07/30/2009

Cash for Clunkers

This government program where people are given thousands of dollars for vehicles worth much less offends me on an aesthetic level. If I understand the program correctly, the dealers must drain the oil from traded-in clunkers, replace the oil with some kind of other substance that will seize the engine after it is cranked again. This way, they disable the clunker from being used again.

But this isn't cash in trade for clunkers. It is cash applied to *new* cars based on the death of an old car. Not everyone can afford to buy new cars, and this program is robbing the used car market of probably a lot of perfectly fine vehicles. My car is, for all intents and purposes, worthless and would definitely qualify for the clunkers program. But I have lovingly repaired this car in so many ways. The amount of energy consumed by my car going forward probably pales in comparison with the amount of energy required to build a new car or even to recycle my old car. The best thing my car can do for the environment is to remain a car.

And so the cash for clunkers program seems so wasteful and so ugly to me. Destroying one machine in favor of another. Maybe if only Chrysler K Cars were being destroyed, I would feel differently. But you know that construction companies with fleets of F-250s that are a scant 10 years old will want to trade those in. And yet some guy is just starting out in the construction business and would love to have a chance to pay a thousand bucks for an old truck. Imagine that guy standing by while you destroy a perfectly good truck. It should sicken you, o car executioner.