve had seven other motorcycles and two other cars, but these guys are keepers.
I drive a sparkling, carefully maintained ’66 Chevy Malibu that gets 20 miles to the gallon two miles to work and back each day. She’s staying with me.
After he’s gotten rid of inefficient older vehicles with his “fleet modernization legislation” no doubt he’ll be dispatching useless elderly citizens with his universal health care coverage.
Renew! Renew!
How can you be against Carousel?