Is Cash-for-Clunkers good or bad? - Page 19

The Great Khan · #**181** (**permalink**) 08-18-2009, 07:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bluesman

The right wingers seem to have dug in and will not root for our current president no matter what.

If the country had full employment and things had never been so good they would still be moaning about Obama.

keymanjim · #**182** (**permalink**) 08-18-2009, 08:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Great Khan

If the country had full employment and things had never been so good they would still be moaning about Obama.

If the country had full employment and things had never been so good a republican would be in charge.

BleedingHeadKen · #**183** (**permalink**) 08-18-2009, 09:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bluesman

It is funny that the stories about Ford and Chevy production increases are not making it on to the Drudge Report. The day the similar story about Ford came out, drudge had a headline reading "Sales Suck" becuase there had be a one tenth of a one percent decline in retail sales overall. The right wingers seem to have dug in and will not root for our current president no matter what.

Maybe it's because they have read this story:

Quote:

Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. Chapter 1, The Broken Window

Let us begin with the simplest illustration possible: let us, emulating Bastiat, choose a broken pane of glass.

A young hoodlum, say, heaves a brick through the window of a baker’s shop. The shopkeeper runs out furious, but the boy is gone. A crowd gathers, and begins to stare with quiet satisfaction at the gaping hole in the window and the shattered glass over the bread and pies. After a while the crowd feels the need for philosophic reflection. And several of its members are almost certain to remind each other or the baker that, after all, the misfortune has its bright side. It will make business for some glazier. As they begin to think of this they elaborate upon it. How much does a new plate glass window cost? Two hundred and fifty dollars? That will be quite a sum. After all, if windows were never broken, what would happen to the glass business? Then, of course, the thing is endless. The glazier will have $250 more to spend with other merchants, and these in turn will have $250 more to spend with still other merchants, and so ad infinitum. The smashed window will go on providing money and employment in ever-widening circles. The logical conclusion from all this would be, if the crowd drew it, that the little hoodlum who threw the brick, far from being a public menace, was a public benefactor.

Now let us take another look. The crowd is at least right in its first conclusion. This little act of vandalism will in the first instance mean more business for some glazier. The glazier will be no more unhappy to learn of the incident than an undertaker to learn of a death. But the shopkeeper will be out $250 that he was planning to spend for a new suit. Because he has had to replace a window, he will have to go without the suit (or some equivalent need or luxury). Instead of having a window and $250 he now has merely a window. Or, as he was planning to buy the suit that very afternoon, instead of having both a window and a suit he must be content with the window and no suit. If we think of him as a part of the community, the community has lost a new suit that might otherwise have come into being, and is just that much poorer.

The glazier’s gain of business, in short, is merely the tailor’s loss of business. No new “employment” has been added. The people in the crowd were thinking only of two parties to the transaction, the baker and the glazier. They had forgotten the potential third party involved, the tailor. They forgot him precisely because he will not now enter the scene. They will see the new window in the next day or two. They will never see the extra suit, precisely because it will never be made. They see only what is immediately visible to the eye.

Pismo10 · #**184** (**permalink**) 08-19-2009, 03:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bluesman

It is funny that the stories about Ford and Chevy production increases are not making it on to the Drudge Report. The day the similar story about Ford came out, drudge had a headline reading "Sales Suck" becuase there had be a one tenth of a one percent decline in retail sales overall. The right wingers seem to have dug in and will not root for our current president no matter what.

The last thing drudge is is a right winger. He is a drama queen and that's it.

Obama is contributing greatly to the liberal destruction of America. You can't borrow everything from the Chinese to buy yourself stuff and expect a strong future and that is all the king is doing. Anyone who is destroying America I will gladly not support.

squidward · #**185** (**permalink**) 08-19-2009, 11:03 AM

so do these people with the new cars default on their auto loans or ARMs first ?

squidward · #**186** (**permalink**) 08-19-2009, 11:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pismo10

You can't borrow everything from the Chinese to buy yourself stuff and expect a strong future and that is all the king is doing.

Yes you can. Just like the american citizen can borrow against his home and life the high life indefinitely. Works like a charm.

The12thMan · #**187** (**permalink**) 08-19-2009, 12:00 PM

The govt is defaulting first.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline...k-dealers.html

GoSlash27 · #**188** (**permalink**) 08-19-2009, 02:58 PM

Quote:

You can't borrow everything from the Chinese to buy yourself stuff and expect a strong future and that is all the king is doing.

Especially when the Chinese decide they don't feel like loaning you any more money, which they have started to do recently.

Our government is spending 185% of it's annual income, and has shown no inclination to rein it in within the next 10 years. The total of the debt accrued is now nearly equal the entire GDP. We spend nearly as much tax money servicing the interest (just the interest, not the principal) as we do on defense.
Warren Buffet has said that it is unsustainable. The CBO has said that it's unsustainable. Even Obama himself says that it's unsustainable.
And they're right. It is coming to an end one way or the other. At that point, Cash for Clunkers becomes an academic argument, because the government will be broke and people will be starving in the streets.

squidward · #**189** (**permalink**) 08-20-2009, 02:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoSlash27

Especially when the Chinese decide they don't feel like loaning you any more money, which they have started to do recently.

Our government is spending 185% of it's annual income, and has shown no inclination to rein it in within the next 10 years. The total of the debt accrued is now nearly equal the entire GDP. We spend nearly as much tax money servicing the interest (just the interest, not the principal) as we do on defense.
Warren Buffet has said that it is unsustainable. The CBO has said that it's unsustainable. Even Obama himself says that it's unsustainable.
And they're right. It is coming to an end one way or the other. At that point, Cash for Clunkers becomes an academic argument, because the government will be broke and people will be starving in the streets.

We just purchased 43% of a recent 7 year US treasury auction with freshly created money.
Isn't that neat ? We have money to buy our own debt, money to lend ourselves.
We are broke. THe people just haven't figured it out yet.

Pismo10 · #**190** (**permalink**) 08-20-2009, 04:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Great Khan

If the country had full employment and things had never been so good they would still be moaning about Obama.

The last thing in the world Obama wants is full employment. He wants as many as possible on welfare or on the govt payrolls (no work/no show jobs), that is what guarantees his re-election. Sheep who can't give up their welfare addiction.

View Poll Results: Is Cash-for-Clunkers good or bad?
Good. I would vote for it	34	33.01%
Bad. I would vote against it.	61	59.22%
I am going to come up with a excuse to cop out on the vote because Obama is a socialist	8	7.77%
Voters: 103. You may not vote on this poll

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