[quote name='UncleBob']And what, exactly, is the behavior that we were trying to incentivize here?[/QUOTE]
holy christ, you really can't even see past your own nose with anything can you?
Auto industry is down
auto industry goes up if people buy cars
create an incentive for people to trade in vehicles (under the guise of a green initiative to get low mpg vehicles off the road)
people trade in vehicles to purchase new vehicles
new vehicles benefit manufactures while used sales are lost opportunity
manufactures produce more vehicles to replace inventory
cars get delivered
cars get sold
sold car produces license/title/sales tax income and employs sales. Not too mention creating consumer debt which is about all our economy is good for anymore
Of those 8 super simplified points, where does your lack of cogetation begin? The auto industry creates these jobs from consumer all the way back to manufacturing:
Mechanics
Sales
Loan origination
Accountants at the dealership
Detail
Delivery
Loading those crazy haulers that have cars double decker cars like WWWW
Assembly
Delivery of parts to the plant
loading the parts
parts inventory
parts sales
parts manufacture
R&D
Other stuff thrown in for good measure:
EVERY one of those jobs produces state and federal income tax, leads to property tax, allows people that are employed to buy other things.
While you may feel distressed that the total cash for clunkers program cost you mr taxpayer roughly $0.00000000000001, the cost/benefit analysis would show that for every car given $8k (or whatever it was) saved jobs within the industry (leading to those taxes and purchases) and new car sales likely resulted in at least 2x that amount in GDP.
holy christ, you really can't even see past your own nose with anything can you?
Auto industry is down
auto industry goes up if people buy cars
create an incentive for people to trade in vehicles (under the guise of a green initiative to get low mpg vehicles off the road)
people trade in vehicles to purchase new vehicles
new vehicles benefit manufactures while used sales are lost opportunity
manufactures produce more vehicles to replace inventory
cars get delivered
cars get sold
sold car produces license/title/sales tax income and employs sales. Not too mention creating consumer debt which is about all our economy is good for anymore
Of those 8 super simplified points, where does your lack of cogetation begin? The auto industry creates these jobs from consumer all the way back to manufacturing:
Mechanics
Sales
Loan origination
Accountants at the dealership
Detail
Delivery
Loading those crazy haulers that have cars double decker cars like WWWW
Assembly
Delivery of parts to the plant
loading the parts
parts inventory
parts sales
parts manufacture
R&D
Other stuff thrown in for good measure:
EVERY one of those jobs produces state and federal income tax, leads to property tax, allows people that are employed to buy other things.
While you may feel distressed that the total cash for clunkers program cost you mr taxpayer roughly $0.00000000000001, the cost/benefit analysis would show that for every car given $8k (or whatever it was) saved jobs within the industry (leading to those taxes and purchases) and new car sales likely resulted in at least 2x that amount in GDP.