24k for each clunker???

[Trlsmn]

<broken link removed>

Cash for Clunkers Results Finally In: Taxpayers Paid $24,000 per Vehicle Sold, Reports Edmunds.com

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — October 28, 2009 — Edmunds.com, the premier resource for online automotive information, has determined that Cash for Clunkers cost taxpayers $24,000 per vehicle sold.

Nearly 690,000 vehicles were sold during the Cash for Clunkers program, officially known as CARS, but Edmunds.com analysts calculated that only 125,000 of the sales were incremental. The rest of the sales would have happened anyway, regardless of the existence of the program.

Ironically, the average transaction price for a new vehicle in August 2009 was only $26,915 minus an average cash rebate of $1,667.

"This analysis is valuable for two reasons," explained Edmunds.com CEO Jeremy Anwyl. "First, it can form the basis for a complete assessment of the program's impact and costs. Second—and more important—it can help us to understand the true state of auto sales and the economy. For example, October sales are up, but without Cash for Clunkers, sales would have been even better. This suggests that the industry's recovery is gaining momentum."

The chart below sets forth actual SAAR (Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate) compared to Edmunds.com's forecasted rate if the program had never been implemented.


"Our research indicates that without the Cash for Clunkers program, many customers would not have traded in an old vehicle when making a new purchase," Edmunds.com Senior Analyst David Tompkins, PhD told AutoObserver.com. "That may give some credence to the environmental claims, but unfortunately the economic claims have been rendered quite weak."

To conduct the analysis, the Edmunds.com team of PhDs and statisticians examined the sales trend for luxury vehicles and others not included in Cash for Clunkers, and applied the historic relationship of those vehicles to total SAAR to make informed estimates. These estimates were independently verified through careful examination of sales patterns reflected by transaction data. Once the numbers were determined, Edmunds.com's analysts divided three billion dollars by 125,000 vehicles to arrive at the average $24,000 per vehicle.

Coincidentally, a parallel analysis of the first-time homebuyer credit was reported yesterday by MIT Sloan Professor Simon Johnson and Yale law student James Kwak, who both blog about economics at The BaseLine Scenario.

Read More

 

[Jamie6.5]

And car sales have plummeted ever since. Smart change, really smart.
Yeah right!

 

[torpedoman]

Another bean counter who is working from all his "assumptions" Hey I'll assume that only one car sold because of the clunker program the rest were going to trade anyway so now the cost is 3 billion per unit sold. If he get to use his own made up numbers i do too. ALL STATISTICS ARE LIES.

 

[smithmax]

I think we'll have to wait until the next quarterly reports before we actually know if it made a difference. Instead of pure speculation on numbers that aren't released yet.

 

[bersaguy]

Another bean counter who is working from all his "assumptions" Hey I'll assume that only one car sold because of the clunker program the rest were going to trade anyway so now the cost is 3 billion per unit sold. If he get to use his own made up numbers i do too. ALL STATISTICS ARE LIES.

Whether it was 1 incremental sale as torpedoman suggests or 125,000 as the Edmunds study suggests, the conclusion is the same. It cost the US taxpayer a whole lot of money for those car deals. Cash for Clunkers did not create demand, it just pulled it forward into the current period. The people that bought those cars would have bought one anyway, maybe next month or six months from now. They just took advantage of "free" money from Uncle Sam.

 

[Trlsmn]

Another bean counter who is working from all his "assumptions" Hey I'll assume that only one car sold because of the clunker program the rest were going to trade anyway so now the cost is 3 billion per unit sold. If he get to use his own made up numbers i do too. ALL STATISTICS ARE LIES.

The math is so easy a cave man could do it.

Cars bought - cars that would have sold regardless = the cars sold because of the stimulus package.

Let me make it even more simple for you 3 billion dollars divided by the 128 million tax payers in the US equals about $24 ea that every American has to pay, but it's not that simple, that is money the US doesn't have so it must be borrowed with interest so by the time it's paid off it will be $50 for every last US tax payer!

I need a new car, I'm asking that all those in favor of the Obama stimulus plan to PM me for an address to send me, Trlsmn, $50 each as a token of your commitment to your ideals!

 

[dario541]

My old "clunker" still runs and gets me where I need to go, so I'm going save us taxpayers a lot of money and KEEP it!

 

[Chee-to]

Cash For Codgers

Democrats, realizing the failure of the President's "Cash For Clunkers" rebate program, have revamped a major portion of their National Health Care Plan and will try this next.........

President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Sen. Reed are expected to make this major announcement at a joint news conference later this week. I have obtained an advanced copy of the proposal which is named....

"CASH FOR CODGERS" and it works like this... Couples wishing to access health care funds in order to pay for the delivery of a child will be required to turn in one old person. The amount the government grants them will be fixed according to a sliding scale. Older and more prescription dependent codgers will garner the highest amounts.

Special "Bonuses" will be paid for those submitting codgers in targeted groups, such as smokers, alcohol drinkers, persons 10 pounds over their government prescribed weight, and any member of the Republican Party.

Smaller bonuses will be given for codgers who consume beef, soda, fried foods, potato chips, lattes, whole milk, dairy products, bacon, Brussel sprouts, or Girl Scout Cookies.

