scrapping the "inefficient" cars is the whole point.

Which causes problems on its own. I've heard some arguments that the energy cost of making a new car is greater than the difference between running an "inefficient" car and an "efficient" one. So by increasing the old to new turnover rate, you may be making things worse.

As it stands (supposedly) going from 18mpg to 20mpg is a much much bigger gain than going from 30 to 32, though none of us was smart enough to figure out why, or come up with an analogy.

Well, though I'm sure there's many problems with the program, and I'm not sure how I feel about it, scrapping the "inefficient" cars is the whole point.

Well, I guess I should add that MPG has its place, but since equal increases of MPG aren't equal decreases on actual gas consumption, it's a pretty useless number when buying a car/comparing cars. Going from 10 to 11 MPG saves as much gas as going from 33MPG to 50.* Telling someone your new car gets 5 MPG more than your old one doesn't tell them much of anything.

The country is in the worst recession in the last how many decades and the government's solution is to destroy perfectly drivable vehicles? How does that make any sense? I don't have the numbers but I bet the fuel savings are drop in the bucket overall.
Lets see 3 billion / 4000 = 750000 vehicles
Half cars at avg +7mpg, half trucks at average +3mpg, just guessing here, for overall +5mpg average, let's say original vehicle average was 20mpg overall
Average 10k miles per year x 750000 / 20mpg = 375,000,000g per year
Average 10k miles per year x 750000 / 25mpg = 300,000,000g per year
Savings of 75,000,000g per year
205,480g per day

According to this http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html
US Motor Gasoline consumption is 378,000,000g per day

So the savings per day is .054%

Is the cost of $3 billion in taxpayer money that doesn't exist worth it?

Realistically, there aren't many cars that get 10mpg, save for something just being wrong with the car. Your mpg, plus the 4mpg increase it takes to qualify, would probably take you out of the clunker zone. However, if the bigger point is, "shouldn't we look to used cars too" to maximize the net mpg gain for people who can't afford new, then sure I think that would be fine. It would be a different program though. $3500 off a used car would be a lot, although I suppose you could make the case that many poor people drive clunkers, so more or less just buying them another used car with a significant upgrade in MPG would be a good way to attack this, but there aren't as many all around benefits to everyone that there would be for buying a new car.

So, if the currency is "gas saved" that would mean it would only take 3.5 years to save a "normal" year's worth of gas, right? That's a decent return, IMO, if that is indeed what it means.

You could certainly argue it's not worth the money spent, but as a percent gained, that's pretty good.

There were probably people set to buy anyway, though this gave them more of an incentive to look at mileage. There probably weren't a whole lot of people who weren't in any way-shape-or-form thinking about buying a car who decided they should buy one just for the $4500, but there were probably more people in the "we were considering buying one, or we're due for one, we might as well strike now" than there were in the "well, I'm going to wait around until this comes through."

They did consider your point about those cars coming off eventually, they found that people hang onto cars a really long time, and factored that in, which really kind of addresses Alex's point. If you think about it, just in terms of gas savings, you're actually better off junking the "more drivable" clunkers than the real POS's because the "perfectly good" cars are the ones that are going to be on the road the longest.

In other words, if you have 2 cars that get 16 MPG and one of them has another year of life left, and the other can go strong for 5 more years, it really makes more sense to kill the car that's going to be "sucking gas" the longest. (Or at least you could say, junk one because it IS junk, and junk one because that's where the real impact comes in.)

I didn't realize I said anything even closely resembling that. Or are you just saying that I said that that is what's happening? Because I did say that, but I don't that it's a good plan. But maybe you didn't intend to make it sound like I approved of it?

If you think about it, just in terms of gas savings, you're actually better off junking the "more drivable" clunkers than the real POS's because the "perfectly good" cars are the ones that are going to be on the road the longest.

In other words, if you have 2 cars that get 16 MPG and one of them has another year of life left, and the other can go strong for 5 more years, it really makes more sense to kill the car that's going to be "sucking gas" the longest. (Or at least you could say, junk one because it IS junk, and junk one because that's where the real impact comes in.)

Maybe, but the potential problem with this (and the cash for clunkers program as it is now) is how it will affect the used car market.

