Making up breaking news to get out of losing an argument.

Go team retard.

How can anyone think the "Cash For Clunkers" is an absymal failure. This is one of the wises things Congress has spent on in a long *** time.

Note: This is coming from a life long Republican.

I'm not one to agree with some of the comments against fox news but I do have to agree, that was wack...

So what happened after the commercial? So instead of delivering "breaking news" he threw in a bump for Shark Week and went to commercial. Did he come back from the break with "breaking news" or was it "shark week news"?

That Vonnegut obit pisses me off every time I see it. James Rosen is a worthless human being.

Of course it's a terrible idea. You want to know why? BECAUSE THE DEMOCRATS THOUGHT IT UP!

Wow... I've never seen the Vonnegut obit before. That's pretty tasteless.

Cash for Clunkers was so successful, they thought they gave it enough money to last until November, and it ran out last week.

I don't see what was srong with the Vonnegut obituary but I really don't know anything about him, either. Seemed spot on with relation to the quotes and video.

The Fox News clip referenced was funny. He was probably misdirected by his producers, he look confused by what he was being told in his ear piece. Probably he was supposed to be saying that he was out of time as it was obviously the scheduled commercial break. Oh, and the Daily Kos says she was destroying his arguments? Please, did they watch the clip they posted?

Cash for Clunkers might seem like a good idea but it is terrible no matter who came up with it. The government, through redistribution of wealth, is incentivizing people going into debt. Hello, anybody remember that the current economic situation is directly related to debt at every level to include personal, corporate, and government? Not only that but you are requiring people to enter into a five year lease. A lease, the absolute dumbest decision a person can make when entering into a contractual obligation for the "purchase" of a vehicle. On top of that, the vehicles being accepted as "clunkers" have to be running, registered, and insured, paid for vehicles. In other words, not clunkers. Then they're scrapped.

So, incentivizing people to go into long term debt followed by the destruction of a serviceable vehicle sounds like a great plan to me.

It really bothers me when people use the media corporations' mot du jour like that. Cable news is like some sort of malevolent word of the day calendar. At least they've quit proudly referring to a moment in time as "teachable," as though it were some sort of retarded child who somehow puzzled out how to do up his velcro shoes.

The problem is not and never has been 'going into debt.' The overwhelming majority of loans issued are backed by collateral, which is really good debt. The real problem is the fact that the equity and the revenue from the debt end up being devalued in the process of enormous financial firms (like Goldman Sachs) abusing legal and procedural loopholes to maximize their shareholders' profits over the short term. Motor vehicles tend to be more on the liability side of things so I definitely don't agree with this particular program, but blaming the current economic climate on loans in general is a disgusting half truth.

But, of course, Fox News doesn't talk about stuff like that. They're way too busy reporting on lighthearted fluff stories like how corrupt medical insurance companies directly finance a non-profit organization run by the former Republican house majority leader which is, itself, directly responsible for all of the "tea parties" and protests at town hall meetings to make it seem like more than 29% of Americans are against healthcare reform. Oh wait, they don't talk about that either.

What do you think Rupert Murdoch is more worried about: the enormous financial burden that'll cripple the nation when President Obama subsidizes insurance for the 15.8% of Americans who don't already have it, or the fact that President Obama wants to pay for it by claiming the hundreds of millions of tax dollars that melty-faced ****er didn't pay because he runs his company out of a Cayman Islands mailbox?

Oh yeah. Something else they don't talk about.

You can look at the most recent housing debacle to debunk your logic. Houses are good collateral however we have a system that encourages home ownership. Home ownership is generally a good thing when it makes financial sense for someone to commit to such a major purchase but we have multiple systems, programs, laws, and policies that encourage people and lenders to participate in the process when there is excessive risk. Again, we legislatively, judicially, and executively encourage this stuff. So we saw an enormous number of people buying houses that had no business doing so and when they predictably defaulted we saw the virtual collapse of the PMI system. Of course you know all this.

