Video: The (Vaguely Disturbing) Death of a Clunker

August 1, 11:09 AMDC Republican ExaminerBill Dupray

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Allahpundit at Hot Air links!  Thanks AP.

The Cash for Clunkers program is stupid for a lot of reasons. Not only is it just another tax-payer bailout of the unions automakers, who can sell more cars at artificially depressed prices so they can keep the doors open. It also screws with the free-market (big surprise there) by pulling forward demand that isn't there now, only to kill demand over the next 1-2 years. Killing off the clunkers also hurts the used car market, the spare parts market, and the auto repair business. If there aren't any old cars to buy or fix, those guys are all out of a job.

But one of the most asinine parts of the plan is that they take old cars, many of which were being used as functional day-to-day transportation the day before, and destroy them. A perfectly good and useful machine destroyed for political reasons.

In a normal world, you take your trade-in to the dealer, he buys it from you, and then he resells it at the auto auction. It is the most efficient allocation of resources for the product. In this case, the government buys your trade-in and, instead of using it for its full value, it destroys the vehicle.

Don't get me wrong, I won't stay awake at night worrying about inanimate objects, but there seems to be something unsettling about this state sanctioned "autocide."

From The Truth About Cars. Does this Volvo look like it should be destroyed?

Check out the comments on that post. It is a car site, so folks aren't as nakedly partisan as they are on political sites, but they don't really like this program. Here is one.

This Jeep also gets two behind the ear (though it does look at lot more clunkerish). Apparently what they do is pour something into the engine and then red-line it until it blows.

I know people will say that some of these cars were maintenance disasters to own and if the blue book is less that what someone will pay you for it, then there is no point in keeping it. But the Cash for Clunkers program requires that a working vehicle be destroyed. What about giving it to charity, or to your teenager, or to whomever deems the thing more useful than a $4,500 credit on a new car.