Via Doug Mataconis, Jaybird gets to eat a nice big plate of “I Told You So” over Cash-For-Clunkers.
Says the article:
In his 20 years in the business, salesman Mark Sauer has never had a tougher time finding inexpensive used cars.
“It’s never been this bad,” said Sauer, buyer and sales manager of Vaccaro’s Auto Buyers of Reading, 805 Hiesters Lane.
The trend is occurring nationally as well.
The Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index reported that prices reached record highs in September. The consulting firm that publishes the index blamed low inventories.
That’s bad news in Berks, where many shoppers seek inexpensive, used vehicles, especially during difficult economic times, said George Tabakelis, general manager of Perry Auto Service & Sales on Route 61 in Perry Township.
****
“You used to be able to find a decent car for $2,500, and you can’t anymore, especially in the past two months,” said Arie Garcia, the association’s office manager.Another problem is that used-vehicle prices have quickly risen above their book values, making it tougher for customers to secure financing, Garcia said.
“Cash for clunkers really hurt the used-car industry,” she said. “I think it hurt more people than it helped.”
Hooray for stimulus!
Will Truman 
Teacher 
Burt Likko 
Mary 
James K 
Jaybird 
Tod Kelly 
Borat: “I do a picture, only small, of the Tishnik Masacre. Where many Uzbeks…crushed!”
Kindly Gray Hippie: “How did you feel when you drew this?”
Borat: “Very proud!”.
KGH: “I’m just listening with sadness…a little sadness for your people…?”
Borat: “Yes…no, it is not sad. It is us who do the kill!”
When in doubt,
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Awesome.
I can’t wait for the White House response to this one.
I’ll bet they’ll accuse Mark of being from Mars.
At least they tried!
Better to have done nothing than screw things up in a different way. You heard the first rumbling of this occurring during the program when folks complained about having the junk perfectly good engines and other parts that could have been resold.
Perhaps it would have worked if the Republicans didn’t undercut it.
So now the laws of economics are republicans fault? How did they undercut the program, by not giving it $10 billion dollars to waste?
They started a war in Iraq.
What if anything does that have to do with cash for clunkers?
Scott ol’ shoe, I think you’re being played.
Wow. All the smug concern-trolling today is really incentivizing my continued reading of this blog.
Perhaps we could lobby for the government to pay someone to pay someone to pay someone to pay you to write an essay explaining how Cash for Clunkers was supposed to work in theory and how Republicans screwed it up and kept it from working the way it was supposed to.
So Cash-for-Clunkers had no negative unintended consequences? Or am I just not allowed to discuss them because I don’t have a (D) next to my name?
You’re allowed to do whatever you want. It’s a free country. Shockingly, the Democrats haven’t ruined that yet. But give them time.
Yet you’re here.
Not any more. This will be my last comment on any of today’s posts.
Could we get a working definition of “concern trolling”?
The cynical definition I used to have is “not being on board despite claims to lifelong party membership” but don’t see how that definition applies as used above.
Can we table that discussion by agreeing to convert “smug concern-trolling” to “snotty smugness”? It doesn’t really matter what you call it; it remains the fact that this place has been a crushing bore today for anyone who deviates even slightly from the conservative economic line.
In the future, I shall keep in mind to censor my opinions for the sake of those who may disagree with me.
Somehow I doubt that.
So is this the left’s version of “you’re cheering because soldiers are dying in Iraq”?
No, this is Ryan’s version of, “Please say something interesting because I’m getting bored listening to everyone always regurgitating talking points.” I didn’t accuse anyone of any kind of moral weakness.
I think we found Matoko’s replacement.
Talking points?
Argh, that’s a tactic I hate. “You don’t really have this position, you’re just repeating it.”
Here’s what I wrote wayback when:
http://www.ordinary-gentlemen.com/2009/08/the-unintended-consequences-of-economic-populism/
That’s July.
Go to the bottom half of the page… that’s where my essays are.
I wrote those. Myself. They are not “talking points”.
Jesus Christ.
Do you believe that it is theoretically *POSSIBLE* to honestly come to a conclusion other than the one you’ve come to? Do you really think that the people who don’t agree with you are in some sort of conspiracy where one guy comes up with something to say and hands it out and everybody else starts parroting it?
It’s also worth nothing that you were right about shifting sales forward.