In order to be financially prosperous you must have wealth. Debt counter-acts wealth and it reduces the ability of an idividual, group, government, or other entity to weather hard financial times.

Specifically with regards to this program, Cash for Clunkers, I really would like to know if you think a program designed to reduce the availability of serviceable used vehicles and encourages people to make a foolish financial decision, long term lease of a highly depreciable item, is a good program. [edit - JonC already expressed his disdain of the program so this is a question directed to all]

"Good debt" is an oxymoron, isn't it?

Not if you're college educated. Or, at least, not-from-the-south college educated.

Sorry for the second post but I thought I should respond to this. I didn't blame the current economic situations on loans in general. I do blame the general debt minded mentality of many, if not most, echelons of our society for it, though.

FAIR AND BALANCED

Like Wookie said, not if you're educated. Debt is used by most businesses to finance operations with an expected future return. If you're starting a business, you'll probably need some capital to begin with, which can come in the form of a private investment by selling parts of your company or from a loan with expected repayment with interest. If you have a solid business strategy, you can repay this loan and make a healthy profit.

It can get incredibly complicated and does indeed require a college education (or at least a particular aptitude for mathematics and economics) to manage. Debts and loans are certainly not 'bad', a modern capitalist economy is unsustainable without credit, but the mismanagement of debt is obviously bad, on a personal and business level.

I've got a story for Wookie. You say that cash for clunkers is a program designed to take serviceable vehicles and have them demolished instead of put into the used car market. You claim that in order for a vehicle to qualify for the program, it must be in condition good enough that some one could buy it, do a little work on it, and drive it daily.

Well, my parents traded their 91 Blazer in on the program. It had nearly 300,000 miles on it and was rusted from end to end. The speedometer didn't work, the frame was nearly rusted in half, and the engine went through problems about 3 times a month, requiring numerous repairs. Nearly the entire body of the vehicle was rusted through. It was running about 13 mpg. If you tried to check the oil in it, and managed to actually get the dipstick out, you'd find chunks of debris on the dipstick.

They got $4500 out of it and, with factory incentives, managed to buy a new car for $10,000. So don't tell me it's a program to take serviceable vehicles off the road. Nobody wants that pos Blazer. It would barely run.

All the program requires is that you have owned the vehicle for over a year and had it insured for that period of time, that it is registered, and that it starts when you turn the key. The idea is for people like my folks, who could not normally afford a new car, to buy one and get the crap vehicle off the road for one, in this case, that gets 37 mpg.

And when I say buy, I mean buy. They didn't lease the car. Some of you seem to be under the impression that you must lease a vehicle to use this program.

So I'm really not sure how you see any of that as a negative thing. They didn't enter into an agreement that they can't afford. It's about $200 a month for this car. The one they traded in was a money pit and shouldn't have been on the road to begin with. So tell me what exactly is bad about that, please.

BUT IT CAME FROM DEMORATS :DOWNS:

Tracer seems excited about that fact? Excited with OWNAGE?

To Anthony, I reread the program information and what I read as "Only the purchase of 5 year minimum lease of new vehicles qualify" actually read "Only the purchase or 5 year minimum lease of new vehicles qualify" however I stand by my original post even with that error. The purchase of a new vehicle is a terrible financial decision except when done by people who are already wealthy. The average consumer simply can't justify the purchase of an item that immediately severely depreciates. If you have to finance a vehicle you can't afford it period. However, understanding that people do finance vehicles, you are much better off purchasing a used vehicle that has already substantially depreciated. Let somebody else take that hit. Also, there are so many schemes in place in the car business to build profit that you are always getting screwed financing a vehicle, even if you turn around the next day and pay off the loan, versus paying cash for something you can afford.

I don't care if you percieve your family to have benefitted from the program. You see a worthless piece of junk gone and a new car in its place. I see a car, and all the parts that could be remanufactured from it, destroyed and your family now ten thousand dollars in debt. The government is taking money from other people and subsidizing your family's choice to purchase a vehicle you couldn't afford while it deprives other people the benefit of dismantling and reusing the parts from your car.



