John Stossel and 20/20 nail Obama-care to the wall

[Heracles 417]

I think we are straying off point... my point anyway

If people feel "cash for Clunkers" is a great idea to stimulate the economy ..... how do they turn around and say throwing money at the military is not just as good.

In layman's terms, cash for clunkers generates sales and revenue. IE capitalism. I also has an economic flow-on effect.

Having thousands of people chill on a base does not; furthermore, is the ultimate example of socialism (aka pay people to sit around), which repubs apparently loathe.

Edited August 30, 2009 by haza

[jcg303 1]

I think we are straying off point... my point anyway

If people feel "cash for Clunkers" is a great idea to stimulate the economy ..... how do they turn around and say throwing money at the military is not just as good.

In layman's terms, cash for clunkers generates sales and revenue. IE capitalism. I also has an economic flow-on effect.

Having thousands of people chill on a base does not; furthermore, is the ultimate example of socialism (aka pay people to sit around), which repubs apparently loathe.

cash for clunkers is simply the sub-prime version of auto lending. my guess is that most of the participants will be getting in over their head with debt, but that has yet to be seen - only MY guess, as i mentioned, but we have seen the effects of sub-prime lending. not to mention the massive shift in spending of disposable income. how many small businesses, restaurants, shops, etc. will take a hit because the government feels that the auto industry needs to be propped up? the damage to the non-auto industry probably outweighs the benefit to the auto industry. again - just my guess.

plus, this is only a temporary surge in auto sales that probably helped to move a lot of inventory, not necessarily jumpstart the auto makers. again, the fact that only 2% of the rebates have been paid out is ANOTHER demonstration of the government's inability to efficiently run a program, and this one is only a minute fraction of what a single payer health care program would be.

and why were the cars destroyed? was this program supposed to stimulate, or was there a hidden environmental agenda. is that's the case, we certainly didn't help out by loading our landfills full of unreclaimable car parts. and why would the government offer tax incentives for auto donations to worthy organizations, but then scrap thousands of fully functioning "clunkers" that could have provided transportation to low-income families and give them a needed boost?

again, the OVERALL goals of the program - stimulate the (government owned) auto industry, replace gas-guzzlers, make cars affordable to more people - were certainly honorable. it's the execution of the program and all those unforeseen outcomes and consequences that leave such a foul taste in the mouths of many people.

also, can we do without all the insults? trashing a person and their views and opinions does NOT help convince other readers that your view is right. and please do not trash our military. assuming that they sit around and do nothing but drink and take up space is insulting and disgusting. they and their families sacrifice more than we will ever know, and they deserve nothing but respect and admiration.

[Danno 1,228]

I think we are straying off point... my point anyway

If people feel "cash for Clunkers" is a great idea to stimulate the economy ..... how do they turn around and say throwing money at the military is not just as good.

In layman's terms, cash for clunkers generates sales and revenue. IE capitalism. I also has an economic flow-on effect.

Having thousands of people chill on a base does not; furthermore, is the ultimate example of socialism (aka pay people to sit around), which repubs apparently loathe.

cash for clunkers is simply the sub-prime version of auto lending. my guess is that most of the participants will be getting in over their head with debt, but that has yet to be seen - only MY guess, as i mentioned, but we have seen the effects of sub-prime lending. not to mention the massive shift in spending of disposable income. how many small businesses, restaurants, shops, etc. will take a hit because the government feels that the auto industry needs to be propped up? the damage to the non-auto industry probably outweighs the benefit to the auto industry. again - just my guess.

plus, this is only a temporary surge in auto sales that probably helped to move a lot of inventory, not necessarily jumpstart the auto makers. again, the fact that only 2% of the rebates have been paid out is ANOTHER demonstration of the government's inability to efficiently run a program, and this one is only a minute fraction of what a single payer health care program would be.

and why were the cars destroyed? was this program supposed to stimulate, or was there a hidden environmental agenda. is that's the case, we certainly didn't help out by loading our landfills full of unreclaimable car parts. and why would the government offer tax incentives for auto donations to worthy organizations, but then scrap thousands of fully functioning "clunkers" that could have provided transportation to low-income families and give them a needed boost?

again, the OVERALL goals of the program - stimulate the (government owned) auto industry, replace gas-guzzlers, make cars affordable to more people - were certainly honorable. it's the execution of the program and all those unforeseen outcomes and consequences that leave such a foul taste in the mouths of many people.

also, can we do without all the insults? trashing a person and their views and opinions does NOT help convince other readers that your view is right. and please do not trash our military. assuming that they sit around and do nothing but drink and take up space is insulting and disgusting. they and their families sacrifice more than we will ever know, and they deserve nothing but respect and admiration.

I agree, trashing all those running and in most cases running good cars (not clunkers) was amazing.

The three R's of environments used to be

Reduce

Reuse

Recycle

This program not only will spike the cost of used cars for the low income folks but think of all the waste of resources which... not to mention the pollution to build all those new cars.

Anyway research has shown... when you drive a car with better mileage... you end up driving more miles which off-sets and fuel consumption / pollution savings.