I was dubious about the Cash For Clunkers program when it was announced. I understand the desire to get really old, trashy, polluting cars off the road and help get auto sales going but the logic wasn't quite there to me. If you had the money to spend on a new car (even with subsidies) would you have a really old, nasty polluting car? I think not, hence the program brought in lots of cars that weren't really all that bad.
Anyway, a retrospective analysis shows that it wasn't a terribly worthwhile program. It seems to have influenced the timing of purchases rather than stimulating new purchases and it took a lot of ok cars off the road that has since resulted in higher prices in the used car market due to lower supply. Good magazine has an overview: http://www.good.is/post/more-bad-news-about-cash-for-clunkers And they link to a well written article in the Boston Globe: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/09/01/clunkers_a_classic_government_folly/ I'm not familiar with their conservative op-ed guy Jeff Jacoby. This was a nicely written piece and lays things out logically. I'm going to have to try and keep track of other stuff he writes. Cheers, Judah ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology-Michael-Dinowitz/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:326881 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
