Cash for Clunkers or I just wanta know
By now, unless you live under a rock and get your news on clay tablets, you know that this program has been under duress and ran out of money in the first week. Congress then voted a measly two billion more. So, by using simple math, that means that this program ran out of money again last week Thursday at 4PM, give or take a dollar.
I was/is in this program with my local Ford dealer. I won’t go into all the sordid details other than to say the dealer hasn’t got approval yet and won’t give me the car under the rules of the program. Nor have any of the Government agencies or political entities followed this up during the news of health care and both Michaels. ( Like I said, there was probably no mention of Michael on the clay tablet.)
But what I want to know is how this was created. As each day goes by waiting for approval or denial or nothing at all, I wonder how this all happened. I can just imagine the people of politics involved with this program.
“How shall we stimulate the economy in regard to the auto dealers who haven’t been able to make a profit in two years?”
“Well, they need to sell cars and people can only drive their clunkers for so long before they need to replace them.”
“ How about we help them buy those new cars?”
“How would we do that?”
“First, we’ll give an incentive to purchase the cars but offering cash for their clunkers.”
“How much to start this program?”
“I was thinking no more than one billion. If they need more after, say a month or two, we’ll look into it.”
“How many cars do you think they will sell?”
“ Let’s see. Probably no more than 5 cars per dealer, but we’ll bump that up to seven just to give us a margin.”
“We need to write some tough rules and penalties for the dealers and the customers but we won’t waste time following this up or imposing them on the dealers. We’ll also leave them open to interpretation so that they can be argued over while we’re trying to do something else.”
“You know, a real good thing to do is to change them every day, or even change them back and forth in the same day! I particularly like the one that says the customer has to sign over his clunker and leave it with the dealer at the time of the purchase and then find a way home!” laughter
“But who’s going to run this program. We’re all kinds of busy here with health care and cap and trade and over seas agendas and the war in two countries.”
“Oh, I agree. We can’t use lawyers because they don’t know anything about cars and there always looking for a lawsuit. We can’t use anyone with an economic background because they will find someway to tell us we can’t do this. We can’t use any one with customer service or customer advocacy background as it will appear that the Government is bias toward the customer. We can’t use anyone with dealership experience because they will probably find someway to screw the customer.”
“Well, that about leaves us with half a dozen immigrants and a few al Qaeda over here on a scholarship. “
“ Good, look into it. Oh, see if Cheney is available. He likes to write the rules as he needs them. Just don’t let him water board any customers at the dealership.” laughter
And so it might have gone. The people involved, like in the health care debates, argue over their politic affiliation rather than for the good of the people. It becomes obvious that we are more interested in rewriting our religion to fit our moral verbiage than to see a common interest that benefits us all, even if we have to concede a little. Our children’s generation of the “ME” persona has infected us all. Never has the saying, “Insanity is inherited. I get it from my children.”, been more true than today.
By now, unless you live under a rock and get your news on clay tablets, you know that this program has been under duress and ran out of money in the first week. Congress then voted a measly two billion more. So, by using simple math, that means that this program ran out of money again last week Thursday at 4PM, give or take a dollar.
I was/is in this program with my local Ford dealer. I won’t go into all the sordid details other than to say the dealer hasn’t got approval yet and won’t give me the car under the rules of the program. Nor have any of the Government agencies or political entities followed this up during the news of health care and both Michaels. ( Like I said, there was probably no mention of Michael on the clay tablet.)
But what I want to know is how this was created. As each day goes by waiting for approval or denial or nothing at all, I wonder how this all happened. I can just imagine the people of politics involved with this program.
“How shall we stimulate the economy in regard to the auto dealers who haven’t been able to make a profit in two years?”
“Well, they need to sell cars and people can only drive their clunkers for so long before they need to replace them.”
“ How about we help them buy those new cars?”
“How would we do that?”
“First, we’ll give an incentive to purchase the cars by offering cash for their clunkers.”
“How much to start this program?”
“I was thinking no more than one billion. If they need more after, say a month or two, we’ll look into it.”
“How many cars do you think they will sell?”
“ Let’s see. Probably no more than 5 cars per dealer, but we’ll bump that up to seven just to give us a margin.”
“We need to write some tough rules and penalties for the dealers and the customers but we won’t waste time following this up or imposing them on the dealers. We’ll also leave them open to interpretation so that they can be argued over while we’re trying to do something else.”
“You know, a real good thing to do is to change them every day, or even change them back and forth in the same day! I particularly like the one that says the customer has to sign over his clunker and leave it with the dealer at the time of the purchase and then find a way home!” laughter
“But who’s going to run this program. We’re all kinds of busy here with health care and cap and trade and over seas agendas and the war in two countries.”
“Oh, I agree. We can’t use lawyers because they don’t know anything about cars and they’re always looking for a lawsuit. We can’t use anyone with an economic background because they will find someway to tell us we can’t do this. We can’t use any one with customer service or customer advocacy background as it will appear that the Government is bias toward the customer. We can’t use anyone with dealership experience because they will probably find someway to screw the customer.”
“Well, that about leaves us with half a dozen immigrants and a few al Qaeda over here on a scholarship. “
“ Good, look into it. Oh, see if Cheney is available. He likes to write the rules as he needs them. Just don’t let him water board any customers at the dealership.” laughter
And so it might have gone. The people involved, like in the health care debates, argue over their political affiliation rather than for the good of the people. It becomes obvious that we are more interested in rewriting our religion to fit our moral verbiage than to see a common interest that benefits us all, even if we have to concede a little. Our children’s generation of the “ME” persona has infected us all. Never has the saying, “Insanity is inherited. I get it from my children.”, been more true than today.
