"'Cash for Clunkers' Actually Hurt the Environment"

Just in case you had forgotten about the outrageous cash for clunkers program, here is an update on how counterproductive it was:

"E Magazine states recycling just the plastic and metal alone from the CARS scraps would have saved 24 million barrels of oil. While some of the 'Clunkers' were truly old, many of the almost 700,000 cars were still in perfectly good condition. In fact, many that qualified for the program were relatively 'young,' with fuel efficiencies that rivaled newer cars."

Paying taxes so that the government can buy working cars and destroy them is depressing.

NYT: "Nissan Says Its Leaf Gets Equivalent of 99 M.P.G."

The Nissan Leaf is one of the new, pure-electric vehicles that is hitting the market. The <100 mile range is tiny, yet more than enough for commuting.

Some of the hardcore peak oil people like Kunstler dismiss the potential electric vehicles, but I think he is wrong. The MSRP on the Leaf (before federal tax credits) is $33,000, which is not that bad. I'd like to take one for a test drive.

It does seem like electric cars are becoming a reality. This will make the demand for oil more elastic.

Cash for Clunkers a "Complete Waste of Taxpayer Money"

“This program was very good at getting product off the lot, but there haven’t been long-term benefits,’’ he said. “Dealers are reporting that showrooms are pretty dead right now.’’

“It was probably, in the end, a complete waste of taxpayer money,’’ said John Wolkonowicz, a senior auto analyst at IHS Global Insight, Lexington forecasting firm.

(source)

Cash for Clunkers is a Crime

Watch what the "cash for clunkers" program does to perfectly good cars.

Replacing the oil with sand in a perfectly good engine and revving it until it dies leaves the world poorer by one engine. It fits in with other Keynesian gems such as one person digging a hole and another person filling it, or burying money in bottles for other people to dig up.

The destruction of the engine is used to justify a transfer of wealth to the auto industry, which lost its free market wager on how many cars to produce. Because there are a dozen car dealerships in every congressional district, they don't have to lower prices when they have a glut of cars.

Due to the abysmal state of economic, or any kind, of literacy in this country, no one mentions the broken window fallacy.

We've only known about it since 1850.

Why not put sand in every engine in America and replace them all with a 2009 Prius?
Why not break every window in America and replace it with a more energy efficient one?

The crux of the broken window fallacy is the unseen. In the clunker program (and it is a clunker of a program), the unseen is made plain:

The House voted 316-109 to transfer money to the program from an Energy Department fund for loans to innovative energy projects that wasn’t to be distributed until next year.

By the way, Robert Heinlein anticipated cash for clunkers in a brilliant story from 1957. This is a must read.