Cash For Clunkers Cost $24,000 Per New Car Sale

[firstdown]

I thought this was pretty interesting study done by Edmonds. They figure that only about 125,000 new car sales where created by the cash for clunkers deal which cost the tax payers 3 billion dollars working out to $24,000 per car.

Cash for Clunkers Results Finally In: Taxpayers Paid $24,000 per Vehicle Sold, Reports Edmunds.com

[saden1]

It's easy to discredit these guys and their math. Under the cash for clunkers program 85% of trade-ins are trucks, and 59% of new vehicle purchases are cars. This is quite a feet that has never happened before and would not happen without the program. I really don't know how these guys came up with their figures but from the looks of it they should ask for a refund on those PhD.

p.s. One thing that struck me is their emphasis on how many PhDs they have as if that add to their credibility.

[dmek25]

i agree witrh saden. the 125,000 seems awful low

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by saden1

It's easy to discredit these guys and their math. Under the cash for clunkers program 85% of trade-ins are trucks, and 59% of new vehicle purchases are cars. This is quite a feet that has never happened before and would not happen without the program. I really don't know these guys came up with their figures but from the looks of it they should ask for a refund on those PhD.

p.s. One thing that struck me is their emphasis on how many PhDs they have as if that add to their credibility.

Its very easy to see how they came up with those numbers. The fact that 85% of the trade in where trucks was pretty much a given and they pretty much had to buy cars to get the money. Their point was that car sales only rose by around 125,000 car in a program that cost 3 billion. What the goverment number don't take into account is that a very large % of those sale would have been done without the cash for clunkers. It looks at the numbers as the CFC was the reason the person purchased a car.

[CRedskinsRule]

Originally Posted by dmek25

i agree witrh saden. the 125,000 seems awful low

the 125,000 is what was sold over normal expected sales units during that same time period, and that does make sense. I don't think their numbers really tell the whole story, because the goal was to move to more efficient cars, and certainly they didn't effectively evaluate what cars might have been bought vs what actually was bought. They said as much. In the end it was a government program, it set a goal, it reached that goal, and seems to have been relatively painless for everyone involved. (i know some incidents arose, but not enough to derail the program).

Bottomline, they could only sell so many units because of what the budget number was. The report numbers most likely could have been written before the program started with the same accuracy.

[saden1]

Originally Posted by firstdown

Its very easy to see how they came up with those numbers. The fact that 85% of the trade in where trucks was pretty much a given and they pretty much had to buy cars to get the money. Their point was that car sales only rose by around 125,000 car in a program that cost 3 billion. What the goverment number don't take into account is that a very large % of those sale would have been done without the cash for clunkers. It looks at the numbers as the CFC was the reason the person purchased a car.

And my point is they're full of shit.

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by saden1

And my point is they're full of shit.

They cannot be full of sh%$ because they used a PHd to do the research.

[dmek25]

There’s an old joke that Ph.D. stands for permanent head damage. Humor usually has more truth buried inside it than etymology. I am convinced that most Ph.D.s have a little crazy in them.

You see, to earn a Ph.D. one must convince not only oneself but also a committee that you are one of the world’s leading experts about one narrow slice of reality. Ideally, you convince the committee that you know more about this very narrow problem than anyone else who has ever lived.
taken from Glenn Davis Aug. 29th

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by dmek25

There’s an old joke that Ph.D. stands for permanent head damage. Humor usually has more truth buried inside it than etymology. I am convinced that most Ph.D.s have a little crazy in them.

You see, to earn a Ph.D. one must convince not only oneself but also a committee that you are one of the world’s leading experts about one narrow slice of reality. Ideally, you convince the committee that you know more about this very narrow problem than anyone else who has ever lived.
taken from Glenn Davis Aug. 29th

I was joking about the PH.D. thing.