Let's say there is a guy who is driving a 20 year old clunker and can't afford a new car, but he does have some money put away for a nicer used car (that gets better mileage). However, now that a bunch of "mid-life" used cars are now off the market, the only cars available that fit his price range will last only 1 or 2 years. Since its not worth buying a new car for only 1 or 2 years, he decides to stay with his older car while he saves up more money. So, instead of him making a modest upgrade mileage wise, he now drives a real gas guzzler for longer than he would have without the program.

Obviously there are a ton of factors that may make a scenario like this more or less likely, but the point is that there is a definite possibility that "that which is unseen" (I couldn't let Alex be the only one to reference Bastiat) will cut into, or eliminate entirely, whatever gains the program expects to create.

aside from the math giving proof that this is a good or bad idea, what about the fact that I'm paying for someone elses new car? Does that not piss anyone off?

**no offense, but I skipped reading a bunch of posts, didn't want to wade through your math.

It's all just fuzzy math anyway.

The money they've spent thus far on the program would be like you or I spending a nickle, and if they didn't spend it here, they would have spent it on some sort of save the whales campaign, or something. At least something good is coming of this, economy wise, and because it has an environmental angle they used money they had already set aside and planned on spending on various environmental programs, and you never know what you're going to get there.

(though, as Alex said, one mans clunker could be another man's Prius, but I think you have to look at this as nipping it in the bud, somewhat).

Well, sure, wasting money is wasting money, let's just have a little perspective on what's really going on here. People are talking about the CARS program like we've got half our annual GDP wrapped up in it and we'll live or die depending on the long term outcome of it.

At least the general public is getting something with clunkers.

We are thinking about getting a new car (instead of a used car) that does get more than 4 miles per gallon more, but her car doesn't get less than 18 mpg. What a bummer.

Obviously there are long-term aspects of this that don't hold up, but as a short-term bump to the economy, this program is a pretty good value. Sure they might have bought the cars later anyway, but the point is for them to buy the cars now.

Which totally contradicts the "it's an economic bill" theory. Why would there be all these mpg rules then? Clearly more vehicles would be sold without the restrictions. Just borrowing against the future again.

I don't think that contradicts the "it's an economic bill" theory at all. You have to put limits on this somewhere.

I am happy to pay my taxes for this program, especially if it helps right the economy quicker, and all the money I threw in the stock market over the last 6 months goes up to recoup the $3 I'm paying for this program.

And by long-term aspects, I didn't mean that the deficit will cause the Chinese to hand out 1000 US dollars to every citizen of China and then send them parachuting over here in some economic Red Dawn attack to spend all of it on US goods made in China, thereby exploding their economy and completely devaluing our currency, sending us into the woods to live as Wolverines.

Well, I hope you plan on cashing out in a month or two before the now inevitable sales slump of new vehicles follows up this mad splurge of spending. This program is just making the peaks and valleys of the market larger. Which is great for day traders who guess right, but not so good for long term investments.

Sorry to sidetrack, but Micah said "Wolverines". Aparently there will be a remake featuring Tom Cruise's adopted son.

Who wants to go see it on the big screen?!?!?

This makes absolutely no sense to me. If it's so great for the economy, why not just give $3500 for the purchase of any new vehicle?

Like I said, you have to have limits on it somewhere. Adding somewhat of an environmental aspect to it doesn't negate the economic aspect as you suggest that it does.

Plus, people will be spending less money on gas, which will cause the gas prices to drop, which will help all of us out.

At first I thought I wanted to see the big corps fail so that smaller more successful models could come in and take their place. Now I see that (although I would like to test my survival capabilities) a dystopia or Post-Apocalyptic world is cool only in sci-fi.

What was your ideal solution to put in place 6 months ago? Let all the banks and car companies fail because its the most economically efficient way of dealing with the situation? I really don't want to argue about that but you just seem to be against anything the government spends a dime on, so I just want to know what you would like to have happened.

People (more or less) need cars, getting them to buy now, and put an emphasis on gas mileage, was the point.

Do you just mean you didn't factor American vs foreign into your decision, or did you actually rule out looking at American made cars? Edit: And they bought a 2009 Toyota RAV4, Micah