Though in a purely misery loves company sense, I love that the nation is using California-esque gimmicks ala Cash for Clunker.
I read somewhere that we could have spent the same amount of money as the stimulus by just not collecting income taxes for a fixed period of time with the added bonus of having multipliers throughout the economy.
Wouldacouldashoulda.
but that would’ve been regressive…THE HORROR…the horror.
Hm. My working definition is ‘pretending to fret that some action of members of party A might turn out to hurt party A, when in fact the fretter is opposed to party A’.
But I think we’ve reached the point where ‘glibertarian concern troll’ has become the non plus ultra of content-free political insults. I intend to employ it slavishly. “Noted glibertarian concern-troll E.D. Kain opines. . ‘ etc. Good times.
Can opposition to Cash 4 Clunkerz be, like, opposition to money being spent poorly?
I mean, if I am a Secret Republican Operative (or SRO), and I show up and scream about spending money that won’t be spent well or wisely or usefully and scream about how it’s going to end up doing more harm than good and then when the money turns out to not have been spent well or wisely or usefully and, yep, it looks like more harm was done than good, painting that as something that only someone opposed to the Democrats would focus on strikes me as… well, it strikes me as a pretty goddamn effective way to change the subject.
Hrm. I may have to rethink this.
Was that intended as a reply to me? I wasn’t accusing anyone of being a concern troll. I thought we were having a conversation about vapid political insults.
I don’t have an opinion, at all, about Cash for Clunkers, because the only thing I know about it is that my 70K Subaru Outback didn’t qualify, and that if it would have I’m slightly more likely to have bought a new VW Rabbit. Which might make me a glibertarian. I really don’t know. My opinion of your opinion of Cash for Clunkers is that I approve of your having it and it seems well thought out.
I concur.
I’m probably just yelly today.
Hm. My working definition is ‘pretending to fret that some action of members of party A might turn out to hurt party A, when in fact the fretter is opposed to party A’.
That’s how I see it.
The jaw dropper for me on concern trolling was Joe Klein and Fox News. I mean, did he really have to use the term sedition? That was just nuts.
The effect on Cash for Clunkers for thrifty used cars should be minimal. Those typically get above 18mph and thus are not among those being destroyed. They shouldn’t be driving the prices up except on used cars that were getting poor mileage which tend to either be bigger vehicles or muscular ones. Not cars that were selling for $2500 in yesteryear.
There is no doubt that cash for clunkers has caused a significant increase in the price of used cars. It has also caused a significant decrease in revenue from car donation.
The funny thing is that prices of used vehicles have been increasing for over a year. While it would be convenient to blame cash for clunkers, the real reason is much more mundane: during recessions there is a substitution from new cars to late model used cars in an effort to save money.
So you don’t think that cash for clunkers exacerbated that trend b/c it distorted the market?
In a small segment of the used car market, perhaps. The “late model used cars” weren’t eligible for C4C, so not much effect there. If anything, C4C helped by pushing people to buy new cars and thus lowering the demand for LMU and creating a greater supply for used cars.
For old used cars, the effect is likely primarily limited to those vehicles available for C4C, which doesn’t really include the “college cars” (as I understand them to be) referred to in the article. The only effect on small old used cars is a cascading effect of people buying an Escort when otherwise they might have bought a Taurus (the latter eligible for C4C, but the former not).
I should have just looked at the original. It was an anecdote from a couple looking to buy a minivan. What a joke! As if anyone should expect them to have any sort of expertise on what is “expensive” or what things were like compared to a year ago. Back when I sold cars, they were all too expensive. The final deal was always “more than I expected to pay.”
My father and I bought a used car earlier this year, from CarMax. It was a GM, a year-old post-rental Chevrolet Cobalt with a lot of options (pretty much everything but a spoiler, chrome wheels, and Sirius XM). It was less than $11,000, and gets about 30 mpg average. The payments are only about $115 a month, comparable to my summer electric bill.
I agree that it wasn’t such a great policy (it certainly could have been structured better), but I’m with Trumwill. IMO the biggest reason for an increase in the (upfront) cost of used cars is that crappy cars are worth less. You would end up paying enough more on gas and maintenance to make up the difference, especially since just about nobody (especially the poor-but-not-too-poor-to-afford-a-car) pays the whole thing upfront.
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