Tag Archives: Cash for Clunkers

Home Values: Government Regulation Doesn’t Work

Government has no place in the market.  In so much that the government needs to spend money on things that constitute the proper role of government, there is nothing that the State does that is expressly efficient.

The State is unable to address the needs and/or wants of the populace well enough to signal an efficient use of scare resources; resources that have alternative uses.  The government can, by force of gun or sword, dictate where money is spent, to be sure.  But that government has neither the ability or will to intuit that “will of the people who is the mark of a dynamic market.

What does this mean?

It means the government is incapable of spending your money better than you are.

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More Cash For Clunkers Down the Shit Hole

Last week I talked a bit about the waste of money that we named “Cash for Clunkers”.

In short, what I said was that car purchases are elastic.  People can pull forward or push out the purchase of a new car by several months.  In this case it turns out to be 7:

The government’s “cash for clunkers” program boosted auto sales by 360,000 during the two months it was in place.  In the seven months that followed, sales were down by 360,000 compared with what they would have been without the program…

Basically, 7 months after cash for clunkers ended, the same amount of cars wound up being sold.

Wanna know the unintended consequence?

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Where Brad and Britt Are Wrong: Version II

This morning I was driving to work and had the radio tuned to WZTKBrad and Britt are the morning talent.  The discussion during the segment I caught was “Cash for Appliance Clunkers”.  Apparently I missed the lead up ’cause Brad was all worked up over the fact that folks were callin’ him out for taking advantage of the program.  I kinda resonate with that fact, I mean serious, if you have a 20-year-old freezer and you claim to be concerned about the environment, why is it you will only replace your nasty old hardware when I pay for it?

Anyway, the conversation turned to the other “Cash for…” program, the infamous “Cash for Clunkers”.

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