By the way, I never claimed the latter however, you are correct in that the program is designed to remove serviceable vehicles from the used car market as well as the derivative parts from actual clunkers.

What's better? $200 a month on a new car, or $400 a month on keeping an old rusted POS car running?

Neither. However, purchasing a good running used vehicle that might cost $1500 even if it only lasts a year is still cheaper in the long run. You could save $200 a month, $2400, sell the $1500 car, probably for $1000, and use $3400 to purchase a better vehicle. Repeat the cycle as often as desired or required. Better than giving somebody else $200 a month for, I'm guessing, 4-5 years. That's if they actually don't trade it in before that because they "need" another car again. I know this is all crazy talk, though.

It is crazy talk, especially when you don't even factor in the usual state of cars that are in the $1500 or less pricerange, and their gas milage compared to newer cars.

haha, I was trying to make a downs face.

I think it kinda fools people into getting into debt. I'd much rather have a no payment turd car that I can personally fix anything on (chevrolet models prior to 1990) for less than a few hundred bucks a couple times a year. Not to mention insurance that would be less than $100 a month.

Old cars FTW

The amount of money saved by a more fuel efficient car is significant for a low income household, especially considering that fuel costs are only going to increase. The only problem with this program is that it doesn't go far enough and not enough money was put into it.

Blah blah blah, you so totally didn't even read what I posted.

A mortgage is normally good debt because every time you make a payment you are converting a portion of that into equity. This time it isn't good debt because most mortgages out there are underwater. I'll leave it to you to figure out why. A good starting point would be reading my last post.

so its not largely because of people getting loans they could not afford (be it at the time of signing or once the rates adjusted.) causing massive foreclosures and banks and other lending institutions getting saddled with billions in toxic assets which effectively froze liquidity in the lending market, which in turn made it difficult for business large and small to take out loans causing wallstreet to loose faith in the solvency of many of said businesses and banks which caused the stock market to plummet.

To be perfectly honest, my heart really wasn't into reading your post. Unlike so many here that worship at the alter of your grand intellect, I was immediately put off by your insulting and condescending attitude in that post. You decided to go all macro economic and anti-Fox News and then slip in a casual agreement with my original point that Cash for Clunkers was a bad idea.

I can certainly understand your general point of view and I would agree with certain aspects. We actually would probably agree quite abit. I'm sure that you agree that most consumer debt other than the purchase of a home is generally bad. I'm sure you would agree that budgets that spend more money than they take in, whether it be personal, corporate, or government is a bad thing.



pfft. I didn't see anything in your last post about George W. Bush hating black people and blowing up the levees. Seriously, though, if a person entered into a good mortgage with a sufficient down payment and a mortgage payment they can truly afford and money held in savings for emergencies then they could deal with market changes. If they did not do that they should never have entered into the loan (and that is what I was referring to as far as the system encouraging people to buy when they shouldn't). The problem is less about the current value of the house but the ability of the borrower to repay the loan.

I completely agree that in your case, it's a great option. But your rusted POS Blazer is not representative of every "qualifying" clunker. The requirements as they exist right now qualify very fine cars as clunkers. Plenty of clunkers I've seen turned in have never had a (major) problem, drive just fine, but still qualifies as a "clunker". Also, that car if I used it as a "clunker" could very well be used by someone else, but would end up going to the junkyard, which is definitely a waste of resources.

I think what Wookie was trying to point out is that to put a very large general requirement for being a "clunker" wasn't perhaps the best idea. For something like your POS Blazer, it probably is a good thing, because a new car is definitley more of a very good investment for you. It ended up costing less, and probably will allow you to pursue your other interests. For someone else, it probably isn't smart and it would be encouraging me to buy a car perhaps that I might not be able to afford as the current economic situation is very shaky still, and also the car going to the junkyard would be a complete waste of resources. I would hate for people to be incentivizing buying a new car and then to lose a job and not being able to pay it, but hopefully that won't be TOO big a problem.

