back in high school, I had a TI-82 calculator(hell, it might still be in a closet somewhere in the house). I didn’t really use it for math class, I had a couple buddies who had figured out how to make games on the calculator. When I had some free time during lunch or study hall, I’d pull it out and play a game.
Given the choice between the private sector batting the money around or the government, I’ll take the free enterprise private sector any day of the week.
The problem with the government being involved is that they’re never content to take one dollar or one inch.
If the government confiscated every last dime tomorrow then the first thing you would hear on the Monday newscast is that the government is in crisis, needs more funding, blah, blah, blah.
To show you how bloated government is, consider fairly conservative NW Oklahoma. A survey done about 15 years ago showed that 60% of all jobs in this quarter of the state are subsidized by the taxpayers; either city, county, state, Feds along with people who make their living on grants and whatnot. It’s not likely at all that percentage has come down any.
Isn’t Denmark also a socialist democracy like Sweden and Finland?
CSA, you seem to know a lot about socialism. Have you ever been to a socialist country?
To me it seems like the CFC rewards people who haven’t lived within their means (buying a car that they can afford to maintain/drive for long term), with more of the same behavior. The car companies will get some short term benefit, but the tax from the tax payers that is being diverted into this program will eventually reduce the spending power of people who work, and they will buy less cars. I think most of the “good” players loose.
Now wait a minute, are you saying it is a bad thing that the government employs workers, pays salaries, provides benefits, etc. Some hospitals are government run, some colleges, lots of township road crews, all DPW workers, every public school employee. Do you want roads, stop lights, police, fire, trash removal? Everywhere in the US the government is a large employer. Most of these workers are providing services that you need. If you didn’t pay taxes, you’d pay for educating your kids, you’d pay for your trash removal, you’d pay for security. Government and government workers provide essential services that in most cases you’d pay more for if you contracted for each service privately. You’d have a mountain of monthly bills to pay just to manage it all.
What is this bandwagon that government is bad. Government isn’t perfect and there is waste, sure. But you’d really want to live without all these services?
For pitys sake!please teach them arithmetic.It amazes me how number deficient a lot of folks are.I used to amaze a boss, by calculating tons of materials needed in my head,almost instantly by shifting base units into easily handeled numbers,you can amaze a lot of people with exponets(how long you could spend a thousand dollars a day,etc;-Kevin
Well a lot of folks will just run through a windfall.Why do the government people think they should meddle with the free market(given time,the market will correct itself IMO)?-Kevin
Have you read your owners manual??
Repair and maintenance…
We jump all over everyone else who posts this kind of stuff here…
transman
One interesting unexpected consequence that I think I have seen is a drop in price of used cars that get good fuel mileage. Smaller used cars aren’t eligible for the C4C program, and people are buying new instead of used more often because of the incentive. So, smaller used cars that get good mileage are going down in value. So if you don’t have an eligible clunker, you might still get a good deal on a fuel efficient car if you buy used.
I could be wrong, but that is the effect I have been seeing on used car prices.
“To me it seems like the CFC rewards people who haven’t lived within their means (buying a car that they can afford to maintain/drive for long term), with more of the same behavior.”
Maybe it’s just the opposite. These cars and trucks are old and probably worth less than $4500, otherwise trading them in the C4C program wouldn’t make sense. Howis owning an old car that has depreciated to probably less than a quarter of it’s original value squandering money?
Well, from what I have heard, the most commonly traded in vehicle in the C4C program are late '90s Ford Explorers, and the most commonly purchased new vehicle is the Ford Focus. Seems like people driving around in an Explorer who only really need a Focus were being a bit wasteful. Of course, not every Explorer is being traded for a Focus, but in an overall average sort of way this does seem to be getting people out of the SUVs and into small sedans.
I agree though that someone who’s been wringing the last few useful miles out of some mid '80s Buick or Crown Vic can also take advantage, and maybe they have been frugal all along.
That would be good if you could trade in for a good used, fuel efficient vehicle: but, it has to be a new, never registered, 2008, or 2009, or 2010 vehicle.
For a COMPLETE CAPITALISTIC SYSTEM…Not only should we NOT have this CFC program…but there should be NO bail-out program either. In order for capitalism to work…businesses MUST be allowed to fail. The only GOOD thing about the CFC program is that it’s less then 1% of the SOCIALIST PROGRAMS that were just instituted in bailing out the banks and AIG and GM…etc…etc.
I cringe when I see calculators used in the elementary classrooms.
Where do you live that Calculators are allowed in elementary schools. No where in NH or MA that I know of…I have relatives that teach in NY…and their not allowed there. I can understand HS or possibly even MS…I remember the days of slide-rules.
What’s good for General Motors is good for America!!
Perhaps that was the case long ago, but GM is truly a global company now. So much of their business comes from outside the USA, and so many of the cars they sell in the USA are made on other countries, I really wonder if that is true anymore.
My sister-in-law teaches elementary school in Ohio. Her district adopted a curriculum a couple of years ago 2 weeks before school started. She was expected to introduce the calculator to her third grade students. She was livid.
I have argued this point with college math ed faculty. These people claim that the arithmetic gets in the way of learning mathematics. I claim that one learns mathematics through the arithmetic.
I teach computer assembler and architecture and discrete math courses. I will not let the students use a calculator to convert among the decimal, binary and hexadecimal systems. I want them to reason it out. Some years back, I had some students that kept protesting the fact that I wouldn’t let them use calculators. I finally told them that on one test, they could use their calculators if they wanted to. I noted on the seating chart the students who used the calculators and those that reasoned out the base conversion problems. To a student, those who used the calculators missed the problem, while every student who reasoned through the problems without using the calculators answered them correctly.
If I taught in the elementary schools, I would tell the students that there are two things that go in the wastebasket as you come into my classroom: 1) your calculators; and 2) your chewing gum. You don’t need a calculator because you have your brain and you don’t need your chewing gum because I have a tin of Mail Pouch tobacco on my desk.
Ha! Nice catch!
I have argued this point with college math ed faculty. These people claim that the arithmetic gets in the way of learning mathematics. I claim that one learns mathematics through the arithmetic.
I agree to a point. I’ve taught math and computer science at the college level. A student can be there 4-5 hours doing the arithmetic on a problem that will still take him 1-2 hours to do with a calculator.
I will not let the students use a calculator to convert among the decimal, binary and hexadecimal systems.
That’s always fun.
But my point was that the program is lowering the cost of used fuel efficient cars as a side effect anyway. And, if they allowed you to buy a good used fuel efficient car, then it would not have that effect.
I think the program should let you trade in any car for something that gets at least 10MPG better, then my wife’s 19MPG Subaru would be eligible, but that’s not the program they set up. I’d rather there wasn’t any program, actually, but it’s pointless to worry about what-ifs and why-nots.