“Cash for Clunkers”

A post by Maynard

Tammy spoke of the “Cash for Clunkers” program. I think the topic is worthy of a highlight, in that it exemplifies everything that’s insanely wrong with the trend of our economic “recovery” programs. (I’m going to be lazy and skip citations for this post, because I don’t think they’re necessary. You know what I’m talking about; the news is full of it.)

The idea of “Cash for Clunkers” is to encourage auto sales while ridding the highway of gas guzzlers. The government sweetens the pot with a few billion dollars (borrowed from China, to be repaid by your grandchildren), and everyone does the right thing. The economy improves, we use less oil, life is beautiful. Who could argue with that?

Okay, first of all, I’ve previously rejected the premise that we can “stimulate” (that is, “consume”) our way back to prosperity. America’s fundamental problem is we’re out of balance: Too much consumption, too little production, too few dollars saved and invested. This imbalance is bridged by imports and borrowing, which leads to a debt bubble. Bubbles always deflate sooner or later; the best you can hope for (and work for) is a gradual easing rather than a catastrophic burst.

It’s terribly ironic to see the candidate who promised “change” has nothing to offer but more of the same bad policies that made the mess in the first place. Borrowing money to fuel a consumption binge, while it may provide a small and temporary restoration of business as usual, actually adds fuel to the long-term problem.

Consider what “Cash for Clunkers” is supposed to accomplish. In a nutshell, the goal is to take working cars and trash them. Doesn’t that sound just a little bit weird when you think about it? The nation is hurting economically, so we take some of our stuff and destroy it, on the theory that we’ll become more prosperous by rebuilding the stuff that we intentionally demolished. If that makes sense, then the 9/11 terrorists did us a hell of a favor by knocking down buildings. Gosh, think of all the construction jobs they generated! Maybe we should bomb our own buildings as part of the restoration program.

Our leaders are hailing “Cash for Clunkers” as a triumph, and auto sales have picked up a notch. But that’s not surprising. The government’s essentially giving away free money; it’s no surprise the funds were immediately exhausted. But hey, there’s always more where that came from. If our grandkids are now broke, we can move on to our great-grandkids.

Okay, so in a time of hardship, the nation is squandering its remaining wealth. But at least it’s green, right? If we’re beggaring ourselves, isn’t it for a green planet?

No it’s not! Dammit, the greenest thing you can do with a clunker is to keep it running. It takes a *lot* of resources to build a new car, and relatively few resources to keep a good car running. So you’re actively harming the environment by trashing a working car and building another…even if the new car gets better mileage. The “green” thing to do is to nurse your car along, and maybe try to drive it less. When your clunker car has reached the end of its life and you’re contemplating a new purchase…that’s the time to think “green”.

The foregoing is basic economics and common sense. But not enough people see what’s happening because the programs are complicated, and they sound wonderful and noble on the surface. So we let the insane fools lead us because too many people are scratching their heads and figuring something ought to be done, and this plan sounds almost reasonable.

I don’t know what else to say. Our political leadership, in a time of crisis, has chosen the path of economic and ecological suicide, not to mention child sacrifice.