Would you pay $24,000 for any of these clunkers?There has been increasing speculation that "Cash for Clunkers" - which was essentially a limited trial run at ObamaCare, complete with delays, hidden taxes, wasteful spending and the forced euthanasia of thousands of perfectly usable cars - was a failure.
Here's more evidence that one of the few self-proclaimed successes of the Obama Administration was, indeed, a failure:
A total of 690,000 new vehicles were sold under the Cash for Clunkers program last summer, but only 125,000 of those were vehicles that would not have been sold anyway, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the automotive Web site Edmunds.com.
The average rebate was $4,000. But the overwhelming majority of sales would have taken place anyway at some time in the last half of 2009, according to Edmunds.com. That means the government ended up spending about $24,000 each for those 125,000 additional vehicle sales.While auto sales in September were hurt because auto dealership inventories were drained of products by the program, sales this month are already back on track or better, Pipas said. "I think the October sales results will show Clunkers is behind us and there's no more payback or inventories issues."
Emunds.com's projection indicates that, without Cash for Clunkers, October's sales increase would be even higher.
Source: CNN
But wait, it gets worse! At least according to Vincent Fernando and Kamelia Angelova of BusinessInsider.com:
If anyone mentions the just-released 3.5% U.S. third quarter GDP growth, just throw this chart in their face. Cash for Clunkers clearly distorted the U.S. economic figures in an unsustainable fashion.
According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), motor vehicle output spiked a seasonally-adjusted 157.6% quarter on quarter. This is completely unprecedented. Vehicle output is clearly going off a cliff next quarter. The question will be how low can the blue line below go.
Source: BusinessInsider.com