Of course, you also have to ask the question about where the hell this money is coming from. I'm not a big fan of lowest tax revenue since 1932, skyrocketing deficit spending, and then adding some more spending on top of that. That's a fair question no matter what your stance on the program is. At this point, if Obama wants to just keep spending every imaginary dollar under the ****ing sun, might as well add a few more billion for this too.


Frankly, I think it should've been governed on a very strict case by case basis, not the very vague requirements that exist right now. I think it's a good way to cut down on some carbon emissions, while getting people on the margin to be able to travel further perhaps to find jobs and in the long run saving money on gas. At the very least I don't see it being harmful. I just look at the funds being gone in a week and see gross mismanagement. Also the fact that the clunkers do go to the junkyard tells me that there was some sort of environmental issue that they were trying to press, rather than the economic issues. Also, I think a straight cash voucher would've been better. That way maybe low-income families would have the opportunity to perhaps put half of it towards a new car, and then save the other half for even more sound investments, like mutual funds, T-Bills, education, etc.

Actually, Darth_Alran, and be patient with me as I break your post down into smaller units for purely dramatic effect,

It's not. Anticipated foreclosure is considered when granting or denying a mortgage; under normal market conditions a bank could still see a sizable profit, and any losses should be insured.

Massive foreclosures are being caused by banks refusing to allow refinancing. If your mortgage is substantially underwater (and upwards of 200% of the market value isn't unusual) it's a much smarter decision to pursue voluntary foreclosure and short sale than continuing to make payments.

Normally any losses would be insured (CDS)...


...but insurers overextended themselves and could not back it with real money, so any financial companies that depended on this insurance (like Merrill Lynch) lost solvency.

It's always difficult for small businesses to take out loans, as I'm sure you can appreciate.

And the reason this happened is because financial firms are double-dipping, ever since the 1980s when the first big firms went public.

Can't blame it all one a group of people. Yes, there is a part of it that is the people's fault. There are people who definitley did lie about income and such. However, equal blame can be placed on encouraging home ownership through the 90s, or the government buying up CRA loans to try and reach housing price goals, eventually forcing Fannie and Freddie to engage in subprime lending, among many many other things. The CRA loans that were basically forced to be purchased by the government started to prop prices up, signalling some definitive asymmetric about the housing market. This information was certainly not helpful.

The housing crisis cannot be blamed on people alone, nor can it be blamed on government alone, nor the Fed alone, nor the banks alone. There are many factors that have their place, and it's ignorant to blame one thing in particular

There's something I rather enjoy about a Fox News fan ignoring contradictory arguments in this particular thread.


And, actually, I don't believe it's irresponsible for a government to spend more money than they bring in. Governments are supposed to be saving money for the day when essential services can no longer be covered by income alone. Furthermore, bonds against tax revenue are an example of that good debt I was talking about.

I don't ignore contradictory arguments. I just tend to ignore most of your posts because you are extremely rude. Plus, you were starting to spout typical left wing talking points which took away from the validity of your post, in my view anyway. Act as if Fox News is a mouth piece while you are doing the same thing?



So, of course I'll stipulate that I am the resident idiot here but, you contradict your first sentence with the second one. Stunningly unpredictable, I still disagree with the entire paragraph.

I don't like what you're saying so your opinion isn't valid. :downs:

No, but when he starts reciting talking points, it certainly takes credibility away from his arguments in general.

Yes you do.

See, the problem here is that it's impossible to talk about this subject without spouting liberal talking points unless you either want to lie or don't understand the problem.

Fox News? Lies.
You? Don't understand the problem.

No, I didn't contradict myself. Governments should not be exhausting their entire revenue, and scaling back and expanding essential services to match the current market condition is a terrible waste of money.

I do believe that you disagree with the entire paragraph, though, because you're a Republican Fox News fan and Republicans don't know how to effectively govern or handle money.

How droll, a Fox News fan accusing someone of not formulating their own opinions.