Comments on: Brookings on “cash for clunkers”

By: Walter Olson

Walter Olson — Thu, 07 Nov 2013 02:32:14 +0000

By: MF

MF — Thu, 07 Nov 2013 00:09:45 +0000

@FrankJBN, I don’t have direct evidence, but supply and demand certainly would expect used car prices to go up. And I certainly observed it. The supply of older, lower-priced used cars went way down, thus making more demand for affordable cars.

By: FrankJBN

FrankJBN — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 20:54:26 +0000

Looking at and reading the article indicates to me that this program worked.

2 main results desired were kick start auto sales and get high pollution, low efficiency vehicles off the road.

The authors seem to not realize that making a planned purchase earlier than planned is exactly what a kick-start is – lets get it going now, not next year (and the sales graph indicates a steady increase in auto sales following implementation) .

The authors admit that ‘gas-guzzling’ and pollution was reduced – and those are permanent changes wrought by this program.

John Burgess, do you have any source to support your claim that the price of used cars went up and often “by more than $5,000”?

By: John Burgess

John Burgess — Sun, 03 Nov 2013 12:49:08 +0000

One of the side effects of the program was to jack up the prices of used cars, often by more than $5K. That did no favors for the financially impaired.

By: Alan K. Henderson

Alan K. Henderson — Sat, 02 Nov 2013 19:28:56 +0000

Cash for Clunkers was the modern-day Bonfire of the Vanities. And Obama its Girolamo Savonarola.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonfire_of_the_Vanities