Cash for Clunkers Ends -- Again
The Government's expensive, inefficient and very popular Cash for Clunkers program will end August 24. It was wildly successful, mostly because it threw $3500 or $4500 at customers who owned an old car and could afford a new one -- unless they wanted a Cadillac or Lincoln or other American luxury car.
By the time the dealers get paid, probably in a month or more, the results will show that the program, at a taxpayer-borne cost of $3 Billion, sold about 750,000 new cars, with Fords and Toyotas selling the most. Chevrolet ranked down below several other foreign brands, though most of those cars were actually built in the US.
The program has been grossly inefficient -- and not only because it takes weeks or months to pay the dealers, who put their own money in customers' hands. It also overpaid by a factor of 3 or 4 for every car it turned over to the crusher. And it will be inefficient because there seem to be no Government plan to measure its results. How did it do in terms of pollution cleanup? Greenhouse gas cleanup? How did it or will it develop a customer profile of the participants who sold their vehicles into the program? Were they the ones who could benefit most? Were they average citizens? Were they slightly poorer than average Americans? Or, as seems likely, were they relatively more wealthy than the average citizen? Do Congress and the Administration have a plan to find out the answers to these and other questions? Not that they've told us.
Based on the history of Unocal's SCRAP program in 1991, the country could have sold at least as many new cars at no cost to the taxpayer. Or if the Government still wanted to fund it all, a properly structured program could have sold at least as many new cars while helping four times as many people move to cleaner vehicles. A properly constructed program would have cleaned many times the pollution tonnage that this one will, and would have the data to prove that case. And a properly constructed program would have a plan in place to collect the data on transactions, including the follow-up transactions, by program participants. So it could have been done cheaper, with better results, and gathered more information, while still helping Detroit sell new cars (which was its only purpose). Too bad the Government didn't go about the program the way private enterprise would. Too bad for the American taxpayer. Read more!
By the time the dealers get paid, probably in a month or more, the results will show that the program, at a taxpayer-borne cost of $3 Billion, sold about 750,000 new cars, with Fords and Toyotas selling the most. Chevrolet ranked down below several other foreign brands, though most of those cars were actually built in the US.
The program has been grossly inefficient -- and not only because it takes weeks or months to pay the dealers, who put their own money in customers' hands. It also overpaid by a factor of 3 or 4 for every car it turned over to the crusher. And it will be inefficient because there seem to be no Government plan to measure its results. How did it do in terms of pollution cleanup? Greenhouse gas cleanup? How did it or will it develop a customer profile of the participants who sold their vehicles into the program? Were they the ones who could benefit most? Were they average citizens? Were they slightly poorer than average Americans? Or, as seems likely, were they relatively more wealthy than the average citizen? Do Congress and the Administration have a plan to find out the answers to these and other questions? Not that they've told us.
Based on the history of Unocal's SCRAP program in 1991, the country could have sold at least as many new cars at no cost to the taxpayer. Or if the Government still wanted to fund it all, a properly structured program could have sold at least as many new cars while helping four times as many people move to cleaner vehicles. A properly constructed program would have cleaned many times the pollution tonnage that this one will, and would have the data to prove that case. And a properly constructed program would have a plan in place to collect the data on transactions, including the follow-up transactions, by program participants. So it could have been done cheaper, with better results, and gathered more information, while still helping Detroit sell new cars (which was its only purpose). Too bad the Government didn't go about the program the way private enterprise would. Too bad for the American taxpayer. Read more!
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Jonathan Swift and Climate Change Mandates
Jonathan Swift must be spinning in his grave. His 1729 Modest Proposal called on Britain to "humanely" end policies that were starving Ireland -- by feeding the Irish their babies! He would view the August 10 editorial and the House-passed climate bill as worthy of a new Proposal.
CO2 reduction mandates and a Madoff-type Cap and Trade scheme are key provisions of the bill. Paul Driessen (Senior Policy Advisor to the Congress of Racial Equality and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow) cites Oak Ridge National Lab data showing that the mandates, if they worked, would cut CO2 to 1908 levels by 2020 and to 1868 levels by 2050. In 1868 the US population was 40 million and 90% agrarian; in 1908 it was 84 million and largely agrarian. Today it is 308 million and post-industrial. There was no electricity then, nor any efficient way to travel or transport goods. Life expectancy was 40 years in 1868 (without counting the 500,000 who died in the recent American Civil War) and 47 years in 1908, with high infant mortality and rampant disease.
William Happer, Member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Princeton faculty member, told a Senate hearing in February that humans had contributed to the 100 parts per million (ppm) rise in atmospheric CO2 in 100 years, from 280ppm to 380ppm. But, he pointed out, human exhalations are about 4% CO2 (40,000ppm) and we keep CO2 levels below 8,000ppm in the living spaces of our nuclear submarines.
Driessen and Happer apply common sense and analytic rigor to good data; they agree that the House mandates are hideously expensive, bad, ineffective policy that would hurt Americans and the US economy. Swift would propose a logical alternative -- that 80% of the world's population be killed to end the CO2 "threat."
Which 80%? Kill them how? And when? Swift would leave those details to the government, as he did in 1729.
CO2 reduction mandates and a Madoff-type Cap and Trade scheme are key provisions of the bill. Paul Driessen (Senior Policy Advisor to the Congress of Racial Equality and the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow) cites Oak Ridge National Lab data showing that the mandates, if they worked, would cut CO2 to 1908 levels by 2020 and to 1868 levels by 2050. In 1868 the US population was 40 million and 90% agrarian; in 1908 it was 84 million and largely agrarian. Today it is 308 million and post-industrial. There was no electricity then, nor any efficient way to travel or transport goods. Life expectancy was 40 years in 1868 (without counting the 500,000 who died in the recent American Civil War) and 47 years in 1908, with high infant mortality and rampant disease.
William Happer, Member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Princeton faculty member, told a Senate hearing in February that humans had contributed to the 100 parts per million (ppm) rise in atmospheric CO2 in 100 years, from 280ppm to 380ppm. But, he pointed out, human exhalations are about 4% CO2 (40,000ppm) and we keep CO2 levels below 8,000ppm in the living spaces of our nuclear submarines.
Driessen and Happer apply common sense and analytic rigor to good data; they agree that the House mandates are hideously expensive, bad, ineffective policy that would hurt Americans and the US economy. Swift would propose a logical alternative -- that 80% of the world's population be killed to end the CO2 "threat."
Which 80%? Kill them how? And when? Swift would leave those details to the government, as he did in 1729.
Labels: Letter to the editor of the New York Times
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