Requime For Wrecks!

One Person’s Clunker Is Another Person’s Great Used Car!
Time brings change, not always for the better. We Americans love our cars. We often have names for them and they become part of the family. They have been with us through the birth of our children, they have taken us on vacations, visiting loved ones, there in emergencies, sitting waiting patently for us to have a use for them, and almost always responding to the call. They are, for the most part, marvels of human engineering and inventiveness. Used vehicles and the used car market have allowed those of us with limited funds to buy good, reliable transportation at a reasonable cost. My first new car (actually a truck) was carefully researched and budgeted, and was a marvel. The truck hauled kids and equipment to ball games and sporting events. This was our vacation vehicle, our packhorse, camp vehicle at the lake, bleachers at ball games and lodge seats at the drive-in theater. Yes folks, back in the olden days we would back up the hump at the drive-in, set up lawn chairs in the bed of the truck, and with our home made popcorn, ice chest and kids, and be entertained by Hollywood’s best.

We loved that truck! A solid piece of Detroit steel from Ford: A 1966 three quarter-ton with a four-speed tranny. Through the years it never failed to start, never got stuck and hauled loads of stuff.

When it came time to part with the truck, I sold him to a good friend who promised me with crossed heart that the old truck would have a good home.

Our government is calling the “cash for clunkers” program a “tremendous success”? The crushing of running automobiles and the subsequent selling of the residual lumps of metal to China strikes me as a waste of a resource and hard-earned taxpayer dollars. I don’t know about you but some of the autos I’ve witnessed being flattened are not bad looking and certainly not that old. I know many used car lots that would be graced by their presence. Not only that, but the cars could at least have been parted out, supporting the huge used part market in the world.

This is of particular interest to us at the Pomona Swap Meet, the West Coast’s Largest venue for used cars, parts and miscellaneous items for the used car market.

The U.S. Government is famous for laws, dictates and programs with massive unintended consequences. Our current administration seems to be in such a hurry that they try to stimulate the economy by helping one part and destroying another.

So, we bail out GM and Chrysler with hard earned taxpayer money. Taxpayers didn’t cause the problem, weak management and powerful greedy unions drove the companies to bankruptcy. Apparently giving them 5-700 billion dollars was not enough, our politicians have now used more taxpayer money to incentivise people to buy the cars produced by the companies that we gave money to produce. Am I the only one that sees the insanity here?

My money went into the program, yet when I see my neighbor come home with his new car purchased under the “cash for clunkers” program and I tell him that I would like to use the car once in a while since a portion of it belongs to me, he tells me to pound sand.

Our politicians didn’t think through the impact of the program. “Free money”, halleluiah! They planned on spending one billion dollars, but that amount was used up in a week. They then added another 2.1 billion dollars to the pot and that amount has now also been used up.

The irony is that most of the money was spent on foreign cars. Most of the cars purchased were:

  • Toyota
  • Hyundai
  • Kia
  • Honda
  • Ford
  • And bringing up the rear were GM and Chrysler

This program will not rescue the auto industry. The people that bought would have done so sooner or later. They just took advantage of free money. There will be no “auto envy” built up in the American consumer initiating a wave of new car buying. In fact, early statistics for the month of September indicate that auto sales have dropped precipitously. Most Americans are going to pay off their debts with any money they have. They will not be spending on other than the necessities of life. Anything left over they are going to save, save, save. Personally I’m going to save as much as I can for that rainy day I know is coming. Why, because it is difficult for me to trust a government that is putting our country into massive debt and the politicians that are growing government at an unprecedented rate. Bailouts, stimulus, more bailouts, cap and trade, more bailouts, cash for clunkers, cash for old appliances, cash for whatever the President’s Czars can dream up.

Meanwhile, unemployment is at an all time high of 9.7 percent. Of course this figure is with the government spin. Careful analysis of this figure including the people who have given up looking for jobs, those that have dropped off the unemployment payments, those on part time, etc., puts the number closer to 16 per cent.

For the first time in my life, I fear my government. I fear what they are doing to the greatest country on this earth. In your heart you know it’s wrong.

Our Government has made fools of us – politicians lying, making unrealistic promises in order to get elected, and then selling us down the river into an ocean of debt.

Remember the words of Abraham Lincoln:

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time,

but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” – Abraham Lincoln, (attributed), 16th president of US (1809-1865)

Let us not be fooled any longer!

– Citizen Wayne