All codgers will be rendered totally useless via toxic injection. This will insure that they are not secretly resold or their body parts harvested to keep other codgers in repair.

 

[Captain Question]

The math is so easy a cave man could do it.

Cars bought - cars that would have sold regardless = the cars sold because of the stimulus package.

Let me make it even more simple for you 3 billion dollars divided by the 128 million tax payers in the US equals about $24 ea that every American has to pay, but it's not that simple, that is money the US doesn't have so it must be borrowed with interest so by the time it's paid off it will be $50 for every last US tax payer!

I need a new car, I'm asking that all those in favor of the Obama stimulus plan to PM me for an address to send me, Trlsmn, $50 each as a token of your commitment to your ideals!

And you think that you can explain math to a cave man because...? The logical fallacy of "some people misuse it, therefore everybody misuses it" is as old and ingrained as any gun control argument out there - and it's also the rallying cry of the ignoratti the world over. "I can't understand it, so it must be false."

 

[PlayboyPenguin]

Talk about bad math based on faulty assumptions. That whole article is not worth the paper it was printed upon.

 

[Chee-to]

Talk about bad math based on faulty assumptions. That whole article is not worth the paper it was printed upon.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/cash-for-clunkers-results-finally,1018537.shtml

About Edmunds Inc. (http://www.edmunds.com/help/about/)

Edmunds Inc. publishes four Web sites that empower, engage and educate automotive consumers, enthusiasts and insiders. Edmunds.com, the premier online resource for automotive consumer information, launched in 1995 as the first automotive information Web site. Its most popular feature, the Edmunds.com True Market Value®, is relied upon by millions of people seeking current transaction prices for new and used vehicles. Edmunds.com was named "Best Car Research Site" by Forbes ASAP, has been selected by consumers as the "Most Useful Web Site" according to every J.D. Power and Associates New Autoshopper.com Study(SM), was ranked first in the Survey of Car-Shopping Web Sites by The Wall Street Journal and was rated "#1" in Keynote's study of third-party automotive Web sites. Inside Line launched in 2005 and is the most-read automotive enthusiast Web site. CarSpace launched in 2006 and is an automotive social networking Web site and home to the oldest and most established automotive community. AutoObserver.com launched in 2007 and provides insightful automotive industry commentary and analysis. Edmunds Inc. is headquartered in Santa Monica, California, and maintains a satellite office in suburban Detroit.

 

[PlayboyPenguin]

It does not matter who published it. When a mathematical equation includes words like "probably" and "may have" it is faulty from the very get go. Since there is not a verified result there can be no variables inside the equation.

I love how they decide to disregard sales numbers based on projected sales even though projected sales for the industry had not been coming close to being met in several months. In fact the month I bought my Mustang I got such a good deal because Courtesy Ford had only sold 20&#37; of it projected units...and this was on the final tuesday of the month.

I also love how they determine that most of the trades would not have been traded in if not for the program. That is not true either. In fact most car dealers were already running "push it, pull it" promotions for rebates before the program began.

 

[PlayboyPenguin]

PS: In typical neo-con fashion (Edmonds is owned by very conservative interests) they based all their faulty assumptions of middle class and economy sales on the performance of "luxury autos" sales which are historically NOT effected by sales crunches and economic downturns. Anyone can tell you that is faulty from the start. That is like saying nobody in America is feeling an economic pinch because the wealthiest Americans are still doing just fine.

 

[Chee-to]

PS: In typical neo-con fashion (Edmonds is owned by very conservative interests) they based all their faulty assumptions of middle class and economy sales on the performance of "luxury autos" sales which are historically NOT effected by sales crunches and economic downturns. Anyone can tell you that is faulty from the start. That is like saying nobody in America is feeling an economic pinch because the wealthiest Americans are still doing just fine.

So since this is typical neo-con fashion bunk, is it your contention that "Cash for Clunker" is / was a success ? It did artificially boost auto sales in August, at a cost of of $2.877 billion to the tax payers, other than that, please show any data that it substantially benefited anybody but the new car buyers with a juicy tax payer funded stimulus check. Please refrain from using Obamanomics, or any other neo-socialist fashion bunk ............

 

[Trlsmn]

Sure you can dispute buying trends as not 100&#37; accurate but the second half of my post was based on every car traded in being a sale that would not have happened so as to not give any dispute to the numbers.

The fact is cash for clunkers cost every last US tax payer an average of $25 pre-financed dollars.

Which supporter of this economic stimulus program is going to step up first and donate to my new car fund as a way of putting their money where there mouth is? So far my PM box is empty!

 

[Jamie6.5]

"Cash for clunkers" was a bad joke on so many levels of small business it isn't even funny. The lost revenue from replacement parts, tires, fluids and the labor to install them was/is phenomenal. It would have been waayyy better to leave those cars in circulation.
Many many small businesses got screwed when those traded in "clunkers" got crushed.

Of course O's buddies in the UAW got helped, but for a very limited time. And now there are damn few orders for new cars. Another great waste of the American tax dollar to benefit the few.
Go figure.

 

[coctailer]

The program also impacted The Salvation Army.

They made a lot of money off donated autos.