Remember That 'Cash For Clunkers' Program?

How did that work out for you?



It’s not like there’s a market out there for Corvettes or anything like that. Or even a family who could have bought a used Volvo.

Anyway, the program is done for now and the numbers are in. And they are not good. C4C is functionally worse than the Broken Window parable. At least the kid broke the window on accident. The Clunker’s program encouraged people to purposely throw bricks through their windows, in a figurative way.

Cash for Clunkers was one of the more economically poor decisions in a long time

• By facilitating the purposeful destruction of the car’s engine, easily the most expensive part of the car.
• It eliminated the supply of secondary sales of said car.
• People would trade in good cars for the financial burden of a new car in the middle of the worst recession since Jimmy Carter.

Even by a green liberal standard, it was a bad policy. Used cars have already made their carbon footprint. By destroying the used car, the program had people buying new cars that came with a new carbon footprint. And when sodium silicate was poured into the engine, it would lubricate the pistons until it heated up and turned to glass, seizing the engine. If the program was really for the environment, recycling the engine and other parts would have been a better idea.

Not quite reduce, reuse and recycle.

Cross posted at The Richmond Liberty Alliance.