Cash for Clunkers

[deejayoh]

[jon]

[Lake Hills Renter]

[deejayoh]

[TJ_98370]

[rose-colored-coolaid]

[jon]

[LUC]

Jon,

The program hasn't even come close to removing all the excess inventory that domestic automakers currently have...most of the the top sellers were foreign brands. The market is not large enough to support the current number of domestic and foreign automakers without these govt programs.

[rose-colored-coolaid]

[TJ_98370]

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FWIW, the articles linked below, dated December 2008, and January 2009 indicate that the UAW Jobs Bank Program was suspended at the beginning of this year:


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The UAW has agreed to suspend the Jobs Bank program and allow the Detroit 3 to delay making payments to a retiree health care trust in 2010 to help the automakers through their cash crisis, UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said.........
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Starting Monday, General Motors workers will lose their jobs bank, a 25-year-old safety net that pays workers even when factories are closed.....
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So it appears the Forbes article DJO linked above was inaccurate with respect to fixed labor costs, at least as of last January to the present.
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As an aside, UAW benefits like the Jobs Bank Program help explain why U.S. car makers find it difficult to compete with foreign car makers.
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[TJ_98370]

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Toyota is shutting the California factory it ran with General Motors for 25 years -- the first time the Japanese automaker is closing a major auto assembly plant ever........
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[TJ_98370]

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Shocking Late Breaking News!!! Cash for Clunkers responsible for improved sales figures! Pontiac inventory diminishing fast!
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A top Ford executive expects industrywide U.S. auto sales to rise for the first time in more than two years this month, thanks largely to the government's Cash for Clunkers program.......
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.......Fields (Ford's president of the Americas) estimated about 30 to 40 percent of clunkers sales were "truly incremental," meaning that they came from consumers who had no plans previously to buy a car. The rest, he said, came from people who were going to buy a car later on.

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An executive with General Motors said Friday the company sees U.S. auto sales growing by 2 million next year.
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General Motors Co. Vice President Brent Dewar said GM is projecting U.S. sales of 10.5 million vehicles for 2009 and 12.5 million in 2010 as consumer confidence improves.
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He said August sales for the Chevrolet brand were strong but there will be a payback in September. The government's Cash for Clunkers program definitely pulled sales forward from later in the year......
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......GM likely will sell out its remaining Pontiacs by the end of the year, far faster than projected, Docherty said. GM expected to keep selling Pontiacs until the third quarter of next year, but will be down to only 15,000 or 16,000 by next week.

GM has stopped making the Pontiac.
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[TJ_98370]

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And finally, from Time magazine, we have this report about the demo-derby crowd, who feel repressed by the political agenda promoted by the Cash for Clunkers program.
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Article and Video:
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There's at least one group of people who are happy Cash for Clunkers is over: demolition-derby drivers. Participants in these events, in which drivers smash into one another until there's only one engine left running, don't enjoy the sight of old cars going out of commission without making a pit stop at the county fairground. "Obama is an anti-demo-derby guy," says Tory Schutte, head of the Demolition Derby Drivers Association. "He's targeting the cars we've been using."......

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[deejayoh]

I talked to a guy the other day whose wife traded in her Jaguar XJS using the clunker program for a VW Beetle. $4500 bucks for a convertible XJS. I know Jags aren't great for maintenance but that is good looking car. I wonder what the guy felt like when he put the glue into the engine!

[redmondjp]