Gregg Easterbrook on the C4C payout problem:
Meanwhile, auto dealers who credited customers with $4,500 for clunker deals are discovering federal rebate checks have not yet arrived. What’s the matter, dealers — didn’t you read the fine print? Perhaps auto dealers have fallen for a bait-and-switch! Here, a dealer negotiates with Barack Obama:
AUTO DEALER: Where’s my check for $4,500? You said it was in the mail.
OBAMA: [Waves thick contract] Look right here, subparagraph 14d. It clearly states the money will be paid on the third Tuesday of a month that begins with a waning gibbous moon. You read subparagraph 14d, didn’t you?
DEALER: No — I was tired — you assured me it was just paperwork.
OBAMA: Well! Maybe I can still get you the discount, if you buy rustproofing and splashguards.
DEALER: Your ads didn’t say anything about rustproofing.
OBAMA: [Waves printout] Look, I am giving you everything below my cost. See, here’s my factory invoice. My revenue is $2.2 trillion, yet I am spending $3.9 trillion. [Note: actual federal budget figures for current fiscal year]
DEALER: Wait a minute — if you’re really selling below cost, how do you stay in business?
OBAMA: We make it up in volume.
DEALER: Just give me my $4,500!
OBAMA: OK. I have to ask my manager. [Disappears into back]
DEALER: I wonder if he’s really checking with his manager.
OBAMA: [Returns] Tell you what, you can use the $4,500 as a down payment on the $11 trillion debt your children will owe. While you’re here, would you like free health care? It’s going to cost you.
The lead-in is also good. It’s in the middle of this football story.
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{ 9 comments }
“We make it up in volume.”
I love that line.
I love the word “gibbous”. Reminds me of H.P. Lovecraft
I did find all this kind of funny – I saw some car dealers on TV complaining about how they still had to get a lot of the sales approved, and make sure they even qualified. It was sweet justice that the people who rely on contracts with lots of fine print were sobbing that yes, they actually had to conform to a contract too and it was more complicated than they thought. What would we rather have the government do? Just hand out checks to anyone who claims one? I was under the impression that that kind of “welfare as we knew it” ended back in the 90s.
Nice to see you are sympathetic to the entrepreneurs. You know, the guys who make this economy work. I suspect the government gobbledygook is much worse than anything we have to deal with when purchasing or leasing a car. At least I haven’t found that transaction to be much of a strain. Secondly, if I do have an issue with a car dealer, I have legal recourse. Can a car dealer take CFC to court?
Of course they can take them to court. Look, I am sympathetic to entrepreneurs. And insofar as the program is poorly implemented I’m definitely sympathetic to that. And insofar as it was a really bad program, I’m sympathetic to those concerns. I’m just not sympathetic to people who are shocked that the government would actually like to verify that the purchase qualifies before sending the check. That facet of their complaints I don’t have any sympathy with. It’s a bad program, but as bad as it is I’m glad that they’re at least not just handing out checks willy nilly.
I’m witcha. I similarly find it difficult to be sympathetic to the buyers who found to their chagrin that they would be taxed on the subsidy.
Justis delayed
is justice delicious
.
I’ll vote for all Kennedy Democrats
!
Do the auto dealers have to add gunk to the engine before they get their (our) money from the government?
Yes, the motor must be disabled by a chemical process. I can’t verify, but I also think the remaining parts are sold to China and what is left is destroyed. Incidently, car dealers have reported a sudden drop in sales now that the program is over. Idiots.
Was this drop in sales not entirely predictable? Any short-term sales incentive will shift sales from one period to another; whatever increase occurs is only partly sales that otherwise would not have occurred, and partly (or mostly) sales accelerated from future periods, or delayed (from prior periods) in anticipation of the incentive. Maybe Uncle Sam will shift to the Wal-Mart model – always CFC.